FLavius Valerius Constantinus Posted November 4, 2006 Report Share Posted November 4, 2006 Yay...the Discovery Channel is having a special feature on Roman Emperors....and it's not like those crappy History Channel ones... Link to website Here's the episode guide: Episode Guide Oh, It begins tomorrow on Sunday in America. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Primus Pilus Posted November 4, 2006 Report Share Posted November 4, 2006 Yay...the Discovery Channel is having a special feature on Roman Emperors....and it's not like those crappy History Channel ones...Link to website Here's the episode guide: Episode Guide Oh, It begins tomorrow on Sunday in America. Thank you for posting FVC, I was completely unaware of this show... would've missed it entirely. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
M. Porcius Cato Posted November 4, 2006 Report Share Posted November 4, 2006 Isn't this the same series discussed by our trans-Atlantic friends? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pertinax Posted November 4, 2006 Report Share Posted November 4, 2006 Isn't this the same series discussed by our trans-Atlantic friends? groan , the same! It is not good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gaius Paulinus Maximus Posted November 5, 2006 Report Share Posted November 5, 2006 Haha unlucky boys (and girls), after listening to us Brits slagging it off for the past six weeks, you now have the chance to do just the same! ENJOY Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DecimusCaesar Posted November 5, 2006 Report Share Posted November 5, 2006 I tried to open this link yesterday and It caused the computer to crash...it was probably a warning from my PC not to go near it...now I know why... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FLavius Valerius Constantinus Posted November 6, 2006 Author Report Share Posted November 6, 2006 I must say, I enjoyed every episode, especially Tiberius Gracchus' episode. Oh also, the guy who played Nero is amazing, I've never seen such a performance. As for Caesar, his style of speaking seems mesmerizing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Julius Ratus Posted November 6, 2006 Report Share Posted November 6, 2006 I saw the Graccus episode and the Caesar one tonight. I didn't stay up for the Nero one and didn't finish the Caesar one. I thought it was well done and far better than the HC ones. The only reason I didn't finish them was that I had a report to finish for tomorrow. All in all, I hope they do more of these. It was kind of like watching a movie, rather than a few repeat shots of reenactors followed by tedious comentary, followed by a million repeated commercials. Instead, this was a clean, straight narritive, cut up by a million repeated commercials. F'ing commercials... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
M. Porcius Cato Posted November 6, 2006 Report Share Posted November 6, 2006 I saw "Tiberius", "Caesar", and "Nero" last night. All had very good production values (cinematography, etc), and they all went a little deeper into their respective subjects than the standard History Channel special. Unfortunately, the historical narrative itself was a tad cartoonish. For example, Tiberius Gracchus is portrayed as a Christ-like figure (complete with long hair!), who loves the poor but is martyred for it by the mean old rich Romans. (The one exception was Pulcher, who tells Gracchus that the rich have a moral duty to help the poor--a notion straight out of Christianity but absolutely NOT part of Greco-Roman ethics.) Like the explanation of some religious dogma, one never gets the sense that there could have been ANY legitimate grounds for opposing Gracchus' proposals. This is a shame because the land proposals in "Tiberius" were far more radical than the ones the real Tiberius Gracchus proposed. Of course, everyone who opposes Gracchus is portrayed as an evil snob, and everyone who supports Gracchus is portrayed as a benevolent idealist. If you loved "Titanic", you'd probably love this too--though this disaster didn't even have a soundtrack. "Caesar" and "Nero" were fairly similar for oversimplifying the basic narrative. Strangely, Caesar was portrayed as a highly unsympathetic character, which is a nice twist I guess, but I'd like to think that there were better reasons to oppose Caesar than the fact that he was a melodramatic drama-queen. (At least they got Cato's age right, unnerving though it was to see Karl Johnson talking to Cato rather than for Cato.) I thought "Nero" was the most enjoyable of the three, but that's because I'm prepared to believe most anything about that nutball. It's only too bad they didn't bring in Petronius, the most interesting character of the period and the perfect foil to Tigellinus. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Virgil61 Posted November 6, 2006 Report Share Posted November 6, 2006 I think 'cartoonish' was the best description so far, although I was only able to catch the Nero episode in it's entirety. Quite an over the top acting job and entertaining to boot. A bit impressed that in the Caeser episode the soldiers seem to be wearing the Montefortino helmets. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
P.Clodius Posted November 6, 2006 Report Share Posted November 6, 2006 (The one exception was Pulcher, who tells Gracchus that the rich have a moral duty to help the poor--a notion straight out of Christianity but absolutely NOT part of Greco-Roman ethics.) Perhaps..But completely in line with the roman system of patronage, no? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Julius Ratus Posted November 6, 2006 Report Share Posted November 6, 2006 I was nice to see Labienus finally get some screen time. After doing a paper on Late Republican cavalry I began to wonder why he is never in any books or movies about Caesar. I was disappointed that he didn't make it into ROME. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rameses the Great Posted November 6, 2006 Report Share Posted November 6, 2006 I saw half of Tiberius and all of Caeser last night. What were they discussing about Carthage and how was it tied to young Tiberius? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
M. Porcius Cato Posted November 6, 2006 Report Share Posted November 6, 2006 Perhaps..But completely in line with the roman system of patronage, no? Except that there's no evidence for such a Roman system of patronage. It's a Mommsenian reconstruction that could be totally false. We do have evidence that religious colleges provided some support for the poor (e.g., in providing for funeral arrangements), but there's nothing in the literature indicating that politicians had some moral duty to care for the poor--which isn't to say that they never did so. BTW, I'm glad Julius Ratus mentioned Labienus. The portrayal of Pharsalus was better than average. However, they missed that Labienus' retreating cavalry stampeded over Pompey's slingers and archers thereby effectively wiping out Pompey's advantage in missle troops (suggesting that the loss of Labienus might not have been such a bad thing for Caesar!) and costing Pompey the battle. Instead, all the blame for the loss at Pharsalus is put on Marcellus and Cato, and Cato wasn't even present at Pharsalus! Again, these fictions are introduced to cement the cartoonish narrative--Caesar good, Senate bad. Anyway, I hate to complain about this series because I'd really like there to be more of them, and I hope they inspire people to buy books on ancient Rome--but it would be nice if some more of those books were read by the film producers themselves. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antiochus of Seleucia Posted November 6, 2006 Report Share Posted November 6, 2006 (edited) And I read this now... :sadwalk: I WILL NOT miss the ones next Sunday! Hopefully the previous 3 mentioned play again sometime... Edited November 6, 2006 by Antiochus of Seleucia Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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