Reaction to HBO Rome 2X5 - Heroes of the Republic | Octavian Returns

Today we watch Season 2 - Episode 5 of HBO's Rome.
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[@jamiescamihorn6231]

James Purefoy really brought life to Mark Antony in a way never depicted before and was a pure joy to see him inhabit the character. Rome remains as one of my favorite TV series to this day. The cross section of Roman society has never been explored better.

[@jackwalsh6758]

53:30 The children are named Vorena the Elder, Vorena the Younger and Lucius.

[@notmee2388]

It is my understanding that the showrunners had hoped for 5 seasons, but were aware at this point that this was likely to be the last season. When you comment about minimizing Lepidus’ role and giving Octavian traits and concerns that he was known for in the latter portion of his rule, I suspect that was a choice they made based off of the time schedule they had to conform to given that they would not be able to have an elder Augustus, and so they chose to condense the history a bit in order to do what they wanted to accomplish and bring the series to a satisfying closure. No spoilers, but I do think they succeeded as well as it was possible to do, and that the series ending is very good, and doesn’t feel rushed or incomplete.

[@notmee2388]

I may be opening up a can of worms here, but I am going to try to be objective and strictly factual; watching these reactions now has made me think of a number of parallels with our current political situation: Trump and Julius, born to wealth and power, portrayed themselves as populists and had/have fervent supporters, spent significant time outside the Rome/D.C. power structure before coming in and taking power, had a reign in which they were sabotaged and knifed in the back by their “allies” and enemies combined (literally in Caesar’s case figuratively in 2020, and nearly literally in 2024) both making claim that he was a tyrant. J6 could be compared to Caesar’s funeral. If we were to compare post 2020 Trump as Octavian’s Caesar, there are additional parallels: teaming up with former enemies Marc Antony/RFK to defeat the one that took out Caesar: Brutus/Biden while making the claim that they will restore virtue and order and return Rome/America to greatness. If I was successfully in my objective, you should be able to acknowledge that the above statements are accurate and still have no idea where my personal sympathies lie. I think it is possible to simply be honestly fascinated by the similarities regardless of one’s allegiances.

[@flerbus]

many, many parallels between the late roman republic and the current status of the Usa

[@steven1498]

Really good analogy. I second that .