Erastes Fulmen
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| Rome character | |
 |
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| Erastes Fulmen | |
| Name | Erastes Fulmen |
| Portrayed by | Lorcan Cranitch |
| Class | Plebeian |
| Family | None known |
| Allies | None |
| Enemies | Lucius Vorenus |
| Appearances | 1-10 "Triumph" 1-11 "The Spoils" 2-1 "Passover |
Erastes Fulmen is a fictional character in the HBO/BBC2 original television series Rome, played by Lorcan Cranitch. He is depicted as a ruthless businessman, who over the course of the first season becomes one of the leading figures in the Roman underworld.
[edit] Personality
In many ways, Erastes resembles the gangsters and organized crime members of the modern world. Whilst wearing the façade of a businessman, he in fact oversees an organized group of thieves, assassins, and thugs. Due to the lack of an organized police force in Rome, he has free reign to brutalize the population for his own gain. He is a brutal man who torments with intimidation and violence those who are less fortunate for his further gain. Unfortunately for Erastes, his bullying nature often results in his antagonising those with whom he would be wiser to avoid conflict.
[edit] Character history
Erastes is first introduced not as a gangster, but as a "businessman" who can lend aid to one of Rome's leading characters - Lucius Vorenus, a Roman legionary returning from Caesar's successful Gallic campaigns - in building a new business as a slave trader. Vorenus, weary of military life and the lengthy separations it necessitated from his family, had decided to use slaves he'd been awarded in the campaign to start a new business and thus leave military life. It is during a (traditional) social event held to launch this new career Erastes first meets Vorenus. The two seem to get along well at first; Erastes even offers to aid Vorenus if the need should arise.
Unfortunately, Vorenus' ambitions as a slave trader are cut short when plague takes his allotted slaves and his life outside the military is threatened. Vorenus is thus compelled to take Erastes up on his offer of assistance & enlist his aid in arranging a meeting with a money lender. Erastes, perhaps sensing an opportunity for himself, cites problems with arranging such a meeting and instead offers Vorenus a job as a bodyguard. Reluctantly, Vorenus agrees but ends up walking away from the position when, during a "collection" exercise, Vorenus is asked to kill a man whoses indebtedness to Erastes is dubious. This incident happens in front of Erastes hired thugs; he apparently takes it as a "slight".
Eventually, another incident erupts between Vorenus and one of Erastes' thugs when Vorenus (now trying his hand at butchery) stops the gangster from assaulting or killing someone near his new shop. Erastes' man retreats when confronted by Vorenus and his friend Titus Pullo; both of whom were former well-known legionaires. But Erastes returns and publicly threatened to brutally kill the entire Vorenus clan if he did not receive a public and humiliating apology from Vorenus for the "disrespect" shown. Only the coincidental arrival of Caesar with a squad of lictors ceremonial guards. prevented Erastes from attempting to carry out the threat, then and there. Considering the fighting abilities of both Vorenus and Pullo, it is likely that Caesar's arrival save the lives of Erastes and his men, a fact that was later demostrated when the two killed Erastes's entire gang.
Erastes' role resurfaces some time later in the series when Pullo, freshly entering into a friendship-breaking conflict with Vorenus, finds himself in Erastes' employ, doing the work Vorenus wouldn't do. Pullo, however, was doing the job very recklessly (probably deliberately, due to recent problems with Vorenus and other aspects of his personal life). Eventually, Pullo is somehow caught and charged with the murders - stubbornly refusing to admit Erastes was the man behind the assassination he's charged with. Pullo survives by creating a public spectacle (with the sudden help of his ex-friend Vorenus), performing unexpectedly well in the arena where he's sentenced to die. Here, the audience learn that Erastes was doing "mortality work" for Caesar; who'd taken to eliminating his political opposition by the indirect means of letting his slave, Posca (seen paying off Erastes), hire street thugs like Erastes. Through Posca, Caesar expresses his dissatisfaction with hiring ex-soldiers like Pullo to do such work.
The Ides of March finally arrives and, along with it, the assassination of Julius Caesar. It's obvious this presents an opportunity for Erastes, at the dawn of the second season, to get even with a now vulnerable Vorenus. (There'd be no soldiers around to save the dead tyrant's man this time.) Erastes arrives, however, while Vorenus, distraught over the recent death of his wife (and other unwelcome discoveries about her doings while he was fighting in Gaul), had absented himself from the family home - presumably to calm down. Finding his family alone, and unprotected, Erastes abducts both daughters and (would-be) son, along with their aunt.
Erastes shortly meets his end, when Pullo and Vorenus storm his lair looking for the abductees, kill his henchmen, and demand the whereabouts of the children. Erastes, knowing his death is sealed despite Pullo's attempt at bargaining for information, defiantly claims to have raped and killed them, with their bodies being unretrievable. Vorenus, in a rage, takes immediate vengeance, lopping off his head in a single sword stroke.
The audience see Erastes' severed head as a prop, twice in the following month of plot time, and also see the missing family members being transported elsewhere in slavery.
