Everything about Titus Pullo Character Of Rome totally explained
Titus Pullo is a fictional character from the
HBO/
BBC original television series
Rome, played by
Ray Stevenson. He is depicted as a friendly, upbeat, devil-may-care soldier with the morals of a pirate, the appetites of a hedonist, and a total lack of personal responsibility, who discovers hidden ideals and integrity within himself. The basis for this character is
the historical Roman soldier of the same name, who is briefly mentioned in
Julius Caesar's books
De Bello Gallico and
Commentarii de Bello Civili.
Personality
Titus Pullo's mother was a slave who died when he was young, and he never knew his father, though he assumes his father was also a slave. It is safe to say that the
legion is the only family Pullo has really known; his friend
Lucius Vorenus, with his strict discipline and value-filled life, comes to represent something like, if not quite a father, then an older brother.
Pullo is good natured, but a beast of a man, who ends up becoming a terror to his enemies and his own worst enemy for a time. After killing
Eirene's lover, being banned from the house of his friend, and having left the Legio XIII Gemina, he's filled with a death wish and only his love of the legion can snap him out of it. Later on down the line, roles are reversed when Vorenus becomes listless with grief then irrational with anger, and Pullo must take on the more responsible elder brother role in order to care for and protect his closest friend.
He represents on one side the demonic forces of the
plebeian and barbarian masses that are helping to tear the republic apart, but also the life spirit and general goodness that's helping to forge its future. Pullo's affable manner, even when confronting adversaries, maintains a constant source of levity. His journey from misery and turmoil through to hope and relative inner peace could be seen to metaphorically symbolise the period of upheaval and chaos in the
Roman Republic prior to the rise of
Augustus Caesar and
Pax Romana.
Character history
In
Rome Titus Pullo is an optimistic, impulsive risk taker. He is a
foil and friend to Vorenus. Born of slaves in northern Italy, Pullo seems to live life to the fullest, but at a base and
hedonistic level. He is initially a brash and insolent Roman legionnaire in the
13th Legion (Legio XIII Gemina) under Vorenus. When
Caesar gives Vorenus orders to retrieve his stolen standard, Vorenus chooses Pullo to accompany him because "not finding the eagle is just as dishonourable as losing it, it's like trying to find a black dog in the night." Vorenus decides it's a doomed mission and doesn't want to waste what he considers a good soldier. The soldiers soon stumble upon Pompey's men, who had stolen a white horse which
Atia of the Julii had intended to give to Caesar. These men had also kidnapped
Octavian, Caesar's nephew. Octavian shows interest in both Vorenus and Pullo after they rescue him.
Upon returning to Rome with Vorenus, both Pullo and Vorenus are rewarded by Atia (on Octavian's insistence) by having dinner with Atia and Octavian. Pullo soon finds he can't adapt well to civilian life, wandering into the underworld of Rome through inertia and his skill at killing. Pullo struggles to define himself outside his life in the legions, and through this - and his friendship with Vorenus - discovers depths, needs, and even ideals which go beyond the image of himself as nothing more than a fighting, drinking, lecherous soldier.
Even though Titus appears to be a good man with a strong sense of morals and beliefs in the Roman gods, it emerges that he's also moderately sexually sadistic but due to the nature of his profession as a soldier this may have been very common for gladiators and soldiers to be sexually violent. He is seduced by a slave by the name of
Gaia who enjoys sexual sadism and turns a whipping that was ordered for her by Titus's wife to her advantage. They become lovers after Titus' wife and unborn child die. Titus later throttles
Gaia to death when the slave reveals on her death bed that she'd murdered his wife, and unborn child because she was in love with him, with a potion which was used to induce abortion which is supposed to be used in the first few days of the pregnancy. She was fatally injured while trying to save Titus from being stabbed by a caged man who escapes and tried to murder Titus with a knife. Titus may have also shown compassion unconsciously while enraged by basically ending her life because she was slowing dying and he was in love with her. Titus then adds fury to the murder by disposing of the body in the river, rather than the usual funeral method of cremation, which the Ancient Romans favoured to burial. Titus swears allegiance to the son of Julius Caesar, Octavian, rather than Mark Antony who his best friend Lucius is loyal to, meaning that Titus is loyal to the empire, while his friend Lucius favours change and a new style of command within the empire.
While at times he shows a high level of piety and faith in the gods (particularly during the numerous times he's jailed for losing his temper and lashing out violently), some of the more notable exchanges between Pullo and Vorenus center on the latter's disgust with the former's challenging and even bitter attitude toward the ruling deities. Perhaps the most notable example of this impious streak occurs when Pullo defies
Triton before the ship he and Vorenus are taking to Greece sinks into the sea. His overall defiant attitude toward authority may represent an exaggerated desire to be a slave to no one, regardless of the power they wield.
Pullo is also depicted as tutoring young
Octavian in fighting and
copulation. It is revealed in
Caesarion, and confirmed at the end of the series, that, unbeknownst to Caesar, Pullo is the true father of
Caesarion.
Historical Innacuracies
A man with Titus Pullo's background, the son of a slave, would have been born a slave or perhaps a freedman. As such, he couldn't have been a legionary without falsifying his history, since they'd to be born free.
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