Rome Recap: Testudo et Lepus (The Tortoise and the Hare)
It turns out that the poisoned soup from These Being the Words of Marcus Tulius Cicero didn't make it to Atia after all. Instead, the server girl decided to taste it, and when Atia and company asked for some entertainment, she started to sing. That in turn provided enough of a delay that the young girl started to spout blood about her lips and eventually dropped to the floor. All from licking her finger which she dipped into the bowl. Imagine if someone had actually ingested some of the stuff like they were eating it, and not simply licking their fingers!
The boy, sent over by Servilia, was caught and beaten until he gave up the name of his employer, and she was promptly caught and beaten herself - something you'd think she'd be used to by now. After all, this isn't the first time that she has been subject to public humiliation. While she was apparently raped, she wasn't completely destroyed, as Timon decided to free her instead, presumably because his brother gave him a bit of a brow-beating over dinner the night before and it was getting to him. Interesting.
Meanwhile, Pullo is on a quest to find Vorenus and tell him that his children are alive. But before he can find him, he instead comes across Octavian, though how he recognizes him, I'm not sure. Instead of Max Pirkis it is instead Simon Woods - apparently the younger actor was fine when all that was at stake was some political theory, but when more of a warrior was needed, they need an older, rougher actor. We'll see how that goes. Frankly, I wish they would have done it at the beginning of the second season as I think it would have made more sense.
In any case, Octavian is glad to see his old tutor, and bids him good luck at finding Vorenus, even though Vorenus is at work for Mark Antony, and Octavian provides Pullo with papers that tell anyone he encounters to provide the bearer (Pullo, and presumably later, Vorenus) with whatever they may need.
As luck would have it, Pullo does find Vorenus before long, and it's in the camp of the badly defeated Antony. It seems that the younger Octavian has put a whipping on the older man's army, but it actually works out here, because it means that it won't hurt too much when Vorenus leaves to pursue his family.
And Pullo and Vorenus do find the children, in a slave camp. It's a pretty bad site, as well, for the younger children are being worked hard, where the eldest daughter is being put to work as a prostitute. Though Vorenus initially planned to bluff his way through, this pushes him over the edge, and he simply kills the man running the camp. Ah well, so much for diplomacy.
