{"id":927,"date":"2007-08-31T16:44:00","date_gmt":"2007-08-31T16:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=927"},"modified":"2007-08-31T16:44:00","modified_gmt":"2007-08-31T16:44:00","slug":"the-further-adventures-of-lucius-vorenus-titus-pullo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=927","title":{"rendered":"The Further Adventures of Lucius Vorenus & Titus Pullo"},"content":{"rendered":"

Netflix has at last delivered the first disk of Rome’s<\/em><\/a> second season. I will admit it: I go into happy fanboy mode at the receipt of new episodes.<\/p>\n

It’s like The Sopranos<\/em><\/a> for Pagans. There are no really sympathetic characters, but you can’t take your eyes off them.<\/p>\n

Especially Lindsay Duncan’s<\/a> Servilia<\/a>–perhaps because she resembles the former provost of my university, whom we used to refer to as the Dark Queen.<\/p>\n

I asked my rhetoric class yesterday if any had seen it, and only one hand went up. (Just as well, perhaps. Our textbook talks about Cicero, but he doesn’t come off all that well in the series<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Likewise, when I used a clip from The Sopranos<\/em> to illustrate Machiavelli’s<\/a> maxim for rulers that it is better to be feared than loved<\/a> for a class of freshmen, many had never seen the show. Kids these days! I thought everyone but us got HBO. But getting it does not mean watching it, I realize.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Netflix has at last delivered the first disk of Rome’s second season. I will admit it: I go into happy fanboy mode at the receipt of new episodes. It’s like The Sopranos for Pagans. There are no really sympathetic characters, but you can’t take your eyes off them. Especially Lindsay Duncan’s Servilia–perhaps because she resembles […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[36,5,56],"class_list":["post-927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-movies","tag-paganism","tag-rome"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-eX","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":88,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=88","url_meta":{"origin":927,"position":0},"title":"And not a minute too\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 31, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"And not a minute too soon I am referring to 2003, of course. Let it be over with. I have just checked two thirty-ish couples, plus dog and toddler, into our rental cabin, and I hope they have a good New Year's Eve celebration. Mary and I will be catching\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":317,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=317","url_meta":{"origin":927,"position":1},"title":"Blog Stew 1. A University\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 3, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Blog Stew 1. A University of Texas study suggests that the nutritional value of American vegetables has declined over the past 50 years (from Science Blog via MacRaven). Yesterday two of my students, both living at about the poverty line while attending university, were complaining about how hard it is\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3874,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3874","url_meta":{"origin":927,"position":2},"title":"Yoga, Ectasy, Religion, and Sex","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 28, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Religion is sexy \u2014 at least some of the time. (To scholars of religion, all religion is \"sexy\" in an intellectual sense.) Last year, I edited and prepared for press a new biography of the evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson. She was a leading figure in American religion in the 1920s,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":401,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=401","url_meta":{"origin":927,"position":3},"title":"Thunder, Perfect Prada","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 4, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Via PaleoJudaica (scroll to Feb. 24), this fascinating snippet about the most enigmatic of all the Nag Hammadi texts used as a perfume ad. Some Pagan scholars see in the \"I\" of the text, \"Thunder, Perfect Mind,\" a goddess figure, perhaps Sophia, the divine personification of Wisdom, perhaps the goddess\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7304,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7304","url_meta":{"origin":927,"position":4},"title":"New Excavation at Marden Henge","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 28, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"A major archaeological effort beginning this summer will explore Marden Henge, a Neolithic monument that rivaled Avebury and Stonehenge but is less well known. Excavation within the Henge will focus on the surface of what is\u00a0thought to be one of the oldest houses in Britain,\u00a0a Neolithic building revealed during earlier\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cdn.images.express.co.uk\/img\/dynamic\/1\/590x\/secondary\/Aerial-view-of-the-dig-site-306010.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cdn.images.express.co.uk\/img\/dynamic\/1\/590x\/secondary\/Aerial-view-of-the-dig-site-306010.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cdn.images.express.co.uk\/img\/dynamic\/1\/590x\/secondary\/Aerial-view-of-the-dig-site-306010.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":274,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=274","url_meta":{"origin":927,"position":5},"title":"Daily magic in Russia Russians\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 29, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Daily magic in Russia Russians continue to use \"low\" magic, says this news report. \"Ghoulish as Russian traffic police are, perhaps it makes sense to resort to unorthodox measures to ward them off.\"","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/927\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}