"Decline and fall of the Roman myth"

[Tarbicus]

Not the Goths (as advertised), but Varus and Dacian wars.

You dozed off too early. The end was about the Goths and the sack of Rome (or not as the case may be). The Goths turned up, by now devout Christians, and tried to become Romans. However, Alaric was refused an Imperial audience and the Goths eventually left to wander south. They then disappeared into the mists of time, and the Romans continued with their slavery and bloody games as if nothing ever happened. In a nutshell.

It was good to see the likes of Jon Coulston and Tony Clunn talking though.

[Robert Vermaat]

You dozed off too early.

Darn! That happens too often these days... :roll:

.. the Goths eventually left to wander south. They then disappeared into the mists of time ..

Ha! Not quite. :evil:

It was good to see the likes of Jon Coulston and Tony Clunn talking though.

Indeed. I met Tony Clunn at Kalkriese three years ago, but I never had the pleasure of seeing Jon Coulston.
So far, most experts interviewed have a lot of good things to say, but it's then Terry Jones who draws extremely unfounded conclusions..

[Praefectusclassis]

I saw the last 30 minutes and almost turned it off out of sheer horror. :evil:
*shiver*

[Robert Vermaat]

And Yes, he did it again....

Terry Jones turned his view, unobstructed by any knowledge, to the East.

Happily mixing up Persian Achaemenids, Parthians and Persian Sassanids as if the were one happy Persian dynasty, he managed to paint the Parthians as noble (Chivalrouis, even!) warriors (forgetting they had invaded the region as nomadic horse-archers), too noble for the Romans, but forever whipping their .ss. he showed us Persepolis, telling us about the differences between the monuments there and Trajan's column (which was apparently meant to scare - in the middle of Rome!!) being based on the differences between Roman and Persian rule. But Terry, Persepolis was built long before the Romans - they had nothing to do with the Achaemenids! And after the Parthians came the Sassanids, intolerant, centralised, iron-fisted. All of course the Roman's fault, they 'created a monster in their own image'...

Since when can the Roman be held 'accountable' for the rise of the Sassanid dynasty??? :evil: :evil: :evil:
Sigh... But there were nice pictures of Bishapur.

Then, he switched to Greece.

And started cursing in church.

He called the Greeks ... (dare I say it)... barbarians.

Yes. [size=150:1gop6a8w]Barbarians[/size] All of the Greeks. At least twice.

And after (rightfully) singing the praises of Greek knowledge, philosophy, technology (the Antikithera machine played a big role there), he went on to tell us that all of this ended. Why? The Romans of course, who plundered rich but defenseless islands (Cassius at Rhodes) and were (apparently) dead against novel ideas.

But lucky for us! the Sassanids translated all those nice Grek texts that the Arabs later conveyed back to us!

Erm.. did all Greek thinking die out with the Roman conquest? Did not the Athenian-Spartan (and other) wars have something to do with that? Was there not something as a Hellenistic culture, of which Rome was a part, which continued to use all the trappings of Greek culture? And did the Romans not spread it all around their conquered lands (and outside these as well), civilising more lands than ever before that had been touched by such knowledge and ideas? Instead of stamping it all out?

But like Narukami said earlier, Terry Jones is not a man who allows facts to stand in the way of a good story.

[Tarbicus]

"the barbarians of Greece and Persia"

Interesting...

In fact:

"...the Parthians commanded deference, the only outside
civilisation with which Rome had direct contact and the only
neighbour of whom they never used the word barbaricum.
Above all they were respected as enemies:

Those smash-and-grab peoples, who have been such
a bane to us, I would count rather as thieves than enemies.
Alone among men the Parthian bears the name of
'enemy of the Roman people' in a manner we must never
hold in contempt; as is well illustrated by the defeats of
Crassus and Mark Antony..."

from Derek Williams in his book The Reach Of Rome quoting a letter from Cornelius Fronto to Lucius Verus (AD 165) Correspondence, 7.

Once again Mr. Jones follows the 1st Rule Of Show Business: Never let the facts stand in the way of a good story. :wink:

Narukami

[Tarbicus]

a godless rabble of swarthy bruisers in tiny skirts

I beg your pardon, I hope the Macedonians are not included in that description.......... :evil: :evil:
swarthy bruisers in tiny skirts - maybe..... :roll: D

[satsobek]

Yes, I was particularly incensed by last night's program. I found it even more insulting than the previous shows. I'm no art historian, but even I was appalled by his use of the ancient historic record. Because YES... you can prove through ONE, ONE piece of art that the persians must have been totally different rulers than the Romans. Never mind that those ancient persians had their own war-like scenes too.

His ability to take things out of context is just amazing-- he zooms in on the ONE piece of evidence convienient to him, even if everything else is not and totally contradicts it. I wasn't even thinking about the parthians not being the same as the persians-- he was misrepresenting the persians anyway!

I got so mad I turned it off before they even got to the Greeks. I used to think he was a pretty cool guy for how he made these kind of neat irreverant historical documenteries, but this recent series has made me loose all respect for him.

[Carus Andiae]

The really depressing thing is that all the, ahem, barbarians :wink: out there will swallow it to the sound of the Radio Times singing its praises. Bring back Guy de la Bedoyere (who always sounds like he should be riding about in a hauberk harrying the North, not enthusing about Samian Ware), or that guy from the English School at Rome - what's his name? The one who always talks about how ghastly Rome was with a wistful look in his eye :lol:

[Graham Sumner]

Travis wrote:

I think Celt-o-mania is a by product of the high numbers of Irish and Scottish immigrants. My home state has a huge Welsh population and lots of welsh festivals. What's ironic is that many of the welsh "traditions" were invented by English Lords in the 18th/19th C. because they found the customs of their tennants too pedestrian, so they invented more "Authentic" traditions.

So in the Inter-mountain west of the USA there are people who are vaguely celtic celebrating their heritage with manufactured traditions that most of the people in Wales have long since abandoned as phony.

I was told recently my a member of a local Welsh Museum that the Roman invasion of Britain is not taught in local schools although it forms a big part of the National Curriculum in England. I can recall that when the Ermine Street Guard paraded through the streets of Caernarfon (called Caernarvon when I was a lad) we were booed by some locals. They must had had either very long memories or instantly knew we were English by the eccentric dress!

The English Guy in Rome would be Andrew Wallace-Hadrill

Graham.

[Narukami]

Travis wrote:

I can recall that when the Ermine Street Guard paraded through the streets of Caernarfon (called Caernarvon when I was a lad) we were booed by some locals. They must had had either very long memories or instantly knew we were English by the eccentric dress!

Graham.

Eccentric dress indeed. :lol:

If it is any consolation, here in the United States if you want your audience to know you are in England you must show the Queen's guards in their red tunics and bear skin hats.

Even Woody Allen in his most recent film, Match Point, felt obliged to show the Guards on parade (admittedly at an extreme distance in the background but still clearly recognizable), as if to prove he really shot the film in London rather than NYC.

The Guard is truly iconic.

But of even more interest is your statement that they do not teach the Roman invasion in Welsh schools.

Fascinating -- nearly 2000 years later. Long memories indeed. :?

Narukami

[Graham Sumner]

The Guard is truly iconic.

The Queens Guard or The Ermine Street Guard?

Highlight of my Guard career apart from nearly being run over by a horse in Portugal was actually guarding Her Majesty's retiring room at a Royal visit to Vindolanda. Literally the power behind the throne!

Getting back to topic I completely forgot the programme was on last week. I guess that sums up what I thought about it.

Graham.

[Robert Vermaat]

Anyone see Terry Jones make a fool of himself (again) last night? I caught only the last 20 minutes about the Vandals. So here's another one of my ravings. Duck!

Pushing on in his drive to 'set the records straight', to finally 'tell the audience the history of Roman times, but not as Roman propaganda', it seem to have beent he turn of the Huns and the Vandals. Like I said, I missed his comments on the Hun civilisation, and it's shining champion, Atilla.

I did see the plight of the Vandals though. Not much besides the usual stuff (Roman rich people build big houses because they want to flaunt their wealth, but Vandals who do so are culturised, blah blah, Vandal conquest of Africa being bloodles, blah blah, Africa warmly welcoming the (Arian) Vandals because they ALL hated the Catholics, blah blah, the Vandals not persuciting the Catholics very much, only the most diehard bishops being exiled, blah blah.

Oh yes, and ALL of the Roman troops being pulled from everywhere to defend the wall of Constantinople against Atilla. :twisted: I mean, where did this guy go during history lessons at school!

Of course the Vandals survided the fall of the Roman Empire (another one who 'forgets' the Byzantine East), being yet another proof to their superiority. Vandals are straightforward, honest, brave, poetic, etc. etc. But the big responsible party who made sure that we still see them as a barbarous mob is (of course) the Catholic Church, 'who carried on the legacy of Roman lies right into our history books'. Or words to that effect.
Well, not my books, but then I doubt that Terry Jones really read much about the subject, anyway.

But the worst one-liners I found to be the one about the Vandal conquest of Carthage. Jones nicely remarked that 'the last time, half a million civilions had perished, 'but then, it had been the Romans who did that'. He topped that off nicely by putting the Vandals did not want to shed blood 'because they weren't Romans'.

That made me almost puke. I call such remarks racist.

[Tarbicus]

This looks like it could have been more historically accurate as a documentary, and it's presented by Lucy 'Xena' Lawless:

[url:3u4nvspi]http://www.creationent.com/outback/fanclubs/ww/ww.html[/url]

[Narukami]

hock: hock: hock:


Thanks for the link Tarbicus. As always you seem able to find a relevant link to almost any topic we discuss.

Perhaps this series has already played here in the US. If so, I did not see it, but then again I did not miss it either. :wink:

Narukami

[Robert Vermaat]

This looks like it could have been more historically accurate as a documentary, and it's presented by Lucy 'Xena' Lawless:
[url:2rer3q4o]http://www.creationent.com/outback/fanclubs/ww/ww.html[/url]

Have you seen them? Apart from the 'Xena'-pose by the presenter, some of the parts of that series were not bad at all.