XDA

Reading Roman history has me wondering about the show Rome. Tonight is episode 7, titled Pharsalus, which is the name of the turning point battle in Greece between Pompeii Magnus and Gaius Julius Caesar. What bugs me a little is that there is no sense in the show of the passage of time. We know some time has passed, but not nearly enough. In episode 1, we were shown the death of Caesar's only daughter Julia. That was in 54 BC. The battle of Pharsalus was August 8, 48 BC. Does it seem like 6 years have passed in the past 6 episodes? It doesn't to me. If the current series goes to the regular 12 or 13 episodes at the same rate, we'll be to 42 BC, two years after Caesar's death.

I guess that won't be completely terrible. Wild Bill Hickok was killed before the end of the first season of Deadwood and that series has only gotten better as it goes along. I am almost caught up in episodes on that. It is a great TV show.

One thing that holds back our sense of the passage of time is the lack of change in Octavian. He was supposed to be 9 in episode 1 and 15 in episode 6, yet he looks exactly the same. We all know that our children change a lot, body and soul, in that period of time. By 42 BC, he's active in chasing down the murderers of his grand uncle (and later in the power struggle between Marcus Antonius and himself). I doubt 16 year old Max Pirkis, as good as he is, can pull off Octavian becoming Augustus in his late 30s next year on Rome or even the year after that. (He didn't look much older than 9 in Master and Commander though, where he was great.)

What I really want them to do is slow down, so that the battle of Actium is at the end of Season 7 or so.