All the while drug use in Rome will be situated in relation to both historical context, and the increasing frequency with which this modern decadence is grafted onto the ancients in contemporary depictions of the Classical world. This chapter seeks to delve into what lies behind this retrojection of a modern vice onto the ancient elite by considering the ramifications of drug use within the world of the series, and the implied judgement of the characters involved. And all of this emerges from what is essentially an historical embellishment of a drug culture that never was present. Notions of degeneracy, addiction, sexual impropriety and juvenile delinquency come with the vice and speak to the character of the users, while the foreign origins of the substances themselves bear political associations that play into dichotomy of Roman versus non-Roman in the series. Commonplace, seductive, and always aphrodisiac, drug use in the show nevertheless brings with it the dangers and associations of the modern habit. Perhaps inspired as much by Shakespeare as by orientalist stereotypes, the prevalence of the vice is striking: the reimagined Cleopatra is often addled with opium and her paramour Antony succumbs to the vice all too quickly, while in Rome itself the parvenue Jocasta corrupts the well-to-do Octavia with her imported hemp whose potency is enough to attract the dabbling of Atia, whose later casual dismissal of the habit implies that it was neither scandalous nor out of the ordinary. What emerges from the haze of opium and hemp smoke is a swirl of inference as a decidedly modern habit is thrust into ancient hands, along with all of its connotations. The seeds of a culture of elite drug use that were sown in the first season of Rome blossom to full prominence in the show’s second series as male and female characters within the city and without are shown conspicuously consuming narcotics.
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