Is anyone watching Rome? (HBO/BBC)

[EvilNed]

Maybe some of their hundreds of thousands of slaves were on road cleaning duty Like in East Germany... It's pretty funny that in Rome there were more slaves than citizens. And there was a law against prohibiting slaves to wearing some kind of distinguishing marks because then they would realize how many of them there were and they'd revolt. Kinda like Sparta. Haha. Wouldn't it be funny if they made a movie about Spartans fighting for freedom? Oh, that would be so great! Like spitting on the grave of Leonidas! Haha!! Edit: Also, why does Hollywood always imagine Ancient Rome and Greece covered with sand?

[capncnut]

Edit: Also, why does Hollywood always imagine Ancient Rome and Greece covered with sand? Clash of the Titans being a prime example.

[Mike70]

thread necromancy time. after reading through this thread to make sure i hadn't posted in it (and to be honest i can't believe i missed it first time around), i'll wax poetic about rome. most of you know that my edumakaysheen (sic) is in the history of the mid to late roman republic, so i'm gonna come at this from that slant. the rome tv series is quite simply the greatest and most realistic depiction of the ancient world ever. period. nothing else even comes close. one of the best bits that is thrown in is how a huge part of the free citizen pop is on the dole (both the food dole and the dole from their patron) because slaves have all the decent jobs. there was a food dole in ancient rome and the price of food in general was heavily subsidized by the govt. plus, there was a dole from patrons to their clients. this high level of unemployment was one of the main driving forces behind the populares faction ultimately winning out over the optimates. the laws proposed by caesar would've created tens of thousands of jobs for citizens while ruining a large section of wealthy population by requiring that they stop using slave labor for every single job. this made caesar and the populares faction hugely popular with the poor and hugely unpopular with the wealthy. another little bit i loved was caesar's rage at pompey's murder. that was very well portrayed and is in line with what historians of the time reported and very much in line with the roman mentality. roman citizens were immune from any law other than roman law (except in special circumstances, which i won't bore anyone with here) and could not be judged, held accountable or punished by anyone other than a roman magistrate. egypt at that time was a protectorate of rome, (since cleopatra's father had named the senate as executor of his will) so murdering pompey was an incredibly stupid thing to do and guaranteed to piss the romans off.

[axlish]

Necromancy granted Regarding Rome being covered in sand: It is cheap to shoot in the desert, thus creating the Sword & Sandal epics that were so popular in the 50's and 60's. BTW, there are serious talks about a Rome movie regarding a certain uprising in Judea, and guess who will have to go and squash it? Titus and... a certain friend of his

[Mike70]

BTW, there are serious talks about a Rome movie regarding a certain uprising in Judea, and guess who will have to go and squash it? Titus and... a certain friend of his i haven't heard anything of this. my question is: are they talking about THE revolt in judea? the so-called great revolt that culminated in the complete destruction of jerusalem. that happened in 66-73 AD, well over 100 years after the events in the series. took me a second but when you mention Titus and judea revolt, i think of the emperor titus, the son of vespasian. you mean Titus from the tv show. hey, as long as the romans aren't treated as stereotypical villians, i'll watch pretty much anything about them. whenever they are portrayed as villians i always think about this funny bit from "life of brian": It's pretty funny that in Rome there were more slaves than citizens. And there was a law against prohibiting slaves to wearing some kind of distinguishing marks because then they would realize how many of them there were and they'd revolt. yes ned, but remember that manumission of slaves was a very common, so common in fact that there laws passed limiting the number of slaves that could be freed at any one time. since roman slavery was not based on race, a freed slave could and often did fit quite nicely into society because his former owner (now patron) had a duty to see that he/she was set up in some reasonable way. sparta had no such system. once a helot, always a helot.

[axlish]

Yeah, I am talking about Titus Pullo and Lucius Verinas. They'll be in the mix to put down ol' Jesus. It stinks, but due to the high budget of the show, they had to mash the story down a lot in season 2. They had planned to do four seasons, with season two ending at Phillipi.

[Mike70]

Yeah, I am talking about Titus Pullo and Lucius Verinas. They'll be in the mix to put down ol' Jesus. It stinks, but due to the high budget of the show, they had to mash the story down a lot in season 2. They had planned to do four seasons, with season two ending at Phillipi. ugh. i don't know how i feel about that. even if the 2d rome series ends with the compromise of 27BC, whereby augustus kept the illusion of the republic alive by accepting tribunician power and being princeps senatus, the death of christ would still be 50 years or so later, in 28, 29, or 30 AD. then again, i guess since the roman world had almost 200 years of unbroken peace and prosperity (with a few minor blips on the radar) during and after the reign of augustus, you might have to do a bit of, uh, historical compression.

[axlish]

Mike, have you seen (or read) I, Claudius? I think that should be remade Rome style. Like you said though, there was a long period of peace. The era covered in I, Claudius is all about the elite class so it wouldn't work on as many levels as Rome. I hear ya on the timeline though, Titus and Lucius would have to be around 70 at least, and that is if they were around 15 at the beginning of the series.

[Mike70]

Mike, have you seen (or read) I, Claudius? I think that should be remade Rome style. Like you said though, there was a long period of peace. The era covered in I, Claudius is all about the elite class so it wouldn't work on as many levels as Rome. I hear ya on the timeline though, Titus and Lucius would have to be around 70 at least, and that is if they were around 15 at the beginning of the series. i've read it and seen it. derek jacobi and brian blessed (not only the leader of the hawkmen but also augustus) are both great in it. i'd love to see it redone as well.

[axlish]

i've read it and seen it. derek jacobi and brian blessed (not only the leader of the hawkmen but also augustus) are both great in it. i'd love to see it redone as well. Hell yeah they were great. Malcolm McDowell is a memorable Caligula but John Hurt is the quintessential Caligula to me. Ok, heres another one. Have you seen The Battle for Rome, a five (or six, I forget) part series on The Military Channel? Damn near on the level of Rome, but done in a docu-drama style. It concentrated on a couple of folks that I didn't know that much about.

[Mike70]

Ok, heres another one. Have you seen The Battle for Rome, a five (or six, I forget) part series on The Military Channel? Damn near on the level of Rome, but done in a docu-drama style. It concentrated on a couple of folks that I didn't know that much about. if it's the show that started with caesar and the rise of the empire, then shifted back in time to those crazy kids tiberius and gaius gracchus and their zany antics before going on to talk about the decay of the empire, yes i have. great show. i absolutely loved the ep about tiberius gracchus. his actions as tribune, along his little brother, did more to destablize the republic and set it on the path of self destruction than almost any other single thing in the history of the late republic. though that is the curse of being right many times. the gracchi brothers were both right about land reform, reducing homelessness and reliance on the food dole, increasing the number of jobs available to free citizens by reducing the number of slaves, increasing the ability of the poor to gain access to land by limiting the amount of acreage a person could own and forcing the wealthy to break up their latifunda (gigantic agricultural estates- sort of like the old southern plantations). the law proposed by t. gracchus would've limited any one citizen to 310 acres of land. any acreage above that would've been confiscated by the state and redistributed to landless and homeless citizens. after the optimates incited their political gangs to murder the gracchi (this is one of the crazier and more interesting things about roman history - senators employed gangs of thugs recruited from among their poorest clients as bodyguards and "muscle" if push came to shove), the gloves came off on both sides and you get cinna, sulla, crassus, pompey, caesar and augustus.

[axlish]

I knew next to nothing about the guy before the show but you are right, his actions are significant. It also showed how powermad the senate really was, and at the same time, how vulnerable and fragile they were as a body. I'd have rather them be in chronological order but they were great all the same. It'd be great if they made a few more of those. Here is that update about the potential Rome film http://www.movieweb.com/dvd/news/29/27229.php Ray Stevenson has brought us to Rome and he will bring us to a War Zone later this year. This versatile actor is certainly a rising star in the biz, and his new film, Outpost, is hitting the DVD shelves on March 11. I recently had the chance to speak with the actor over the phone about this new project and much much more. Here's what he had to say. ...I also have to ask about Rome. Have there been any talks about... Ray Stevenson: Have there been talks about Rome? Oh my God. (Laughs) There have been? Ray Stevenson: I hate to say anything, but yes. Bruno Heller, the writer and director of the show, and Bill MacDonald are in talks now for a Rome movie project. Really? Wow. So they want to bring everyone back? Ray Stevenson: Well, everybody who's not dead. (Laughs) There's a lot of history there, and if Punisher: War Zone goes well, obviously our profiles may help. The tricky thing with a movie, is that HBO is pay-per-view. It has a limited audience, it has its audience. You've got to try and find a movie that will stand alone and yet serve both the existing audience and attracting new ones. There was so much maturity and so much richness and so much good stuff that came out of it, that I've got my fingers, eyes, nose, teeth and everything crossed, because, in a heartbeat I would go back and do it, but people way beyond my pay scale will be making that decision. Is there a script for this right now, or are they still developing it? Ray Stevenson: Well, Bruno started working on the script, and then they called the writers strike. You'd have to make a call to Bruno Heller and people like that. I'm not sure what HBO's legal position or involvement or ownership issues... I mean, these are all being discussed by other people. All I can say is that there's positive talk about it. I wish I could sit here and tell you more, because I'd probably be more excited than you would be, but I'm just quietly keeping everything crossed, and encouraging from my sideline position. ...That's great, Ray. That's about all I have for you. Thank you so much for your time. Ray Stevenson: No worries. You take care. Thank you very much.

[Mike70]

that's interesting news about a rome movie, though i really don't see how you could carry it forward. ocatvian's becoming emperor is such a logical (to me at least) place for that story to come to rest. then again, i'm more likely to be proclaimed czar of all the russias than to ever be a film maker, so what do i know? tiberius gracchus is, along with scipio africanus and sextus pompey, one of my fav historical figures ever. his story is one of the main things that drew me to the study of roman history.

[axlish]

Speaking of Scipio, the actor that played Scipio in Rome played a different senator in The Battle for Rome, and from what I remember, it was a senator that wasn't depicted in the Rome series (I forget who it was, it has been a few since I saw it). So was Scipio the reason for your former namesake?

[Mike70]

Speaking of Scipio, the actor that played Scipio in Rome played a different senator in The Battle for Rome, and from what I remember, it was a senator that wasn't depicted in the Rome series (I forget who it was, it has been a few since I saw it). So was Scipio the reason for your former namesake? holy shit, to answer this in a manner that won't run on or sound like total geekdom is going to be difficult. the man depicted in the rome tv series was metellus scipio. he was born publius cornelius scipio nasica, his grandfather was a first cousin of the famous scipio africanus (who i took my former internet handle from). he was adopted by quintus caecilius metellus as an adult and was known as metellus scipio after that. this made sense under the conditions of the time. the metellii and scipiones families being two of the most powerful and influential families in ancient rome, so an adoption by the metellii of a scipiones would cement an alliance between the two. so, the scipio i took my former handle from was publius cornelius scipio africanus, the man who defeated carthage both in spain (at new carthage, baecula, and illpia) and hannibal himself at the battle of zama. he also helped his younger brother, lucius cornelius scipio (for the record the name "lucius" is pronounced luke-ee-us in latin not loosh-us) defeat antiochus at the battle of magnesia in 190 BC, which cemented roman influence and power over greece and anatolia (modern turkey). the fact that he offered himself up as a subordinate to his little brother (who had supported him without fail throughout his entire life) is one of the things that has always endeared scipio africanus to me. people with the fame and prestige that he had after conquering carthage don't often humble themselves like that. the other thing that has always interested me about the two scipio brothers is that even though scipio africanus was always the famous one and his younger brother lived in his shadow for his entire life, there was genuine love between the two and they never failed to stand up for one another. in fact, scipio africanus died in exile because he stood up for his younger brother. lucius was accused of misappropriating part of the spoils from the war with antiochus. well, scipio africanus grabbed the account books, tore them into little pieces and threw them down on the senate floor and basically said, "if, after all my brother and i have done for rome this is how you are going to treat us - fuck you. i'm outta here." he left rome for good and died several years later at his country estate in campania. i think another noteworthy thing about scipio africanus is that he tried to prevent the pursuit/killing of hannibal by the roman secret service (yes, rome had a very large and usually reliable intelligence service, so good that not much is known about them and for want of a better term, i'll use secret service). they finally caught up to hannibal but, realizing he was screwed, killed himself before rome's intelligence service got to him. on another note: tiberius gracchus and gaius gracchus, whom we were discussing a bit ago, were both grandsons of scipio africanus, being the sons of his youngest daughter, cornelia africana.