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"Stealing from Saturn"
Julius Caesar
Season	1 (2005)
Episode	"4 (HBO; see BBC editing)"
Air date(s)	September 18, 2005 (HBO) November 16, 2005 (BBC)
Writer(s)	Bruno Heller
Director	Julian Farino
Setting	Rome and Italia
Time frame	Between Jan 10th - Feb 30th, 49 BC See also: Chronology of Rome
Link	HBO episode summary
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"Stealing from Saturn" is the fourth episode of the first season of the television series Rome.

Contents 1 Plot summary 2 Historical/Cultural background 3 Inaccuracies and errors 4 Character notes 5 Plot notes 6 Episode characters 6.1 Main cast 6.2 Guest stars 7 References 8 External links

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• Lucius Vorenus holds a feast, commemorated to Janus, who was the Roman god of gates, doors, doorways, beginnings, and endings. Since Vorenus is ending one career, and beginning a new one, this is a very appropriate God to try to placate.
• While negotiating her fee and kibitzing with Vorenus, the woman providing for the feast recounts the bloody events the "last time" Roman soldiers entered the city. She is referring to the events surrounding the career of Lucius Cornelius Sulla, specifically his Dictatorship of Rome, where Sulla assumed absolute power and proceeded to liquidate thousands of political enemies – or simply those who had wealth or property that he or his allies coveted. These events would have occurred within living memory of many senators, which might explain their determination to not let another man have such power again. Posca's idea about needing to kill a few rich men to appropriate their money has been used before in Rome.
• The reward Caesar gives Pullo for retrieving the gold is 100 gold pieces. The aureus was valued at 100 sestertii, so the sum is equal to what Mark Antony offered Vorenus for reenlisting.
• Caesar and Posca discuss the various bribes Caesar will give out to the various government officials. The relative value of Roman coins is discussed in How Titus Pullo Brought Down the Republic, but roughly speaking, 4,000 sestertii = 1,000 denarii = USD $100,000. Caesar and Posca are talking about bribes of 50,000. Whether this is sestertii or denarii isn't clear. In either case, they are discussing bribes of anywhere from USD $1.25 to $5 million. This may sound like a lot, but Caesar allegedly bribed the consul in 50 BC, Lucius Paullus with 36,000,000 sestertii ($900 Million USD) and tribune Gaius Scribonius Curio with 10,000,000 sestertii (250 million USD).
• Mark Antony offers Lucius Vorenus a signing bonus of 10,000 sestertii - or 2,500 denarii - as a signing bonus to return to the 13th Legion (Legio XIII Gemina). 2,500 denarii would be roughly equal to USD $250,000.
• The Golden looking statue of Jupiter seen in the temple as Caesar comes to ask the priests for auguries looks like a reproduction of the chryselephantine statue of Zeus by Phidias, that used to sit in the temple at Olympia
• We see Caesar having an epileptic seizure. It is attested that he suffered from that condition, and true that in ancient Rome epilepsy was regarded as a sort of sign of divine disfavor.

• At the feast, Octavia recites some verses from Virgil's Aeneid (6.126-129), a poem which would be written some 25 or 30 years later.

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• The title refers to the fact that the temple of Saturn in the Forum Romanum contained the public treasury (aerarium) during the Roman Repulic (and the royal treasury before that). The gold which Caesar recovers at the end of this episode – which he will use to consolidate his power within the city – is the temple/treasury gold "liberated" by Pompey's men and recovered by Pullo in the previous episode.

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See also: Character appearances in Rome

• Quintus Pompey

• "Stealing from Saturn" at the Internet Movie Database
• Plot Summary at HBO

v • d • e Rome
Characters	Characters · Minor characters
Primary characters	Lucius Vorenus · Titus Pullo · Gaius Julius Caesar · Gnaeus Pompey Magnus · Atia of the Julii · Mark Antony · Marcus Junius Brutus · Niobe · Gaius Octavian · Octavia of the Julii · Quintus Valerius Pompey · Cato the Younger · Marcus Tullius Cicero · Timon · Marcus Agrippa
Secondary characters	Cleopatra · Gaius Cassius Longinus · Posca · Eirene
Episodes	Season 1: I · II · III · IV · V · VI · VII · VIII · IX · X · XI · XII Season 2: XIII · XIV · XV · XVI · XVII · XVIII · XIX · XX · XXI · XXII
Other	Chronology · DVD