Julius Caesar-"Et Tu HBO."

I was right glad to get the first two episodes of HBO`s series "Rome" in the mail yesterday from my good friends at Netflix. I`ve already seen a lionshare of episodes for Season Two, save one or two. "The Stolen Eagle" is the very first part, and clips in ingeniously to the point of the end of Caesar`s Gallic Campaign, during the time when he was significantly close to returning to Rome, after battling the barbarians (the Gauls) brutishly (pardon the pun) for eight or nine years. The scene of the triumphant parade of his returning legions to the Roman Forum was bedazzling, especially in terms of the sets built for the production (okay, maybe this was before Caesar returned, and was just a political rally or party in the street? I just focused on the sets of the Forum. This is also an argument for owning the whole box set; i.e. when mortal memory flies the way of Hades!). After visiting Rome myself in 2000, and having walked around the ruins of stone-stumps, monument fragments, & busted busts of nocturnal nobles, I`ve often had difficulty imagining what it truly looked like more than 2000 years ago. Caesar had done much to rebuild the Roman Forum too, so it was sterling in appearance in say 50 BC, and not terribly cluttered yet, mind you. My favorite scene of this episode one however, was the bull-sacrifice performed on Atia of Julii. She was the frothy, libidinous mother of Octavian, and wanted to ward off any evil that might be done to her son, who was in Gaul on some business of the State. The bull is slain and his blood pours over Atia, played marvelously by Polly Walker, in an apparent purification sacrifice. I suspect this was a part of the Mother Cybele cult that came from the East, maybe from Phrygia. Bull-sacrifice was also practiced in the religion of Mithraism, a topic I have explored properly some years ago (at that time it was a fresh area of study). It is a good idea for one to eliminate this as the actual reference in this first episode though, since Mithraism did not spread throughout Rome until later in the Empire (100-200 AD). Its popularity was largely due to the daily needs of religion for the common Roman soldier. There is always the possibility that the HBO writers just threw this in for dramatic effect, but it is conceivable that there is evidence for such Bull-Sacrifice-Rituals (more likely in a Mother Cybele context) in Caesar`s era!

I am very fascinated by the life and career of Julius Caesar, and have been reading "Caesar-Life of A Colossus" by Adian Goldsworthy. I had read Mr. Goldsworthy`s treatise on the Punic Wars, and knew him to be a reliable scholar on these matters of antiquity, and most assuredly for the military campaigns. The victories from the Punic Wars essentially clinched Rome as the dominant power in the Mediterranean world, and isolated Carthage as a minor player in the Mediterranean, after Hannibal nearly conquered Italy with his lumbering elephants and exotic mercenaries. When the HBO series begins, we see the harbingers for the Civil War between Caesar and Pompey the Great just emerging. I searched for a reliable reference to the stealing of the Golden Eagle by Pompey`s affiliates, but to no avail. It must have been fabricated by the HBO writers, but a very clever device in the plot was interjected nonetheless. Too, I enjoyed seeing the adversarial relations between Caesar and the senate emerging; Cato is always an arch-enemy of Caesar but Cicero plays both sides of the fence, and is a relentless champion of the Republic. Early on Caesar and Pompey are chums, but later on after Julia dies, daughter of Caesar and wife of Pompey, relations sour. I suspect that much of the first season centers on the Civil Wars, documenting the unravelling of the First Triumvirate, so I`m really looking forward to viewing it (this is the fulcrum of Roman History, I`ve come to believe). Moreover, and as a tangible footnote, I have always been a fan of the BBC series "I Claudius", but remember Bovee (duhh), that was in the late 1970s! Maybe some of the young people of today would enjoy inspecting its contents and reaching conclusions after comparing it to "Rome". Robert Graves (the author of "I Claudius") also has the best translation published for "The Twelve Caesars" by Suetonius, a volume that has been a friend by my side for thirty years or more. All of this enthusiasm has come about because I intend to create quite a few posts about Caesar. There are two films of the Shakesperean play that I will write reviews on, and the one with Jason Robards (he delivers his lines in a sluggish, Dashell Hammettesque prescription, such that Bill Shakespeare would turn & maybe even quiver in his grave with ample angst-I`m wondering if I can even bear to watch this again) as Brutus from the late 1970s is a hoot! The Man From Uncle, Robert Vaughn, is in it too. But seriously, Caesar is a study of power, maybe the classic study of power or ambition; how to get it, how to use it, then eventually how you lose it! "Veni, Viti, Vici!" or Et Tu HBO for having the thoughtfulness to present this compelling story of an important figure, if not the most important one, of antiquity!