"Decline and fall of the Roman myth"

[Robert Vermaat]

OK, watched it last night!

And it was ba-aaad.

Why? Well, mr Jones seemed like he had a bone to pick with the Romans, and that point had to be made without the proper scientific method.

First of all, I've said it before, much information of the Celts and their truly wonderful culture is long known, it's not news. And we all know that Romans made a point of painting a bad picture of their neighbours, 'selling'them to their audiences as true barbarians, uncivilised and dangerous. We don't believe that, but Terry Jones makes it sound as if we do.

Sources - recognising the Celts had no written sources (and he applauded them almost for that), he used Julius Caesar. And of course, when Old Julius was known to polish his own role when falsely calling his conquest of Gaul 'a protection of the Gaul', Jones criticised him as a bloody killer. But when Julius Caesar writes about millions killed or enslaved, Jones suddenly does take his word for it.
But when vercingetorix explls ten of thousands of civilians from Alesia ('to get them to safety'), it's the monstrous Romans who not only refuse to let them pass, but it's due to thse same monstrous Romans (who 'of course' want to attack when Vercingetorix would have re-opened his gates to let his peole back in) that these poor wretches die a horrible death of starvatian and exposure. War is hell, but only the Romans are to blame - according to Jones.

Laws - Jones paints a very rosy picture of the position of women in Celtic society. How? Well, he takes one grave of a Gallic rich and powerful women, around 300-200 BC, and recites a lot of laws from Ireland -7th c. AD. And E Presto! there's your evidence that all Celts had these laws, always. Compare our laws today with our laws a 1000 years ago, compare both groups and call them unchanged - you'd be laughed at.

Culture - Judging from a dig at Bibracte and nothing much else, Jones paints a picture of Celts having a civilisation rich in ities, rich in mines, and all connected through a netwrk of roads, which are all shown as dead strait. To me, that's falsifying information.
Of course Celts had towns - but not cities as we call them cities between 300 BC and 300 AD. Much of these cities were large, sure, but contained much open space.
Of course the Celts had roads, connectinf settlement - but not anything like the Roman roads (construction) or the Roman road netwok, that of a different scale altogether. But Jones never pointed that out.

Celts - and there we have the biggest problem; who were the Celts anyway? I'll not go into that quagmire hre.. But to take a name and stick that onto a group of peoples and tribes which shared language, culture, material development (but not all of them together at the same time) over a 1000 years and give them one name and treat them as if similar - that's just not scientifically correct.

All in all, I found this documentary extremely shallow and at times unscientific, even propaganda. Not worthy to what Terry Jones has done in the past.



Next week - the Goths.