Heir Heads
Updated 2007-01-25 16:00:00
With Erastes Fulmen's severed head rotting in the house of Vorenus, there's a power vacuum among the crime bosses of the Aventine. So Mark Antony invokes some ancient Roman equivalent of the Santa Clause, and Vorenus takes Fulmen's place as the local big bad. He gets totally into it, adopting as his gimmick the persona of the Son of Hades. His blasphemy shocks even Pullo, but it's not enough to break them up. Yet. Timon's brother is in town from Jerusalem, having gotten into some trouble for stirring up ***** back home, and now he's making Timon nervous as well. There's unrest in the upper ranks, too: Mark Antony, who's already in the middle of a tense situation between Cleopatra (visiting Rome to request that her son be recognized as Caesar's heir) and Atia (virulently jealous of the Egyptian queen), is getting tired of Octavian's whining about receiving his inheritance from Caesar's estate. When Octavian takes matters into his own hands and borrows a huge sum to pay the plebes the money Caesar promised them, Antony flies into a rage at the implied political challenge. Atia takes Antony's side in the matter, and things get violent. Servilia thinks that this schism is the opportunity for Brutus to return to Rome, but Cicero, triangulating his fool head off, convinces her to postpone. A battered Octavian ends up leaving the city for now, accompanied by a detachment of soldiers and a trailer full of slaves. Among those slaves? The Vorenii and Little Lucius.