When in Rome, pile on the sex and violence

Atia (Polly Walker) is scheming but not all that scary

New HBO drama Rome has the best opening credits since Six Feet Under and The Sopranos. Their animated graffiti and crude scribblings on the walls and streets make the ancient city look every bit as hardbitten as Tony Soprano's empire of suburban New Jersey.

Inevitably, Rome, with its sex, violence and intrigue, has been compared to its stablemate HBO drama about a 21st-century mob family. And the script, although clunky at times, does successfully bring a modern sensibility to the ancient epoch.

But you can't help feeling that the pay channel has taken its now obligatory shock factor too seriously. So far, Rome has given us not only the usual sword'n'sandals slicings and dicings, crucifixions and floggings but also took the graphic gore to new levels with a bit of open-head surgery on the kitchen table. It's a challenge to outdo the modern medical drama when it comes to stimulating the gag reflex, but this succeeded.

As for sex and the city of ancient Rome, the carnal delights certainly aren't all talk, as they mostly were with the girls in Manhattan. Last night's first two episodes came laden with full-frontal nudity, from stripping the conquered king of the Gauls to sex and bath scenes. Julius Caesar's niece, the voracious Atia (Polly Walker), is the full Bada-Bing all by herself - when she's not busy bonking, she's pimping out her daughter. Her religious side is equally confronting, indulging in such pagan rituals as taking a shower in bull's blood.

The question is whether the story and characters are compelling enough to carry all this. Rome wasn't built in a day, so we probably should forgive the confusion of last night's opener as it set about establishing the drama's epic scale, the criss-crossing storylines of the struggle for control of Rome between Julius Caesar, conqueror of Gaul, and stay-at-home Pompey Magnus and his allies, the disgruntled nobles. It's a struggle depicted also at ground level, through the eyes of two soldiers and unlikely friends, Lucius Vorenus and Titus Pullo. Then there's the domestic subplots: Atia's family ambitions and Vorenus' struggle to fit back into life with Niobe, his handful of a wife, and the kids. Phew.

With so many characters, it's difficult for any of them to be anything more than one-dimensional. For example, Atia, for all her antics, doesn't yet come across as a truly scary, scheming Roman matriarch. And the Eternal City seems awfully cluttered with scheming old windbags such as Cicero, Cato and co, the sort of old bores who would instantly kill a good toga party.

On the plus side, Rome brings a new level of realism - and bodily fluids - to the sword'n'sandals epic. The always watchable Ciaran Hinds, who plays Julius Caesar, looks to be one of its strengths. And the impulsive soldier Titus Pullo, might be good for making a few funny things happen on the way to the Forum.

There's probably plenty of political allegory for those inclined to make comparisons to a contemporary, aggressive Empire, its leader and dissenting generals. "Our beloved Republic is in the hands of madmen!" laments Caesar before crossing the Rubicon.

Or for those who fancy a bit of debauchery in the spirit of ancient times, there's certainly a drinking game to be had in how many times a poor slave gets smacked, or thumped or jumped on.

But what Rome really needs to turn it into a compelling drama is a bit more human complexity squeezed in among the excesses of its civilisation.