As Caesar and Mark Antony leisurely pedeconference, they pass Julii Cooper, who exhorts Octavian to "say something witty." "I have nothing such to say," Octavian responds. "You know I cannot talk small, mother." Ah, HA HA HA HAAAA! Oh, he was being serious. Never mind. Julii turns to Octavia to regale the guests with some poetry. "She can rattle off pages of the stuff," she says with a tipsy shoulder-check to Calpurnia, who looks mightily offended at her host's familiarity. Reluctantly, Octavia recites, "Easy it is to go down into Hell/ The gates of death are ever open/ To climb back out again, that's the difficulty." Well, that was...prosaic. Julii Cooper pronounces it "a touch dark," and confides to Calpurnia, "She lost her husband, you know." Octavia gets up and leaves.

Over at the pleb party (have you heard? There are two Romes!), the eating's over and the dancing has begun. There's music and everything. They make sure to let us have a glimpse at the musicians packed into an alcove so that we don't think Vorenus hired a DJ or something, but their musical pantomime is about as convincing as that of the house band at Chuck E. Cheese. The dance floor is packed. Even Vorenus is partaking, but of course he's just sort of shuffling in a circle with a little girl, looking terribly embarrassed.

Lyde is also out on the floor, dirty-dancing with some young guy who's not her husband. Evander looks on unhappily. Vorenus returns to his table to chat up Erastes some more, oblivious. As Niobe watches her sister act out, her nosy neighbor Mrs. Kravus comes up to her and suggests that it's time to get Lyde out of there. Niobe asks Mrs. Kravus to go suggest as much to Evander. Mrs. Kravus does, but Evander doesn't think Lyde wants to go. "So make her go," Mrs. Kravus bosses. Evander tries to cut in and get Lyde to leave with him, but she wants to stay. And if Evander doesn't leave her alone, she says, "I'll tell our brave soldier such a good tale." This is accompanied by an unhinged smile in the direction of Vorenus, who's cluelessly schmoozing with Erastes. "And kill us all?" Evander says. "Is that what you want?" As they make more and more of a scene, the noise they make is drowned out by the music and the dancers, at least for now. Niobe approaches them to remind Lyde desperately that she made a vow to Persephone to hold her peace. Lyde calls Vorenus a blind fool, and then repeats it at top volume. Now even Vorenus knows something up, and he's on his way over to investigate. As the music accelerates, so does the altercation in the middle of the dance floor, until they tip over the little shrine to Janus and the god's clay head shatters on the ground. Vorenus freezes in horror. This must be bad. On the plus side, all of the little Roman children who were turned into real-life versions of their Halloween costumes are back to normal now.