Triumph (Rome)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Triumph | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Caesar's Triumph | |
| Season | 1 (2005) |
| Episode | 10 (HBO; see BBC editing) |
| Air date(s) | November 6, 2005 (HBO) December 28, 2005 (BBC) |
| Writer(s) | Adrian Hodges |
| Director | Alan Taylor |
| Setting | Rome |
| Time frame | April of 45 BC ( April 12 being the date of Julius Caesar's famous "Gallic Triumph") See also: Chronology of Rome |
| Link | HBO episode summary |
| Prev: Utica Next: The Spoils I | II | III | IV | V | VI | VII | VIII | IX | X | XI | XII |
|
"Triumph" is the tenth episode of the first season of the television series Rome.
Unanimously proclaimed Dictator by the Senate, Caesar pronounces the war over, and proclaims a 'triumph', five days of military pomp, feasting, and games honoring his victories. No longer an enlisted soldier, Pullo eyes a pastoral future with Eirene; Vorenus runs for municipal magistrate, with Posca's help; Octavian retrieves Octavia from her self-imposed exile; and Servilia invites a revenge-minded Quintus Pompey into her home, to Brutus' dismay.
Contents |
[edit] Plot summary
As the senate gathers to sanction Caesar as emperor, Cicero and Brutus put honour aside and stand in support the man they once fought, urging their fellow senators to follow them. "He has shown himself to be as wise and merciful in victory as he is invincible in battle," says Brutus. "Let this be an end to division and civil strife." After a unanimous but unenthusiastic vote in his favor, Caesar declares the war over and proclaims a 'triumph', five days of military pomp, feasts, and games.
In the working class neighbourhood of Aventine, days before municipal elections are to be held, a nervous Vorenus makes his first campaign speech -- Niobe standing demurely by his side as Posca coaches him quietly from nearby. "The dark times are behind us...." he says to a mostly indifferent crowd, forcing a politician's smile. "Caesar has put an end to patrician tyranny and will ensure that the voice of the common people be heard." With this statement a crowd begins to gather. But when a heckler denounces the rhetoric as 'cac,' an angered Vorenus suddenly seems to embrace his own words. "I wouldn't be standing here on Caesar's slate if I didn't believe, if I didn't know, that Caesar has only the Republic's best interests at heart." Posca signals guards to "quietly" remove the heckler from the political rally. Alas, Posca must prompt Vorenus with his next line.
Atia pays a visit to a fragile Servilia who appears lost in another dimension since her brutal attack. She declines Atia's invitation to sit with her family during the celebrations, her steely reserve still intact. She changes the subject to Octavia. "She is staying at a cousin's villa," Atia gloats, "mooning over some young fool of a poet."
In fact, Octavia has taken a self-imposed exile at the Temple of Cybele where she prays fervently each day and cuts herself with a knife, an offering to 'the Great Mother.' When her brother comes to take her home (her running away reflects badly on the family, he tells her), she steadfastly refuses. "I want to be cleansed of my weakness and filth. I want to be reborn as a pure servant of the Great Mother." After catching a glimpse of her sliced arms, Octavian takes her by force with help from the temple eunuchs.
No longer an enlisted soldier, Pullo becomes enraged when he's told he cannot march with the 13th legion in the celebrations. He heads to the only home he has, the darkened drinking taverns where a drunken Quintus, son of Pompey, is denouncing Caesar to anyone who will listen. When Quintus staggers his way to Brutus's villa to enlist his support, he instead finds a kindred spirit in Servilia.
To prepare for the elaborate pageantry, Caesar is anointed by Octavian who paints his uncle's face red with ox blood. For his first ceremony, the new emperor presides over the public execution of his former adversary, Vercingetorix, the King of the Gauls who has been kept alive--just barely--in the dungeons of the city.
When Vorenus learns that the elections are rigged -- he is running against straw man candidates--he reconsiders the deal he has struck. "The people are not crying out for clean elections," Posca tries to assure him. "They're crying out for stability and peace. They're crying out for jobs and food and clean water...You can do great things for your people."
Pullo, with nothing left to lose, makes an appeal to Vorenus to free Eirene; he plans to marry her and start a family in the country. "I love her....I've never been so sure of anything in my life." When Eirene gets the news, she's overjoyed, throwing her arms around her saviour and kissing him. Moments later, Niobe's slave Oedipus emerges to thank Pullo himself. "We had thought to take the Vorenus name as our own when we became freed men, but Eirene says it must be under your name that she becomes my wife, so I hope you'll agree."
Barely grasping this news, Pullo flies into a rage, smashing the youth's head against a pillar until he falls twitching to ground and dies. With this Vorenus reaches the end of his rope with his friend. "You do this vileness before my children?!" As Eirene shrieks and wails over her dead lover, words between Vorenus and Pullo escalate. "You're a damned fool! The disrespect! The stupidity! I'm a candidate for magistrate, I can't have killings in my yard!"
Pullo cuts Vorenus to the bone. "And here you are, with your nice clean white toga...stays clean no matter how deep you wade in filth... Time was, you said Caesar was a rebel and a traitor. Now today, he tosses you a little coin and some farmland, and he's saviour of the Republic." Lost for words in his own defense, Vorenus tries to fight him, but Pullo refuses and leaves.
Across town, Brutus learns that his mother and Quintus have been distributing pamphlets in his name, a "defense of Republican principles against the forces of tyranny." When he tells his mother he might be killed for her act, she does not seem entirely opposed to the idea. "You are looking to your own comfort. I am looking to history," she tells her son, before suggesting he do what his father would have done -- run Caesar out of Rome.
But Brutus won't have any part of her 'insanity.' Instead he goes to Caesar to set the record straight. Having adopted a more imperious tone since his anointment, Caesar tells Brutus he believes him, though he still seems suspicious. "I wonder who it was wrote this," he intones. Brutus shakes his head. "I wish I knew."
Lost in drunken oblivion, Pullo takes refuge in the taverns again, too poor to even encourage the prostitutes. He is approached by Erastes Fulmen who offers him a job. "I'm a soldier not a murderer," Pullo responds, barely alert. "In times like these, Pullo, is there really any difference?" the crime lord responds. Pullo appears to mull his offer before passing out.
In the woods outside Rome, the body of the King of Gauls, rescued from a trash heap in the city, burns atop a bonfire. Dozens of Celtic Gauls have gathered for a clandestine ceremony to pay reverence to their fallen chieftain.
Source HBO Website http://www.hbo.com/rome/episode/season1/episode10.html
[edit] Historical and cultural background
- The Battle of Munda – which occurred March 17, 45 BC in Hispania – would have occurred between episodes #10 and #11, although it is not mentioned in the series. It was the last military action in "Caesar's Civil War", and the end of the Optimates military opposition to Caesar.
- The only other man to be granted such sweeping powers over Rome – at least while it was still a Republic – was Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix, who used the power to turn the Republic into a bloodbath. This might explain why there has been so much resistance to Caesar gaining such power. Ironically, a young Julius Caesar himself had to flee the city while it was in Sulla's power, and Sulla himself commented in his memoirs that he regretted sparing Caesar's life because of the young man's notorious ambition.
- Vercingetorix, "King Of The Gauls," is supposed to depict Vercingetorix, who was defeated by Caesar at the Battle of Alesia in 52 B.C. Upon his defeat, Vercingetorix was paraded through the streets of Rome and imprisoned for five years, before finally being publicly executed during Caesar's triumph.
[edit] Inaccuracies and errors
- Although Brutus proposes in the Senate that Caesar be awarded the title of Imperator, this seems to be an error on the part of the writers. While any Roman magistrate or military commander (especially Caesar) was said to be imbued with the quality of Imperium ("the power vested by the state in a person to do what they consider to be in the best interests of the state"), this is not what the title of Imperator means. The title "Imperator" — in republican times (its meaning would change during the Empire) — was a military honor granted by a Legion to its commander, and was a required honor for a Roman general to be able to petition the Roman Senate to be allowed to hold a triumph. Caesar would already have received this honour, as he was being granted a triumph. The office which embodied the powers that the Senate seems to be offering Caesar — and what Brutus probably should have said — is Dictator.
- Historically, this was not the first time that Caesar was voted the office of Dictator. After the defeat of the Optimates at the Battle of Munda, however, he was elected to the office for 1 year, which was quite unusual. Dictatorial appointments were for six months - and usually ended much sooner (see Cincinnatus). Caesar would go on being voted in as Dictator by the Senate repeatedly, which was also unusual, until he eventually was appointed Dictator for Life. This had only ever been done once before, when Lucius Cornelius Sulla seized Rome and unlike Caesar, had many of his enemies killed and exiled. In the series, the writers skip over the details and simply have the Senate offer Caesar the office of Dictator (or "Imperator", see point above) for 10 years, and then have one senator mention to another in passing that Caesar is now Dictator for life.
- Vercingetorix of the Gauls is depicted as being executed as part of the Triumph, although this does not seem to have been the practice. Such captives were held, or executed at the Tullianum, not in public as part of the ceremony. Stranglings were commonly used to dispose of people, but were done in the tullianum, as said above, not in public. It is generally assumed that Vercingetorix was executed by strangling in the tullianum after around 6 years of incarceration (though the possibility he may have been publicly executed at the Gemonian stairs is not completely excluded). Sallust describes the tullianum as “about twelve feet deep, closed all round by strong walls and a stone vault. Its aspect is repugnant and fearsome from its neglect, darkness, and stench.”
[edit] External links
- "Triumph" at the Internet Movie Database
- Plot Summary at HBO
