Rome premiered on HBO back in 2005, just a few short months after Carnivale, the network’s first foray into what would ultimately become prestige fantasy, ended. It is not your typical period drama, but, then again, it was never really meant to be. Incredibly violent yet remarkably fun to watch, it is a show that embraces the bloodiest, most decadent aspects of the time in which it is set, using ordinary avatars and realistic dirt and grime to tell a legendary story in the most human of terms.
HBO’s Rome is very much not that kind of period drama. Tudor-era pieces allow us to protest the murderous patriarchy that ground down six remarkable women in the name of a horrible man’s pride, and everyone loves the hardscrabble charm of Dickens’ London, where everyone is poor until they magically aren’t. Too often, when people think of period dramas they immediately think of Regency or Edwardian-era costume pieces like Pride and Prejudice or Downton Abbey, stories about marriage matches and inheritance politics that present a sanitized version of life in a particular time period.
