- cross-posted to:
- roughromanmemes@piefed.social
- cross-posted to:
- roughromanmemes@piefed.social
You must log in or register to comment.
Explanation: During Caesar’s Civil War, the Republican general Pompey escaped to Egypt after a crushing defeat in the hopes of gathering more allies against Caesar. The Egyptian King, Ptolemy XIII, decided instead to kill Pompey, in the hopes of garnering support from the increasingly-powerful Caesar, who seemed poised to win the civil war. When Caesar came seeking Pompey, Ptolemy presented Caesar with Pompey’s severed head.
This was a massive miscalculation on several levels.
First, Caesar had a policy of extremely generous mercy towards his opponents in the civil war - he wanted to avoid appearing as a tyrant, and pardoned almost all of his enemies without preconditions, not even a pledge of support. This was an extremely powerful tool to exercise, as it made resisting Caesar less appealing than surrendering - if you lose nothing by surrender, not even your honor, and your cause appears hopeless… why not? By killing Pompey, Caesar was robbed of the opportunity to grant his most powerful enemy - both practically and politically - mercy, which would have been a massive PR coup.
Second, the Romans generally frowned on others dealing out justice (or ‘justice’) to Roman citizens. Roman citizens acknowledged only the authority of the Republic over them, not foreigners! While some of this posturing is just that - posturing - Roman citizens who had been mistreated by foreign rulers, or even treated fairly-but-harshly, were often the centers of calls for retribution - whether legal or military - upon those who punished them. For Pompey, a member of the Senate and consul, one of the two highest-ranking officials of the Republic, to be murdered by a king he came to with a hand opened in friendship, asking for help? That was deeply offensive to Roman norms - and perhaps more dangerously, Roman pride.
Third, Caesar and Pompey were old allies, going back decades - while some of the rhetoric between them is buried in Roman cultural norms and the forked-tongue statements typical of politicians, it’s often considered that there was some amount of genuine goodwill between the two men, even if their ambitions (and egos) led them to opposite sides of a war. They may even have genuinely been friends, at one point. To see a man he may have genuinely liked, had known for years, had worked with closely, and certainly wished to pardon from death or even dishonor or loss of property, served to him as a severed head? That undoubtedly provoked some strong emotions.
For those reasons, Ptolemy’s gift was… not well-received by Caesar.
Not sure if I’ve said it before or not, but I appreciate your detailed explanations following your memes. Always learn something interesting. Top tier content and effort. Thanks!
Always happy to spread a little trivia!
This show was great. Pretty much every event I checked was depicted exactly as (we think) it happened. Even the first scene where Lucius saves drunk Titus was inspired by some entry in Caesar’s diary.
The actual event was significantly different - the only thing they really share is the names of the two people in question. But other than that (and the needless slander of Atia), the attention to historical detail and nuance was astounding, easily one of the best/most accurate Roman media out there, up with I, Claudius.
I found the note from imdb I remembered:
You’re right, only the names are shared. I mis-remembered that the rescue in the battle was an actual event. The characters are clearly fictional but using real names was a nice detail.
You remember correctly that the rescue in battle was an actual event! But not nearly in the circumstances depicted.
In the actual event, both of them were centurions, and both trying to outdo each other in feats of daring and valor during a long and eventless siege by Gauls. They were both being ‘Pullo’ in the opening scene, in a sense. By daring, they keep the morale of their men up during long periods of inactivity. Centurions were expected to do so when circumstances allowed - no breaking ranks in the middle of battle, but in quiet moments, starting trouble on your lonesome (or in a small group) was perfectly valid as long as it didn’t endanger the unit (or as long as it wasn’t completely reckless and throwing your life away).
That kind of ‘combat by champion’ was very common in societies of that era, not to decide entire battles, but as small events before the big clash which could invigorate or dampen the spirits of the army as a whole. Centurions, as men from the ranks who were expected to be the hardest motherfuckers around, were to some degree expected to participate in daring actions like that, to reassure their men that they were being led by example (centurions also had horrific casualty rates).
Anyway, if memory serves, in one of these skirmishes Pullo is hit by a javelin that narrowly misses impaling him, but fucks with his scabbard and stops him from drawing his sword as the enemy rushes him. Vorenus, who was watching up til this point (rather than assisting, since the two were rivals for promotion, and the point was each trying to show off their individual valor), rushes out of the fortifications alone to cover Pullo until he can unfuck his sword, saving his life. As the two of them withdraw, Vorenus loses his footing and almost gets killed by the Gauls, but Pullo valiantly saves Vorenus’s life in turn, helping him make it back to the safety of the fortifications.
Their enmity ended after that, and
everyone clappedthe onlooking legionaries cheered to see a couple of brave centurions save one another and ice a half-dozen barbarians in the process.The show dynamic between Vorenus and Pullo is fantastic though, unironically, I’m glad they went with it instead.
Shame upon the house of Ptolemy!.. For taking away my opportunity to show mercy! 😤
Ha. Currently watching Rome (like right this minute) and I’m on this exact scene.
Y tu, Garth?
Top bants
