Barbarians

This series "Terry Jones' Barbarians" by the author of the book of the same name is mentioned in a course of the Blumberg Western Cannon. So I had to watch the series. I am now in the process of reading the book.

I would like to see this presentation be part of the mainstream courses.

There are two disks Disk 1: The episode "The Primitive Celts" 1. Celtic Barbarians 2. Caesar's Gallic Wars

The episode "The Savage Goths" 1. Arminius 2. Dacian Wars 3. Alaric I's sack of Rome

Disk2:

The episode "The Brainy Barbarians" 1. Antikythera Mechanism 2. Archimedes and Syracuse 3. Parthians 4. Sassanids

The episode "The End of the World" 1. Attila the Hun 2. Vandal leader Geiseric 3. Sack of Rome (455 AD)

Romans understood propaganda well and lied and bent the truth when it suited them. The heir to the Roman empire, the Catholic, and to some extent the Greek Orthodox Church, had a monopoly on knowledge throughout Europe throughout the Medieval age and to a great extent, even up to today.

Terry Jones (A Welsh-man or a descendant of the Celts) also of Monty Python fame has done a marvelous job dispelling many of the Roman biases that is so prevalent throughout Western Academia and Zeitgeist that they go unquestioned.

Even in University I was taught this rubbish in my history and art history classes. For example the absence of any meaningful coverage of Parthian Empire and then the Sassanian Empires of the near east was astonishing to me. It's like reading about the second half of the 20th Century and without mentioning the Soviet Union. Or the silly term Greco-Roman which makes as much sense as saying Judeo-Nazi. (hint Romans destroyed and pillaged the Greek (Hellenistic) city states and enslaved the majority of the population.)

The majority of history available is a verbatim retelling of Roman propaganda, this series and the accompanying book is a refreshing antidote to that. It opens eyes and minds, highly recommended. Though if Rome is sacred to you and very dear to your heart, you may want to skip it, Rome is definitely not "light of the world" in this version of history.

This attempted series by the renowned and Oxford educated comedian Terry Jones to show that the official history is too pro-Roman because historians have relied to heavily on them and Jones attempted to take a balanced view with what scientific evidence can tell us about the so called "barbarians", which is why at times he can be Anti-Roman because they had the last word in History.

The first two episodes were good but he tried to present the Celts as being too advanced for what they were. In fairness them and their German neighbours had culture but no civilisation like Rome or its advanced technology and infrastructure and absorption in to Rome gradually seemed inevitable no matter how long or the policy hard for the Celts and Soft for the Germans.

The other tribal peoples covered the Dacians and Huns were generally summarised based on archeological findings and Roman perceptions very informative but nothing extraordinary

The only episode that really makes an extraordinary difference is the Greeks and the Persians. It shows correctly that the Greeks were apart from the Romans and should not really be grouped with them in a single category.

Persia has always received a negative reception in the west and Jones refreshingly demonstrates their unique tolerance and lasting impact on knowledge to this day. It does not deserve the anathema it has got and he puts the record straight in this episode.

Terry examines in the final episode that the Catholic Church kept the Roman perceptions alive after the fall of empire. This is a slight exaggeration. The Catholic Church preserved Roman writings because they were readily available and were of value as it Christianised the empires remnants after its end the only exception to this was Atilla and his Huns whom they had direct conflict with.

But as an independent offshoot the Catholic Churches medieval relations with both Orthodox Christianity and Islam certainly was a continuation of Rome's conflict with Greece and Persia.

I agree with some of the reviewers here that Terry Jones was out to bash the Romans and he gave biased view of against them. For example in the "Primitive Celts", he wants us to believe that the Romans tried to annihilate all of Celtic culture. But, historically in fact, the Celts and their culture were assimilated into Roman culture. The Celts or Gauls adapted into Roman civilization. Again, he alleged in "The Savage Goths" that the Romans went on a genocidal spree against the Dacians but I could not find any account of this in historical and anthropological writings? What I did find enlightening is the way he went about this whole "expose" thing in very humorous way.

Two programs about ancient Rome's neighbors, competitors and subject peoples. It mainly focuses on culture and technology. It presents information that is highly accurate, and also usually overlooked in history textbooks.

Not only is the content insightful and not stuff that's already common knowledge, it's just plain good history. The claims aren't overstated ("The Celts invented everything and we have absolute proof!") or sensational, or unnecessarily opaque and mysterious, like "How did they build the pyramids? Nobody knows!" (in fact we have pretty detailed knowledge of how they were built). I am a professional historian (well, PhD candidate) and I can recommend these programs for high-school or even college-level classrooms without reservation. The second program, "The Brainy Barbarians," is especially good.

Terry Jones editorializes a bit about the Romans, but with all the fawning over them in conventional histories, I think this will do more good than harm for most viewers. Besides which, it's honest editorializing--you can easily tell when he's presenting interpretations or opinions, and when he's presenting facts.

And it's all pretty entertaining and well-presented, too.

K Hemmat