David and I have become addicted to a television series called Rome. We have been renting the season one DVD's from family video because we don't have cable. Even if we did have cable, we wouldn't be able to watch Rome because it's an HBO series. We are only on the 5th show of season one, so Julius Caesar hasn't even been named emperor yet. However, he has marched on Rome is going to fight Pompey very soon. I can't believe how accurate most of the show is. It really shows all of the plots, subplots, planning, and conniving that it took to make Caesar the emperor. All the main characters are in it: JC, Octavius/Augustus, Marc Antony, Pompey, Cato, Cicero, and Brutus. And all of the actors are really good. David doesn't like the actor who plays Cicero because he, Cicero, is a sniveling, snotty kind of guy. David had always imagined Cicero as more powerful. I kind of like the guy. I mean, Cicero was a powerful orator, but I get the feeling that he was also a person who people wanted to shut up as soon as he started to speak. And the actor who plays Cicero really pulls off that part well.

The only problem with the whole series is that there is a lot of sex and nudity in it. Now, I know that Rome was a filthy dirty sex pit, so I won't fault the show for accuracy. However, I have seen full frontal and backal nudity of both sexes, and it's a little much. I don't think it's sinful that we watch the show because we don't watch it for the sex, and Rome can be educational at times. And no, I don't mean sex-educational. But I surely do wish the sex scenes we more modest. I don't know. That's how I'm rationalizing it, anyway.