Rome, Episode 1.05 "The Ram Has Touched the Wall" (Review)

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Rating: 8/10

How happy, eh? To be a slave. Have no will. To make no decisions.
Pompey

Pompey accepted Caesar'struce, and the leader reflects on his next move, happy to be in a stalemate so he can enjoy Servilia's company. Meanwhile, Atia continues to invite him to dinner, and he continues to refuse, making her angry against Servilia.
Vorenus continues in his new profession of slave trader, while Pullo has new job ...

Interesting episode but not as much as the previous one. The various stories, however, go ahead, with some remarkable development.

Azia takes Pullo to teach Octavian to "manly arts". The soldier asks for advice to the young man concerning the matter of Niobe (he suspected her affair with Evandro), showing that he understood the future emperor much better than his mother. Eventually the two tortureEvandro and after having extorted the truth, kill him, and decide not to say anything to Vorenus.

About blameless Lucius, despite the fiasco of the party persists in wanting to remain a civilian, but things are going worse and worse. He goes for help and advice to the ancient-roman version of the local boss, Erastes Fulmen, meeting him in the thermal baths, a typical movie scene when it comes to today's mafia movies (for example a similar one is in The Blues Brothers.

Vorenus agrees to work for Fulmen as a bodyguard, but when he discovers that the job is instead of doing his personal assassin, he leave. At the end he goes back to being a soldier (finally!), part of the Evocati, wich, as I understood, are kind of permanent conscription.

According to what Marc Antony says, Caesar stalls about Pompey because he don't want to leave Servilia.

Eventually he will be forced to put his plans of conquest above love, and leave. Servilia turns out that there was Azia behind this decision and curses her and Caesar quite badly. I'm curious to find out what will come out by all this. Meanwhile, Pompey fled to Greece.

Quotes

Caesar: Judicious use of mercy is worth 10000 men. And if my last coin buys me a throne, it's a fair price.

Posca: A throne?

CaesarPoetic license.

Caesar: Posca here thinks I should accept the truce. Make peace.

Mark Antony: In exchange for what?

Posca: Peace is it's own reward.

Pullo: I've seen you kill. There's plenty of soldier in you.

Octavian: It's not the killing. It's the waving about of swords I find tedious. I dare say I can kill people readly enough, as long as they're not fighting back.

Pullo: Never fear, young dominus. We're make a regular terror of you.

Octavian: At best I will be a middlig swordsman.

Pullo: It's better than nothing.

Octavian: There you are wrong. The gaveyards are full of middling swordsmen. Best to be no swordsman at all than a middlig swordsman.