#hbo rome but only the bits with Cassius

[servuscallidus]

My current and pressing list of things to watch is full of things I cannot physically watch (three hours long or a serie or both) but I need to. I can't think of anything else

[mistresstrevelyan]

Alright my pretty starshines, it’s HISTORY GEEKING HOUR here at Persephone’s Parlour! Now I KNOW there are more famous depictions of this scene (Rex Harrison in 1963′s Cleopatra) and more accurate ones (Ciaran Hinds in HBO’s ROME) but for some reason this one has ALWAYS moved me to tears. Which is odd because: 1) The man playing Gaius Julius Caesar isn’t just too young to play him and doesn’t exactly have the gravitas of either Harrison (The proudest and most aristocratic of Caesars) or Hines (The most relatable and yet enigmatic of Caesars). It’s Jeremy Sisto whose most known acting credit to date was...wait for it...Elton in CLUELESS. (He fared far better playing Jesus in a miniseries the critics savaged unfairly imo)

2) The guy playing Cassius, Tobias Moretti, will forever be Kommissar Richard Moser of Austria’s ADORABLE Kommissar Rex series. Like how could this NOT shatter my immersion? (It somehow didn’t)

But this miniseries did several things NO OTHER depiction of him has really explored before. His youth and dangerous life under Sulla, his lean, gaunt and sometimes sickly appearance due to fevers and possibly epilepsy on top of other illnesses he is likely to have had due to his promiscuity. (I don’t judge btw, it’s just a fact that protection back then, as it was, often failed.) He even meets his last wife, Calpurnia, while having a seizure and she just holds him tightly to prevent him from hurting himself & then she places his head in her lap just like in the scene above.

Anyway, what really struck me was that they actually followed some of the accounts of two friends desperately trying to get to him while everyone just watched. (That made my heart clench) And then the Shakespeare moment with NO “E tu, Brute?”, just a young man in agony over feeling that he has to kill the man who has been the only father figure he ever knew and said father figure’s disbelief, heartbreak and...not even a moment of anger. That broke me btw.

And then Calpurnia runs in, we hear him whimper, their eyes meet and he looks at peace before dying. She gathers him to her as she had done when they first met and places his head in her lap. It is historical fact that Calpurnia never married again. Why that was, we don’t know. Given how many times Caesar cheated on her and humiliated her, she would have had every right to be angry. But Roman Matrons guarded their dignitas as fiercely as their male counterparts did. Is it likely that Caesar was given this last bit of tenderness as he lay dying in the portico of Pompey’s theatre? No. But there is also nothing in the ancient texts stating that it didn’t, so it’s MY CANON now.

@knightofphoenix This one’s for you. Thoughts on the scene above? Yay or Nay?

[mjvnivsbrvtvs]

2000 words of (checks notes) hbo rome, but Antony captures Brutus alive and no one is quite sure what to do with that. mostly unedited, sort of heading in a direction for sure.

Cassius is dead.

And,  

well.

Brutus is alive.

For whatever reason, Antony had decided to drag him back to his camp, and he sits in Antony’s tent like a child waiting to find out what punishment is going to get doled out while listening to Antony and Octavian shout at each other from some other place in the encampment.

Cassius is dead, and Brutus feels like he was cheated out of being able to take the honorable way out. Instead, he was ignobly marched back across a never-ending field of bodies, a prisoner, maybe something worse. To step between bodies of the men he commanded to their deaths felt like the worst kind of cowardice.

Cassius is dead, Brutus has the blood of his brother-in-law under his nails, and he feels inexplicably jealous.

The yelling stops, and after a moment, Antony steps back inside.

‘Great news!’ he says cheerfully. ‘You won’t be dying today!’

Brutus stares at him. Antony looks back expectantly.

In the back of his throat, the decorum that dictates social niceties threatens to claw its way out of his mouth, to show the appropriate gratefulness.  

Cassius is dead, and Brutus wishes that was his fate as well, so he swallows hard and says nothing.

When it becomes clear that Brutus won’t say anything, Antony pulls a seat over and sits across from Brutus, uncharacteristically serious. ‘I know that this isn’t really ideal for anyone,’ he says, looking Brutus in the eye. ‘But it is better to survive. Think of your mother, how much better it will be for her to get a letter from you than to receive one from me announcing your death.’

It feels like Antony is attempting something like reassurance, like he’s worried Brutus might take the stylus off the desk and shove it through his own neck (he had thought about it, and immediately discarded the idea) but all Brutus can concentrate on is how much he doesn’t want to think of his mother.  

Every personal betrayal, every manipulation at the hands of his own mother comes to the forefront of his mind and he can feel his expression twist into something bitter. ‘I’d consider it a personal favor if you would tell her that anyway,’ Brutus finds himself saying, and Antony laughs, sharp and surprised.

‘I didn’t think you had it in you to be cruel,’ he says, leaning forward.

‘You know, I never really wanted this?’ Brutus says, because now the words won’t stop spilling out of his mouth, ‘but she used my name, and Caesar couldn’t trust me after that.’

There is some emotion that Brutus can’t identify in Antony’s gaze, something quiet and calculating, not unlike a predator considering how to cast judgement.

‘You helped kill him,’ says Antony, tone neutral.

Brutus looks away, and back own at his hands. They aren’t shaking anymore, but on that day, he wasn’t sure they would ever stop. Cassius might have put the blade back into his hands, but he was the one who grasped it and drove it into the body of a man he had once considered to be like a father.  

Abruptly, he wonders if Octavian is somewhere on the other side of the material of the tent, eavesdropping on them like some kind of ghost.

‘I did,’ agrees Brutus, because there’s no sense in denying it or trying to claim some kind of innocence to the act. It runs in the family, even if he tried to deny that legacy before. He won’t try to pass blame for the action now. ‘You should let Octavian do whatever it is he wants to do.’ He sits up a little straighter and narrows his eyes. ‘What do you gain from this anyway? What benefit am I to you?’

Antony leans back, posture open and lazy. It’s not sincere, Brutus knows. It’s the false nonchalance that Antony presents the world when he wants people to look a little less closely, to take him a little less seriously, all the while planning out a series of strategies in the back of his mind.

‘Do I have to have an ulterior motive?’ asks Antony. ‘Maybe I just want to ruin Octavian’s day for a bit.’

He stands up before Brutus can reply, and begins to walk back towards the tent flap. ‘You’ll be staying here,’ Antony informs Brutus. ‘There are soldiers on guard duty, so don’t think about trying to escape.’ He looks at his desk, to the stylus, and after a brief pause of consideration, crosses the space in two easy steps to grab it. ‘Remember!’ he says, grinning. ‘Tomorrow’s a new day!’

Then he’s gone.

And Brutus is once again left with his hands, and Cassius’s blood.

•

At some point in the night, Brutus falls asleep.

When he wakes up, he is in Antony’s bed, with absolutely no recollection of how he got there. His hands, Brutus notices as he sits upright and pushes the blankets off of him, are clean.

‘And he lives!’ says Antony. He’s sitting behind his desk, watching Brutus from over top the paper in his hand. His tone is jovial, but it doesn’t meet his eyes. ‘If you wanted to go back to sleep for another hour, I won’t tell: it might be the last time you’ll get the chance to sleep in.’

The entire exchange is baffling.

The expression on Brutus’ face must convey as much, because Antony laughs. ‘Just because you are my prisoner doesn’t mean it has to be painful for us both.’

Brutus arches an eyebrow at the use of the possessive and makes a note to eventually find out the specifics of what Antony and Octavian had been fighting about. ‘I think you'll find that sentiment goes against almost every expectation someone might have if they found themselves held captive by a political rival,’ points out Brutus.

‘I like to think of us as people who could have been political allies under different circumstances,’ counters Antony. ‘We did work together for some time.’

‘I think’ says Brutus slowly, ‘that you have some ulterior motive you’ve been angling towards for some time.’

Silence, except for the general ambience of a military encampment the day after a resounding victory. Conversation, men looking forward to returning home, the sharp crackle of an early morning fire. Life goes on. When the sun comes up in full, the bodies left on the battlefield will begin to stink and decay under the full force of the heat.

The fight in Brutus, the revulsion that he will be used for another person’s end goals again, fades out of him, replaced with a quiet grief at the thought of the men he led to their death.

Antony snaps his fingers.

‘You look like you’re thinking unhappy thoughts,’ says Antony. ‘Do not. It’s always better to live. If you must spiral into melancholia, wait until I’m gone.’

‘Besides!’ continues Antony. ‘Soon we will be back in Rome!’

Brutus can’t think of anything he’s looking forward to less.

•

Brutus wishes more than anything that Antony had just given him a sword so he could fall on it.

Currently, the feeling is driven less by a sense of duty (what kind of man begs for mercy? comes the voice of his mother. I didn’t beg this time, mother, he would say in reply) or the open wound of loss, but instead by an intense awareness that he does not belong in this place anymore but more importantly 

annoyance.

If he thought he would have to wait around to see what Octavian and Antony were arguing about back in Philippi, he was wrong. The second Antony had set foot in Rome, with Brutus half a step behind him, Octavian immediately launched into an impassioned speech that started with, ‘You should be grateful to Antony, if it were up to me, I would have taken your head displayed it for all to see,’ (poetic in a grim sort of way, thinks Brutus) and ended with:

‘Don’t get too comfortable. You belong to Antony now, and he’ll do with you whatever he wants.’

It’s clearly meant to be some threat, but it’s laughable because Brutus knows this, everyone who’s heard about the outcome at Philippi knows this, there’s probably creative graffiti about it already going up on the walls of the city, and Octavian says it like Brutus hasn’t spent the last week trying to puzzle together why Antony wanted him alive so badly.

The facts of the world are as follow: the sun rises in the east, it sets in the west, Octavian has only become more insufferable over the years, and Brutus belongs to Antony now.

The only person who doesn’t seem to be aware of this is Antony, who continues to act as though Brutus is more of a peer that he had a minor disagreement and has subsequently forgiven.

‘It’s been nice catching up with you, Octavian,’ says Antony with a smile that conveys that the entire exchange has been anything but nice. ‘But I have things to do, matters to attend to.’  

Brutus says nothing.

Octavian levels him with one last bitter look before turning around and leaving the room.

‘Well!’ says Antony after a moment. ‘That went as well as to be expected. I have a feeling he thought I’d have you executed somewhere along the way back.’

‘He’s not the only one,’ comments Brutus dryly, and Antony punches him in the shoulder good naturedly.

‘I love that grim sense of humor you have,’ he says. ‘Come on, let us go home. I’m fucking exhausted.’  

•

Home, it turns out, is Pompey’s villa.

Or more accurately: it’s Antony’s now.

Brutus can see it on the walls, in the décor, in the choices of fabrics and design. It’s alive, it’s vibrant, it’s a complete antithesis of everything Pompey stood for.  

He likes it.

‘So-’ Antony starts to say, at the exact moment Brutus says:

‘What’s your endgame here, Antony?’

It’s a recreation of the morning in Philippi: the open, if somewhat confusing, amicability that doesn’t quite meet the eyes. The sense that Antony is thinking of things in stratagem, planning for some kind of outcome no one has even thought to imagine, much less prepare for.

The villa is nice. Brutus likes what Antony’s done with the place.

He also feels very much like he’s walked into the open mouth of something with very sharp teeth, and if he must be assigned a role in whatever Antony is gearing up for, he would at least like an idea of what’s to come.

Whatever Antony is searching for in Brutus’ eyes, he must have found, because the tension in his jaw disappears.

‘Some other time,’ he says finally. ‘Not today.’

There’s a promise in between the words.

Brutus tries to feel grateful for that, at least. It’s hard, because once, before all of this, he used to be--

•

--a person.

Antony shows him to one of the rooms, makes some remark about not leaving the villa, with a side glance at Posca, who does his best not to meet Brutus’ eyes, which is understandable. Antony takes off, and in the absence of anything else to do, Brutus decides to try and reinvent himself.

He can no longer be Brutus, descendant of a king killers. He is no longer a reluctant, albeit talented, politician, following in the footsteps of all the other politicians that came before him. He’s not even entirely sure what his status as a citizen of Rome is. In lieu of death, Octavian might push for exile.

The only concrete fact about himself now is that Antony wanted him alive, and so he belongs to Antony.

The lack of solid ground to stand on makes exile a tempting thought.

At some point in the afternoon (no further along in the process of reinvention than when he started) a young woman stops by: Cynthia, if Brutus recalls correctly. One of Antony’s slaves. She asks if he’s hungry, if he’d like an apple and--

--for a moment, Brutus feels like he’s returned to Philippi, standing defeated, surrounded by bodies. The dead don’t eat, they need coins for the afterlife, not food, the dead don’t eat, and he’s not a person anymore--

--Brutus says yes and follows her.

•

Antony is exhausted.

Octavian, he knows, is planning something. There is something ugly and spiteful inside of that youth, Antony can’t stand to be around him, no matter how much Atia dotes on him.  

When Antony returns back home late in the evening, he’s greeted with the sight of Brutus sitting on one of the couches, peeling an apple, while Cynthia stands nearby, slicing up a pear. He pulls the heavy fabric of the toga off his body and casts it across a chair, making his way towards the two.

Draping himself along the couch next to Brutus, he leans over and says, ‘Slice off a piece for me.’

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Posca watching the scene unfold from the quiet shadows of the evening.

Brutus cuts off a part of the apple so that the slice is stuck on the side of the blade, and holds it out to Antony, like this is an everyday occurrence, like Brutus isn’t pointing a knife at the person who owns his life.

He realizes it, a moment later, and freezes, but before he can course correct, pull back, apologize, Antony leans forward and bites the apple slice right off the sharp edge of the knife.

Brutus stares at him.

Or, more specifically, Antony is delighted to note, he stares at the line of Antony’s throat, his gaze lingering for just a second too long.

[verecunda]

Fic writer tag game

Tagged by @nocompromise-noregrets. Thanks! :D

Sticking it under a cut, as it’s rather long.

How many works do you have on AO3?

Currently 102!

What’s your total AO3 word count?

300,745. Which isn’t bad, actually!

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Oof. I’ve written for so many random wee fandoms, this could get a bit long! But here goes. Excluding generic tags like “All Media Types” or “Author’s Name - Works”, and counting books and their screen adaptations as one fandom, we have:

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke Horrible Histories (BBC) Dickensian (BBC) The Hobbit (movies) Frontier Wolf - Rosemary Sutcliff Night at the Museum Historical RPF Julius Caesar - Shakespeare The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien The Eagle of the Ninth/The Eagle - Rosemary Sutcliff Endeavour (ITV) ’Salem’s Lot - Stephen King Final Fantasy IX Great Expectations - Charles Dickens Arthurian Mythology Final Fantasy X The Chronicles of Prydain - Lloyd Alexander Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson Original Fiction The Silmarillion - J.R.R. Tolkien The Haunting of Hill House - Shirley Jackson The Girl in Lovers Lane (1960) Brave (2012) The Uninvited (1944) Antony and Cleopatra - Shakespeare Eagles of the Empire series - Simon Scarrow Exile | Avernum The Pirates! In an Adventure With Scientists! (2012) Rome (HBO) The Fugitives - Rosemary Sutcliff Monty Python’s Flying Circus (BBC) King Arthur (2004) Ghosts (BBC)

That’s thirty-three altogether!  What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

My four old NATM fics: Amo, Amas, Amat, Slightly Scandalous, Reality Bites, Poetry Slam, as well as Kindred Spirits, my Thomas/Captain Ghosts fic.

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

Yes, all the time. I went through a patchy bit a few years ago, when my brain just wasn’t up to it, but I really appreciate any feedback I get, and I like to let people know that.

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Probably Against Hope. I wrote that to fill in the details of Estella’s adoption by Miss Havisham in the Dickensian universe, so the ending was pretty bleak, with the understanding that it was only going to get worse.

Do you write crossovers? if so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

Nah. I’ve had the odd idea for a crossover, but never got round to actually writing any of them.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Only once, and it was such a bloody odd one. Someone left this tl;dr comment on a fic - uh - ~critiquing~ the actions of the POV character in canon, even though it had absolutely no bearing on anything that was actually in the fic. It was so detached from the fic, in fact, I kind of suspect it was part of some longer screed c+p’d from somewhere else. Weird.

Do you write smut? if so what kind?

Yeah, when the mood hits. What kind really depends on the pairing. I’m quite happy to write anything from sweet vanilla first time cuddle-sex, to filthy rough shameless hate-sex. 

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowledge, though I should probably check those mirror sites that pinch folks’ fics en masse. I keep losing the links, though.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes! My NATM fics have been translated by a few people.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No. I think if I ever tried, I would drive my poor co-author to distraction!

What’s your all time favorite ship?

What a question! It really does depend on what I’m hyperfixating on at that moment, but there are definitely some I find myself coming back to time and again: Squall/Seifer, Zidane/Garnet, Sam/Frodo, Brutus/Cassius, Marcus/Esca... those are the ones that spring immediately to mind. <3

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

Oh... too many to even think about.

What are your writing strengths?

Gosh, that’s a hard one. I think I do characterisation pretty well. And on a good day, I think my description and scene-setting is strong.

What are your writing weaknesses?

Well, on a bad day, I think my description and scene-setting is florid and pedantic.

But above all, PLOTS. What the hell are they all about?!! (Hence why I write one-shots. XD)

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

Like most things, I think moderation is key. A word or phrase used judiciously is fine, especially if it’s one that your readers will be familiar with from canon, or one whose meaning can be easily worked out from context. Translation notes at the end or mouseover text can also be good aids in these cases. But I wouldn’t go writing whole chunks of conversation in another language, even if it was a real language I knew well. When a writer does that, they’re not serving the story, they’re just showing off how clever they think they are. Above all, writing is about communication, and if you start put up barriers like that, you’re cutting off communication with the reader.

Actually, that reminds me, I was going to go back and add a translation note for some Elvish phrases in a recent fic.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Heh. I think if we’re going right the way back, my first fandom was technically historical RPF (Bonnie Prince Charlie/Flora MacDonald DON’T JUDGE ME). I think the first fandom I ever posted fic online for was actually Final Fantasy VII.

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

As far as actual fanfiction goes, to this day I still think The Pirates! In an Adventure With Origin Stories is one of the most absolute fun things I’ve ever written. :D I’m also still very proud of my original fic from last year, The Revelation of Brother Eadwine (tropey monk porn and dirty marginalia, if that’s of any interest!).

I tag: @di-daydreamer, @themalhambird, @bryndeavour, @pudentilla, @chiropteracupola. 

[gojurt]

hbo rome is getting on my damn nerves and i think its bc i keep expecting it to be more than a soap opera which is what it is. im basically only watching now bc i like brutus, marc antony, cassius, and cicero bc i think theyre neat. there is interesting writing in it but the interesting bits are overshadowed by a lot of shit thats kind of stupid and weird. oh well

[bnfbc]

Rubicon - by Tom Holland - January 2021 - selected by Andy

Andy: “It was a slog in the beginning with too much going on. Once Caesar showed up things were easier to follow and a lot more interesting. Holland did tons of research and it shows, but if it wasn’t for the last part this would be one of my worse rated books.” C+

Gabe: “I thought was a pretty bad book. My main beef - no context. Holland wrote as though you knew what he was talking about, and it took until nearly 2/3 of the way through until I caught on. Also, he never actually defined what'The Fall of Rome' actually meant. The only redeeming quality was that I learned a bit about Julius Caesar and Cleopatra. Thumbs down.” D

Jachles: “ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED? No, Tom Holland, I’m really not. Prior to this, I’ve relied on Gladiator and the series Rome for all my knowledge about ancient Rome. So while this was obviously a bit more encompassing and fully researched than those great pieces of cinema, it just left me confused and bored. There were too many characters to keep track of, and none of them were developed in a way that made you really get a sense of who they were. Would have been better as a miniseries...called Rome, on HBO from 2005 to 2007, and currently streaming on HBO Max. ” C+

Paul: “I wish I could uncross the proverbial Rubicon of starting this book. The reviews on the back cover claim it is ‘thrilling’ and ‘the crispest account yet of the fall of the Roman Republic,’ and man, if that’s the case, this genre is about as thrilling and crisp as a three-day-old Caesar salad. Holland’s writing is pretentious and muddled, and unless you’re coming into this with a pretty serious knowledge of Roman history, you’ll be lost in the sea of Crassus, Cassius, Catalus, Claudius, and Clodius before you know it. Skip this one and wait for the (hopefully coming soon) drunk history version by Tom Holland the actor.” C

Tommy: "Holland takes the reader on an in-depth journey through Rome's empire-building history. It felt as if Holland was writing for those with a thorough understanding of the time period and familiarity with the major players. Lacking this knowledge led me to feel disconnected and disinterested. The backstabbing, scheming, and multitude of characters made it feel like an ancient soap opera instead of a coherent historical examination. I respect Holland's attempt to recreate the atmosphere of a period that he admits is nearly impossible to establish with existing documentation, but this was a true slog. I was relieved to finish this and move on to the next book in my queue." D+

GPA: 1.80