What Else You Got?
Updated 2007-02-01 16:00:00
Considering that Octavian isn't even in this episode, he certainly makes his influence felt. Julii Cooper is all mopey and worried about him, to the extent that she can't manage any manipulation more demanding than making Mark Antony decide to be governor of Gaul instead of Macedonia, as previously agreed. Antony leans on Cicero to bring the Senate in line, knowing full well that Octavian has sent an emissary to offer Cicero an alliance, but figuring that Octavian's rumored army of ten thousand is a lot less scary than the reality of Mark Antony in the same room. Down at the Aventine Collegium, a gang war is escalating in parallel with the rising tension between Vorenus and Pullo. Our heroes end up saying some things they shouldn't, then come to blows, then break up. Again. Brutus is going to pieces; he's in Turkey with Casca, trying to raise foreign support to retake Rome, but that doesn't go so well. Then he invents baptism. Cicero finally decides that he's tired of Antony's bullying, so he screws his tormentor over (not in person, of course -- remember whom we're talking about here). Antony ends up deciding to take Gaul by force, and when Pullo returns to Rome to sort things out with Vorenus, he finds out that his old buddy has joined Antony's campaign. It's not a wasted trip, though, because Pullo runs into Niobe's sister Lyde, who has escaped with word that the Vorenii and Little Lucius are alive. Oh, and remember the guy Castor rescued from a crunchy beating? Turns out he's in the house of the Julii to kill Julii Cooper, at Servilia's instructions. Just when it looks like he's about to succeed, the credits roll.