History Headscratchers / Rome

** Niobe's sister and, of course, her brother in law (the child's father) were aware of and involved in the subterfuge (they even apparently swore an oath to keep it) so my guess is Niobe arranged to go stay with her sister during the latter stages of the pregnancy, keeping from seeing others and having her sister tell anyone that asked after them that Vorena the Elder was experiencing a tough pregnancy and Niobe was spending all her time taking care of her.

** Vorenus is characterized as being extraordinarily rigid in his sense of honor. Many characters throughout the series comment on how unusual it is. So while the letter of ancient Roman tradition might be to kill your wife if she's unfaithful, most common people probably don't hold to that, particularly the loving children of that woman. Furthermore, the eldest daughter explains plainly why they hate their father: He killed their mother and cast them into slavery. So they hold him responsible for their being enslaved. Given that he backhanded his eldest daughter and cursed them all a few hours before they were enslaved, it's easy to see why.

* There's probably a simple answer to this, but it really bugs me that Eirene is shown to be comepletely comfortable keeping slaves. She was a slave herself, so what sort of disconnect is there between sher being a slave in Niobe's house, and treating her own slave Gaia so rotten? I can understand if she were to treat Gaia well, as she knows what it's like, but she treats her like dirt.

* (Moved from the DeathByWomanScorned page): According to Roman custom at the time it was not only Vorenus' ''right'' to kill Niobe for her infidelity, but it was also what honor demanded (and Vorenus is constantly shown to put HonorBeforeReason). He grabs a knife but doesn't seem like he will be able to actually kill her, so she flings herself off a balcony and takes her own life as a final act of love. The oddities begin when his children spend the rest of the show hating his guts for having killed their mother, even though they were raised in the culture which dictated that he ''should'' kill her, and Vorenus ''never sets them straight'' about the fact that he did in fact not kill her. Why doesn't he just tell them she killed herself? Suicide was not stigmatic back then the way it is now.

** Similarly, does anyone have a good explanation for why Pullo holds fast to the secret of Caesarion's true parentage? Obviously, he could not disclose it while Caesar was alive, and had no reason to bring it up for most of the remainder of the series. But in the waning episodes of the series, why doesn't he tell Octavian? Perhaps the knowledge that Caesar was (probably) not Caesarion's father might have moved him to spare the boy as an irrelevant bystander like Antony's children, and thus not a real rival to Octavian. In all likelihood, Octavian would have delighted in the knowledge, since it would have aided him in his attempt to present Cleopatra as (on one hand) an eastern harlot and (on the other) a sly mastermind who is the real brains behind Antony. Admittedly, Octavian still might have wanted Caesarion dead because of the slim chance Caesar is his father, and because that's the context in which the people of Rome know him, true or untrue. But disclosure on Pullo's part surely would not have increased the risk to Caesarion, so why didn't Pullo at least attempt it?
*** This is just me speculating but Pullo might have figured it would be a bad move to reveal that he had slept with Cleopatra because it was a form of betayal against Caesar. If it was made known that Caesar might not even be the father of Caesarion he would lose a lot of face even after death. It could have made Octavian feel like he had to punish Pullo to preserve his adoptive father's honor, not to mention it could have made Octavian wonder if he could really trust Pullo. Pullo knew Vorenus would do everything he could to get Caesarion to safety and he probably figured the smartest move was to try and smuggle the child out of Egypt and keep Octavian's trust.
*** Because there is zero, zero, zero reason to think that Pullo would be the father historically. And there's also fairly little about Caesarion's parentage being disputed historically. So its to maintain historic plausiblity since Octavian would probably have seized any remotely credible story for his own political purposes.
*** This is, of course, true, though it's dismaying that character motivations should be contrived to avoid compounding existing historical violations.
*** More importantly though, Octavian would have exactly ZERO reason to believe it; or even if he did believe it, he still would have to kill Caesarion simply for being ''perceived'' as a son of Caesar in the public mind, and therefore a challenger for legitimacy. So why would Pullo and Vorenus tell Octavian something that would have no effect on his actions, but ''would'' expose Pullo as being not as completely reliable as Octavian thinks he is? The fact that Octavian trusts Pullo implicitly is pretty much the only reason he got away with bullshitting Octavian at the end of the series.
*** Because it would just be CassandraTruth. No one would ever believe that a common Roman soldier like Pullo had a night of passion with the Queen of Egypt and fathered her son with no evidence but Pullo's word. It probably wouldn't have done the boy any good anyway, since everyone merely ''believing'' he was Caesar's son would have doomed him.

* In the beginning of the series, Vorenus returns to find that Niobe has been scraping money to due being deprived of Vorenus's soldier's stipend for over a year. Over the course of the first season, Vorenus sells his gold loot, gets a big signing bonus to go to war against Pompey, gets elected magistrate, receives fertile land in Italy, and is named Senator of Rome, yet he's still living in the same junky little apartment. With all the money he now has for slaves and jewelry, why is he still living in the slums?