(This one’s continued from the last entry.)
I didn’t find McCullough’s subsequent books as refreshing as the first, so aside from computer city-building games based on the Roman empire, over the last decade I didn’t find similarly engaging material to sustain my interest.
That’s until recently when I had the opportunity to catch the first season of HBO’s highly acclaimed TV series, Rome, which seems to have drawn a great deal of inspiration from McCullough’s novels. Ling has watched quite a few episodes of the series with me, and though she’s remarked at how vulgar the series is, seems equally fascinated too.
The series takes place in a smaller time frame compared to McCullough’s novels: specifically the beginning of Pompey Magnus‘ fall out with Julius Caesar,and finishes with Octavius Caesar’s ascendancy. Truth to tell, there’s a good deal of expletives-use (though still far less than any given season of The Sopranos), and both female and male nudity – though in order to reach the local shores here, the DVD set has been butchered by way of mosaic blurring. But that’s Roman civilization for you: they thought little of homosexuality, having young boys as lovers was fashionable, as was the wasteful and brutal civil wars the Roman politicians and generals waged on each other.
The TV series is as good an introduction to Julius Caesar’s time as you can get once you get past the Asterix comic books and The Bard’s romanticized retelling of Julius Caesar’s last few days. You get reasonably authentic looking costumes and sets, and a relatively accurate retelling of the major events in that timeline. For folks who become truly interested to read up more, there’s always the novels, which you can find a list of right here.:)
Oh, and finally; astute fans of the Asterix comic books will have seen before the title in these two posts: “Alea jacta est”. It’s Latin and means “The die is cast”. This quotation is attributed to Julius Caesar as he led his army across the River Rubicon in Italy, marching towards Rome in defiance of the Roman Senate’s order for him to relinquish command of his forces and return to Rome to face charges of treason. Thick stuff eh?
I guess since you’re going to bat for this “Rome” series on HBO, I might as well check it out sometime. As you recall, I held out watching “The Sopranos” for a very long time until you finally convinced me otherwise. And now I’m what you could call a believer.
I’m surprised we don’t have an embargo on ancient Greek-related entertainment in the U.S. I can just see George Dubya saying, “They might’ve invented Democracy, but we perfected it! And we’re determined to get a little bit of it all over yah, whether you want it or not.”
Well, the series is pretty OK though it’s not quite up there with The Sopranos. In Rome, I do (sort of) root for the show’s two main leads as they’re well defined with believable characterization. But with The Sopranos, we got really lovable characters, didn’t we? And who can forget Paulie Walnuts.:)