Rome 1x7

Pharsalus

Season 1, Episode 7

& Posca: Maps never redraw themselves, if that’s what you’re waiting for.
    Mark Antony: He’s right. We shall just have to fight the wretches here where we stand.
    Caesar: And beat them.
    Mark Antony: We shall crush them, doubtless. Dinner for worms, the whole damn lot of ’em.
    Caesar: Dinner for worms.

& Posca: We will accept battle?
    Caesar: Certainly. Why not?
    Posca: We are outnumbered, three to one on foot and five to one a horse. What uninjured men we have are scared and hungry and desperate.
    Caesar: That is the advantage, we must press home.
    Posca: I was not aware irony had military usage.
    Caesar: We must win or die. Pompey’s men have other options.

& Caesar’s Guardian: Halt! In the name of Rome! Who are you and what’s your purpose?
    Cicero: We are Rome, boy, what’s left of it. Come to surrender to your chief.

& Cicero: I am come here honorably, with no request for mercy, to surrender my arms and my horses as is...
    Caesar: We’ll have no talk of surrender. We’ve merely quarreled a little. Brutus: Now we are friends again, eh?
    Cicero: That is most generous of you and natural to your manly nature, but I cannot...
    Caesar: My poor boy.
    Brutus: I’m sorry. I am so sorry.
    Caesar: It is I am sorry. I presented you with an impossible dilemma. You did only what you thought honorable, I’m sure. I kiss you for it.
    Brutus: Thank you. I will not forget this grace.

---

& Pompey: What is your name?
    Lucius: I am Lucius Vorenus. Prefect of the evocati of the 13th legion of Gaius Julius Caesar. Titus Pullo, legionary of same.
    Pompey: Salve, Lucius Vorenus. I am... Aeneas Mella... of Pergamum.
    Lucius: Aeneas Mella... You must consider yourself under my charge.
    Pompey: I do not understand!
    Lucius: Consider yourself a prisoner of the 13th legion.
    Pompey: I’m just a merchant!
    Pullo: We know who you are, sir.

& Lucius: I must ask you, sir, if I may. How did you come to this road? Surely... Pompey had Caesar at greater disadvantage.
    Pompey: He did. He did. It didn’t seem possible to lose. That’s always a bad sign. The battlefield was on a plain by a river, at the foot of some... low hills. Like this, you see. ...

& Pullo: Unwise and unfriendly, I call it. Unwise and unfriendly. And for why? Why? We had him. We had him. Horses... Never mind, horses. Never mind gold. Caesar would have given us farms and fields and orchards and great flocks of slaves and cattle and Dis knows what...
    Lucius: ’Sist! Pompey Magnus is no damn slave to be sold for money.
    Pullo: Don’t see why not!
    Lucius: There’s a great deal you don’t see.
    Pullo: There’s a great deal he doesn’t see neither.

& Lucius: Sir, in course of our journey here, we encountered Gnaeus Pompey Magnus with his family, and a party of servants. {...} He intends to take ship for Egypt, sir.
    Caesar: Family and servants, you say. No soldiers?
    Lucius: None, sir. Not one man left, not one.
    Caesar: Poor wretch. Why then, be that so, did you not apprehend him?
    Lucius: Now here’s the onion. I thought it would be wrong to do so.
    Caesar: Explain yourself.
    Lucius: His hands trembled, sir. His clothes were dirty, there was water in his eyes... He is broken... I saw no need to apprehend him. I’d like to add that legionary Pullo took no part in my decision, sir.
    Caesar: You saw no need... Do you not see that Pompey may be broken like a Dacian catamite and still be dangerous?! If he is still living, he will be a standard around which our enemies will gather! As long as he can be propped on a horse, he’s dangerous! But you saw no need to apprehend him?..
    Lucius: I did not, sir.
    Caesar: Who by the sons of Dis gives you the right to make such judgment?!
    Lucius: Sir, I am aware that I have not done my duty, and I respectfully ask your pardon.
    Caesar: My pardon, he asks... I ought to have you scourged and crucified. In future you will remember that it is I that offers mercy. No one else.

& Mark Antony: I do not like to disagree with you, but you are being far too lenient with him. He let Pompey go and you let him live?! The man should be made an example of!
    Caesar: Any other man, certainly. But those two... They found my stolen standard. Now they survive a wreck that drowned an army and find Pompey Magnus on a beach. They have powerful gods on their side, and I will not kill any man with friends of that sort.

& Caesar: Posca. Tell Fulvio to start breaking camp. We’re going to Egypt.


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