1. Tutorial Topic: A Bigger Picture

Margaret Toscano ‘Gowns and Gossip: Gender
and Class Struggle in Rome’ in Rome, Season
One: History makes Television (Monica Cyrino
[ed.]) (Chichester, 2009), 153-167.

2. Tute Questions
Does the HBO series Rome depict a broader picture of
life in ancient Rome than most films based on
Roman history?
What kind of issues can a series develop that a movie
cannot?
Are serials a more effective way to present antiquity?

3. “In spite of the centrality of major historical figures
to the plot, the genius of the series Rome lies in
its depiction of power as intricately complex,
many layered, always shifting, unstable, and
never focused on just the privileged few. Power
is decentered throughout by both the narrative
and the visual movement away from the middle
of major events to peripheral private comments
about them.” (Toscano, 153, 2009)

4. “It is not only big personalities, like Caesar and
Pompey, Antony and Cleopatra, who determine
important events, as traditional history insists.
Rather, cause and effects is a multi-
dimensional interlinking of the wills and wants of
many characters of every size, shape,
colour, age, talent, ethnicity, and rank, who
themselves are usually unaware of the part they
play in larger events.” (Toscano, pp. 154,
2009)

5. There is no thread so slight that it does not matter
to the larger tapestry.
(Toscano pp. 154, 2009)

6. 
Lucius Vorenus'

A fictional plebian soldier
who happens to have a
front row seat at most of
Rome's historical
happenings.

His Rise and Fall
through the series is
visually shown through
what he wears.
I am the Centurion
of the 13th
Legion

7. 
Roman Senator

Head of The Aventine
(Gangster Boss)

8. 
Helping Caesarion
Escape Egypt

Back to Soldier with
Antony's personal
guard in Egypt

9. Antony

10. “He Knows That Clothes Make The Man.
They mark position and wealth in a society where
certain colour and types of cloth were not only
prohibited by lack of money but also legislated
according to class and office.”
(Toscano, pp. 155, 2009)

11. Gossip!

12. Gossip
The Rome series...clearly connects women's
gossip with important news and the official
reporting of events, letter sending, and all types
of spoken, written, and visual communication.
(Toscano, pp. 156, 2009)

13. Gossip - Graffiti
 “In this respect, graffiti function in Rome as the
collary to the absent mov. If...Rome deliberately
fractures the substantive mob, graffiti then
become the signal trace of the masses' voices.”
(Christopher Lockett, 110, 2010)

14. “Both slave women do the dirty work for their
mistresses, seemingly without scruples. In fact,
they both serve as psychological doubles for
their owners. They instinctively seem to know
what to do in any given instance to play out the
hidden desires of their mistresses, implied by
the fact that they often seem to act without
orders. Merula and Eleni's actions reveal hidden
motives and tactics and provide another level on
which we may read and interpret the characters
of Atia and Servillia ” (Toscano, 159, 2009)

15. Servilia/Eleni Vs Atia/Merula

16. “The two slave women stand rigidly behind their
mistresses, as though they are facing off for a
duel. As the noble women keep up the polite
talk of affected friendship and mutual concern,
the hostile body language of the two slaves
tells the real story of what is going on
underneath the surface: both Servilia and Atia
know the treacherous actions of the other and
are on their guard...

17. 
...Though the focus at first is on men's power in
this series, the power of women quickly
surfaces as equally important in the escalating
conflict in Rome.”
(Toscano, 159, 2009)

18. The Defining Moment in HBO
Rome's Ides of March?

19. “...their small lives impact the larger events of
history.” (Toscano, 160, 2009)

20. Such attention to artistic details creates
subliminal subtexts that are transmitted through
visual images and art direction. What is
happening on a thematic and narrative level is
iconically represented in the background. For
example, Atia buying jewellery or choosing a
wig may seem an insignificant detail, but it
highlights the importance of women's wiles for
the plot. This technique reinforces the intent
and desire of the writers and directors to show
the effects of small events and people on
history. (Toscano, 164, 2009)

21. And finally...

“Power is dispersed throughout the complex
social system of the ancient city, neither equally
nor predictably. HBO-BBC's Rome is an
effective critique on power because it
realistically depicts its many facets, its
subtleties, and its constant ironic elusiveness.”
(Toscano, 166, 2009)

22. Christopher Lockett. Accidental History: Mass
Culture and HBO's Rome. Journal of Popular
Film and Television. 102-112 (2010)

23. 
Rome's very title is significant. Naming the
series for a collective (the city) as opposed to a
specific individual marks a departure from the
tendency of the so-called historical epic of this
sort to take a singular figure as its focus, such
as with Julius Caesar, Spartacus, Ben-Hur,
Cleopatra, or Gladiator.
(Lockett, 104, 2010)

24. Negative to this approach?
The valor, or villainy of Brutus's actions is
effectively rendered moot in Rome. The
assumption of his individual agency, necessary
to either position of the argument, becomes
second to historically marginilzed and indeed
historically invisible actants – namely, women,
plebs, and slaves, whose own actions and
agency in Rome render the Great Men helpless
to history's accidental progression.
(Lockett,111, 2010)