Eirene (Rome character)

Eirene is a fictional character from the HBO/BBC/RAI original television series Rome, played by Chiara Mastalli.

Personality

Quiet and unassuming, Eirene speaks with a foreign accent to show her non-Roman origin and is somewhat of a mystery. Although Eirene's love belonged to a slave who was killed, she has forgiven and married his murderer, Titus Pullo. Although Eirene truly loves Pullo, she is dissatisfied with continually being left behind by him. Superstitious, Eirene wishes to leave the house she was enslaved in because it has become "a house of death." Seeing her mistress Niobe of the Voreni die there, as well as the decapitated head of Erastes Fulmen on the floor in a corner, she believes any baby conceived or born there would be deformed.

"Eirene" (Greek Ἑιρηvη) is Greek for peace; a Roman would arbitrarily give a slave a name appropriate to their perceived qualities - Onesimus, Greek for useful, is another.

Character history

Eirene is a slave of Germanic origin, kidnapped, brutalized, and tied to an ox-drawn wagon by soldiers fleeing the city of Rome, Eirene is rescued by Titus Pullo against the wishes of his superior officer and friend, Lucius Vorenus. After freeing her, Pullo discovers that the cart she was tied to contains the missing treasury gold stolen by Pompey's recruits.

Now the slave of a love-struck Pullo, Eirene immediately goes missing after a night of drunken debauchery. Finding her the next day, Vorenus must pay the drinking debt owed by Pullo to have her released. Knowing that he will be returning to the Legion, Pullo asks Vorenus to take her. After some convincing, Lucius takes Eirene to his wife, Niobe, who has been asking for more slaves. Niobe is suspicious of Eirene. Believing she may be spying on her for Pullo, she initially distrusts her.

When he returns from war, Pullo frees Eirene from slavery, planning to marry her, but Pullo does not know she is in love with another. When he discovers this, Pullo kills the man on a jealous impulse by smashing his head into a column, while Eirene was changing into the dress Pullo gave her. She hates Pullo for the murder, even contemplating killing a convalescing Pullo in his bed. Time and Pullo's repentance quench her anger, and she marries him in the beginning of the second season. Eirene moves to the Collegium with Pullo and Vorenus, and later becomes pregnant.

Threatened by Gaia's apparent interest in Pullo, Eirene confronts her in Death Mask and tells her to fetch wood. Gaia refuses and insults Eirene, who demands that Pullo beat the unruly slave. Pullo roughs Gaia up, but with her encouragement ends up having rough sex with her as well. Later, Gaia acquires abortion-inducing herbs. She gives them to Eirene in a cup of tea in A Necessary Fiction; Eirene miscarries, and then dies of apparent blood loss. On her death bed, Eirene insists that Pullo bury her as is done in her country (rather than cremate her, as per Roman custom). During Pullo's eulogy her Germanic origins are vaguely revealed: her birth name was Adela (a Germanic name) and her homeland was somewhere "beyond the Rhine".

Trivia

Eirene remains pregnant for an impossibly long time given the historical events of the series. She first tells Pullo of her condition in Philippi which historical events occur around 42 B.C. She is still pregnant in Death Mask, an episode where Octavia marries Mark Antony, which happened in 40 B.C. And then finally dies in A Necessary Fiction, still pregnant, which must occur in 39 or 38 B.C. judging by other historical events, like the betrothal of Octavian and Livia. The timeline inconsistency occurred when the producers received word that Rome would be cancelled after the second season, thus necessitating rewriting the last few scripts to conclude the series.