Melodramatic 'Rome' drips with lust, greed, and murder
There's a speck, if not a whole heap, of ridiculousness about most sword-and-sandal epics. The togas hang like stage curtains, the dialogue smacks of ''William Shakespeare's Dynasty," loins throb with pansexual passion, and the haircuts . . . the haircuts. It can be hard to get over the whole Halloween pageant at Caesars Palace thing.
And ''Rome," HBO's new drama, does flirt with all the requisite silliness, all the baby-oiled muscle and Oedipal obviousness that made ABC's ''Empire" such a chunk of cheese. But still, I found the series, which premieres Sunday at 9 p.m., to be an addictive piece of costume soap opera rich in atmospheric realism (thanks to a $100 million budget).
No, it's not ''groundbreaking," as HBO calls its programming. And I doubt it will give the ratings-slipping channel its much-needed hit. But it will probably find a small, loyal, ''Deadwood"-size audience that enjoys a good serial melodrama charged up by a villainess named Atia who turns mothering into something akin to pimping.
Set in 52 BC, ''Rome" is structured around the political chess match between Julius Caesar (the broody Ciaran Hinds) and Pompey Magnus (Kenneth Cranham). The strain between Caesar's populist agenda and Pompey's protection of the aristocracy is coming to a head, leaving all Romans reassessing their loyalties. The storytelling in ''Rome" is not unlike that of ''Deadwood," in that the first episode drops us into all this historic action without the obvious explanations that make network shows so easy. If you aren't loosely versed in the history of Caesar and Mark Antony, you may feel at sea for the first half-hour or so. But you will indeed soon find your bearings, and from then on it's clear sailing.
And so much of ''Rome" -- the best of ''Rome" -- revolves around the unknown, working-class characters whose stories have been developed specifically for the series. As on ''Deadwood," there are the legendary names, the Calamity Janes and the Wild Bill Hickoks, and then there are the locals. ''Rome" brings the drama down to the street, not just in its gloriously authentic set design and its buzzing flies, but in its exploration of what it meant to be a lowly ''plebe" at the time. The more predictable, oft-told story of Caesar is interwoven with characters whose fates are mysterious.
The life on the street narrative zeroes in on two returning soldiers, the uptight but honorable Lucius Vorenus (Kevin McKidd) and the decadent Titus Pullo (Ray Stevenson). They make an odd couple of friends, and their personal lives back in Rome become profoundly entwined when Titus learns secrets about Lucius's wife, Niobe (Indira Varma), who has been awaiting Lucius's return from war for eight years. What develops in this triangular plotline is pure nighttime soap -- but I don't mean that as a knock. It's an entertainingly dishy blend of adultery, murder, and romantic politics.
And that dishiness is what makes ''Rome" fun and yet less than the other HBO dramas. It's a seductive conflux of plots and characters, and a vivid glimpse of a time when curses and fortune-telling were taken quite seriously. In one ghastly scene, Atia ritualistically purifies herself by taking a blood shower underneath a freshly gored bull. But the show isn't nearly as steeped in the fascinating psychological realism that has so distinguished ''Six Feet Under," ''The Sopranos," ''The Wire," and ''Deadwood." ''Rome" is engrossing and scandalous, but it's not psychologically complex.
The most provocative plots in ''Rome" belong to Atia, who desires Caesar despite the fact that she's his niece. She is unapologetically amoral, as she sleeps with every man who may be politically advantageous to her. The series is filled with nudity and sex, and most of it somehow involves Atia. Played with scene-stealing coldness by Polly Walker, she is a wonder of malignancy, even using her two children, Octavia and Octavian, to further her fortunes. She is particularly interested in controlling Octavian (who will later rule as Augustus): ''You will penetrate someone today," she yells at the young virgin, ''or I will burn your wretched books in the yard."
The actors, most of them British (''Rome" is co-produced by HBO and the BBC), are consistently good, if not great. There is no single actor who brings as much dimension to his or her role as anyone on ''Six Feet Under," but then none of the characters in ''Rome" is written to be as distinctive in a contemporary sense. The cast members are asked to bring gusto, if not great depth, to their genre characters, and in that they succeed. They feel their lust, love, and hatred simply and directly. James Purefoy is engaging as Mark Antony, whose arrogance is almost fatal, and Lindsay Duncan is unexpectedly moving as Brutus's mother, Servilia, whose rivalry with Atia for Caesar's affections also has comic overtones. Like all women of the time, Servilia's destiny is intertwined with the man in her life, Brutus.
HBO is in an odd position these days. The pay channel redefined what TV could be, and now it is judged against the high standard it set. ''Rome" may suffer in viewers' estimation because it isn't another ''Sopranos," and yet it does offer enough absorbing corruption and manipulation to rival any modern-day mob.
Matthew Gilbert can be reached at gilbert@globe.com. 
