Death Mask (Rome)

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Death Mask
Servilia calling Atia to justice
Season 2 (2007)
Episode 19
Air date(s) March 4, 2007 (HBO)
Writer(s) Scott Buck
Director John Maybury
Setting
Time frame c. 41 BC
See also: Chronology of Rome
Link HBO episode summary
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Death Mask is the seventh episode of the second season of the television series Rome. It aired on March 4th, 2007.

[edit] Plot Summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

HBO summary

[edit] Historical and cultural background

[edit] Inaccuracies and errors

  • The episode indicates that Servilia committed suicide; Servilia in fact outlived most of the characters in this episode and died of natural causes at the country estate of Atticus, a close friend of Cicero. Atia's death has been delayed in the series (she actually died in 43 BC) and Octavia's marriage to Antony has been advanced (they married in 40 BC) in order to create personal conflict.
  • Antony's 3rd wife, Fulvia is omitted. Many of the ambitious, ruthless qualities exhibited by Atia in the series would more properly befit the historic Fulvia. Fulvia took great delight in the death of Cicero, and is said to have pierced his tongue with her golden hairpins. Octavian was married to Fulvia's daughter, Clodia Pulchra. When Octavian rejected Clodia, Fulvia took it as an insult, leading to the Perusian War. In the aftermath of this war and Fulvia's death, Antony married Octavian's sister, Octavia - herself recently widowed.
  • Octavian's step-father and Atia's husband, Lucius Marcius Philippus is ignored in the series. The series seems to imply that Atia is without a husband and Octavian has no father figure.
  • By the time Marc Antony married Octavia, he had 2 children and she had 3. Additionally, Cleopatra was pregnant with twins by Antony, and would give birth 2 months after Octavia's marriage to Antony. These children are not mentioned in the episode.