Rome (HBO Series): Episode 1 Review

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(More customer reviews)"Four hundred years after the last king was driven from the city, the Republic of Rome rules many nations, but cannot rule itself. The city is constantly roiled by conflict between the common people and the nobility. Power is shared and order maintained by two soldiers, old friends, Gnaeus Pompey Magnus and Gaius Julius Caesar. Once, Pompey was acknowledged by all to be the greater man. But for the last eight years while Pompey has kept the peace in Rome, Caesar has waged a war of conquest in Gaul that has made him ver more rich and popular. The balance of power is shifting and the nobility have grown fearful. Though of noble blood himself, Caesar stands with the common people. An aristocrat with soldier, money, and the love of the people--might make himself king."
Or they might be assassinated on the floor of the Senate in Rome on the Ides of March in the year 44 BC. However, the first episode of "Rome" begins with a battle in Gaul eight years earlier where Caesar's legions literally bring the king of the Gauls to his knees. Before we meet the familiar names from history the first character we see is Second Spear Centurion Lucius Vorenus (Kevin McKidd, "Kingdom of Heaven") and Titus Pullo (Ray Stevenson, "King Arthur") fighting in the ranks of the 13th Legion. However, on the day of victory Caesar (Ciarán Hinds, "Persuasion") receives news that his daughter Julia, wife of Pompey (Kenneth Cranham), has died in childbirth.
Here the series plays with the chronology of history a bit. Julia Caesaris died in 54 BC, while Marcus Licinius Crassus, the third member of the First Triumvirate, was killed the following year during his campaign in Parthia and the series begins in Gaul in 52 BC. But Crassus is out of the picture and what matters is that we begin with the rift that developed between Pompey and Caesar because of these events. With Pompey becoming closer to the Optimates. Caesar offered Pompey one of his nieces in marriage, but Pompey refused and instead married Cornelia Metella, the daughter of one of Caesar's greatest enemies, Metellus Scipio. Meanwhile, Porcius Cato (Karl Johnson) is standing up in the Senate and speaking against the illegal Gallic War and demanding to know why Caesar has not returned to Rome. Cato predicts Caesar wants "to rule Rome as a bloody tyrant." In fact, Cato wants Caesar ordered home for trial. Pompey is not ready to renounce Caesar, but clearly Civil War is inevitable and both men are on the road to their respective deaths.
When in this case Atia of the Julii (Polly Walker, "Patriot Games") sends her young son, Octavian (Max Pirkis, "Master and Commander"), to Gaul to deliver a magnificent white horse as a gift to Ceasar, Pompey decides to kill two birds with one stone. Visiting Caesar in Gaul is Marcus Junius Brutus (Tobias Menzies), who arrives just as Caesar's personal standard has been stolen. The men think Caesar has lost his luck and so Vorenus and Pullo, the Mutt and Jeff of the series, are sent off to retrieve it. As Mark Antony (James Purefoy) points out, Vorenus has a brain, and while Pullo apparently does not he does provide requisite brawn. While they search for this particular needle in a haystack what they find instead is Octavian, who has been captured by brigands (along with the aforementioned stallion). Who would have thought with all that is happening that Caesar's biggest mistake is writing with only "great affection" and not love when sends a message to his former mistress, Servilia of the Junii (Lindsay Duncan), the mother of Brutus. He complains that his mother has been nagging him to attend politics; he has no idea what is to come.
The first season of "Rome" is not due out on DVD until the end of the year, apparently a concerted effort to get some of the money that shows up in your hands as holiday gift certificates. What you have here is the first episode of "Rome," the intriguing trailer for the series, and a behind the scene featurette. This DVD was being given away in stores when you shelled out big bucks for an entire season of an HBO series like "The Sopranos" or "Band of Brothers." At this point, given that the first season of "Rome" is over and the DVD is a month away, the interest in having just the pilot episode has to be minimal while interest in the complete series has to be growing. I really enjoyed the series, but unless you are a person who only collects pilot episodes, go for the whole thing.
I watched the ABC mini-series "Empire" this summer, which had many of the same characters and essentially began where "Rome" ends, with Ceasar's assassination. But "Empire" smacked too much of "Gladiator" when it needed to be more like "I, Cladius." The good news is that "Rome" is decidedly in the spirit of that celebrated BBC look at the early Roman emperors, although with more restrained performances (with Walker the exception that proves the rule here). Hinds provides the most complete portrait of Caesar to date and I especially like the political savy that Pirkis shows as the young Octavian, which makes me believe he will hold his own against Antony down the road and become the first Roman emperor. But while Stevenson's Pollo provides surprising depth along the way it is McKidd's Vorenus who turns out to be the noblest Roman of this bunch and who will find the Ides of March to be a fateful day for more personal reasons.

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