Rome

Rome (2005)

3 corrected entries in show generally

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Corrected entry: It is made out in Series 2 as if Livia is Octavian's first wife. In fact she was his third wife. In reality his marriages to his two previous wives only lasted 2 years in total so historically they were much less relevant than Livia, the mother of Tiberius, the next Emperor.

Marcus Scott

Correction: Creative license. The show also leaves out Brutus' wife, several of Antony's wives and Octavia's husbands, along with a number of children. They have to leave some people out, or the show would have too many characters to focus on. Furthermore, while it is IMPLIED that Livia is his first wife, it's never actually STATED. He could have been married before when he was living with Agrippa.

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Corrected entry: At the time the series is set the height of the average Roman foot soldier is estimated by historians to be about 5 feet 4 inches. A big chap like Pullo would have looked like he was surrounded by Hobbits in battle. The Celtic peoples that the Romans fought tended to be significantly taller due to a better diet than Mediterranean people. The small battle shown in the first episode is therefore not strictly accurate. As more Central and Northern Europeans were recruited by the Romans the average height of the army rose. Excess character height tends to be a mistake in all historical dramas and would be extremely difficult for the directors to correct.

Marcus Scott

Correction: When real people are portrayed in films, the actor or actress is often the wrong height, as acting ability generally takes precedence over exact appearance. Likewise many other physical factors (age, hair colour, weight) take second place to the quality of the performance when casting. In a nutshell, using actors of the wrong physical appearance is completely standard in films. As such, in common with other standard movie conventions, this sort of thing is not considered to be a mistake.

Tailkinker

Correction: The filmmakers do not claim to be historically accurate.

Stealing From Saturn - S1-E4

Factual error: The verse Octavia recites is from Virgilius' poem "the Aeneid". That poem was written at least a quarter of a decade after the death of Caesar.

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Trivia: Although they didn't have any scenes together, Kevin McKidd (Vorenus) and Tobias Menzies (Brutus) would discuss their characters and brainstorm about how to portray them, because they felt their characters went through very similar moral conflicts. Confirmed by Kevin McKidd on the season one DVD commentary.

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Question: Was Series 2 shortened? Series 1 had 12 episodes vs 10 for Series 2. Also some of the subplots in Series 2 didn't really go anywhere and were tied up abruptly, e.g. Tyman killing his brother.

Answer: The show became too costly to produce so they ended the season early to save money.

Shannon Jackson

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