How quick overview?

Ceasar takes Gaul,
Ceasar returns to Rome,
Ceasar beats Pompey
Ceasar gets assasinated.

Too quick?

Bascially the first series started near the end of Ceasars campaign in Gaul. It follows two fictional soldiers in his army, Lucius Vorenus is more serious and has a wife and children at home in rome, the other Titus Pullo is more unruly and is often drunk and partaking of the local women.

At the beginning Ceasar beats the Gauls and has the King stripped an beaten. News of his success gets to Rome and the politicians become fearful of his popularity and convince Pompey to consipre against him. Pompey and Ceasar had been friends and ruled Rome together until now.

Pompey sends people to steal Ceasars golden eagle knowing it will effect the moral of his soldiers, and Ceasar sends Vorenus and Pullo to find it. Vorenus is not happy about it thinking it's a no win situation, when Pullo is happy as it gets him out of his cell and death sentance he got for breaking ranks in a battle at the beginning.

They find the eagle together with resucing Ceasar's Nephew Gaius Octavian and are rewarded. Ceaser see's the mark of Pompey on one of the people who stole the eagle and sends the head of the slave back to Pomepy.

So Ceasar heads back to Rome with his army and Pompey runs with many nobles as they cannot get a army together quick enough.

Meanwhile Romes gold is stolen which ends up turning up in Pullo's hands, which he does eventually return to Ceasar but only because he has to and Ceasar overlooks Pullo's actions with the gold because he needs it so much to pay the soldiers.

Vorenus returns to his wife to find a baby in the house, he has been away many years so is rightly upset. His wife tells him it's his daughters baby.

Pullo ends up teaching Ceasars nephew Octavian while Vorenus tries to make a honest living but it all goes wrong. In the end he accepts Mark Anthonys offer of going back into the army who accepts him back because he needs good men while Ceasar is off chasing Pompey.

Ceasar chases Pomey and beats him causing Pompey to flee to egypt where he is killed.

Ceasar goes to egypt and otherthrows the boy king in favour of his sister Cleopatra.

Ceasar returns to Rome and Pullo gets into more trouble while Vorenus is very successful. We also find out during the series that the baby is really his wifes baby who she had with her sisters husband. Pullo finds out and kills her sisters husband to hide the secret and protect Vorenus.

Pullo kills a man in broad daylight and gets sentanced to death again. He is put in an arena with 3 gladiators and is willing to die until they insult the 13th legion (which he was part of) so he fights and starts to beat them all and even more gladiators are put into the arena. The crowd starts to root for him but eventually he falls, but just as he is expecting to die Vorenus jumps into the arena and fights with him. The crowd cheers in approval.

Ceasar wants to punish them but realises they are heroes of the rank and file and makes Vorenus a Senator or Rome .

This togther with Ceasar allowing the Gauls and Celts into the Senate anger the others and cause a plot to kill Ceasar which Brutus does of course.

There is lots more which happens of course but much too much to go into here.

The series is quite graphic in both the violence and the sex, but it is also displayed pretty gritty and is used very well in the telling of the story.

I like the way the two fictional soldiers are used and how they are involed in almost every aspect of historical importance that occurred at that time in the Roman Empire.

oo Sky+ it then thanks Nym

I watch this. It's very good. shame this is the last season.

Only just found this out, but the second episode of the second series of ROME was shown on BBC at 9pm on Sunday. It seems its showing on both wednesdays and sundays but they are not repeats of the previous days but are the following episodes. Lucky for my I hit series link on sky and it recorded sunday nights episode for me. So next wednesday is episode 3 of series 2.

Maybe its repeated at some point? The second episode had a few things happening in it, but I guess the main thing was the fight between Octavius Caesar and Mark Anthony which ended in Octavius leaving Rome with a group of soldiers to follow a political career.

Thats handy I missed episode 3. Im already hooked though.

Play.com have the first season DVD (6 Discs) on sale for £22.99:

http://www.play.com/DVD/DVD/4-/923173/Rome-Complete-Season-1/Product.html

-- Edited by Man In Black at 17:56, 2007-06-28