"It Look Distinctly Ordinary and Chair-Like."

Well, what a brace of episodes. Last Sunday I was traveling so I got to see the previous two weeks of Rome back-to-back.

TRIUMPH
As everyone knows, the best part of a Roman triumph was the fact that in the general’s chariot rode a figure representing THE FUTURE, who stands behind the general jabbing him in the small of the back and whining. The Romans conceived of the future as springing up behind people and surprising them – in Roman thought, you travel through time facing backwards, able to see the past spread out before you but blind to the future. This makes our metaphors and metonyms for time seem kind of stupid, huh?

Anyway, Professor von Future does not appear in this episode, and also the production budget severely constrains the triumph itself. Caesar’s spectacle is intimate rather than earthshattering – it should be like nine Rose Bowls happening during Mardi Gras while President Bush orders bible-addled shock troops to fire nuclear warheads and the longhairs; instead, it is more like two Shar Peis fighting in a wet box.

THE SPOILS
Oh, man, Vorenus! What are we going to do with you? Also, Pullo kills like nine guys without even getting up or opening his eyes. Until you have seen a dude get SO MAD about the 13th that he impales another dude with a giant barbed skull-mace, YOU HAVE NOT LIVED! It was like all my Warhammer 40,000 fantasies come to life on the small screen. Plus, the non-gladiatiroal parts of the episode were amazing, and bravo to Octavian for trying to help Pullo.