#rip porcia

[brother-emperors]

Thank you so much for the previous answer! I also have another question regarding hbo Rome, do you think that Cassius was gay-coded in the show? From the way he looks and talks about Brutus and even the fact that Porcia doesn't even exist in the series. Throughout the show it seems that Cassius has feelings for Brutus but Brutus doesn't quite reciprocate his feelings. Also a small detail but i remember reading some time ago that yellowish-green clothing was considered "gay" in ancient Rome so that explains something lol

HELL YEAH

so cassius in hbo rome exists almost exclusively by extension of brutus: cassius is more or less always in a scene with brutus. cassius' first introduction is within brutus' house, and that carries until the end, so it’s through brutus that I’m saying ‘hell yeah.’

I am so sorry in advance for how long this is going to get, because I’m a Themes™ guy so I gotta talk about what themes I’m latching on to that informs my answer, and because cassius isn’t actually a pov character for hbo rome, I’m going to break down brutus a little bit and hopefully this will be....coherent........RIP

anyway, with cassius specifically, I think you can pretty reliably read him as queer coded in some way in literally any adaption or retelling by virtue of how historical accounts translate over into narrative themes. honestly, you can fit a whole discussion on gender into cassius. (I’ve done it, it’s very fun! he has the range)

with hbo rome, tho, I think it's more of a case that: because brutus can be read as queer coded, you can then infer that cassius is as well. for me, it's not so much that brutus doesn't reciprocate the cassius' feelings towards him, it’s that it takes him awhile for his character arc to let him get to a point where he can, because cassius’ feeling towards brutus are consistent throughout the narrative (alternatively, reciprocation is where where they can finally work in tandem WITH each other, instead of towards each other)

cassius obviously cares for brutus, they bicker and banter like friends, but more importantly, cassius gives brutus a level of autonomy that he's been stripped of. after the fall out between brutus and servilia, cassius engages the conspiracy with brutus head on. the manipulation is there, but brutus is given the choice as it happens instead of finding out that he's been used after the fact. cassius does not use brutus’ name without first trying to find out whether or not brutus would allow it. (an interesting bit for that scene, with the betrayal of servilia, is that brutus has no real problem speaking with hostility towards people he deems worth of that hostility, as seen with quintus, and he does not speak to cassius that way, and instead pulls himself together for a moment to greet him)

this ties into porcia, actually! because porcia (and also brutus' sisters) are not in hbo rome, it creates an interesting vaccum that's filled with a neat parallel: brutus has a lot of common with octavia. servilia and atia both treat their respective children in a similar manner, in manipulating and using them for their own agendas, and even in how they lash out at them. it also means that the closest non familial relationship brutus has is with cassius, and because tertulla is not in hbo rome, they aren’t even in-laws. their closeness in this narrative is entirely their own, and the absence of their respective marriages is pretty compelling.

alright, so the queer coding of brutus exists on a couple of levels, we already got some of the interesting gender stuff regarding his paralleling with octavia out of the way, but we can keep going with it because the costuming for brutus informs his narrative treatment.

personally I think the color of clothing is better suited for a discussion on antony, but the length of clothing is one that fits brutus

masculinity, appearance, sexuality: dandies in roman antiquity, k. olson

brutus is almost always covered up at all times, in every scene, except for the military scenes, and also in that symbolic re birth in the river. (there’s also that scene with caesar, where brutus drops the ‘only tyrants have to worry about tyrant killers,’ line, and it’s a striking character moment)

alright, back to the military, we have two events for comparison with the military: pompey, where brutus is decidedly not enjoying his time there, and then cassius.

I swear this is all coming together.

so cassius is a fixed point for brutus, but also the catalyst for dynamic change in brutus’ character. it’s through cassius that brutus engages in the assassination of caesar, it’s through cassius that brutus gets sober, it’s through cassius that brutus decides he wants to be reborn (disco elysium voice; I dont want to be this kind of animal anymore), it’s largely through cassius that brutus becomes an independent character instead of a passive player in someone else’s plans. brutus leaves rome a few times, but he’s only ever seen happy (and sober) with cassius, in macedonia.

there’s also that whole scene with antony and brutus that’s very 👀 and you can make a pretty compelling case for brutus-cassius, antony-cleopatra parallels, since hbo rome has antony and cleopatra die together, like brutus and cassius, despite the historical fact that there was time between deaths for both pairs. there’s something else to be said about how hbo rome allows for grief between lovers, cleopatra gets her moment with antony, brutus gets his moment with cassius. (other characters are afforded this moment too, but I’m sticking with the cleopatra-antony similarities because, like brutus with cassius, cleopatra follows antony)

so the tldr of it is: yes, I think cassius could be read that way, because brutus’ character arc lends itself to confirmation of that interpretation. cassius’ feelings and treatment of brutus throughout brutus’ character arc are indicative of someone who cares deeply, and brutus’ character growth being connected to (and in the direction of cassius) reads like reciprocation of those feelings.

#this is.....much longer than i expected it to but hopefully. it makes sense........ #thank you for the ask anon! this is something i spend too much time talking about during movie night calls with friends lmao #it was fun to type it all out instead of it existing only in 4 hour calls #ask tag #are they (you know) conspirators? #babble tag

[jewellsfrommaruss]

late STS!! what is the worst pain (physical or emotional) that your characters have ever felt?

@crystallized-ink thank you!!

Morrigan - Coming home, smelling blood and seeing Richards in her house, the moment what was happening clicked was the most painful for her

Jadette - Giving birth to her first daughter, she had never experienced anything as all consuming and involuntary as labor

Porcia - Each heartbreak is worst then the last, the new pain ripping open each old wound

Alwin - At the height of his alcoholism he nearly died of severe alcohol poisoning and had to take an extended stay at a hospital, that pain was second to his mother visiting once to call him a disappointment

Abudemio - He was very excited about his budding relationship with Gareth and was rather shocked when Alwin objected to it, they had a lot of arguments

Mishca - She twisted her ankle really bad while hiking and had to walk miles on it to get home

Cecilia - There were a few years between realizing she wasn’t having a normal childhood and settling into hating her mother that were difficult, she struggled with her worth and trying to decipher why her mother was hiding her

Timothy - He was dared to jump from a house's roof to a pond and broke his leg, he healed just fine but getting dragged out of the water then hauled to the hospital on horseback was not fun

Nevan - The slow realization that he was failing nearly every expectation set for him while being crushed by those expectation growing up

Cheshire - He's received more injuries then one would think, his top one for pain would be the broken wrist, arrow in the shoulder or

#headbanger-deluxe #the family #my hand finally feels better!!

[mercurygray]

Got bit by the dead fandom bug after a couple of gifs of Tobias Menzies’ Brutus came across my dash. We never meet Brutus’ wife on the show - one presumes the scriptwriters were trying to cut for time and budget. Here, I’ve explained her absence by making her live at her father’s house under the excuse that Servilia wouldn’t have tolerated another woman in her house and made a joke about how little she sees him.

His world was spinning, and Marcus Junius Brutus wanted very much for it to stop. To say  - no, not even to say, to write such things and post them in the street for every freedman in the world to see! And put his name to them - his name, when he had ever considered himself a friend to Caesar. And that the source of such betrayal should be none but his own mother! What god had he offended recently, to invite such a time as this?

The house seemed to be closing in on him, the walls bearing down as they had been since he had come back from Gaul, less a place of strength and more a prison. What had long been familiar seemed foreign, every wall or shadow a potential place to hide. It was useless - he could not sleep here, not while he knew she would still be awake, still plotting. Who was to say that, taking his rest here, he would not wake to find another snake in his bed?

It was short work to find a cloak, take the back gate out of the garden and go down the lane a ways, the house he entered much more modest and - if he was being honest - almost a little shabby. But the house's master never cared for such things. The doorward turned over in his sleep as Brutus stepped over him, helping himself to the man’s oil lamp and a light from the sacred fire near the door. He knew the way, almost as well as he knew his ancestral home, but he didn’t want to wake the house tripping over some lampstand.

Here was the peristyle, and here the master’s study, and here her room, her maid sleeping at the door. He stepped around the girl and drew back the curtain to go inside. Nothing had changed - a happy thought for a man who’d been away too long. Laying aside the lamp and his cloak, he stripped, carefully setting aside his sandals, toga, and tunic. Her maid wouldn’t be used to caring for a man’s clothes, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to chance her father’s valet.

Who would have ever thought he’d bless the day his mother had declared a house could only have one mistress? He couldn't help if the bed creaked a little as he climbed in, the sheets warm from the body already beneath them, a body that shifted and made room for him, turning her face up to greet him, her eyes still half-closed. 

“Hello, my love.”

"How now, who's this?" she murmured as he kissed her. "I think I scarcely know him - or he me, for that matter.”

"Oh, I know you excellent well," he whispered, smiling despite himself. "You are my mistress."

She snorted at his joke. “If I were your mistress, I think I'd see you more."

He buried his nose in her hair, breathing deep. She was still using the same preparation to dress her hair - it smelled of frankincense and clove. "And if you were only my wife, I'd love you less."

“Mmm, that’s fair. But show me how much you love me, then.” She drew his hand over her hips, bringing it down between her legs and against her mound.

But he did not feel like sex, not now, though his body throbbed to be against hers again, his hand stroking her almost as an afterthought. He wanted merely to be with her, to be where he knew who he was, and what he was. He wanted her surety, her strength, her reassuring arm - though perhaps he could do without her certain knowledge that something was wrong. And of course she knew - she always knew. Her hand stopped guiding his, drew it away. "Brutus, what's the matter?"

Oh, where even to start? "It’s nothing."

"If it were nothing, Venus would have had her votary by now."

He thought of the place he had just left, his mother and her guests, their plots and plans and his place in them. If she didn’t know already, she’d know soon enough - was it not her ancestor’s name on the deed? If he told her of it, then it was real, and not some bad dream. "It's...complicated."

She snorted, by now fully awake. "First it’s nothing, and now it’s complicated. We have the time.” She propped herself on an elbow and turned to look at him. “Do you not trust me, Brutus? Have you forgotten who I am?"

Brutus withdrew his hand from between her legs and ran his thumb along a scar on her thigh, a straight line the length of a finger. How could I forget?

It had been late in some party, and Junius Paulonius had been deep in his cups - which might have explained why he had been doing something so foolish as challenging Marcus Porcius Cato on a point of philosophy. They had been speaking of marriage, and the ability of women to keep secrets, since it was well known a woman couldn’t handle a broken dish, much less the pain of torture.

But Cato had looked at his daughter, who sat up, took a knife from the table, and plunged it into her flesh without a second thought, her face fixed like a flint, staring at Paulonius as if daring him to defy that she had done it. The hostess shrieked and one guest fainted, and Paulonius himself looked a little green around the gills, watching the blood bead around the blade, but she had not uttered a sound, not even when she rose, knife still in her flesh, and withdrew, limping, to have a servant attend the wound. "What were you saying about emotional women?" her father had asked, almost amused, and Paulonius, for once all evening, had nothing to say.

He found her later reclining in a bedroom with the knife still in her thigh, a servant carefully wrapping linen around it to stem the bleeding and stabilize the wound.

"Some people might call that foolish." He didn’t know why he’d said it, but it caught her attention, and she looked up, fixing him with eyes that looked like they were used to arguing. (How could she not be, with a father like that!)

"Some people have never had to prove a point," she had replied, her face flashing pain for a moment as the knife came out, her now ripped gown fallen back to better show off the long, clean lines of her leg, the delicate bones of her ankle carefully accentuated by her sandals. She looked like one of those barbarian queens you heard about from the frontier, with the bandage around her thigh like she'd just been in battle.

The servant tucked another pad onto the wound and Brutus watched, mesmerized, as she took the bandage and began fixing it into place herself. "Surely there are other ways of proving it."

She laughed. "None that he would have heard."

“Marcus Junius Brutus,” he offered, remembering his manners.

“Portia Catonis.” She rose and tested her leg, bandage disappearing again beneath the dress.  "Thank you for the company." He offered his arm, but she only smiled at it. "I think I can manage." And, bandage firmly in place, she went back to join the party while Brutus watched, amazed and, frankly, aroused.

I'm going to marry that woman, he had told himself, watching her leave.

And he had. His Stoic, fearless Portia, who was never afraid of a hard decision, or a knife, or an action that needed to be seen and heard, whose scars would not let him forget what kind of woman he had married.

"Of course I’ve not forgotten," he replied, his hand still atop her scar. You are my rock, my fortress, my staunchest ally. You are the one I turn to when others turn away - the one I run to when the world is going mad. If I could not speak to you, whom then could I entrust? You are the strongbox in which all my secrets and my heart are kept.

She made some noise of assent and turned over, rearranging sheets until their noses were nearly touching, fully awake now and ready for whatever was at hand. Here he was at home - here he was safe.  

"Then tell me, my love, and we will think on it together."

---

In Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, Portia asks Brutus if she has ‘ made strong proof of my constancy, Giving myself a voluntary wound Here, in the thigh: can I bear that with patience. And not my husband's secrets?” Shakespeare makes it sound like the wound is an old one, but Plutarch tells the story slightly differently, saying that Portia wounded herself when she saw something troubling Brutus and didn’t tell anyone about it to prove that she could suffer in silence. I’ve split the difference and gone an entirely different direction. When I first read Julius Caesar, I seem to remember someone explaining that devotees of the Stoic philosophy would voluntarily wound themselves to show their ability to bear physical pain without complaining. While it makes for a compelling scene, as above, I can’t find any evidence now to back up this explanation.

I’ve also taken a liberty with the meeting described here, as the historic Portia (or Porcia) was Brutus’ cousin, as her father, Marcus Porcius Cato (played on the show by Karl Johnson) was Brutus’ mother’s half brother. Cato was reknowned as a Stoic, and his daughter is often given as a exemplary of that philosophy as well.

What both Shakespeare and classical authors all agree on is that Brutus probably really, really loved his wife and their marriage was an exceptionally good one.

#I have written a thing #Rome HBO #marcus junius brutus

[catilinas]

for the classics meme, 4, 15, 18, 19, please!

this is a good meme, thank you for it’s Creation

4. tell me about the classical ladies you love the mostCORNELIA AFRICANA MOTHER OF THE GRACCHI!!! there’s this letter that Might be written by her to gaius gracchus and if it is it’s one of Not Very Many letters written by roman women which is so cool… she was like the Supreme noble and virtuous roman lady but ALSO she was super involved in gaius gracchus’ politics and (speculation) i like to think she was more involved w gaius than tiberius bcs she’d already had like 9 children and tiberius die and she wanted gaius to succeed but also wanted to steer him away from Being Killed… which makes him dying Even Worsei could go on for Ages but also. clodia and fulvia and terentia and porcia catonis and AURELIA COTTA?? i love them All….15. Alexander the Great or Julius Caesar?already answered rip18. what is your favourite movie or TV show set in ancient Greece or Rome?probably that hour long bbc documentary-drama abt tiberius gracchus tbh. my awful fave is gladiator bcs we always watch it at christmas in latin and so i associate it with happy things19. tell me about an obscure classical figure who needs more loveTIBERIUS GRACCHUS—HIM—A GENUINELY GOOD PERSON. i was talking to my dad abt him yesterday abt how his death was extra tragic bcs it was a missed opportunity…he had Good Solutions to a lot of the republic’s problems and the senate just refused to listen to them/actively ignored them bcs they went against its interests and then tiberius died and the problems Kept Getting Worse!!!! i’ll fight anyone who says the end of the republic was tiberius gracchus’ fault

slightly weird and probably only a fave bcs his character development in masters of rome was SO GOOD but quintus caecilius metellus pius pontifex maximus??? idk i like him and haven’t really heard anyone talk abt him Ever

AND!!! marcus tullius TIRO and this isn’t just bcs i love All codes or writing systems ever invented. a) thank you robert harris…. b) It’s True, I Love All Writing Systems Ever Invented, c) hes the reason we have so much of cicero’s Stuff???? d) from what we know from cicero’s letters he was a really nice person… he’s Good…..

#meme thing #beeps #my main man tiberius gracchus #cornelia africana #pythionice