Lend me your ear: ROME Season 2 starts tonight on HBO

At the end of the finale of the first season of Rome, Lucius Vorenus (Kevin McKidd) was holding the body of his wife and we saw Titus Pullo (Ray Stevenson) holding hands with his ex-slave... who seemed to have already forgiven Titus for bashing the brains out of her fiance. Meanwhile the corpse of Gaius Julius Caesar (Ciarán Hinds) was starting to attract flies on the Senate floor.

Presumably, tonight's opener for Rome's second season will have the funeral of Caesar and the beginnings of the seizing of the empire by Mark Antony (James Purefoy) and Gaius Octavian (Max Pirkis), who is going to wind up becoming Caesar Augustus.

The first season of Rome was like The Sopranos B.C., and some of the most brutal yet captivating storytelling I've seen on television in recent years. Season 2 will hopefully bring more of the same. Enjoy it while you can though: word is that HBO won't be funding any more Rome beyond this season because of the production's high cost. Meaning that Rome is probably going to be like Carnivale: another HBO show that was ended before it could live up to its potential. Sic transit gloria mundi...

The revels begin again tonight at 9 p.m.