Episode Title: "Stealing from Saturn"
Original Air Date: September 18, 2005
Episode Grade: B-
Television writers love duality. By creating two similar sets of events (a feast, let's say), populating them with different characters and setting them up in different contexts, the writer can point out (with varying shades of subtlety) differences in motivations and worldviews. It's something of a natural experiment, only scripted for dramatic effect: put two people in identical situations, see how they handle the situations.
"Stealing from Saturn" continues Rome's interest in tradition and the role of religion by counterpoising two feasts: one thrown by Atia for her triumphant uncle Caesar and one thrown by Vorenus to mark the beginning of his new business venture. The duality explored here is relatively superficial, and goes directly to some of the themes Rome has been trying to suss out in these early episodes: Vorenus, the devout and sincere man, set against Caesar, who treats Rome's religious traditions as tools of manipulation.
This is really the first time Rome has allowed us to spend significant time with Caesar, and Ciaran Hinds makes good use of the screen time. There's really nothing openly exceptional about Hinds' performance; there is, instead, an admirable stolidity and an ability to command the room through quiet dialogue and underplayed facial expressions.
Caesar's concern in "Stealing from Saturn" is to defy Pompey's prophecy that he will lose the support of Rome by ruling as a bloody tyrant. His chief tactic for avoiding this fate is to throw money at the problem; it's not the most subtle of strategies, but it is tried and true. Better bribes than blood.
The first step in winning over the people, Caesar understands, is to make a show of winning over their gods. So he approaches the priests of the Temple of Jupiter to hold an augury, with the hope that the ceremony will demonstrate the approval of the gods.
Of course, Caesar being Caesar, he's not prepared to let such an important occasion be determined by the random flight of birds. There's a clever little conversation between Caesar, Mark Antony and the head augur at Atia's party where the three bargain over the augur's bribe, all in the guise of arranging a birthday present for the augur's wife. Caesar wants his birds, and the augur can give them to him.
The problem is that you must have money to throw money at problems, and Rome's treasury, as we saw last week, now lies in the hands of one Titus Pullo, who came across the stolen gold while on a scouting mission.
This is where Vorenus' feast comes in. It plays a thematic role, certainly: Lucius chose the day of the feast because it was the gods had ordained it an auspicious day, and he opens the festivities by kneeling before a an altar of Janus and praying for a successful meal. All of this can't help but be contrasted with the cynicism on display at Atia's feast. Antony was even nice enough to stick a pin in this contrast earlier in the episode, when he accuses Vorenus of being "foolish, like a priest. Blinded by a cowl."
The feast ends when Niobe's sister, who married the father of Niobe's child, gets drunk and crashes into the altar of Janus, breaking it. Vorenus sees in this a bad omen, which, you know, is not unreasonable. Or incorrect, considering that the altar was shattered by a woman married to the father of his wife's illegitimate child.
But Vorenus' feast also has a crucial narrative role to play, as it connects Caesar with the stolen gold. Pompey has dispatched his son Quintus to track down the stolen treasury, and Quintus is quite good at his job. Quintus appears after the feast has ended and threatens Vorenus and Niobe unless Lucius tells him where the gold is located.
When Pullo shows up (with annoyingly fortuitous timing), he and Vorenus overpower Quintus and kill his thugs. What follows is interesting for what it says about Pullo, a man the show has tried to set up as a cynic and a sensualist in contrast to Vorenus' stern sense of Roman duty.
Vorenus orders Pullo to return the gold (and Quintus) to Caesar. Remember, Vorenus isn't Pullo's commander any more. He's a civilian. He resigned his position in last week's episode. Pullo would be well within his rights to tell Vorenus to sod off.
But he doesn't. Instead, Pullo physically straightens up when Vorenus' makes clear that he is giving in an order and reluctantly agrees to speak to Caesar about the gold. The pull of duty is strong, even for Pullo.
(Of course, Vorenus could always tattle on Pullo if the latter didn't agree, and that would have ended badly for Titus, so maybe that's the motivation here)
In the end, Caesar gets his gold. Pullo speaks with Antony and Caesar outside Atia's party, bringing Quintus along for the ride. Caesar lets Quintus live, much to Antony's dismay, and dispatches Pompey's son back to his father with a truce offer he knows Pompey can't accept.
And when Caesar gets his gold, he also gets his augury. The episode ends with a ceremony in which the holy birds are dispatched and their flight interpreted as favorable. And Caesar, on his knees in front of the chief augur, smiles in the knowledge of his power.
"Stealing from Saturn" is better as the result of its focus on Caesar; the plotting is tighter, and the viewer's attention isn't pulled in a dozen different directions. The episode does well to highlight Hinds and Kevin McKidd, its two best performers, so extensively.
There is no spark of brilliance here, however, nor any sense that the show has something meaningful or original to say about the nature of power or tradition-bound societies. That the powerful manipulate traditions ordinary people believe in is certainly true enough, but it's hardly a point that merits primetime television in the year 2005.
Are we closer to an answer to the "What does Rome want to be?" question I asked last week? Maybe. If the show retains the tighter focus displayed in "Stealing from Saturn," it's easy enough to see improvement in Rome. But to quote a Spartan response to Philip of Macedonia, "If."
Notes
- Well, that's James Purefoy's penis.
- Atia has some fun moments here. Concerned with Octavian's apparent lack of manliness, she demands he eat goat testicles in much the same way a sane mother would force broccoli on her child. "Puts oak in your penis."
- Huh. Lot of penis in these notes.
- Antony has a dwarf messenger he's named "Cato." Vorenus doesn't find this as amusing as Antony does.
- Atia, complimenting Servilia, mother of Brutus and Caesar's lover: "She has none of the goatishness of women her age."
- There are some wonderfully creepy shots in Rome's deserted streets. The camera work following Vorenus' daughter as she scampers through the streets and avoids the marching soldiers is quite impressive.
- Niobe gets some chicken livers examined to determine if her secret is still safe. The priestess examining the livers can only say "probably." This is why you opt for the good livers, not the cheap crap you get in the frozen food aisle at Wal-Mart. Or, um, Walus-Martus.
- According to Wikipedia, the practice of examining the entrails and organs of birds for prophetic messages is known as "haruspicy." Treat these notes like they're the end of a G.I. Joe episode.
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