Rome (HBO)
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49 free Rome (HBO) trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Rome was the most expensive television series of its day: a $100 million HBO-BBC co-production that rebuilt the Forum, the villas and the slums of the late Republic on six sound stages at Cinecittà, then told the fall of Caesar and the rise of Octavian through two soldiers lifted from a single line of the Gallic Wars. It ran only two of its planned five seasons, and the sets later burned in a studio fire, but its cast went on to Game of Thrones, Grey's Anatomy, Outlander and The Banshees of Inisherin. These 49 questions cover the creators, the real Vorenus and Pullo, Atia and Servilia, the Newsreader, the Egypt seasons that were telescoped into season two, Michael Apted's feud with the BBC over his re-edited episodes, the Italian dub controversy, the Emmy wins, the stalled movie and the actors behind Caesar, Antony, Brutus and Cleopatra. Easy questions stick to the leads and the network; the hard tier asks about cameras, composers, budgets and which Doctor Who episode borrowed the set. Every answer is cited to a page we checked, with a one-line explanation so you pick up a fact even when you miss. Thirteen!
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Rome was co-produced by HBO and which British broadcaster?
The BBC
The BBC: it had already backed HBO's Band of Brothers, and it recut Rome's opening three episodes into two, so British viewers got an 11-part season.
Q 02Which chieftain surrenders to Caesar in the opening episode of HBO's Rome?
Vercingetorix
Vercingetorix is brought before Caesar and made to surrender, which ends eight years of war and wins Caesar the people's adulation and the enmity of rivals in Rome.
Q 03The real Vorenus and Pullo are mentioned in which ancient text?
Caesar's Gallic War commentaries
Caesar's Gallic War commentaries give them a single passage: two centurions locked in a bitter rivalry who charge out to outdo each other and end up saving each other's lives.
Q 04Who plays Lucius Vorenus in HBO's Rome?
Kevin McKidd
Kevin McKidd went from Rome's stern centurion to trauma surgeon Owen Hunt, the Grey's Anatomy part he took up in 2008.
Q 05Who plays Titus Pullo in HBO's Rome?
Ray Stevenson
Ray Stevenson went from Rome's brawling legionary to two Marvel roles, starring as Frank Castle in Punisher: War Zone and then playing Volstagg in the Thor films.
Q 06Who plays the scheming Atia of the Julii in HBO's Rome?
Polly Walker
Polly Walker played Caesar's cheerfully amoral niece with such relish that the part brought her a Golden Globe nomination for best actress in a drama series.
Q 07Rome's historical consultant said the show's Atia drew on which notorious real woman?
Clodia
Clodia: little is recorded about Octavian's real mother, so the show's Atia borrows the scandalous reputation of other Roman noblewomen of her day.
Q 08Who plays Julius Caesar in season one of HBO's Rome?
Ciarán Hinds
Ciarán Hinds divided the critics: the Guardian's reviewer found his Caesar 'pretty convincing', while one Italian paper called him a parody, 'too young and with too much hair'.
Q 09Who plays Mark Antony in HBO's Rome?
James Purefoy
James Purefoy later swapped Antony's swagger for something darker, taking the lead villain's role as cult-leading serial killer Joe Carroll in the thriller series The Following.
Q 10Who plays Brutus in HBO's Rome?
Tobias Menzies
Tobias Menzies, later Edmure Tully in Game of Thrones, played 'noble Brutus' with a drawl that one classicist reviewer said belonged at an English public school.
Q 11Who plays Servilia, Brutus's mother and Caesar's lover, in HBO's Rome?
Lindsay Duncan
Lindsay Duncan had won a Tony for Private Lives three years earlier, and the Guardian's reviewer tipped her, not the leads, 'to be the star of the series'.
Q 12Who plays Octavia of the Julii in HBO's Rome?
Kerry Condon
Kerry Condon was barely into her twenties as Atia's much-manipulated daughter; she went on to play Stacey in Better Call Saul and to an Oscar nomination for The Banshees of Inisherin.
Q 13Which actor plays Pompey Magnus in HBO's Rome?
Kenneth Cranham
Kenneth Cranham played the great general as a man past his prime, 'with plausible realism' in one review, and a decade later won an Olivier Award for the stage play The Father.
Q 21Who plays Cleopatra in HBO's Rome?
Lyndsey Marshal
Lyndsey Marshal, seen earlier in The Hours, first appears as a guest in season one, sprung from captivity by Vorenus and Pullo, and returns as a regular in season two.
Q 22Which future Downton Abbey actor plays Agrippa in HBO's Rome?
Allen Leech
Allen Leech played Octavian's loyal right-hand man in season two, then found far wider fame as Tom Branson, Downton Abbey's chauffeur turned member of the family.
Q 23Season one of Rome follows Caesar's civil war up to what event?
His assassination in 44 BC
His assassination in 44 BC closes a season that began in 52 BC with victory in Gaul, and sets up season two's struggle between Mark Antony and the young Octavian.
Q 14Who plays Cicero in HBO's Rome?
David Bamber
David Bamber, the oily Mr Collins of the 1995 Pride and Prejudice, played the Senate's greatest orator as a man forever torn between his principles and his ambition.
Q 15Who plays Cato in season one of HBO's Rome?
Karl Johnson
Karl Johnson, once the lead in Derek Jarman's film Wittgenstein, played the Republic's fiercest die-hard as a frail old man, which one classicist reviewer called the show's only miscasting.
Q 16Who plays Niobe, Vorenus's wife, in HBO's Rome?
Indira Varma
Indira Varma's Niobe spends season one hiding a child born while her husband was wrongly reported dead; the actress later played Ellaria Sand in Game of Thrones.
Q 17Which two actors share the role of Octavian across the two seasons of Rome?
Max Pirkis and Simon Woods
Max Pirkis and Simon Woods: Pirkis, a teenager fresh from Master and Commander, plays the boy until early in season two, when the story jumps ahead and Woods takes over as the cold young Caesar.
Q 18In HBO's Rome, what is the name of Caesar's Greek slave and confidant?
Posca
Posca quietly supplies many of his master's neatest solutions; freed in Caesar's will, he throws in his lot with Antony and later defects to Octavian.
Q 19In HBO's Rome, what is the occupation of Timon, Atia's bodyguard and assassin?
Horse trader
Horse trader: the show's press notes call Timon 'an amiable but rapacious brigand', and by the end he has walked out on Atia to leave for Judea with his family.
Q 20Ian McNeice plays which character in Rome, who addresses the crowd with elaborate hand gestures?
The Newsreader
The Newsreader booms out the state's version of events to the citizens; McNeice went on to play another orator, Winston Churchill, in Doctor Who.
Q 24Season two of Rome ends with the suicide of Antony and Cleopatra after which battle?
Actium
Actium: the head writer admitted to a 'blazing speed' through history near the end, because two further seasons of planned story had to be folded into this one.
Q 25In Rome's second season, Titus Pullo is sent to kill which famous senator?
Cicero
Cicero: his name goes on the death list drawn up by Antony and Octavian, as it did in history, when the real orator was hunted down and killed in 43 BC.
Q 26Where would Rome's planned third and fourth seasons have been set?
Egypt
Egypt: two of the five planned seasons were to unfold there, but once the axe fell the head writer telescoped that story into the end of season two.
Q 27Rome's planned fifth season would have covered what?
The rise of the Messiah in Palestine
The rise of the Messiah in Palestine was the plan, the show's head writer said later; told midway through writing season two that it would be the last, he never got there.
Q 28Who co-created Rome with John Milius and William J. MacDonald?
Bruno Heller
Bruno Heller was the series' chief writer as well as its co-creator, and afterwards swapped togas for crime drama, creating The Mentalist and then Gotham.
Q 29At which studio was most of Rome filmed?
Cinecittà
Cinecittà: the ancient city rebuilt on its five-acre back lot was so convincing a slum that rats, pigeons and stray dogs moved in, to the delight of the crew.
Q 30What happened to a large part of the Rome set in 2007?
It burned in a studio fire
It burned in a studio fire that swept part of the complex in August 2007; filming had finished the year before, but most of the damage fell on the show's sets.