Passover (Rome)
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| "Passover" | |
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| Atia mourns over Caesar's funeral bier | |
| Season | 2 (2007) |
| Episode | "13 (HBO; see BBC editing)" |
| Air date(s) | January 14, 2007 (HBO) June 20, 2007 (BBC) |
| Writer(s) | Bruno Heller |
| Director | Tim Van Patten |
| Setting | Rome |
| Time frame | The Ides of March 44 BC to ~March 17, 44 BC See also: Chronology of Rome |
| Link | HBO episode summary |
| Prev: "Kalends of February" Next: "Son of Hades" I | II | III | IV | V | VI | VII | VIII | IX | X | XI | XII |
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"Passover" is the first episode of the second season of the television series Rome.
[edit] Plot Summary and Criticism
Julius Caesar had not been murdered in the Curia Iulia, where the Roman Senate usually met, because the building was undergoing renovation at the time. The Senate meetings took place in the Curia of the Theatrum Pompeium. This is also where the assassination took place.
- Marcus Antonius was not engaged in a sword fight outside of the Curia after the murder. Instead he fled and hid at first. However, there were several senators wounded and killed in the fierce assault and the ensuing chaos, and many Roman civilians and foreigners were killed immediately after the assassination outside of the building by the gladiators, who had been hired by the conspirator Decimus Iunius Brutus.
- The portrayal of Marcus Iunius Brutus as being afraid and shaken by his actions is incorrect. The assassins immediately addressed the Roman citizens outside of the Senate house with verve and self-confidence.
- Marcus Brutus and the other assassins didn't return to their homes. During their address to the people they were met with rejection by the Roman citizens. Confused by this reaction they climbed the Capitoline Hill, accompanied by the gladiators of Decimus Brutus, where they remained entrenched almost until the day of Caesar's funeral.
- The important role of the magister equitum and later pontifex maximus and triumvir Marcus Aemilius Lepidus and his soldiers in the aftermath of Caesar's assassination, especially his measures for pacification, is not dealt with in the episode's plot.
- Caesar's dead body was brought back to his house by three servants carrying him in his sedan, not wheeling him on a pushcart. (The fourth servant was missing, because he had either fled or had been killed in the fights outside of the Curia.)
- Gaius Octavius ("Octavian") was not in Rome at the time of Caesar's murder and funeral, but studying in Apollonia, Illyria, where he was part of the advance party for Caesar's planned war campaign against the Parthians. Octavius, Marcus Agrippa and Gaius Maecenas sailed back to southern Italy after the news of Caesar's murder had reached them, smuggled themselves into the country in secret, not knowing if Caesar's assassins would target them next.
- After it had become clear that the "liberators" had no interest in him, Octavius raised a private army, met up with some of Caesar's veterans, and marched on Rome. Therefore the whole subplot of Atia and "Octavian" discussing whether they should leave the city is pure fiction. Nevertheless it was Atia, who upon Octavius' return to Rome at first discouraged her son to pursue his political career as Caesar's heir.
- The Jew Timon mentions to Octavian and Atia that the city is all quiet, which was not correct. Some citizens barricaded themselves in their homes or fled to the roofs, but others were on the streets, some even looting in the Senate house. Crowds bribed by the hiding assassins gathered in the Forum, trying to speak out for the conspirators' cause. They were joined by important politicians, who also held speeches, like the praetor Lucius Cornelius Cinna and Publius Cornelius Dolabella.
- Marcus Antonius never visited Atia's house. He also didn't plan to go north to levy troops for revenge, because Lepidus and his army were already in Rome. Instead he immediately tried to gain control over the situation together with Lepidus. (According to one historical source, Antonius had even been warned of the assassination. Whether this is correct and whether he put up with Caesar's planned murder in order to gain political power himself, can't be validated.)
- It hadn't been Atia who had told Caesar that he was about to be murdered. It had been Caesar's wife Calpurnia, who—based on a nightmare—had tried to prevent Caesar from going to the Senate on the Ides of March.
- The character of "Atia" is highly fictionalized in the TV series. In reality she had never had an affair with Marcus Antonius, and according to Suetonius she had been a very pious and caring person.
- Atia wouldn't have planned to leave the city, because it was her duty to join the funeral preparations and rituals for Caesar.
- Marcus Antonius' anti-Jewish remark against Timon fits general Roman hostility towards the Jews, but is implausible coming from a Caesarian - many Jews had fought for Caesar in the civil war under Antipatros, support for which Caesar and his men were very grateful, and Jews present in Rome (possibly including Jewish veterans) mourned for many consecutive nights at Caesar's funeral site.
- The depiction of the private funeral ceremonies at Calpurnia's house is incorrect:
- The raising of the arms during prayer was common for a supplicatio, not for a funus.
- Instead, the mourning women smote their breasts, also as a rhythmic figure accompanying the dirges (neniae) sung by the praeficae.
- The dirge singers were usually accompanied by one or more tibiae-players. However, the women are only monotonously repeating a spoken ritual prayer.
- The private funeral preparations, including the cleaning of the corpse, were performed by women. So it's implausible that Calpurnia complains about none of the "friends and family" coming to visit, because access was restricted for many outsiders.
- Another reason for the restrictions was the Caesarians' fear that Caesar's enemies would forcefully enter the house to drag his body through the streets of Rome and throw it into the Tiber, as was the usual Roman practice for declared tyrants. (This is also the reason why there was a vigil of the body in Calpurnia's house.)
- In addition it was unclear for most of the time, whether Caesar would receive a public state funeral. Eventually the whole funeral was very rushed and improvised, lasting much shorter than a usual Roman funus.
- Caesar's will was also presented to the public and not only read in private. (The private reading occurred before the public presentation in the house of Marcus Antonius.)
- Piso, Caesar's father-in-law, who was one of the key people responsible for the Senate's granting of a public funeral service as well as for the preparation of the funeral itself, is ignored by the screenwriters. He was also the one in possession of the will, which was finally presented to the public two days after the murder during an assembly of the citizens summoned by the consuls (apparently in the Forum).
- During the reading of the will in the episode, Octavian is called Gaius Octavian, which is not correct. His real name was Gaius Octavius. After the formal adoption he changed his name to Gaius Iulius Caesar, even avoiding the additional Octavianus. (Some inscriptions include the filiation Gai filius, i.e. "son of Gaius".)
- Octavian was never Caesar's "sole heir". Instead Caesar had appointed several substitute heirs, including none other than one of the conspirators: Decimus Brutus.
- On the day of Caesar's murder, Antonius had (at the request of Calpurnia) transferred Caesar's war chest from the temple of Ops on the Capitol as well as Caesar's legal papers (excluding the will) to Calpurnia's house for security reasons. Since Octavian wasn't in Rome at the time, this was a huge advantage for Antonius. So all discussions concerning who would finally receive Caesar's money, were irrelevant at the time, because it was in the hands of Antonius.
- Antonius states in the episode that the law is with "Brutus and his minions". A few scenes later Servilia says that the city is theirs. In reality the assassins were at their wits' end and didn't even dare to take part in the Senate meeting on March 16th. Antonius and Lepidus were in charge of the political situation, exchanging hostages with the assassins, summoning the Senate meeting in the temple of Tellus and working toward a general amnesty. In addition, Antonius and Lepidus dropped any plans to avenge Caesar during an address to the people gathered in the Forum.
- Antonius' remark about "Brutus and his minions" is generally inaccurate, because Cassius Longinus was the head of the assassination plot against Caesar. Marcus Brutus joined the conspiracy rather late. (In addition, the historians have always put Decimus Brutus on top of the list, although he wasn't directly involved in the deadly assault. But since he had been a close friend of Caesar's, his betrayal outweighed the other conspirators' bloodshed.)
- It wasn't Octavian who came up with the idea of the full amnesty. This idea was brought up during the Senate meeting in the temple of Tellus.
- Cicero's dialog with the assassins is based on the letter he wrote to Trebonius in 43 BC. It is unclear whether he actually visited the assassins to congratulate them on the tyrannicide. According to some sources, he was (like the conspirators) not present at the Senate meeting on March 16th. According to another source he did join the Senate meeting after hearing about Antonius' decision on the amnesty, where he also held a speech. On March 17th Cicero held a long speech on the Forum praising the amnesty.
- Cassius Longinus tells Cicero that the conspirators have 2000 men under arms and that Caesar's people have fled the city. Both remarks are incorrect. Most Caesarians including the veterans stayed in Rome. Those who had fled the city returned after Lepidus' troops had calmed the situation. In addition the law forbade any armed forces inside the city and the citizens themselves to carry any arms. All the conspirators had at their disposal were the hired gladiators. The only real troops belonged to the Caesarian Lepidus, who had relocated them into the city to secure the situation and to post guards all over Rome during night before.
- The assassin Cassius would have been called either Gaius or by his cognomen Longinus, seldom by his nomen gentile Cassius.
- Unlike in the TV episode, the conspirators were never in the position to decide on the amnesty or on Caesar's legacy themselves, because they were not present at the Senate meeting.
- The herald announcing Caesar's funeral reproduces an order that no actors are allowed to attend the ceremony. In reality an archmime (archimimus) and several other performing artists including singers and musicians (probably from the Etruscan guild or from the technitai of Dionysos) were an integral part not only of the procession (pompa), but of the whole stage ceremony at Caesar's public funeral.
- Servilia's visit to Calpurnia's house is not mentioned in any of the historical sources and is very implausible. The women responsible for the private funeral were Calpurnia, Atia and probably Fulvia.
- At the morning of Caesar's funeral Marcus Antonius had not been sleeping late, but had already been in the Forum since daybreak, attending the assembly of the consuls and the people.
- Caesar's corpse wasn't brought to the funeral site on a simple bier, but in a luxurious replica model of the temple of Venus Genetrix, who was his divine mother according to the mythological past of the Julian family.
- In the down-angle long shot of the improvised cremation neither the replica Venus temple nor the funeral stage or the Rostra nor the tropaea and/or the mêchanê nor the wax effigy of Caesar (simulacrum) are visible on the Forum.
- Marcus Brutus didn't speak at the funeral ceremony, as could be implied from his dialogue with Antonius in the episode, because the assassins had already left the city before the funeral.
- In the tavern a Roman recounts that Marcus Antonius held Caesar's blood-stained Toga during the funeral ceremony and finally threw it into the crowd of mourners. In reality Antonius raised the Toga from inside the replica temple with a spear and waved it about over his head. (The Suetonius-source slightly differs in that the robe was already covering parts of the Roman victory cross at the head of the replica temple.)
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