Episode Title: "Caesarion"
Original Air Date: October 16, 2005
Episode Grade: B+
Maybe the utter disappointment that was "Pharsalus" drove my expectations low enough that I'm now grading Rome on a scale. Or maybe "Caesarion" genuinely is an excellent episode of television. Regardless, this is easily my favorite episode of Rome. It's an episode that, to be sure, has some of the same problems that have bedeviled the show in the past; but it nods at intriguing questions of nationalism and tradition, and above all else it is driven by an extraordinary performance from Ciaran Hinds.
Caesar hasn't exactly been backgrounded in Rome's first season, and in fact I've written about the strength of Hinds' performance in a few different reviews. Still, it hasn't been easy to get a sense of Caesar as a character. Rome has shown us Caesar as schemer and manipulator, as master politician, but aside from a couple of brief moments with Servilia we haven't really been shown Caesar as a person. Put another way, we know Caesar's lies, but we don't know his truths. We don't understand what genuinely matters to him.
"Caesarion" takes place almost entirely in Egypt in the aftermath of Caesar's victory at Pharsalus and the death of Pompey on the Egyptian shores in the previous episode. It's the latter event that drives the best parts of this episode. When Pharaoh Ptolemy and his advisers hand Pompey's head over to Caesar, they expect a certain amount of gratitude from their unwelcome guest.
Instead, Caesar reacts with the anger of a man who has just lost a friend, and, after the recently completed civil war, it's easy to forget he's exactly that. Caesar's not a sentimental man, but he had worked closely with Pompey for years before their split. The tear he sheds in a private moment at Pompey's funeral pyre makes clear that he's genuinely saddened by Pompey's death.
But, of course, there's always more to Caesar than friendship and sentimentality, and his immediate reaction to being handed Pompey's head is driven more by pride than sadness.
Hinds is incredible in this scene, and when he follows a somewhat understated, "Shame on the house of Ptolemy," with a booming, raging, "He was a consul of Rome!", it's enough to make hairs stand on end. This is Caesar as defender of the Roman state and Roman pride, as protector of Roman dignity, as Roman. His anger at the death of Pompey is only partly anger at the loss of a friend; it is fueled in no small part by a patriotism so deeply ingrained it crosses into chauvinism and a pride in power so strongly held it crosses into a crushing arrogance.
Caesar and everyone else in Rome look down on all who aren't Roman, of course, but they have special contempt for the Egyptians. They have contempt for the eunuchs and cowards who bow and scrape to Ptolemy while manipulating him, and they have contempt for the boy Pharaoh and his weakness. That one of their own, a great citizen, a consul of Rome was so cravenly betrayed by men such as these is offensive to Caesar's sensibilities.
This sense of pride and of alienation from the Egyptians they're occupying plays into the other storyline in rather fascinating ways. Caesar, in order to protect the supplies of Egyptian grain that keep Rome from starving, elects to stay in the country and resolve the dispute between Ptolemy and his sister Janice...er, Cleopatra. In order to do this, he must find Cleopatra, who Ptolemy's advisers insist is lost and beyond their reach.
Caesar dispatches Vorenus and Pullo to find her, because these are the only two soldiers in the Roman army.
We've talked at some length about Vorenus' sense of tradition and deeply felt religious convictions, but that's always been in a Roman context. What makes Vorenus' role in the plot of "Caesarion" so interesting is that he carries these same sensibilities into Egypt.
I just finished talking about Roman arrogance and patriotism, but when it came to religion the Romans were the farthest things from bigots. They worshiped their gods, but not out of a belief that these were the only gods in heaven. The Romans instead believed quite sincerely that the gods of their enemies were real and powerful, and on many occasions would attempt to sway or even bribe these gods into switching sides. Once conquered, former enemies were largely allowed to worship according to their beliefs and traditions.
So when Vorenus rebukes Pullo for mocking the gods of Egypt, he's not being ahead of his time and he's not acting out of character. When he says the gods of Egypt are "old and powerful," he's not being especially tolerant. Instead, he's acting within the personality we've seen so far.
That he's set up against Pullo in this isn't particularly surprising; Rome has driven this dynamic into the ground. But he's also implicitly set up against Caesar, who obviously has precious little respect for Egyptian gods and traditions (Caesar also has precious little genuine respect for Roman gods and traditions, to be fair). Pullo and Caesar are very much of a type in "Caesarion:" contemptuous of the decadence and rot of the Egyptian state and insistent on Roman supremacy. Vorenus, by contrast, affords his surroundings with a measure of respect; not out of any regard for the Egyptian people or Ptolemy, but instead out of a realization of the staggering history of the place. Egypt, he points out, was a thriving civilization thousands of years before Rome was even founded, and the blood of the ancient Egyptians still flows in Cleopatra and Ptolemy. Vorenus is a man who respects history and traditions, even those that aren't his own.
The little twist "Caesarion" puts on the well-trod history is worth mentioning, even if I'm not sure what to make of it right now. Pullo and Vorenus track down Cleopatra by following the assassins Ptolemy dispatched to her tent. They kill the assassins seconds before they can murder Cleopatra and escort her to Caesar in Alexandria.
What happens next is a little weird. Cleopatra understands that she has to seduce Caesar to win his support ("I have him or I die, so I will have him"), which is shrewd enough. But the night before she arrives in Alexandria, she's somehow able to discern that she'll conceive a child if she has sex that very night. Caesar's not there, but she realizes a child would give her extraordinary power over Caesar, so...time to find a pinch hitter.
Cleopatra initially turns to Vorenus, who is tempted, but ends up refusing, partly out of masculine Roman pride ("Roman men are not used in such ways"), and, though it's unstated, partly out of love for Niobe.
Pullo has no such worries.
So, yes, it appears our Titus Pullo is, in fact, the father of Caesarion. As I said, I'm not sure what to do with this information, but there it is.
For all that works in "Caesarion," I can't call it a truly great episode, and I mentioned back in the opening paragraph that it's plagued by some of the same problems that we've seen earlier in the series. The big issue here is what happens after Vorenus and Pullo deliver Cleopatra to Caesar and the latter two end up in their inevitable steamy embrace.
"Caesarion" elects to skip over the year Caesar spent besieged in Alexandria alongside Cleopatra, which was a rather fascinating bit of history. Instead, we get a brief glimpse of some Egyptians gathering outside the gates, and then we go to the Roman Senate, where Cicero blandly informs Brutus that Caesar has been trapped for a year in Alexandria and gosh Brutus, isn't that interesting? Then Antony comes in, has a fun scene, and tells the two Senators that Caesar broke the siege.
And that's that. Portraying a lengthy passage of time is always tricky in a TV series, and when you only have 12 episodes (instead of a network run of 20+) you have to cut some temporal corners. But coming a week after Rome so blithely passed by the Battle of Pharsalus, this is something of a sore spot, and it's hard to escape the conclusion that this was, again, more a budgetary decision than a narrative one.
Still, "Caesarion" succeeds in righting the ship that threatened to capsize after "Pharsalus." It's fun and compelling, two features that have too often been lacking from Rome so far. And in spending so much time with Caesar, it finds a stable center.
Notes
- Hinds really is something in this episode. When Ptolemy's eunuch points out that Caesar's debt collection is only legitimate under Roman law, Caesar thunders, "Is there any other form of law, you wretched woman?"
- Cleopatra is played by Lyndsey Marshall, whose IMDB page is filled with work I've never seen (apparently she had a significant role in Being Human, which was a big deal in the UK before being adapted here). Her performance is...uneven, but she is quite excellent and manipulative in the scene where she seduces Caesar. "A man without sons is a man without a future."
- She is also quite chilling when she finally confronts Ptolemy and his eunuch adviser. "It must not speak. It must die."
- Caesar and Cleopatra's sex scene is intercut with Servilia and Octavia, which I guess serves as a useful reminder that there's hot lesbian action going on back in Rome?
- Caesar and his retinue are clearly bemused by all the ceremony surrounding Ptolemy when they are first introduced to him, which feeds nicely into Caesar's reaction when Pompey's head is revealed.
- The scene in the Senate I referenced above is largely just a clumsy excuse for exposition, but James Purefoy gives it some life with his bullying, intimidating performance. The way he manhandles and threatens Cicero is quite impressive.
- "Majesty commands you will enter her."
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