The second season of HBO’s sword-and-sandal series Rome picks up right where the first season left off: drenched in blood, Julius Caesar lays dead on the floor of the Senate. With the death of the tyrant, the Republic teeters on the edge of chaos. Marc Antony and Octavian, the newly adopted heir of Caesar, face off against the patriarchs of the Senate, each vying to rally the mob to their side.

The strength of Rome, however, lays not so much in the power struggles of the wealthy landed class, but in the day to day struggles of soldier Lucius Vorenus and Titus Pullo. Vorenus mourns for his dead wife, who has taken her life rather than live with the shame she would incur for birthing a child by a man other than her husband. Vorenus and Pullo stumble around the empire like a pair of ancient Forrest Gumps, rubbing elbows with the most famous Romans of their day. Through their eyes we are privy to a totally alien world: Christianity will not be invented for another 60 or so years, but religion rules the day. The pagan masses will do anything to please their Gods and avoid maladies. (When Vorenus is charged by Marc Antony with bringing the various criminal bosses under control he refers to himself as a son of Hades so as to inspire fear in his enemies.)