A fresh legion of Romans are ready to march across our TV screens. These are HBO Romans — larger, lustier, more violent. "Rome" is a 12-week series that Tony Soprano would like.

"The times themselves were very brutal," says actor Ray Stevenson.

It was an era of brute force. That's perfect for the massive Titus Pullo, a fictional legionnaire.

"He sees the world in black and white," says Stevenson, who plays him. "That allows him to drink and fight, it makes life alive for him."

It was also a time for schemes and seduction. That's perfect for Atia, the niece of Julius Caesar; she makes cunning use of sex.

"It's her currency," says Polly Walker, who plays her. "She's not a bimbo, not a playmate. She has an objective in all this."

That is to propel her son Octavian to power.

And that's where two Roman TV series collide.

ABC's "Empire," which aired this summer, began in 44 B.C. with the assassination of Julius Caesar. He had adopted Octavian, making him his son and heir.

The mini-series depicted Octavian as a romantic teenager, pressed into action.

"Rome" starts eight years earlier. Caesar (Ciaran Hinds) has finally triumphed in Gaul and heads home. Octavian is 11 years old and brilliant.

That is how Bruno Heller, the HBO show's principal writer, sees him. After all, Octavian later would become Augustus, Rome's first emperor.

He "must have been a very strange and brilliant man," Heller says. "He ... created a new way of operating a society that lasted for another 500 years."

Both the HBO and ABC series were filmed in Rome. "Italy is still very much the same place it was 2,000 years ago," Heller says. "Italians are still the same ... there's a sense of beauty and a sense of dignity and a sense of living life to the full that infects everyone."

With two projects going on, actors sometimes bumped into each other at night. "It was a strange thing to have two of each character," says actor Kevin McKidd.

The differences between the two projects: