Stealing From Saturn - Historical and Cultural Background

Historical and Cultural Background

• Lucius Vorenus holds a feast dedicated 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, Janus is an appropriate God to placate.
• The line of poetry quoted by Octavia is Book VI, line 126 of the Aeneid, composed some 20 years after the events of the drama.
• While negotiating her fee with Vorenus, the caterer recounts "the last time" Roman soldiers entered the city. She is referring to the bloody events during Lucius Cornelius Sulla's Dictatorship of Rome. During his year as absolute ruler, Sulla liquidated thousands of Romans, either because they were his political enemies, or simply because they 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 as a means of raising funds has been used before in Rome (and will be used again many times subsequently).
• During Antony's conversation with Vorenus, a servant is cleaning Antony with a strigil, a standard Roman method of personal hygiene.
• The relative value of Roman coins is discussed in How Titus Pullo Brought Down the Republic. However, roughly speaking, 4,000 sestertii is equal to 1,000 denarii, which is equal to approximately $100,000.
  • Caesar and Posca discuss the various bribes Caesar will give out to the various government officials. For one such bribe of "50,000", it is not clear whether this amount is in sestertii or denarii. But in either case, they are discussing an amount equivalent in modern terms to anywhere between $1.25 million and $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) and tribune Gaius Scribonius Curio with 10,000,000 sestertii (250 million).
  • Mark Antony offers Vorenus 10,000 sestertii (2,500 denarii) as a signing bonus to re-enlist in the Legio XIII Gemina—a sum roughly equal to $250,000.
  • Caesar rewards Pullo with the "100 gold pieces" for finding the gold. Since there are 100 sestertii to the aureus (gold piece), this is equal to 10,000 sestertii (again, about $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.
• The mercenaries hired by Quintus Pompey appear to be Thracians, identified as such by their distinctive pointed Phyrigian caps and curved knives.
• We see Caesar having an epileptic seizure. Several historical sources contain evidence that he suffered from that condition (referred to as the morbus comitialis). It is also true that in ancient Rome, epilepsy was regarded as a sign of the divine disfavor of Apollo.
• After Octavian witnesses Caesar's epileptic fit, Caesar makes him "swear to Orcus" to keep it a secret. Orcus was a god of the underworld in Graeco-Roman mythology who punished breakers of promises.