There's an article in today's Guardian on Spielberg's forthcoming Munich, and its apparently tenuous relationship to what actually happened. The final quote is: "For a director who delivered such historical works as Schindler's List, his conduct in this case resembles that of a cub journalist who chooses to run a great story rather than confuse us with the facts." I found that interesting, because one could say exactly the same thing about Saving Private Ryan.
The issues about accuracy in historical fiction are also discussed in an interview with E.L. Doctorow on tonight's edition of Front Row, which will be available for a week on the marvellous 'Listen Again' feature for a week from when the broadcast finishes.
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Friday, January 13, 2006
The fall of the Roman empire?
I briefly touched in another forum upon my view of the 'fall of the Roman empire'. That view is that this term is rather a misnomer if one is talking about the fifth century AD. Of course, everyone knows the eastern empire continued until the fifteenth century, but the division into 'western' and 'eastern' empires, with one falling and one surviving seems to me a false one. I thought I might set out my view here in more detail.
I should state that Late Antiquity isn't really my period. However, I am told (by Penny Goodman) that my views are close to the modern orthodoxy on the period. I'm not really up with the current orthodoxy in this field. Most of the books on Roman emperors/general Roman history I have on my shelves end at AD 476 (even Averil Cameron's The Later Roman Empire tidies itself up then). About the only book I have consulted that emphasizes continuity in this area is John Julius Norwich's History of Byzantium, as fine a work of modern historiography as I know - the description of the final days of Constantinople is suffused with pathos, and very moving. Peter Heather's The Fall of the Roman Empire has been receiving good reviews, but I've not yet read it myself. My own views have been developed largely on the basis of reading those works that speak of the fall, and thinking, 'no, that's not right, surely'.
For a long time I was under the impression that Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire did what most modern histories of the Roman empire do - end with the deposition of the western emperor Romulus Augustulus in AD 476. But Gibbon doesn't. He takes the story all the way up to the fall of Constantinople to Mehmet the Conqueror in 1453.
Good for Gibbon, I say.
As a school child and undergraduate, I was always taught that the Roman empire ended in the fifth century AD. The Byzantine Empire centred on Constantinople was something different, something belonging to the different field of mediaeval history (and an aspect of mediaeval history I learned almost nothing about at school, as the lessons I had were only interested in the history of England). But as I've got older, I've come more and more to the conclusion that this is simply wrong-headed, a distorted western viewpoint. The bottom line is that the Byzantines did not see their empire as anything different. All the emperors up to Constantine XI saw themselves as heirs of Augustus. And they were all addressed as 'emperor of the Romans'. To see the emperors in Constantinople after AD 490 as being different, and to sneeringly describe their rule as a mere 'continuation' of the Roman empire, is a view that privileges the western European experience.
More sophisticated commentators tend to talk of 'the fall of the western Roman empire'. But even that seems to me a misnomer. It implies that the western empire was a separate political state. People talk of the 'formal division of the empire' on the death of Theodosius the Great in AD 395 (Francis Pryor does so in his recent book Britain A.D.).
But no such formal division ever took place. What happened was that Theodosius left the empire jointly to his sons Arcadius and Honorius. Arcadius' sphere of responsibility was in the east, and Honorius' in the west. But they were joint rulers of the empire, and legislation promulgated by one applied in the other's territory. It had been the case for much of the previous century that there had been more than one Augustus (the term used by then to designate the emperor), and that each Augustus had certain geographical responsibilities. But the empire remained one, and could in theory be reunited at any point. For the eighty years after Theodosius' death it wasn't, and each eastern and western emperor was replaced by another emperor whose responsibilities were only in half of the empire. Yet there remained co-operation, and each emperor took an interest in the appointment of his colleague. In particular, the eastern emperor, clearly the senior, took close concern over the appointment of the western Augustus, and anyone wishing to be western emperor who couldn't get Constantinople's approval wouldn't last long (I don't know of any evidence of the reverse taking place - when the eastern emperor Theodosius II died in AD 450, no-one seems to have been much concerned about any theoretical claims that Valentinian III in the west might have had, and Valentinian himself doesn't seem to have pressed them). So, there were two emperors, but the empire remained one.
What happened in the twenty years after the assassination of Valentinian III in AD 455 was that various Germanic warlords in the west tried to get their puppets appointed western Augustus, sometimes succeeding, but sometimes having to accept the eastern appointee. None of these lasted very long, because of a military crisis in the west. Sometimes, there were a few months when wasn't a western Augustus. But this wasn't considered a desperate problem, because there still was an emperor ruling the empire, and he would appoint a colleague when it became necessary.
This chaotic period is generally considered the 'fall of the west'. Clearly, there was fragmentation and loss of control in the western provinces, to the extent that by AD 476 the empire's authority in the west extended little beyond Italy. However, it seems to me that seeing the processes of the collapse of the Roman way of life in the western provinces as the fall of a separate western empire is a misleading way of looking at it. What was happening was not the fall of the western empire, but the empire losing control of the western provinces, being unable to sustain itself at its current size, and contracting until it stabilized around what had by then become the centre of imperial gravity. Many of the problems associated with understanding the fifth century go away if looked at from this perspective.
It has been noted by scholars that any explanation of why the western empire fell has also to explain why the east survived. But look at the empire as a unity, and ask the question, 'why did the empire lose control of the west?' and it becomes easier, I think. As the political centre of the empire moved east to Constantinople, so control of the western provinces became ever more problematic, until finally it collapsed altogether. As Richard Baker has reminded me, Constantinople would have been more concerned with the Persian frontier. A collapse in Gaul posed no immediate threat to Constantinople. A collapse in Mesopotamia and Armenia, on the other hand, would raise the spectre of Persians rolling up Anatolia (and a collapse on the Danube would similarly be a more immediate problem than anything in Germany or Gaul). Of course, the western Augustus would have had a different view, but, as noted, the western Augustus was the junior imperial partner.
Roman control in the western provinces did eventually end. But not in AD 476. That year did not mark the end of Roman control over Italy (never mind that Justinian would reconquer the peninsula in the next century). Yes, the 'last emperor', Romulus Augustulus, had been deposed, and the man who did it, Odoacer, did not seek to get a replacement appointed. But he still acknowledged the sovereignty of the eastern emperor, Zeno, who even forced Odoacer to issue coinage in the name of Julius Nepos, Augustulus' predecessor, who lived on in exile in the Balkans. So really Nepos was the last western emperor.
I don't want to minimize the importance of what happened in AD 476 (or AD 480, when Nepos was murdered). It was a significant change in the way Roman rule was exercised in the west, a transformation from direct rule to vassal kings and one which was largely forced upon the empire rather than being of its choosing. But it was a change, and not the end. Roman rule was flexible enough to accommodate vassal kings, and this had been a method used throughout Roman history (so, maps of the extent of Roman rule at the empire's height ought to - but rarely do - include the Crimea, where Roman emperors determined the rulers of the Bosporan kingdom). That this had now happened to the metropolitan territory of the empire must have been a psychological blow, but I think it shows the strength of the empire that it could survive such a blow. No western emperor was appointed after Nepos' death, presumably because Zeno felt that the new system and the collapse of Roman control through much of the western provinces meant that one was no longer needed (and I daresay even he thought 'for now', and was open to restoring the post should the need arise). Odoacer, and then Theoderic the Ostrogoth, acted as Constantinople's servants, in much the same way as the western Augustus had, save that these men were clearly not the emperor's equal. One can certainly argue that the acknowledgement of Roman authority by these Germanic kings was somewhat nominal, and that largely they did what they wanted to - certainly Justinian felt that the situation wasn't acceptable, and re-established direct rule. But one shouldn't completely ignore the lip-service paid, and the fact that clearly Odoacer and Theoderic felt that they had, or indeed needed, to be seen to act in the emperor's name.
So, the Roman empire did not fall in AD 476, but changed. The emperors continued to have authority in Rome - when the Pantheon was given to the Pope in the early seventh century, it was the emperor Phocas did so, on a visit to Rome. Roman authority in the city was not really ended until the eighth century, and a Byzantine presence in southern Italy lasted until the Normans drove them out in the eleventh century. The Roman empire's fall came in AD 1453. When Charlemagne was crowned Augustus by Pope Leo III on Christmas Day AD 800, from which event the Holy Roman Empire began (something else about which I was shamefully not taught in history classes at school), it was not the revival of a title and empire long departed, but a direct challenge to an empire that still existed. (In fact, the throne at Constantinople was occupied at the time by the Empress Irene, which in Leo's eyes meant that it was empty, so he elevated the Frankish king in order that there should be an emperor. The Byzantines told him to get stuffed.) William the Conqueror, Robert the Bruce and Geoffrey Chaucer all lived in a world where the Roman empire still existed. Richard the Lionheart even went there, and Harald Hardrada, loser at Stamford Bridge, worked for the Romans for a time. Remember that, when you next think about the Romans, and how remote they seem.
For a long time I was under the impression that Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire did what most modern histories of the Roman empire do - end with the deposition of the western emperor Romulus Augustulus in AD 476. But Gibbon doesn't. He takes the story all the way up to the fall of Constantinople to Mehmet the Conqueror in 1453.
Good for Gibbon, I say.
As a school child and undergraduate, I was always taught that the Roman empire ended in the fifth century AD. The Byzantine Empire centred on Constantinople was something different, something belonging to the different field of mediaeval history (and an aspect of mediaeval history I learned almost nothing about at school, as the lessons I had were only interested in the history of England). But as I've got older, I've come more and more to the conclusion that this is simply wrong-headed, a distorted western viewpoint. The bottom line is that the Byzantines did not see their empire as anything different. All the emperors up to Constantine XI saw themselves as heirs of Augustus. And they were all addressed as 'emperor of the Romans'. To see the emperors in Constantinople after AD 490 as being different, and to sneeringly describe their rule as a mere 'continuation' of the Roman empire, is a view that privileges the western European experience.
More sophisticated commentators tend to talk of 'the fall of the western Roman empire'. But even that seems to me a misnomer. It implies that the western empire was a separate political state. People talk of the 'formal division of the empire' on the death of Theodosius the Great in AD 395 (Francis Pryor does so in his recent book Britain A.D.).
But no such formal division ever took place. What happened was that Theodosius left the empire jointly to his sons Arcadius and Honorius. Arcadius' sphere of responsibility was in the east, and Honorius' in the west. But they were joint rulers of the empire, and legislation promulgated by one applied in the other's territory. It had been the case for much of the previous century that there had been more than one Augustus (the term used by then to designate the emperor), and that each Augustus had certain geographical responsibilities. But the empire remained one, and could in theory be reunited at any point. For the eighty years after Theodosius' death it wasn't, and each eastern and western emperor was replaced by another emperor whose responsibilities were only in half of the empire. Yet there remained co-operation, and each emperor took an interest in the appointment of his colleague. In particular, the eastern emperor, clearly the senior, took close concern over the appointment of the western Augustus, and anyone wishing to be western emperor who couldn't get Constantinople's approval wouldn't last long (I don't know of any evidence of the reverse taking place - when the eastern emperor Theodosius II died in AD 450, no-one seems to have been much concerned about any theoretical claims that Valentinian III in the west might have had, and Valentinian himself doesn't seem to have pressed them). So, there were two emperors, but the empire remained one.
What happened in the twenty years after the assassination of Valentinian III in AD 455 was that various Germanic warlords in the west tried to get their puppets appointed western Augustus, sometimes succeeding, but sometimes having to accept the eastern appointee. None of these lasted very long, because of a military crisis in the west. Sometimes, there were a few months when wasn't a western Augustus. But this wasn't considered a desperate problem, because there still was an emperor ruling the empire, and he would appoint a colleague when it became necessary.
This chaotic period is generally considered the 'fall of the west'. Clearly, there was fragmentation and loss of control in the western provinces, to the extent that by AD 476 the empire's authority in the west extended little beyond Italy. However, it seems to me that seeing the processes of the collapse of the Roman way of life in the western provinces as the fall of a separate western empire is a misleading way of looking at it. What was happening was not the fall of the western empire, but the empire losing control of the western provinces, being unable to sustain itself at its current size, and contracting until it stabilized around what had by then become the centre of imperial gravity. Many of the problems associated with understanding the fifth century go away if looked at from this perspective.
It has been noted by scholars that any explanation of why the western empire fell has also to explain why the east survived. But look at the empire as a unity, and ask the question, 'why did the empire lose control of the west?' and it becomes easier, I think. As the political centre of the empire moved east to Constantinople, so control of the western provinces became ever more problematic, until finally it collapsed altogether. As Richard Baker has reminded me, Constantinople would have been more concerned with the Persian frontier. A collapse in Gaul posed no immediate threat to Constantinople. A collapse in Mesopotamia and Armenia, on the other hand, would raise the spectre of Persians rolling up Anatolia (and a collapse on the Danube would similarly be a more immediate problem than anything in Germany or Gaul). Of course, the western Augustus would have had a different view, but, as noted, the western Augustus was the junior imperial partner.
Roman control in the western provinces did eventually end. But not in AD 476. That year did not mark the end of Roman control over Italy (never mind that Justinian would reconquer the peninsula in the next century). Yes, the 'last emperor', Romulus Augustulus, had been deposed, and the man who did it, Odoacer, did not seek to get a replacement appointed. But he still acknowledged the sovereignty of the eastern emperor, Zeno, who even forced Odoacer to issue coinage in the name of Julius Nepos, Augustulus' predecessor, who lived on in exile in the Balkans. So really Nepos was the last western emperor.
I don't want to minimize the importance of what happened in AD 476 (or AD 480, when Nepos was murdered). It was a significant change in the way Roman rule was exercised in the west, a transformation from direct rule to vassal kings and one which was largely forced upon the empire rather than being of its choosing. But it was a change, and not the end. Roman rule was flexible enough to accommodate vassal kings, and this had been a method used throughout Roman history (so, maps of the extent of Roman rule at the empire's height ought to - but rarely do - include the Crimea, where Roman emperors determined the rulers of the Bosporan kingdom). That this had now happened to the metropolitan territory of the empire must have been a psychological blow, but I think it shows the strength of the empire that it could survive such a blow. No western emperor was appointed after Nepos' death, presumably because Zeno felt that the new system and the collapse of Roman control through much of the western provinces meant that one was no longer needed (and I daresay even he thought 'for now', and was open to restoring the post should the need arise). Odoacer, and then Theoderic the Ostrogoth, acted as Constantinople's servants, in much the same way as the western Augustus had, save that these men were clearly not the emperor's equal. One can certainly argue that the acknowledgement of Roman authority by these Germanic kings was somewhat nominal, and that largely they did what they wanted to - certainly Justinian felt that the situation wasn't acceptable, and re-established direct rule. But one shouldn't completely ignore the lip-service paid, and the fact that clearly Odoacer and Theoderic felt that they had, or indeed needed, to be seen to act in the emperor's name.
So, the Roman empire did not fall in AD 476, but changed. The emperors continued to have authority in Rome - when the Pantheon was given to the Pope in the early seventh century, it was the emperor Phocas did so, on a visit to Rome. Roman authority in the city was not really ended until the eighth century, and a Byzantine presence in southern Italy lasted until the Normans drove them out in the eleventh century. The Roman empire's fall came in AD 1453. When Charlemagne was crowned Augustus by Pope Leo III on Christmas Day AD 800, from which event the Holy Roman Empire began (something else about which I was shamefully not taught in history classes at school), it was not the revival of a title and empire long departed, but a direct challenge to an empire that still existed. (In fact, the throne at Constantinople was occupied at the time by the Empress Irene, which in Leo's eyes meant that it was empty, so he elevated the Frankish king in order that there should be an emperor. The Byzantines told him to get stuffed.) William the Conqueror, Robert the Bruce and Geoffrey Chaucer all lived in a world where the Roman empire still existed. Richard the Lionheart even went there, and Harald Hardrada, loser at Stamford Bridge, worked for the Romans for a time. Remember that, when you next think about the Romans, and how remote they seem.
It's amazing what you find when you Google your own name
Remember this post? Well, I found it picked up on this blog.
Helpfully, Alun links to a couple of news items that provide more information, most importantly naming the Somerset Museum in question. It's the Cheddar Man & The Cannibals museum in the Cheddar Caves & Gorge. As I suspected, it's a museum concerned principally with prehistory. It is simply easier to present to a visitor the notion that Cheddar Man is from approximately 9,000 years Before the Present than to date him to approximately 7050 BC, and leave it to the visitor to add the extra 2,000 years.
Unfortunately, of course, the labels were read by some idiot who didn't understand what they meant, and couldn't be bothered to find out, but leapt to conclusions that fitted with a particular bee in their bonnet, complained to the museum, and then couldn't wait for the museum to explain itself before writing an angry letter to the local paper (or however it was that they got the press involved). As is often the case, people are complaining about what they think is being said, rather than what is actually being said. Remember the controversial 'gay' sketch in The Eleven O'Clock Show, in which a TV director is making a sensitive documentary until he storms out on discovering that his subject is living with another man? That produced a storm of complaints for being anti-gay, but if you actually saw the sketch, the gay characters were portrayed with dignity, and the target was actually the homophobic director. But people weren't watching properly, so they sounded off. The Cheddar case appears to me to be a similar one. It then got picked up by a Tory politician. Well, you expect them to use evidence partially to support whatever molehill they want to turn into a newsworthy mountain, without getting the whole story (see Michael Howard's election campaign, passim).
Finding Alun's post inspired me to go looking for other references to Memorabilia Antonina, and I found a that quite a few people are reading this, including David Meadows, who I remember from my days when I used to frequent Classics mailing lists. That gives me quite a warm feeling.
Unfortunately, of course, the labels were read by some idiot who didn't understand what they meant, and couldn't be bothered to find out, but leapt to conclusions that fitted with a particular bee in their bonnet, complained to the museum, and then couldn't wait for the museum to explain itself before writing an angry letter to the local paper (or however it was that they got the press involved). As is often the case, people are complaining about what they think is being said, rather than what is actually being said. Remember the controversial 'gay' sketch in The Eleven O'Clock Show, in which a TV director is making a sensitive documentary until he storms out on discovering that his subject is living with another man? That produced a storm of complaints for being anti-gay, but if you actually saw the sketch, the gay characters were portrayed with dignity, and the target was actually the homophobic director. But people weren't watching properly, so they sounded off. The Cheddar case appears to me to be a similar one. It then got picked up by a Tory politician. Well, you expect them to use evidence partially to support whatever molehill they want to turn into a newsworthy mountain, without getting the whole story (see Michael Howard's election campaign, passim).
Finding Alun's post inspired me to go looking for other references to Memorabilia Antonina, and I found a that quite a few people are reading this, including David Meadows, who I remember from my days when I used to frequent Classics mailing lists. That gives me quite a warm feeling.
Monday, January 09, 2006
Aide memoire
Upcoming classical theatre in London over the next few months:
Greek theatre:
February 7-11: Euripides' Medea, UCL Bloomsbury Theatre (UCL Greek Play)
February 8-10: Ecclesiazusae, or Assemblywomen, by Aristophanes, Greenwood Theatre (King's College Greek Play)
September-December, Oedipus (Actors of Dionysus)
Modern theatre:
Until February 6: Paul, National Theatre Cottesloe
January 18-28: Sejanus: His Fall, Trafalgar Studios 1
April 6 - June 3: Phaedra, Donmar Warehouse
Opera:
March 15-18: Hercules - Handel / Les Arts Florissants, Barbican Theatre
April 3 - May 19: La Belle Helene, Coliseum
April 15-28: Orfeo, Coliseum
Dance:
February 1-11: Metamorphoses & Electra - Gardzienice Centre for Theatre Practices, Barbican: The Pit Theatre
June 27-July 1: A Midsummer Night's Dream, Barbican Theatre
Children's shows:
February 24 - April 21: The Odyssey, Lyric Hammersmith
February 25: The Legend of Perseus, Lyric Studio
March 14-18: Jason and the Argonauts, Greenwich
Of these I shall certainly be at the Medea and Ecclesiazusae, and Sejanus is very tempting. The rest I shall decide about later.
February 7-11: Euripides' Medea, UCL Bloomsbury Theatre (UCL Greek Play)
February 8-10: Ecclesiazusae, or Assemblywomen, by Aristophanes, Greenwood Theatre (King's College Greek Play)
September-December, Oedipus (Actors of Dionysus)
Modern theatre:
Until February 6: Paul, National Theatre Cottesloe
January 18-28: Sejanus: His Fall, Trafalgar Studios 1
April 6 - June 3: Phaedra, Donmar Warehouse
Opera:
March 15-18: Hercules - Handel / Les Arts Florissants, Barbican Theatre
April 3 - May 19: La Belle Helene, Coliseum
April 15-28: Orfeo, Coliseum
Dance:
February 1-11: Metamorphoses & Electra - Gardzienice Centre for Theatre Practices, Barbican: The Pit Theatre
June 27-July 1: A Midsummer Night's Dream, Barbican Theatre
Children's shows:
February 24 - April 21: The Odyssey, Lyric Hammersmith
February 25: The Legend of Perseus, Lyric Studio
March 14-18: Jason and the Argonauts, Greenwich
Of these I shall certainly be at the Medea and Ecclesiazusae, and Sejanus is very tempting. The rest I shall decide about later.
Richard Dawkins on religion
Well, I've watched part one of Root of All Evil?
The trouble with Richard Dawkins is something that the Evangelical Pastor he met put his finger on - he is arrogant. He's not conducting an investigation of faith - he's searching for evidence to demonstrate how bad religion is. He is constantly stacking the deck in his favour. Science is true, religion is based on nonsense. These are conclusions he has already drawn before he enters into any investigation. Dawkins is right to be concerned about the dangers of fundamentalism in all religions (though note how he has a tendency of speaking as if the Judaic-derived religions are the only ones that exist). But he goes wrong when he implies that any belief in faith fosters such extremism. He goes wrong, because it renders science open to the same criticism. It's all very well to say that a pilgrimage to Lourdes is the slippery slope that leads to suicide bombers, but one could just as easily argue that children with chemistry sets is the slippery slope that leads to the Nazis' eugenics experiments. Dawkins claims he wants people to think for themselves, but evidently only within the confines of the scientific method. And eliminating religion will not stop people wanting to see the world in black-and-white terms and denying the world's complexity.
The Root of All Evil? is a passionate piece, but one that is as vulnerable to criticism as the positions Dawkins attacks. Compare the rather more productive approach of Robert Beckford in Who Wrote The Bible? In the end, I don't think that science and reason are advanced by scientists being unreasonable.
The Root of All Evil? is a passionate piece, but one that is as vulnerable to criticism as the positions Dawkins attacks. Compare the rather more productive approach of Robert Beckford in Who Wrote The Bible? In the end, I don't think that science and reason are advanced by scientists being unreasonable.
Sunday, January 08, 2006
Root of All Evil
As a pretty convinced atheist, I'm rather worried by Richard Dawkins' upcoming Channel 4 series, The Root Of All Evil?, at least to judge from the trails. He is heard saying that religion alone causes good people to do evil things - without it good people would continue to do good things, and evil people would still do evil things, but good people would not do evil.
There's just one problem with that - it's twaddle. Good people have done evil in the name of other things than religion. Nationalism springs to mind, and racism. The latter is particularly pertinent, as some of the racist theory that caused such suffering in the imperial colonies of the European parties was evolved by the sort of secular humanists of the Enlightenment that Dawkins, I suspect, would like us all to model ourselves upon.
It is undeniably true that many religious people these days are enemies of science and reason. But that does not mean that religion itself is an enemy of science and reason, and it is a betrayal of enlightened thinking for Dawkins to suggest otherwise.
It is undeniably true that many religious people these days are enemies of science and reason. But that does not mean that religion itself is an enemy of science and reason, and it is a betrayal of enlightened thinking for Dawkins to suggest otherwise.
Wednesday, December 28, 2005
The abuse of history, part whatever
The Open University Student Association's conference for the AA309 Roman Empire course has been full of discussion inspired by the following article about the notion of a 'political correctness eradicator', discussion which has centred around whether one should use BC/AD or BCE/CE:
http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4558668.stm
What no-one seems to have noticed is that Philip Davies, the Tory MP whose idea this is (and despite the way it's been written up by the BBC journalist, it appears to be his idea alone, with, as yet, no support from Central Office), has got his facts wrong.
He cites an (unnamed) Somerset museum, and says: "Somebody decided that BC - Before Christ - was going to be offensive to other religions, so they changed BC to BP, which was Before the Present, I think it stood for."
The trouble is, 'BP' is not a politically-correct alternative for 'BC' - it's a shorthand way of saying 'x years ago', and it is used of archaeological material from a prehistoric context, e.g. 10,000 BP, 50,000 BP, 100,000 BP, etc. It actually originates from carbon dating practices, where of course the data comes out without the Christian era taken into account, but it is also true that the bigger these numbers get, the less sense it makes to lop two thousand years off. (Plus, for me at least, c. 8000 BC implies a greater level of precision than c. 10000 BP.) Conversely, the closer one gets to the start of that era, the less useful and more confusing it is to use the seemingly movable BP. In fact it's not movable, as the 'Present' is fixed on 1950, but that's not obvious to most people.
Nevertheless, some archaeologists do, for consistency's sake, use BP right down into the Iron Age. But only for archaeological material of imprecise date, where the margin of error could be fifty or a hundred years. One would never replace say, 54 BC, with 2003 BP, not least because one might at first assume that AD 2 was meant.
Obviously, without going to the museum concerned, I can't check, but I would expect that the use of BP was confined to prehistoric material that could not be precisely dated, and was done for reasons of archaeological practice rather than of ideology. Mr Davies, who has clearly received this information at second- or third-hand, either was told by someone at a party, or has got the story from some newspaper more concerned with sensation than accuracy.
On the wider question that has been vexing students, well, personally, I use BC/AD, but more out of habit and a feeling that it is more commonly understood than any conviction that it is right. I can see that there is force in the argument that those who do not accept Jesus as their Lord might well prefer the compromise of the Common Era. I certainly wouldn't resent being told to use it in publications, or dismiss it as silly.
This is rather emblematic of what I find in many stories of 'political correctness'. Certainly there are some examples of silliness, but if you dig deeper you'll often find, as in this case, that it's less unreasonable than the anti-PC brigade have suggested. At the heart of the notion of 'politically correct language' is the notion that one should try to use language that does not automatically offend. Often, those most vociferously anti-PC are those who don't see the need to be polite to everyone, and behind their campaign against 'silliness' one often suspects a desire to return Britain to a society where white male Protestants could do what they liked without having to apologize to anyone. From the sort of pronouncements Mr Davies makes, I do rather fancy that he is such a person.
Frankly, I don't think I want to return to those old days. And I do think it behooves those who condemn 'nonsense' to themselves have a clue.
What no-one seems to have noticed is that Philip Davies, the Tory MP whose idea this is (and despite the way it's been written up by the BBC journalist, it appears to be his idea alone, with, as yet, no support from Central Office), has got his facts wrong.
He cites an (unnamed) Somerset museum, and says: "Somebody decided that BC - Before Christ - was going to be offensive to other religions, so they changed BC to BP, which was Before the Present, I think it stood for."
The trouble is, 'BP' is not a politically-correct alternative for 'BC' - it's a shorthand way of saying 'x years ago', and it is used of archaeological material from a prehistoric context, e.g. 10,000 BP, 50,000 BP, 100,000 BP, etc. It actually originates from carbon dating practices, where of course the data comes out without the Christian era taken into account, but it is also true that the bigger these numbers get, the less sense it makes to lop two thousand years off. (Plus, for me at least, c. 8000 BC implies a greater level of precision than c. 10000 BP.) Conversely, the closer one gets to the start of that era, the less useful and more confusing it is to use the seemingly movable BP. In fact it's not movable, as the 'Present' is fixed on 1950, but that's not obvious to most people.
Nevertheless, some archaeologists do, for consistency's sake, use BP right down into the Iron Age. But only for archaeological material of imprecise date, where the margin of error could be fifty or a hundred years. One would never replace say, 54 BC, with 2003 BP, not least because one might at first assume that AD 2 was meant.
Obviously, without going to the museum concerned, I can't check, but I would expect that the use of BP was confined to prehistoric material that could not be precisely dated, and was done for reasons of archaeological practice rather than of ideology. Mr Davies, who has clearly received this information at second- or third-hand, either was told by someone at a party, or has got the story from some newspaper more concerned with sensation than accuracy.
On the wider question that has been vexing students, well, personally, I use BC/AD, but more out of habit and a feeling that it is more commonly understood than any conviction that it is right. I can see that there is force in the argument that those who do not accept Jesus as their Lord might well prefer the compromise of the Common Era. I certainly wouldn't resent being told to use it in publications, or dismiss it as silly.
This is rather emblematic of what I find in many stories of 'political correctness'. Certainly there are some examples of silliness, but if you dig deeper you'll often find, as in this case, that it's less unreasonable than the anti-PC brigade have suggested. At the heart of the notion of 'politically correct language' is the notion that one should try to use language that does not automatically offend. Often, those most vociferously anti-PC are those who don't see the need to be polite to everyone, and behind their campaign against 'silliness' one often suspects a desire to return Britain to a society where white male Protestants could do what they liked without having to apologize to anyone. From the sort of pronouncements Mr Davies makes, I do rather fancy that he is such a person.
Frankly, I don't think I want to return to those old days. And I do think it behooves those who condemn 'nonsense' to themselves have a clue.
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
Oh dear, I expected better
Brian Sewell has just rather blotted his copy book by suggesting that the Pantheon in Rome was built in the lifetime of Christ. This is true neither of Marcus Agrippa's original Pantheon, which date to 27 BC, and so is about a quarter century before Christ's birth, nor of Hadrian's replacement, the building that survives today, which was constructed in AD 125. Now, I expect to disagree with Sewell's views at times (like his preference for the dubious charms of Naples over the fantastic Rome), but I never expected him to slip up on basic facts.
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
Boudicca yet again
Given that I've written before about Boudicca, some comment on Five's Boudica's Treasures might be expected. Well, it was no better nor worse than I expected. There were some sensible points made - the fact that 'Britain' as a concept wouldn't really be acknowledged by Boudicca. But as ever there was a tendency to over-romanticize the Celts, who were 'in touch with the natural world as no other people have been'. The Romans, of course, are brutal conquerors, taking British young men off to the army (which I'm not sure there is evidence for,* plus service in the army was actually a relatively cushy job and a good way of improving one's status), and pursuing a campaign of 'ethnic cleansing' (I'll grant Tacitus does say that British tribes that had been disloyal were treated with fire and sword, but the same writer also says that more damage was done by famine, due to men being pulled off agricultural duties). London was 'a city of vile moneylenders', and Boudicca's own atrocities are passed over and granted a sheen of legitimacy - destroying the Romanized British city of Verulamium is acceptable because the city was run by a 'Quisling aristocracy'.
The main thing that was different with this programme was tying the account in with Neil Faulkner's archeological excavation in northern Norfolk. This is a site which is in the right area, and dates to the middle of the first century AD, and so it of the right period. But there was nothing presented in the programme to directly tie the site in with Boudicca. What this actually served to demonstrate was the way in which archaeological material and historical material tend to answer different questions. The study of the site, interesting though it was, didn't really help tell the story of Boudicca.
Not as bad as the Battlefield Britain programme on the subject, but not as good as Michael Wood's from nearly twenty-five years ago.
Edit 19/07/2007: Okay, yes there is - Tacitus, Agricola 15.
The main thing that was different with this programme was tying the account in with Neil Faulkner's archeological excavation in northern Norfolk. This is a site which is in the right area, and dates to the middle of the first century AD, and so it of the right period. But there was nothing presented in the programme to directly tie the site in with Boudicca. What this actually served to demonstrate was the way in which archaeological material and historical material tend to answer different questions. The study of the site, interesting though it was, didn't really help tell the story of Boudicca.
Not as bad as the Battlefield Britain programme on the subject, but not as good as Michael Wood's from nearly twenty-five years ago.
Edit 19/07/2007: Okay, yes there is - Tacitus, Agricola 15.
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
David Gemmell's Troy reviewed
http://news.diversebooks.com/article.pl?sid=05/11/08/187225 [Edited 05/11/07: This is now a dead link.]
David Gemmell has apparently wanted to retell the story of Troy for a long time. Now, finally, he has got his wish, and has begun a three-volume epic. Lord of the Silver Bow is the scene-setter, describing the escalating tensions between Greeks and Trojans that will lead to the catastrophic Trojan War. It is not a tale any ancient Greek would have attempted in this form. To them, the Trojan War was not a story in its own right, but, as the Second World War is to us today, a background against which to set smaller tales - there is a reason Homer sings of the wrath of Achilles and not of the war at Troy.
But the compression caused by the passing millennia makes the task seem less daunting. First things first. Gemmell's Troy is not, at least on the evidence of the first volume, a fantasy novel such as one might have expected from the author, but quite unequivocally historical fiction, merely set in a period that predates the recording of history. There are no gods in Lord of the Silver Bow (which is in fact the usual approach of moderns retelling the ancient stories), no magic, and no monsters (save in the tall tales spun by Odysseus). The closest one gets to a fantastical element is the fact that some characters (most notably Cassandra) have accurate premonitions of the future. But this is a device historical fiction has employed many a time, from Shakespeare onwards, and does not in itself a fantasy make.
The second point is that this is far from being a standard retelling of the Homeric legends, fleshed out with further details from later sources. Some of what Gemmell does has been seen in recent adaptations. As in Wolfgang Petersen's film Troy, the root cause of conflict between Greeks and Trojans, is not the abduction of a queen, but the ambitions for power of King Agamemnon of Mykene and his desire for control of the lucrative trade routes through the Hellespont. As in Eric Shanower's graphic novel Age of Bronze, the story is placed in the context of the political geography of the Eastern Mediterranean in the Late Bronze Age, a political geography absent from Homer. Priam's Troy is a vassal of the Hittite empire. This also couches the war in terms of an east-west conflict, something also not to be found in Homer, but which colours classical Greek and subsequent versions, and may have some foundation in historical events of the time. (Though the shadow of modern politics lies over much of Gemmell's narrative.) Gemmell even manages to get in the battle of Kadesh, the great clash between the Egyptians and the Hittites.
But if you thought Petersen's Troy took liberties with the original myths, you may be shocked when you see what Gemmell has done. From the very beginning he twists ands turns the mythological material, fictionalizing with the sort of gay abandon employed by the creators of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess. The individuals named on the dust flap, Helikaon, Andromache and Argurios, are hardly those an audience would expect to lead them through a Trojan epic. The last seems to be entirely Gemmell's own invention (it's a common modern Greek name, but seems not to crop up in myth). The central character, the heroic Helikaon, is a very minor figure in the Trojan myth cycle, though one whom Odysseus saves in the sack of Troy, a scene that one suspects will recur, given the friendship shown between the two in this novel. But then Gemmell reveals that Helikaon is actually someone more familiar. Individuals who in legend survived past the end of the Trojan War are already dead before Gemmell's novel opens. Odysseus recounts around a fire the story of the Cyclops and other mariner's tales that The Odyssey places after the war. The 'Trojan Horse' is the name of Priam's elite cavalry.
An example of what Gemmell does can be seen in his treatment of Laodike. In myth the most beautiful daughter of Priam, she falls in love with Akamas, a Greek herald sent to demand the return of Helen; later she is married to Helikaon. In Lord of the Silver Bow she is plain, but with a winning smile, carries a torch for Helikaon, and then falls for the Mykene warrior Argurios.
On the whole, Gemmell's attitude to his mythological material, that he considers it a source of elements to be used in a tapestry of his own design, is a good thing. These myths were never immutable, right from the first retelling, and Gemmell's imaginative approach appeals as much as, if not more than, the highly reverential take of Shanower. After all, the true historical events that lie behind the Trojan War are all-but irrecoverable now, and Gemmell cannot be shown to contradict what actually happened. As long as he does not miss the point of the original stories and characters, or makes a convincing case for changing the point, it is churlish to object.
So what is Gemmell's point? Pretty much that war corrupts, and that total war corrupts totally. Helikaon is essentially virtuous and wants to live in peace, as long as his people are protected. But as a warning to his Mykene enemies, he allegedly commits what is perceived by them as an atrocity, one he certainly does not deny, though the reader is only given other people's reports of what happened. This leads to acts of revenge on the Mykene's part, which ignite an ever-growing cycle of retaliation, with worse and worse atrocities on both sides. Gemmell's novel catches the sense of inescapable doom that characterizes a Greek tragedy. This is a tale of well-intentioned individuals who weave their destructions through their own errors (hamartia is Aristotle's term for this). This Greekness of Gemmell's text is complemented by John Bolton's part-title illustrations, that echo classical vase paintings.
Gemmell's authorial sympathies are with the Trojans, as is common (see Petersen's Troy again). Nevertheless, the Mykene are not portrayed as blacker than black villains. The best of them have a warrior code they live by, and the worst of them, though they commit morally reprehensible acts, are portrayed by Gemmell in such a way that the reader can understand what motivates them, why they believe that they are doing the right, or at least the necessary, thing, and how they live with their consciences. This is not a morally black-and-white story; Gemmell seems to be asking if it is truly more morally acceptable to be vicious and sadistic towards those who deserve it, because of their own sadistic actions, than to treat innocents in such a way.
I must confess that I had come to this novel with no direct experience of Gemmell's writing, but expecting turgid fantasy-novel prose. Instead I found that, whilst Gemmell is no great stylist, he is certainly readable, and pulls the reader in as the story progresses. What he is particularly good at is populating his world; this is not a dry Bronze Age of scanty historical facts, but a lived-in Mycenaean age that the reader can connect with.
This is not to say that Lord of the Silver Bow is free of cliche. Early on in the novel a new crewman on Helikaon's ship says some frank things about his captain without realizing that it is Helikaon to whom he is speaking. Helikaon's oarsman Epeus is a typical doomsayer, who always assumes that his leader's plans will go wrong. Helikaon's ship-designer, Kalkheus, doesn't like being called 'the madman of Miletos', because ... he's not from Miletos.
To counter what is now perceived as the sexist treatment of women in myth, there is the usual strong fighting woman making her way in a male-dominated society. In this case, Andromache is made into an ersatz Amazon and a dab hand with a bow (this reminds me of the transformation wrought upon Guinevere in the 2004 film King Arthur). Now it is true that women in Greek myth have little to do other than be wives, mothers or whores. But is anachronistic to try to pretend that it was otherwise. (It also provides Gemmell an opportunity for some unnecessary - and coy - lesbianism.)
One might also question some of Gemmell's odd linguistic formulations. Why 'Egypte' instead of the more recognizable 'Egypt' or the correct Greek 'Aigyptos'? Why 'Kretos' rather than 'Krete' or 'Kreta'? Why 'Kios' in place of 'Khios'? His fictional characters often have slightly odd names. One is called Skyros, actually the name of an island, and another is Xander, a modern diminutive of the more ancient 'Alexander', another name for the Trojan prince Paris (indeed I thought this might be Paris until Gemmell introduced the latter).
Nevertheless, I find myself wanting to know what Gemmell will do in the next two novels. Given what he has done in Lord of the Silver Bow, nothing can be taken for granted. Clearly the destruction of Troy will feature, but the consequences are likely to be catastrophic for all concerned. I would guess that Aeneas and his band of refugees will escape to Italy. I would not be surprised if Gemmell ties the fall of Troy in with the collapse of the Bronze Age societies that seems to have followed within a generation of the Trojan War's traditional date. But Gemmell's willingness to make changes provides one of the more interesting retellings of the myth. Not a great novel, but by no means a bad one either.
David Gemmell has apparently wanted to retell the story of Troy for a long time. Now, finally, he has got his wish, and has begun a three-volume epic. Lord of the Silver Bow is the scene-setter, describing the escalating tensions between Greeks and Trojans that will lead to the catastrophic Trojan War. It is not a tale any ancient Greek would have attempted in this form. To them, the Trojan War was not a story in its own right, but, as the Second World War is to us today, a background against which to set smaller tales - there is a reason Homer sings of the wrath of Achilles and not of the war at Troy.
The second point is that this is far from being a standard retelling of the Homeric legends, fleshed out with further details from later sources. Some of what Gemmell does has been seen in recent adaptations. As in Wolfgang Petersen's film Troy, the root cause of conflict between Greeks and Trojans, is not the abduction of a queen, but the ambitions for power of King Agamemnon of Mykene and his desire for control of the lucrative trade routes through the Hellespont. As in Eric Shanower's graphic novel Age of Bronze, the story is placed in the context of the political geography of the Eastern Mediterranean in the Late Bronze Age, a political geography absent from Homer. Priam's Troy is a vassal of the Hittite empire. This also couches the war in terms of an east-west conflict, something also not to be found in Homer, but which colours classical Greek and subsequent versions, and may have some foundation in historical events of the time. (Though the shadow of modern politics lies over much of Gemmell's narrative.) Gemmell even manages to get in the battle of Kadesh, the great clash between the Egyptians and the Hittites.
But if you thought Petersen's Troy took liberties with the original myths, you may be shocked when you see what Gemmell has done. From the very beginning he twists ands turns the mythological material, fictionalizing with the sort of gay abandon employed by the creators of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess. The individuals named on the dust flap, Helikaon, Andromache and Argurios, are hardly those an audience would expect to lead them through a Trojan epic. The last seems to be entirely Gemmell's own invention (it's a common modern Greek name, but seems not to crop up in myth). The central character, the heroic Helikaon, is a very minor figure in the Trojan myth cycle, though one whom Odysseus saves in the sack of Troy, a scene that one suspects will recur, given the friendship shown between the two in this novel. But then Gemmell reveals that Helikaon is actually someone more familiar. Individuals who in legend survived past the end of the Trojan War are already dead before Gemmell's novel opens. Odysseus recounts around a fire the story of the Cyclops and other mariner's tales that The Odyssey places after the war. The 'Trojan Horse' is the name of Priam's elite cavalry.
An example of what Gemmell does can be seen in his treatment of Laodike. In myth the most beautiful daughter of Priam, she falls in love with Akamas, a Greek herald sent to demand the return of Helen; later she is married to Helikaon. In Lord of the Silver Bow she is plain, but with a winning smile, carries a torch for Helikaon, and then falls for the Mykene warrior Argurios.
On the whole, Gemmell's attitude to his mythological material, that he considers it a source of elements to be used in a tapestry of his own design, is a good thing. These myths were never immutable, right from the first retelling, and Gemmell's imaginative approach appeals as much as, if not more than, the highly reverential take of Shanower. After all, the true historical events that lie behind the Trojan War are all-but irrecoverable now, and Gemmell cannot be shown to contradict what actually happened. As long as he does not miss the point of the original stories and characters, or makes a convincing case for changing the point, it is churlish to object.
So what is Gemmell's point? Pretty much that war corrupts, and that total war corrupts totally. Helikaon is essentially virtuous and wants to live in peace, as long as his people are protected. But as a warning to his Mykene enemies, he allegedly commits what is perceived by them as an atrocity, one he certainly does not deny, though the reader is only given other people's reports of what happened. This leads to acts of revenge on the Mykene's part, which ignite an ever-growing cycle of retaliation, with worse and worse atrocities on both sides. Gemmell's novel catches the sense of inescapable doom that characterizes a Greek tragedy. This is a tale of well-intentioned individuals who weave their destructions through their own errors (hamartia is Aristotle's term for this). This Greekness of Gemmell's text is complemented by John Bolton's part-title illustrations, that echo classical vase paintings.
Gemmell's authorial sympathies are with the Trojans, as is common (see Petersen's Troy again). Nevertheless, the Mykene are not portrayed as blacker than black villains. The best of them have a warrior code they live by, and the worst of them, though they commit morally reprehensible acts, are portrayed by Gemmell in such a way that the reader can understand what motivates them, why they believe that they are doing the right, or at least the necessary, thing, and how they live with their consciences. This is not a morally black-and-white story; Gemmell seems to be asking if it is truly more morally acceptable to be vicious and sadistic towards those who deserve it, because of their own sadistic actions, than to treat innocents in such a way.
I must confess that I had come to this novel with no direct experience of Gemmell's writing, but expecting turgid fantasy-novel prose. Instead I found that, whilst Gemmell is no great stylist, he is certainly readable, and pulls the reader in as the story progresses. What he is particularly good at is populating his world; this is not a dry Bronze Age of scanty historical facts, but a lived-in Mycenaean age that the reader can connect with.
This is not to say that Lord of the Silver Bow is free of cliche. Early on in the novel a new crewman on Helikaon's ship says some frank things about his captain without realizing that it is Helikaon to whom he is speaking. Helikaon's oarsman Epeus is a typical doomsayer, who always assumes that his leader's plans will go wrong. Helikaon's ship-designer, Kalkheus, doesn't like being called 'the madman of Miletos', because ... he's not from Miletos.
To counter what is now perceived as the sexist treatment of women in myth, there is the usual strong fighting woman making her way in a male-dominated society. In this case, Andromache is made into an ersatz Amazon and a dab hand with a bow (this reminds me of the transformation wrought upon Guinevere in the 2004 film King Arthur). Now it is true that women in Greek myth have little to do other than be wives, mothers or whores. But is anachronistic to try to pretend that it was otherwise. (It also provides Gemmell an opportunity for some unnecessary - and coy - lesbianism.)
One might also question some of Gemmell's odd linguistic formulations. Why 'Egypte' instead of the more recognizable 'Egypt' or the correct Greek 'Aigyptos'? Why 'Kretos' rather than 'Krete' or 'Kreta'? Why 'Kios' in place of 'Khios'? His fictional characters often have slightly odd names. One is called Skyros, actually the name of an island, and another is Xander, a modern diminutive of the more ancient 'Alexander', another name for the Trojan prince Paris (indeed I thought this might be Paris until Gemmell introduced the latter).
Nevertheless, I find myself wanting to know what Gemmell will do in the next two novels. Given what he has done in Lord of the Silver Bow, nothing can be taken for granted. Clearly the destruction of Troy will feature, but the consequences are likely to be catastrophic for all concerned. I would guess that Aeneas and his band of refugees will escape to Italy. I would not be surprised if Gemmell ties the fall of Troy in with the collapse of the Bronze Age societies that seems to have followed within a generation of the Trojan War's traditional date. But Gemmell's willingness to make changes provides one of the more interesting retellings of the myth. Not a great novel, but by no means a bad one either.
Tuesday, November 08, 2005
Hannibal the Cannibal - oh no, the other one
Five's Hannibal of the Alps is one of the worst history programmes it has been my misfortune to sit through in quite a long while.
On the good side, the programme did at least point out that in strategic terms Hannibal's elephants were a non-event. They all died as a result of crossing the Alps, and played no significant part in any of his victories over the Romans. But that was about the only good point.
The film compressed the events of the Second Punic War, which took sixteen years, into sixty minutes. Inevitably there would be some details passed over rapidly. But that is no excuse for the utter distortions. Hannibal was betrayed by his fellow Carthaginians not immediately after Zama, but six years later. The younger Scipio did not get his extraordinary command in the immediate aftermath of Cannae, as the programme implied - it came six years later. Scipio did not lead an army to Spain after Cannae, and the Roman invasion of Spain was not launched across the sea. The truth is that the Romans were already there even before Cannae.
The elder Publius Cornelius Scipio was consul, and at the beginning of the war had been sent to fight Hannibal in Spain (this was not, as the programme suggested, him being picked for command, but as elected consul it was his responsibility to lead Rome's forces). As his army advanced through Provence, he learnt that Hannibal had slipped behind him into northern Italy. He could have decided at this point to turn his army round and chase Hannibal, and this indeed is what the programme implied he did. What he actually did instead was to decide that his duty as consul meant he must return to face the Carthaginian invasion, but that, despite the fact that Hannibal was no longer there, the Roman invasion of Spain should still go ahead. So he handed the bulk of army over to his brother Gnaeus Scipio. This was undoubtedly the correct decision. Hannibal had invaded Italy in order to seize the strategic initiative, and prevent the Romans fighting the war the way they wanted to. By carrying on with the invasion of Spain, the Scipios ensured that Hannibal was only partially successful. The Spanish campaign tied down Carthaginian troops that might have reinforced Hannibal from that direction. And this fighting sucked in further troops from Africa. Because the Iberian peninsula had to be fought for. Spain was the basis of Carthaginian power, just as Italy was Rome's, so each enemy was striking at the other's heart. And in the end, the Romans did so more successfully, for the Second Punic War was decided in Spain, not Italy. Effectively, even before Hannibal had won a single victory, Scipio had taken the step that would win the war.
The programme was a pretty conservative look at Hannibal's career, as one could tell from the selection of talking heads, that favoured authors of popular history over university academics. It presented a viewpoint that Hannibal was foolish not to march on Rome after the victory at Cannae. But many scholars believe, and I think rightly, that Hannibal knew he did not have the siege equipment to take Rome, and could only succeed if the Romans surrendered in shock. There was a possibility that might have happened, but it was equally, if not more likely, that the Romans would defy him, and then his essential powerlessness against Rome's fortifications would be exposed. All the propaganda gained from the victories of Trebia, Trasimene and Cannae would have been undone. This view was given no screen time. In fact, though a stunning tactical victory, Cannae was a strategic failure. Some areas in southern Italy did desert Rome, but not enough to break Rome's power. To bring more desertions, Hannibal needed more set-piece victories, and Cannae had persuaded the Romans that engaging Hannibal in set-piece battles was the worst thing they could do. Instead they retreated behind the walls of their colonies, a network of fortified cities throughout Italy, about which Hannibal could do nothing.
One view that was given screen time was that the Carthaginian state betrayed Hannibal, that after Cannae they decided that Hannibal should be deniable, and that the war was his own affair. This was propounded by Professor Barry Strauss of Cornell University. The trouble is, the theory doesn't hold up. For a start, a mere two years previously, the Carthaginians had gone to war with Rome rather than give up Hannibal. Why not decide then that he was deniable?
And it really is a misrepresentation of the strategic situation facing Carthage after Hannibal's victory at Cannae. For one thing, Hannibal had got himself in a position where he was very different to reinforce. He was bottled up with his Greek allies in the southern part of the Italian peninsula. The obvious route to reinforce him was by sea from Africa - but this was blocked by Roman naval power. That left the land route from Spain. Making the journey across the Alps had cost Hannibal nearly half his army, and any reinforcements would have to traverse Roman-controlled Italy. The Romans were scared of Hannibal, but they were not afraid of any other Carthaginian forces, judging correctly that Hannibal was a one-off.
And reinforcements from Spain could only come if they could disengage from the Roman forces there. This was not easy, and the one serious attempt to take troops from Spain to Italy was an act of desperation after Iberia had been effectively lost. Those troops did manage to cross into northern Italy - where the Romans annihilated them.
There were other demands on Carthage's resources than Hannibal. These other campaigns are often presented as sideshows, and this is very likely the way Hannibal himself felt. But that is not fair. As already noted, Spain could not be abandoned without effectively losing the war. The Carthaginians also sent troops to Sicily. This, to my mind, demonstrates a commitment to Hannibal that is not always acknowledged. Yes, there was an issue of pride concerned; the Carthaginians wanted to regain control of the island they had lost at the end of the First Punic War. But if they succeeded, it would then become much easier to reinforce Hannibal, sending troops across the relatively short sea-crossings from North Africa to Sicily and from Sicily to Italy, reducing their exposure to Roman sea-power.
The one area that could be seen as a 'sideshow' was the campaign in Macedonia and Greece. There was no particular strategic value to Carthage in this. But by bringing Macedon into the war against Rome, the Carthaginians could drag in far more Roman forces to face Macedonian manpower than they would have to commit. So the Macedonian campaign reduced Rome's ability to fight Carthage effectively. The Romans realized this, which is why the First Macedonian War was ended in 205 BC with a peace that was favourable towards Macedon.
The truth is that after Cannae, Hannibal became the sideshow. He stayed in Italy for another thirteen years, but achieved very little. The war was won and lost on other fronts, principally, as I say, Spain.
One last point. Five's publicity talks about the programme "Exploring the latest archaeological discoveries, ancient historical sources and cutting-edge DNA technology" - but of the first and last there was no evidence. As the Sunday Times preview suggested, stick with Channel 4's two programmes on Carthage from 2004, which, though not without their faults, were much better than this.
This entry is dedicated to the memory of Geoffrey Lewis, from whom, twenty years ago, I learnt much of what I know about Hannibal.
The film compressed the events of the Second Punic War, which took sixteen years, into sixty minutes. Inevitably there would be some details passed over rapidly. But that is no excuse for the utter distortions. Hannibal was betrayed by his fellow Carthaginians not immediately after Zama, but six years later. The younger Scipio did not get his extraordinary command in the immediate aftermath of Cannae, as the programme implied - it came six years later. Scipio did not lead an army to Spain after Cannae, and the Roman invasion of Spain was not launched across the sea. The truth is that the Romans were already there even before Cannae.
The elder Publius Cornelius Scipio was consul, and at the beginning of the war had been sent to fight Hannibal in Spain (this was not, as the programme suggested, him being picked for command, but as elected consul it was his responsibility to lead Rome's forces). As his army advanced through Provence, he learnt that Hannibal had slipped behind him into northern Italy. He could have decided at this point to turn his army round and chase Hannibal, and this indeed is what the programme implied he did. What he actually did instead was to decide that his duty as consul meant he must return to face the Carthaginian invasion, but that, despite the fact that Hannibal was no longer there, the Roman invasion of Spain should still go ahead. So he handed the bulk of army over to his brother Gnaeus Scipio. This was undoubtedly the correct decision. Hannibal had invaded Italy in order to seize the strategic initiative, and prevent the Romans fighting the war the way they wanted to. By carrying on with the invasion of Spain, the Scipios ensured that Hannibal was only partially successful. The Spanish campaign tied down Carthaginian troops that might have reinforced Hannibal from that direction. And this fighting sucked in further troops from Africa. Because the Iberian peninsula had to be fought for. Spain was the basis of Carthaginian power, just as Italy was Rome's, so each enemy was striking at the other's heart. And in the end, the Romans did so more successfully, for the Second Punic War was decided in Spain, not Italy. Effectively, even before Hannibal had won a single victory, Scipio had taken the step that would win the war.
The programme was a pretty conservative look at Hannibal's career, as one could tell from the selection of talking heads, that favoured authors of popular history over university academics. It presented a viewpoint that Hannibal was foolish not to march on Rome after the victory at Cannae. But many scholars believe, and I think rightly, that Hannibal knew he did not have the siege equipment to take Rome, and could only succeed if the Romans surrendered in shock. There was a possibility that might have happened, but it was equally, if not more likely, that the Romans would defy him, and then his essential powerlessness against Rome's fortifications would be exposed. All the propaganda gained from the victories of Trebia, Trasimene and Cannae would have been undone. This view was given no screen time. In fact, though a stunning tactical victory, Cannae was a strategic failure. Some areas in southern Italy did desert Rome, but not enough to break Rome's power. To bring more desertions, Hannibal needed more set-piece victories, and Cannae had persuaded the Romans that engaging Hannibal in set-piece battles was the worst thing they could do. Instead they retreated behind the walls of their colonies, a network of fortified cities throughout Italy, about which Hannibal could do nothing.
One view that was given screen time was that the Carthaginian state betrayed Hannibal, that after Cannae they decided that Hannibal should be deniable, and that the war was his own affair. This was propounded by Professor Barry Strauss of Cornell University. The trouble is, the theory doesn't hold up. For a start, a mere two years previously, the Carthaginians had gone to war with Rome rather than give up Hannibal. Why not decide then that he was deniable?
And it really is a misrepresentation of the strategic situation facing Carthage after Hannibal's victory at Cannae. For one thing, Hannibal had got himself in a position where he was very different to reinforce. He was bottled up with his Greek allies in the southern part of the Italian peninsula. The obvious route to reinforce him was by sea from Africa - but this was blocked by Roman naval power. That left the land route from Spain. Making the journey across the Alps had cost Hannibal nearly half his army, and any reinforcements would have to traverse Roman-controlled Italy. The Romans were scared of Hannibal, but they were not afraid of any other Carthaginian forces, judging correctly that Hannibal was a one-off.
And reinforcements from Spain could only come if they could disengage from the Roman forces there. This was not easy, and the one serious attempt to take troops from Spain to Italy was an act of desperation after Iberia had been effectively lost. Those troops did manage to cross into northern Italy - where the Romans annihilated them.
There were other demands on Carthage's resources than Hannibal. These other campaigns are often presented as sideshows, and this is very likely the way Hannibal himself felt. But that is not fair. As already noted, Spain could not be abandoned without effectively losing the war. The Carthaginians also sent troops to Sicily. This, to my mind, demonstrates a commitment to Hannibal that is not always acknowledged. Yes, there was an issue of pride concerned; the Carthaginians wanted to regain control of the island they had lost at the end of the First Punic War. But if they succeeded, it would then become much easier to reinforce Hannibal, sending troops across the relatively short sea-crossings from North Africa to Sicily and from Sicily to Italy, reducing their exposure to Roman sea-power.
The one area that could be seen as a 'sideshow' was the campaign in Macedonia and Greece. There was no particular strategic value to Carthage in this. But by bringing Macedon into the war against Rome, the Carthaginians could drag in far more Roman forces to face Macedonian manpower than they would have to commit. So the Macedonian campaign reduced Rome's ability to fight Carthage effectively. The Romans realized this, which is why the First Macedonian War was ended in 205 BC with a peace that was favourable towards Macedon.
The truth is that after Cannae, Hannibal became the sideshow. He stayed in Italy for another thirteen years, but achieved very little. The war was won and lost on other fronts, principally, as I say, Spain.
One last point. Five's publicity talks about the programme "Exploring the latest archaeological discoveries, ancient historical sources and cutting-edge DNA technology" - but of the first and last there was no evidence. As the Sunday Times preview suggested, stick with Channel 4's two programmes on Carthage from 2004, which, though not without their faults, were much better than this.
This entry is dedicated to the memory of Geoffrey Lewis, from whom, twenty years ago, I learnt much of what I know about Hannibal.
Monday, November 07, 2005
Rome in the papers
A couple of articles from the weekend papers about Rome.
First off, a news article from the Sunday Times, which reveals that Michael Apted, director of the first three episodes, was not consulted about the BBC's decision to edit those down into two. He seems pretty pissed off, and rightly so. Personally, I don't believe this nonsense about the Beeb deciding that British audiences didn't need so much background information. I reckon that some idiot executive watched the first couple of episodes, decided that they were too slow, and ordered the trims. If the driving factor was to cut out what's unnecessary, then Octavia's disrobing scene could easily have gone. It's already obvious that Atia is prostituting out her daughter to Pompey, and we don't need to see the lecherous old general watching her undress to get that. But that scene had some tit and arse in it, so can't be cut. All the sex and violence has been kept (because it sells), and as a result what gets cut is the story. As Apted says, the end product is something that is quite hard to follow. Let us hope that the British audience really are as educated as the BBC assume, as I can't imagine anyone without some basic knowledge of the fall of the Roman Republic being able to understand what is going on. A.A. Gill's complaint about the programme elsewhere in the same paper, that it was "a mess of confusing storylines. Almost every utterance had to move great marble slabs of plot. It looked like a case of too many producers re-writing editing and patching up," is partly the result of this editing.
It is difficult to imagine something this crass being done with I, Claudius. But that was in the days when producers made decisions about programmes. Now, in the post-Birtian BBC, all power lies in the hands of administrators, such as Roly Keating, controller of BBC2, who has defended the series against claims of prurience by saying "Ancient Rome was a very violent society with utterly different moral values from ours. The series has been written to give the audience an authentic and unsparing portrayal of life in that era at all social levels." Unfortunately, this defence does not work when some of the scenes are made up and never happened. Which leads us to ...
Robert Harris, writing in the Telegraph, delivers a historical critique of the programme, and explanation why that matters, with which I am pretty much in agreement. If a programme puts so much effort into saying how 'authentic' it is, then it's legitimate to point out that this is undone by including scenes that simply didn't happen, especially when such scenes have no purpose other than to get in a bit of gratuitous nudity. Atia is portrayed as she is in Rome not because there is any evidence that she was actually like that, but because Livia and Messalina were memorable characters from I, Claudius, and the writers of Rome wanted a someone to fill that role. Cato becomes a doddering old codger presumably because some one in casting has heard the term 'Cato the Elder' (though this Cato is actually Cato the Younger). The danger is that all the guff about authenticity will lead people to think that this is how it actually happened, and thus educational standards are set back even further.
It is difficult to imagine something this crass being done with I, Claudius. But that was in the days when producers made decisions about programmes. Now, in the post-Birtian BBC, all power lies in the hands of administrators, such as Roly Keating, controller of BBC2, who has defended the series against claims of prurience by saying "Ancient Rome was a very violent society with utterly different moral values from ours. The series has been written to give the audience an authentic and unsparing portrayal of life in that era at all social levels." Unfortunately, this defence does not work when some of the scenes are made up and never happened. Which leads us to ...
Robert Harris, writing in the Telegraph, delivers a historical critique of the programme, and explanation why that matters, with which I am pretty much in agreement. If a programme puts so much effort into saying how 'authentic' it is, then it's legitimate to point out that this is undone by including scenes that simply didn't happen, especially when such scenes have no purpose other than to get in a bit of gratuitous nudity. Atia is portrayed as she is in Rome not because there is any evidence that she was actually like that, but because Livia and Messalina were memorable characters from I, Claudius, and the writers of Rome wanted a someone to fill that role. Cato becomes a doddering old codger presumably because some one in casting has heard the term 'Cato the Elder' (though this Cato is actually Cato the Younger). The danger is that all the guff about authenticity will lead people to think that this is how it actually happened, and thus educational standards are set back even further.
Thursday, November 03, 2005
Rome - not the whole story
One thing I didn't realize when writing my previous two entries on Rome was that the BBC, in its infinite wisdom, have chosen to edit the first three episodes into two. The excuse - I hesitate to call it a reason - is that we Brits are sufficiently clued up about Roman history that we don't need to have all the background information. Passing over the implicit cultural arrogance of that assertion (and it did occur to me that if you don't have any background in Roman history, it might be rather difficult to understand Caesar's motivation), I would like to know if the editing was done by people involved in the original production, or whether it was some junior bloke who was told "edit it into two episodes, don't cut any of the sex".
Essentially this means I can't give a decent judgment on the first couple of episodes, because they are not as originally intended. This sort of editing can play merry hell with the structure of a show, and it may well be that some (though I doubt all) of my criticisms would evaporate if I actually saw the full-length episodes.
Great care will have to be taken when DVDs become available, to ensure that I end up with the proper version.
Essentially this means I can't give a decent judgment on the first couple of episodes, because they are not as originally intended. This sort of editing can play merry hell with the structure of a show, and it may well be that some (though I doubt all) of my criticisms would evaporate if I actually saw the full-length episodes.
Great care will have to be taken when DVDs become available, to ensure that I end up with the proper version.
Sex and the ancient city
Yes, I know everyone will be using that gag, but I'm afraid I'm not used to anything else but the Sex In The City theme tune following the HBO placecard.
In another forum, some comments have been left on my opinion of Rome. It's interesting to note that there's often an implicit assumption that my objection is on historical grounds. Now it is true that, as a historian, I do tend to spot historical inaccuracies, and sometimes point them out, especially if a production is trumpeting itself as 'the way it really was'. As a result, I guess I give the impression that this is what is most important to me, and why I have problems enjoying films and television series set in historical periods. But if you look at what I've written about historical films, such as about Troy or Kingdom of Heaven I think you'll find that I am often more exercised by poor dramatic structure than by poor history. And so it is with Rome.
This is what I wrote in response to one comment:
And to another:
This is what I wrote in response to one comment:
I should make clear that my main problem with the series is not that it's bad history. Hell, I like Gladiator, and Rome is much more historically accurate than that. My problem with it is that it seems to me to be bad drama, that it can't make up it's mind whether it's I, Claudius for the 21st-century or a Roman Upstairs, Downstairs. As a result we keep being pulled away from the main story to these two characters who not even the writers seem terribly interested in, and I'm certainly not.
'Speed bumps' only throw me when they don't make sense in context. Take, for instance, the invented husband of Octavia. Now it is entirely true that on the death of Julia, Caesar proposed a marriage alliance between Pompey and Octavia, which would have involved he divorcing her husband. But Pompey refused the alliance and the divorce never took place. By having the divorce take place before making the marriage proposal, an entirely fictional husband has to be invented. More importantly, the scheming cunning Atia ends up looking stupid, someone who acts before she needs to. And we have to believe that the fictional Glabius is a person of no importance, because Atia would be even more stupid to dissolve a marriage alliance with one family if she did not have another better one securely in place. Which contradicts what has already been established, that female relatives of important men are used as political pawns - they don't get to marry for love. Again, my problem here is not that it's bad history (though it is), but that it's bad, incoherent writing. The main object of the sequence appears to be to get Kerry Condon to take her clothes off. (Almost all the nudity in Rome fails the 'dramatically necessary' test.)
My other problem (and it's really more of a comment than a problem) is the 'Emperor's New Clothes' syndrome, that the programme has been sold as something it isn't. It's the same issue I have with Saving Private Ryan, which was sold as something Big and Important rather than the updated John Wayne war movie that it actually is. Your comment 'I'm ravished by the show. Lots of gratuitous sex and violence, by ROMANS!!!!' is illuminating, It shows that you're enjoying this as a Roman romp, in the full excessive tradition of Spartacus, Cleopatra, etc. Which is what it is. But the publicity has tried to sell it as something different, something serious, something that hasn't been seen before. And it's none of these.
I will still watch the series, and doubtless still have fun watching it. It's certainly not boring, or completely unwatchable. But it's not genuinely serious drama either - more The Cleopatras than I, Claudius.
And to another:
I got the feeling that the writing perks up when dealing with the historical individuals as opposed to the fictional ones, but that may just be me not being particularly interested in Vorenus and Pullo. But yes, it's the indecision that causes problems for me. Either there should be more Vorenus and Pullo, to make it their story, or none at all, and stick to the historical principals. As it is, Vorenus and Pullo are in it enough to be distracting, but not enough to make me care about them.
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
Rome
Well, I knew it was going to be nonsense, but I didn't realize it was going to be that much nonsense!
Spoiler details will follow. You may want to look away now. Or you could find out what happens by reading a history book.
First of all, what on earth are those two blokes Vorenus and Pullo doing in it? Do they actually serve any narrative purpose within the show? As far as I can see, no. The political story, Caesar versus Pompey, which is the story the series wants to tell, and be narrated perfectly well without recourse to these two individuals - indeed, for the most part, it does. Inserting these two tends if anything to slow up the action, and leads to such ridiculous ahistorical moments as the theft of Caesar's eagle and Octavian's kidnapping.* I'm pretty sure nothing like this ever happened (though please tell me if I'm wrong) and the whole thing is invented simply to get the fictional characters involved in the story. Oh yes, they're supposed to be viewpoint characters for the audience, but on the whole there's not many first century legionaries watching the series, so they don't do that very well. You might argue that it gives a more rounded picture of Roman life, shifting away from the elite bias that concentrating on the political narrative would do, but I don't think we actually get enough of the soldiers to make that work.
As it stands, I reckon it's an incredibly clumsy dramatic device, symptomatic of the spreading abandonment of basic narrative coherence in a lot of American cinema and television. It's like Pearl Harbor, which can never make up its mind if it's From Here To Eternity, Tora! Tora! Tora! or Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo.
Next, on Today this morning 'historical consultant' Jonathan Stamp (who is actually a producer of historical documentaries) was talking about how the series was avoiding 'HollyRome'. This might be true in the way that the city is depicted, looking more like a mediaeval city such as you might see in Kingdom of Heaven than what has been seen before in movies about Rome. Which is fair enough - ancient Rome was probably much more like a mediaeval city than is often thought. But in plot structure and approach many elements have been lifted from previous renditions. As in de Mille's films, Rome is a symbol of excess (like the very silly bull's blood scene - I don't believe you can get so soaked simply from cutting a beast's throat). And as usual the audience is both critic and voyeur, censuring the excess whilst enjoying all the gratuitous nudity and sex going on (all heterosexual, I notice - no sign of Caesar's alleged more than familial liking for young Octavian). The characterization of Atia is lifted straight from I, Claudius; like Graves' Livia Atia is manoeuvering to make her son most powerful man in Rome. And I doubt the real Atia was quite so ready to hurl off her kit and grab the nearest erection. Meanwhile, her son Octavian appears to have been cast for his resemblance to the young Roddy McDowell, in what seems a deliberate reference to the 1963 Cleopatra.
And then there's the comedy references. Some of the humour, like the troops waiting while Antony has a shag behind a tree, is deliberate. But sometimes comedy is unconsciously echoed. As Vercingetorix laid down his arms at Caesar's feet, I couldn't help but think of the same scene at the beginning of Asterix the Gaul. The opening titles, innovative though they are, remind me of the end titles of A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum, and I can't help but feel that it would look better to the theme from Up Pompeii. And I'm sure you can guess what I was thinking as they nailed Gauls to bits of wood. ("Crucifixion's a doddle!") I also laughed at the dormouse, but this was because of Mary Beard's mention of the 'dormouse test', a measure of the subtlety of a reconstruction of Rome by how long it takes anyone to be offered a dormouse, in Saturday's Guardian (I won't link to the piece, as it requires registration).
I don't want to be picky about details, like Caesar's laurel wreath, which he began wearing to hide his baldness, on a decidedly non-bald Ciaran Hinds, or the fictional first marriage of Octavian's sister. And I had fun watching it, and will watch more episodes. But in the end this is a made up piece of nonsensical fluff, that tries to impress the audience through scale (note how much of the publicity quotes statistics - 4,000 pieces of wardrobe, 750 extras, biggest set ever, etc., etc.). It's nothing more than this, and isn't half as important as it thinks it is.
* Yes, I know he ought to be Octavius at this point, but such a nitpicking name change would just confuse the audience.
Spoiler details will follow. You may want to look away now. Or you could find out what happens by reading a history book.
As it stands, I reckon it's an incredibly clumsy dramatic device, symptomatic of the spreading abandonment of basic narrative coherence in a lot of American cinema and television. It's like Pearl Harbor, which can never make up its mind if it's From Here To Eternity, Tora! Tora! Tora! or Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo.
Next, on Today this morning 'historical consultant' Jonathan Stamp (who is actually a producer of historical documentaries) was talking about how the series was avoiding 'HollyRome'. This might be true in the way that the city is depicted, looking more like a mediaeval city such as you might see in Kingdom of Heaven than what has been seen before in movies about Rome. Which is fair enough - ancient Rome was probably much more like a mediaeval city than is often thought. But in plot structure and approach many elements have been lifted from previous renditions. As in de Mille's films, Rome is a symbol of excess (like the very silly bull's blood scene - I don't believe you can get so soaked simply from cutting a beast's throat). And as usual the audience is both critic and voyeur, censuring the excess whilst enjoying all the gratuitous nudity and sex going on (all heterosexual, I notice - no sign of Caesar's alleged more than familial liking for young Octavian). The characterization of Atia is lifted straight from I, Claudius; like Graves' Livia Atia is manoeuvering to make her son most powerful man in Rome. And I doubt the real Atia was quite so ready to hurl off her kit and grab the nearest erection. Meanwhile, her son Octavian appears to have been cast for his resemblance to the young Roddy McDowell, in what seems a deliberate reference to the 1963 Cleopatra.
And then there's the comedy references. Some of the humour, like the troops waiting while Antony has a shag behind a tree, is deliberate. But sometimes comedy is unconsciously echoed. As Vercingetorix laid down his arms at Caesar's feet, I couldn't help but think of the same scene at the beginning of Asterix the Gaul. The opening titles, innovative though they are, remind me of the end titles of A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum, and I can't help but feel that it would look better to the theme from Up Pompeii. And I'm sure you can guess what I was thinking as they nailed Gauls to bits of wood. ("Crucifixion's a doddle!") I also laughed at the dormouse, but this was because of Mary Beard's mention of the 'dormouse test', a measure of the subtlety of a reconstruction of Rome by how long it takes anyone to be offered a dormouse, in Saturday's Guardian (I won't link to the piece, as it requires registration).
I don't want to be picky about details, like Caesar's laurel wreath, which he began wearing to hide his baldness, on a decidedly non-bald Ciaran Hinds, or the fictional first marriage of Octavian's sister. And I had fun watching it, and will watch more episodes. But in the end this is a made up piece of nonsensical fluff, that tries to impress the audience through scale (note how much of the publicity quotes statistics - 4,000 pieces of wardrobe, 750 extras, biggest set ever, etc., etc.). It's nothing more than this, and isn't half as important as it thinks it is.
* Yes, I know he ought to be Octavius at this point, but such a nitpicking name change would just confuse the audience.
Tuesday, November 01, 2005
Well, well, well
I am quite pleasantly surprised at how Not Stupid Richard Hammond is when he's not talking about cars.
Countdown to Rome: A tale of two buildings
The cover of the new Radio Times announces the arrival of Rome. A Roman soldier takes an aggressive stance, sword drawn, while a nubile Roman woman lies at his feet. This image speaks volumes about the approach the series will take, and the tradition into which it fits. But here I'm interested not in the figures in the foreground, but in the edifice behind them. This has a typical classical columned portico with pediment, behind which is a drum-shaped main building. It looks very like a scaled-down version of Hadrian's Pantheon, without a dome.
Hang on, you may think. The Pantheon? Isn't that a bit anachronistic?
Well, yes. Hadrian's Pantheon was built around AD 125, and was a radically new design at the time. The dome was the most original feature, but not the only one (and interestingly the original production sketches for the show also included a dome). Rome is set in the 50s and 40s BC, and it's most unlikely that there was anything that looked like the Pantheon around at this time.
However, there's more to this story than simply dressing up a set with an anachronistic building because it's Roman anyway, and most of the audience won't notice. The background for the Radio Times cover is a composite made up of elements of the Cinecitta set, rearranged for impact. But all the buildings are to be found on that set. Looking at the HBO site, it is apparent that this particular building is meant to be the Senate House, sitting in the north-west corner of the Forum Romanum. Now, it happens that there was indeed a circular edifice at approximately this point in the Republican period. It was not the Senate House, but the Comitium, where sat the popular assemblies of the Roman people, the ones which, in theory, elected the magistrates who ruled Rome. And it wasn't a building, but a circular square. The actual Senate house, the Curia Hostilia, was a rectangular building adjoining the Comitium to the rear. But this is a distinction one can expect a work of fiction to pass over. I don't believe that the real Republican Curia was anything like as elaborate as the building that Rome's producers have put in its place - with the portico, which the Curia certainly lacked, this is more elaborate than the Curia Julia built by Caesar after the Republican Senate house had burnt down - but more thought has gone into this bit of the set than might first appear.
There seems rather less justification for the Temple of Venus which the set designers have placed next to the Senate house, but perhaps they should be allowed some artistic license. But how much artistic license should be permitted to a series that, like many epics in the past, trumpets its 'authenticity'?
Is it enough to permit the triumphal arch in the corner of the Forum? This arch is modelled on the Arch of Titus, dedicated in AD 81. But there were certainly triumphal arches in the Roman Republican period. And there was indeed a triumphal arch where this one has been placed. But that was a triple arch, rather than the single one built for the set. And it was erected in 19 BC, commemoration of Augustus' diplomatic triumph in Parthia (which was regularly portrayed in imperial iconography as if it was a military victory).
Which leads on to one last thought. The first season of Rome goes as far as the assassination of Julius Caesar. It has been renewed for a second, which presumably will cover the war with Caesar's assassins and the Second Triumvirate, and take the story down to the battle of Actium in 31 BC and the defeat and deaths of Antony and Cleopatra. (According to this piece, James Purefoy, who plays Antony, has been contracted for six years, but even if one assumes it takes two years to make a season and that the six years includes the two spent on season one, it's hard to see how he can get that much work before his character is eliminated.) If it goes to a third season, that would presumably (as Penny Goodman has opined) deal with the reign of Augustus. This was a period of unprecedented development in the Forum - so will the Cinecitta set be torn down?
Well, yes. Hadrian's Pantheon was built around AD 125, and was a radically new design at the time. The dome was the most original feature, but not the only one (and interestingly the original production sketches for the show also included a dome). Rome is set in the 50s and 40s BC, and it's most unlikely that there was anything that looked like the Pantheon around at this time.
However, there's more to this story than simply dressing up a set with an anachronistic building because it's Roman anyway, and most of the audience won't notice. The background for the Radio Times cover is a composite made up of elements of the Cinecitta set, rearranged for impact. But all the buildings are to be found on that set. Looking at the HBO site, it is apparent that this particular building is meant to be the Senate House, sitting in the north-west corner of the Forum Romanum. Now, it happens that there was indeed a circular edifice at approximately this point in the Republican period. It was not the Senate House, but the Comitium, where sat the popular assemblies of the Roman people, the ones which, in theory, elected the magistrates who ruled Rome. And it wasn't a building, but a circular square. The actual Senate house, the Curia Hostilia, was a rectangular building adjoining the Comitium to the rear. But this is a distinction one can expect a work of fiction to pass over. I don't believe that the real Republican Curia was anything like as elaborate as the building that Rome's producers have put in its place - with the portico, which the Curia certainly lacked, this is more elaborate than the Curia Julia built by Caesar after the Republican Senate house had burnt down - but more thought has gone into this bit of the set than might first appear.
There seems rather less justification for the Temple of Venus which the set designers have placed next to the Senate house, but perhaps they should be allowed some artistic license. But how much artistic license should be permitted to a series that, like many epics in the past, trumpets its 'authenticity'?
Is it enough to permit the triumphal arch in the corner of the Forum? This arch is modelled on the Arch of Titus, dedicated in AD 81. But there were certainly triumphal arches in the Roman Republican period. And there was indeed a triumphal arch where this one has been placed. But that was a triple arch, rather than the single one built for the set. And it was erected in 19 BC, commemoration of Augustus' diplomatic triumph in Parthia (which was regularly portrayed in imperial iconography as if it was a military victory).
Which leads on to one last thought. The first season of Rome goes as far as the assassination of Julius Caesar. It has been renewed for a second, which presumably will cover the war with Caesar's assassins and the Second Triumvirate, and take the story down to the battle of Actium in 31 BC and the defeat and deaths of Antony and Cleopatra. (According to this piece, James Purefoy, who plays Antony, has been contracted for six years, but even if one assumes it takes two years to make a season and that the six years includes the two spent on season one, it's hard to see how he can get that much work before his character is eliminated.) If it goes to a third season, that would presumably (as Penny Goodman has opined) deal with the reign of Augustus. This was a period of unprecedented development in the Forum - so will the Cinecitta set be torn down?
Sunday, October 30, 2005
Plato as done by Tarantino
This has been going around the web recently. It's moderately amusing, but what I find interesting is that originally it dates back to 1994. Yet it's being talked about as if it's brand new.
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
Tom Holland's "No sex please, we're Roman"
The BBC has a new epic Rome coming next month (warning: whoever did the BBC website can't spell Mark Antony's name). I had the following article from the Sunday Times, in relation to this series, brought to my attention:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2092-1838250,00.html
Holland makes some interesting points about the way in which Roman attitudes to sex have been distorted and taken out of context, to make them seem more sexually amoral than they actually were. However, I think he rather over-reacts, and ends up painting an equally unrealistic picture of Roman mores. First century Rome may well not have been a society where people shagged at the drop of a hat, but equally it is not true that everyone observed the morality espoused by the aristocratic writers of the senatorial order, any more than all inhabitants of the British Isles in the nineteenth century adhered to what are now encapsulated as Victorian values. For a start, there's the 'no smoke without fire' point, that the fact that senatorial writers were railing against sexual immorality shows that some people were indulging in it, regardless of public disapproval. There may not have been as much bed-hopping as the senatorial writers say - like Daily Mail leader writers, they tend to exaggerate. And some of those professing the 'proper' Roman morality would have been the ones disregarding it in private - sexual double standards were as common then as now.
But other people had a more free-thinking attitude to sexuality, and this is to be found, for instance, in the works of Ovid. I have to say I find it odd that Holland writes about Roman sexual mores without mentioning Ovid. It means he is as guilty as the producers of Rome of not presenting the whole picture.
I'm sure the series will be sufficiently bonkers.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2092-1838250,00.html
But other people had a more free-thinking attitude to sexuality, and this is to be found, for instance, in the works of Ovid. I have to say I find it odd that Holland writes about Roman sexual mores without mentioning Ovid. It means he is as guilty as the producers of Rome of not presenting the whole picture.
I'm sure the series will be sufficiently bonkers.
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