Rome 1.04 - Stealing from Saturn

Caesar enters Rome and takes the city as his own. He offers a pardon to whoever has acted against him in the past.

Pompey is confident that Caesar's army will mutiny when they're not paid. In the last episode he took the gold from the treasury, which should leave Caesar broke. Pompey expects the gold to reach him in Corfinium, but it doesn't arrive. He finds out from the only survivor of the battle with the scouts that Vorenus was the leader, and it's suspected that he took the gold.

Caesar consults the augurs to find out if the God Jupiter supports his control of Rome. Birds are released, and the augurs have to interpret Jupiter's will by the direction they fly. To be certain that the augurs will be favourable, Caesar bribes the chief augur 250,000 sestertii. It's unclear how much this would be in today's money, but the augur's yearly salary was approximately 1,000 sesterii. And guess what? The next day the augur announces that the birds have shown that Jupiter favours Caesar.

Vorenus, now a civilian, opens a new business, trading slaves and commercial items from Gaul. If I understood correctly, he's also offering fire insurance. That's a big responsibility for a single man. He tries to gain favour with his wife Niobe, confessing that he hasn't treated her right. He holds a party to greet his new guests. One of the guests is Evander Pulchio, the father of Niobe's new born baby. Evander gets drunk and starts a brawl, in which he knocks over the bust of Janus. Vorenus considers this a bad omen.

Later in the evening Pompey's son Quintus arrives to demand the stolen gold back. Vorenus knows nothing about it, so Quintus threatens to kill Niobe. At this moment Pullo arrives, dressed like a king and throwing coins around. He jumps to Vorenus' defence, taking Quintus prisoner. They lead Quintus to Caesar, expecting him to be executed, but Caesar is merciful. He sends Quintus back to Pompey with the offer of a truce.

Mark Antony considers offering a truce a sign of weakness. Only Octavian is wise enough to understand Caesar's strategy. He expects Pompey to reject the truce, which will make the senators abandon him and go to Caesar to ask for mercy. Octavian is unusually intelligent for a 14-year-old.

After Quintus is sent away, Caesar has an epileptic fit. Epilepsy was known as morbus comitialis, and it was considered a sign that a person was disfavoured by Apollo. Caesar's slave Posca quickly leads Caesar away into a closet where he can't be seen. The only other witness, seemingly, was Octavian, who's sworn to secrecy. But one of Atia's servants also witnessed the incident.

It's not certain that Caesar really was epileptic. Modern scholars suspect that it was another illness.

On Vorenus' encouragement, Pullo brings the gold to Caesar, claiming that he's been keeping it for him. Caesar says he knows that Pullo is a thief, but he'll forgive him. He gives Pullo a reward of 10,000 sesterii. A lot of money.

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