The golden age of HBO, with the starting signal for “prestigious television” left us great jewels. Some like ‘The Sopranos’ or ‘The Wire’ are well-known and claimed as the best series in history. Others remained in a kind of “middle table” despite their evident quality. ‘Roma’ (Rome) is a clear example of this.
Set in the middle of the first century BC, the series told us about the political goings-on and family feuds in the heart of the Roman Republic. And it explores it in such a way that we might well think, especially looking at it now, that we are before the great precedent from ‘Game of Thrones’. Released more than five years earlier, in the summer of 2005.
the anti peplum
In fact, we could consider this historical drama as one of the first great television epics of the 20th century: with a gigantic budget (there was talk of 100 million dollars), a spectacular historical recreation, a look at Rome that moves away from the peplum of all life and, of course, doses of political stabs, violence, sex and British actors.
The person responsible for it a somewhat inexperienced Bruno Heller (who would later sign ‘The Mentalist’ and ‘Gotham’) who was commissioned to do a series treatment based on a previous script written between no less than William J. Macdonald and John Milius (‘Apocalypse Now’).
A script with three central characters: a Octavian Augustus teenager and the only two soldiers named in Julius Caesar’s texts, Titus Pullo and Lucius Vorenusof the XIII Legion. These would become the protagonists of the series, taking advantage of the freedom of movement he had with these characters who were embodied by Ray Stevenson and Kevin McKidd.
Somewhat intimidated, the screenwriter immersed himself in the history of Rome. Not so much (but also) in the historical facts and the transition between the republic, the government of Caesar and the formation of the Empire, but in the day to day of the population. According to Heller:
“The model that first made me think of ‘oh, that’s the way to do it’ was ‘Rosencrantz and Guildestern are dead’, because the general story is so well known, like Hamlet, it’s hard to tell that story. The story downstairs is more fascinating than the one upstairs because that, a bit like Batman, is given. It is a myth. Everybody knows what’s going on.”
It was that search for the authenticity of the representation of Rome, with its people of all kinds, going more towards the city of brick instead of the one of marble so immortalized, which convinced HBO to approve what would be its most expensive and ambitious series at the time.
Between the forum and the Aventine
The first season began with the defeat of Vercingetorix and the war between Julius Caesar and Pompey as we entered the Aventine and what was happening in the patrician and plebeian houses. The setting caught the attention. the script ended up tying us to the chair in which the plots and conspiracies happened.
Just as ‘Deadwood’ a couple of years earlier offered a new way of making westerns, ‘Roma’ did the same with the historical series (more specifically those from the Roman era) with the city as something more than a stage, with three-dimensional characters and a deep exploration of the mentality of the time.
However, no matter how quality you are and no matter how acclaimed you are, money rules. And ‘Rome’ became an economic and even legal headache for HBO. Shooting in the mythical Cinecittà brought with it a certain eagerness of the Italian government to take fresh dollars with a multitude of bureaucratic obstacles, endless fees and even arrest warrants for financial producers.
The accumulation of problems meant that just before season 2 could take shape on screen, HBO decided to cancel the series. There would be no more seasons. This prompted Bruno Heller to completely rewrite the final episodes of the series in order to hastily condense the ones he had planned for years to come.
For sample: if the thread of the first season runs from the victory at Alesia (52 AC) to the death of Julius Caesar (44 AC); the second has Marco Antonio in the center, covering a very tumultuous period (civil war included) until his death in 30 BC.
Which is a shame, since were it not for this premature cancellation, the series would undoubtedly be much more remembered than it was. Fortunately, from the stumble of ‘Rome’ HBO learned a lot when preparing ‘Game of Thrones’. In fact, many of the producers on this one ended up on the other one and proved that you can make a top-tier TV epic and be successful. And that success is due, in part, to that canceled historical series.