Historian Reviews the Best and Worst Depictions of the Roman Empire in Film and TV

Feels like I’ve seen this before, but I’m not complaining.

flaming balls wouldnt be usefull for much more then distraction.

they are made of hay or light wood + some flamable liquid and dont really burn someone dead… so thats that.

makes more sense to push cars down a hill or something like that, the tharacians tried that on the macedonians and it really happened

Would love to see a reaction to the German Netflix series Barbarians (like the use of Latin by the Romans) 👀

do "The Dacians" (1962) it follows Suetonius very closely

Not quite correct on one point. Romulus actually had Augustus as a personal name BEFORE and therefore in addition to his title; you can see it on his coinage.

I hadn’t realized that the 9th Legion being destroyed was probably invented by Rosemary Sutcliffe

"Real Goths Sack Rome"…

Barbarian detected!

I refuse to believe that The Life of Brian is anything but 100% completely accurate!! So there! 😉

What about the eagle ?

he did have a big one 😂

They look quite Nordic/Germanic

23:39 Roman governors were almost universally hated because while they were members of the aristocracy and senatorial class and supposed to uphold “Roman virtues” and “Roman justice” in practice they pursued a different, much more ruthlessly selfish purpose. Roman provincial governors term limit was one year. One year before they would be moved to different job perhaps with much less autonomy of action. This extremely short duration was supposed to prevent corruption, but in reality merely intensified it’s effects. Almost all Roman governors were ruthlessly focused on the extraction of as much wealth from their province as possible in collusion with the non-noble equestrian class private enterprise “small business” Roman “publicani” tax collectors there. The “publicani” were the hated and feared “muscle” of the Roman tax collection institution. These enterprising equestrian class Romans had bid to win the five-year contract to act as tax collectors in a province, and, critically, had to PREPAY the majority of the taxes they expected to collect from the province BEFORE being granted the contract. This was to insure Rome’s tax revenues ahead of time. It also was a matter of practicality since transporting large amounts of gold back to Rome risked loss. This meant in practice again though that the winning publicani sought ruthlessly to extract as much wealth from the conquered province as quickly as possible, since THE PUBLICANI COULD KEEP FOR THEMSELVES any wealth “legally” extracted in excess of what they had already paid to win the contract. And since the amount of money needed to win these contracts was often beyond the means of lower class equestrians, they partnered with rich aristocratic land owners back in Rome who expected to be repaid, often with multiple centesimae (a form of monthly simple interest added to the amount borrowed … risky loans like publicani could have to pay two to four centesimae … which would amount to as much as 48% simple interest per year) the governor was just as interested in watching over his “class interests ” (investment by the rich aristocractic class in the equestrian publicani) as in the “administration of Roman law and justice” in his province. Roman governors were in practice presiding over boiling pressure cookers of wealth extraction from the conquered provincial populations trying to avoid outright economic rebellion from below while keeping the collectors satisfied by leaving them free to be as ruthless as possible in doing their work. Including transporting those who couldn’t pay their taxes (and their wives, daughters and children) back to Rome as slaves.

And like today’s CEO class, the governors expected to take a handsome cut of the wealth of the region (in the Roman governors case illicitly and unofficially of course) for this short term job, no matter the outcome for the publicani. Success being gauged only by the maximum number of debt slaves (yes … provincials who couldn’t pay the taxes demanded by the publicani could be taken into slavery. Or … sell a wife or child(ren) to cancel tax debt demanded by a publicani) sent back for Rome for sale to the public there, and the avoidance of civil disturbances and especially by avoiding having ever to spend Roman money to send a legion to quell any open rebellion.

This vicious cynical, corrupt and violent system of brutal oppression and wealth extraction and enslavement was why Roman governors (the “justice”) and tax collectors were so hated and despised in the provinces.

The success of this exploitative, colonialist and imperialist system (imperialist in nature even before the Roman Republic finally became the Empire it had been, in everything but name, for at least a century by around 30 BCE) was also the reason for the death of the Republic. SO MUCH WEALTH and the displacement of citizen small farmer / craftsman / paid laborers by hundreds of thousands of unpaid slaves into the Roman economy promoted the rapid growth of a massive inequality of wealth and income and a consolidation of land ownership among the very richest Romans with predictable results. Wealth inequality built upon systematic “legal” means inevitably produces civic unrest and the eventual death of egalitarian democratic republican societies.

“Roman values” became a punch line and political banner of the rich ruling class who cared only about the accumulation of wealth and power and the “virtue” of increasing one’s status amongst one’s peers.

After a century of low level economic class conflict in the Roman republic and eventually large scale civil war, the Republic died and was replaced by the Empire which was the embodiment of the ruling class’s ideology of wealth by military conquest, oppression and tax extraction to benefit a small ruling class growing spectacularly more wealthy by the year. The dictatorial , ultra-rich elite dominated Imperial form of government was merely the codification of the ideology of the Roman ruling class they’d been consolidating for almost a century. The Empire, Emperor and “Augustus” just made it official. An empire which ruled its provinces by violence, fear, and wealth extraction, and Rome itself by the famous “bread and circuses” principle.

By keeping the unruly and impoverished hand-to-mouth working class Roman citizen distracted with a very basic system of food welfare (“the bread” … which itself came from from a conquered and dominated foreign Kingdom / Province … Egypt) and shows of spectacular political public performances, and the viscious deadly but equally spectacular moralizing and class-enforcing games, all presented in the glorious “HD 1080p” of its time … glowing polished stone and marble theaters and stadiums with rich colorful dyed banners … etc. … the “circuses”.

When you consider how the last half century of the U.S. has unfolded and try carefully to enumerate the similarities it makes one wonder how long it will be until the last shreds of democracy and egalitarianism are stripped away from the U.S. empire, just as they were in the Roman Republic in 27BCE.

FYI Ancient Roman were very short and very brown people. Average height was 5’4” with black hair brown eyes etc. but Even with DNA from Ancient Romans surviving frescoes from actual homes and villas not to mention Ancient Rome historians alive during various period&s of republic and empire we still have a delusional version of what Romans looked like, and it’s unfortunate because accuracy is vital.

Cheers, great video!

whistles, like as if that entered anybody's head as interesting in the first place? random

It's very inaccurate because Caesar is described as a bald man who chose to wear the reef to disguise his baldness. He has also been credited as the inventor of the comb over. I personally think the comb over excisted before caesar. I don't understand why they can't bother to make the appearence of main characters accurate. That's more important than period correct armour really, but I guess there are more military nuts than bald nuts.

jews don't exist

wonderful, really especially enjoyed the discussion of the ninth Legion, I didn't know of the later discoveries of them being relocated

Netflix barbarian series is worth a watch

Ahh, I was hoping to see the series Spartacus here, although it might have needed permanent blurring, considering the amount of gore and nudity on display. Absolutely amazing, apart from the wonky early season CGI, and would've been interesting to see someone with extensive knowledge about Rome take a look at it.

Also, John Hannah must have been a Roman in a past life, he's pretty good at playing one.

To quote a famous Gaul : Ils sont fous ces romains

Even Uruk in Mesopotemia had a sewer system long before B.C..