Goddess, I Am.

Whenever I blabber about Rome and the Caesars, people automatically assume that I’m a fan of the HBO series. Well, I’m not.

Let me clarify. I found Rome entertaining enough. I loved how the show and its characters looked, how they sounded, the costumes, the language, the set, almost everything – except for the fact that the writers completely butchered the characters of what is probably the most fascinating part of history. I watched 4 episodes –  and I just couldn’t watch anymore. With the risk of sounding a tad sanctimonious, I just found the inaccuracy quite painful, and I simply couldn’t stand having to exclaim indignantly every few minutes or so.

Here are the reasons why, in no particular order:

1. Quintus Pompey. Simply put, there is no – nor has there ever been – a Quintus Pompeius. Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus’ (Pompey the Great’s) sons were Gnaeus Pompeius (the admiral) and Sextus Pompeius (the pirate). That’s common knowledge, and one does not need degrees from a multitude of online degree programs to know that.

Even Quintus Pompey’s Wiki pretty much stresses that he’s a baseless character without a real purpose. Why, oh why, couldn’t they just use one of Pompey’s real sons to make the show a bit more credible? It wouldn’t have been a complete hardship to do so.

2. Atia. If the real Atia Balba Caesonia could see what the writers of Rome did to her character, she would turn in her grave. (Or at least, in her urn – Romans preferred cremation.)

Augustus’ mother was a quiet woman who was devoted to her sickly son to a fault. Right about the time the events of Rome were unfolding, she was still very much married to Lucius Marcius Philippus, her second husband. Atia was never promiscuous, nor was she as evil as the show made her out to be. In fact, she was one of Rome’s most well-loved matrons, and like a true Julia (as women of the Julii were known), she was quite above any suspicion.

That part where she supposedly sends her son – her sickly son, I might add – to Gaul to deliver a white horse to Caesar and he gets kidnapped is possibly the worst Hollywood fabrication I’ve ever seen. Poor Octavian couldn’t even be around horses until he was well into adulthood because of a lung condition, and that trip probably would’ve killed him right there and then. There goes the Roman Empire!

The only slur on Atia’s character occurred shortly after Philippus, who was a lot older than her, died. She ended up marrying Philippus’ eldest son (also a Lucius) – her stepson – well before the accepted mourning period was over. And her son, who by then was known as Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus (or Octavian), disowned her.

3. Servilia. Now this woman was pure evil, even as a child. In fact, the show’s portrayal of Atia would’ve been more appropriate for the famous Servilia Caepionis. It made my blood boil watching how they made her look like a poor, wronged woman for half the show when really, she’s absolutely vile.

Which brings me to her son . . .

4. Brutus. Ahh, where do I start with Marcus Junius Brutus?

In Rome, he was portrayed as a close confidant of Caesar’s who served with him in the Gallic wars. Not only that, he was meant to have looked on Caesar as a father. What utter rubbish!

There was no love lost between the real Marcus Junius Brutus and Caesar. This particular Brutus was once engaged to Caesar’s daughter, Julia, but Caesar broke off the engagement so Pompey the Great could marry Julia instead, which broke young Brutus’ heart. This and the fact that he was very close to his uncle Marcus Porcius Cato Uticensis (a lifelong enemy of Caesar’s) indicates that he disliked Caesar enormously.

Not only that, the real Marcus Junius Brutus was a coward. He NEVER served with Caesar in the Gallic wars. He was too busy making money in Asia Minor. In fact, the first time he ever picked up a sword in battle was in Pharsalus. And coward that he was, he immediately surrendered to Caesar after his side lost to spare himself. Moreover, Marcus Junius Brutus was butt-ugly, which makes Tobias Menzies completely wrong for the job of playing him.

Now there was, in fact, a Brutus who served with Caesar in Gaul. This particular Brutus did see Caesar as a father and really was quite devoted to him for a long time. This is none other than Decimus Junius Brutus. Oh, and his mother was Sempronia Tuditani, not Servilia Caepiones.

I’m thinking the writers of Rome confused both Brutuses big time, probably because both men figured in Caesar’s assassination later. Methinks some people really need to brush up on their history – maybe in an online university perhaps?

5. Octavia. And yet another woman wronged by the butchering of Hollywood writers. Octavia was the darling of the Roman people. She was famous for her virtue and her kindness, practically a goddess, and to be portrayed as a dishonored woman in Rome was simply sacrilegious.

One of the episodes showed her being offered to Pompey the Great as a bride by her mother Atia, and he even got to have sex with her before he rejected her for Cornelia Metella! Oh, I saw red, I tell you!

For one thing, the Octavia offered to Pompey the Great by Caesar (not Atia, mind you) was Octavia Major – Atia’s stepdaughter and the eldest daughter of Gaius Octavius from a previous marriage. Pompey the Great rejected her outright because she wasn’t a true Julia. Oh, and there was never any undue fornication because these men were much too honorable for that.

For another, Octavia Minor would’ve been too young to get married (or to have been married, for that matter, as she was portrayed in the show). In fact, she was probably no more than 15 years old. Really, these are things that a little bit of research could easily uncover! Why, a simple Wikipedia search would even do it!

And don’t get me started on Spartacus and Cleopatra. Really, I truly, truly hate Hollywood sometimes. It’s a shame, though, because the show really did look and feel authentic, and I probably would’ve enjoyed it, if I didn’t know any better.

Would I ever live to see the day that Hollywood finally got something right?

I’m depressed. I am now down to my last two Masters of Rome books, and though they’re both thick enough to keep me occupied for the next couple of months, it still makes me sad knowing that in approximately 700 pages or so, my beloved Caesar will be dead. That, and knowing that there will be no more books forthcoming in the series now that Colleen McCullough is losing her eyesight to macular degeneration.

Anybody who’s been reading my blog would probably know by now that I’m completely obsessed with Julius Caesar and all things Roman. I can say with all honesty that Ancient Rome is definitely one of my life’s greatest passions, even if it’s one that I only found less than a year ago.

So in my current despondent state, I find myself wondering what my life would’ve been like if the whole Roman thing was something that I’ve been into since childhood. Would I have chosen to become a Roman historian? Would I have taken an online teaching degree with a major in Roman History? Would I have pursued it, even if it seemed too impractical and useless for one living in the Philippines? Would I be writing in Latin right now, maybe even annotating Caesar’s Commentaries myself, rather than ordering an English-translated one from Amazon?

Yes, how’s that for an alternate universe? The thought of myself leading a scholarly existence is strangely interesting, if not a tad disconcerting.

So will my Roman obsession end with the death of my beloved Caesar, the end of the Roman Republic, and the last of Colleen McCullough’s books? Definitely not! There are more books to read, more stories to enjoy, and more great Romans to get to know and love. And no, I – or anyone else, for that matter – don’t need an online degree for that.

Indeed, my Roman romance is far from over. And that thought, at least, cheers me up somewhat.

Picking up where I left off. . .

January of 2008 found me in a turmoil. My boss went on an extended holiday, and there was no work to be had for a month. I was almost completely destitute and had zero options in sight. That was when I learned not to put all my eggs in one basket. I started desperately looking for other freelance work and thankfully, I was hired to write for the now-defunct online magazine, Poise Daily.

Writing for Poise was a lot of fun (and the rate wasn’t shabby, either). While my regular job had me writing endless articles on mortgages and video surveillance and cigarette cases, I got to write about Macbooks and fashion and my travels for Poise, to name just a few. By the time my boss came back from her holiday, I continued writing for Poise on the side until the woman who owned it decided to pursue other things. By then, I had also learned how to get other legitimate freelance work, so I always had a steady stream of side jobs to keep my mind at ease.

I enjoyed an income that kept soaring for the next few months. And then, the recession hit. Several of my boss’ clients pulled out, so I (along with the rest of my team) was forced to take a pay cut. Even my side jobs suffered. I ended up having to take more and more assignments for less than my usual rates. I started working 16-hour days just to keep my income consistent. Unfortunately, so were my stress levels!

It got so bad that I decided to let go of the worst-paying side jobs and take a day job that paid well. So for the third time since I moved to Bangkok a year before, I was employed by a Thai company. The job was to teach rich and/or smart Thai kids how to write their admissions essays to Ivy League universities. I quite enjoyed it while it lasted. Once again, I was earning a healthy income and I felt secure once again. The downside was the horrible commute from Nonthaburi to Silom (and back) that I had to suffer every day. Eventually, I had to give it up, too, because it was just too exhausting.

By then, things have started to pick up somewhat online. A very pregnant Chin (who was getting ready to leave her day job by then) and I then decided to pool our client base together and start our own writing company; thus, Women Who Write was born. We kept at the business through my move back to the Philippines (with Steve in tow) and all the way through the first quarter of 2009 when the declining rates of online writing jobs forced us to finally throw in the towel.

February found me with another day job, this time back in my home country. I was writing a book on government grants (ick!) for an insufferable Russian and his equally insufferable Filipina girlfriend, the Evil Couple who ran several companies under one roof (a call center, a lending firm, and an online ESL school) and spent half the time screaming at all and sundry. It was a nightmare, and thoughts of being stuck there for the rest of my life had me crying in my cubicle almost every day. That job was, without a doubt, the lowest of all of my life’s numerous low points.

But you know what they say: when you’re down, you can’t go anywhere else but up. In April, the same month that I got married, a regular client offered me a full-time job complete with a substantial monthly salary. Several of my pre-recession clients started crawling out of the woodwork with projects anew. And to top it all off, a project was awarded to me out of nowhere in one of the freelance sites I use to bid on projects periodically.

It was the project to end all projects; it was high-paying AND long-term – every freelancer’s dream. I didn’t even remember bidding on it! It turned out I bid on it months and months ago, and because the client didn’t make any decisions, I promptly forgot about it. And suddenly, there it was, all mine for the taking! Without even thinking twice, I quit my shitty day job (not an easy feat, as the Evil Couple refused to let me go) and went back to being a full-time freelancer.

As the months progressed and the project grew, I was no longer just writing. Now, nearly six months later, I’m running full-scale search engine optimization (SEO) campaigns for my client’s numerous clients. My job is to get these clients on the first page of Google for the keywords they’re targeting. The whole concept was really nothing new to me as this has been the focus of my online writing career, but now that I’m also handling the more technical aspects of SEO, I’m finding the whole thing both refreshing and quite challenging. No, I did not need to get an online degree or anything like that. All I needed was a very patient and supportive client who had a barrage of instructional PDFs for me to study daily, and I was good to go.

Though I like to think that I’ve got the whole thing down pat two months after we launched in August, I still don’t. I’m continuously learning and keeping myself updated on the best and newest SEO strategies. I know, it’s about as exciting as acne treatment, but it is extremely lucrative. It has since allowed The Husband to quit his shitty teaching job and escape from the clutches of the Evil Couple. He’s now in-charge of the video marketing part of the job (yes, we do that, too), and he’s slowly easing in to the life of a home-based outsourcer.

Of course, with this full-time job, plus a couple of other (also full-time) writing work on the side, I do find myself spread quite thin, even working literally side-by-side with The Husband. I do, however, now have a team of fantastic women writers who write extremely well, plus a plethora of software that automate the bulk of my tasks. I’m working harder and longer than I ever did in my entire life, yes, but you know what? I actually love it! And no, it’s not just about the cool four-figure monthly income (in dollars), a huge deal where I am. It’s the freedom of knowing that I’m working because I want to work, not because I have to.

It’s been a long and arduous journey towards the job of my dreams, and now that I’m here, I can honestly say that it’s been worth every effort, every disappointment that came my way. I hope my (not-so) little tale will serve to inspire anybody who’s trying to find him or herself and that dream job that truly is a dream-come-true. It can be done. Never let anybody tell you otherwise. I’ve done it, Chin has done it – and we’re only two of millions who have done it the world over.