Meet the Romans with Mary Beard

I give Mary an A for effort but she is a bit hard to take for an ordinary ole American like me. The British must have a very high tolerance for the extremely untelegenic hosts with bad teeth. I'm sorry to sound shallow but my goodness. Poor old Mary, stringy grey hair, dirty fingernails, frumpy persona, bad teeth and all...take her or leave her. I enjoyed most of the program despite how distracting Mary's bad teeth are. However in one segment Mary was apparently visiting Rome at the height of summer and was sweating like a pig. Her hair was sticking to her neck and sweat was pouring down her face and I just couldn't take it anymore. Good lord, have some self respect and tidy up before rolling the cameras. I have no idea how good the rest of the show is.

We had high hopes for these series, expecting detailed account on lives of common roman people. However there is way too much adult content and spicy remarks which makes it unsuitable for viewing with children.

Right from the start there is a sense of sensationalism and self-advertisement, since the first 3 minutes of each film is just a roughly chopped trailer of things that would be repeated later. Overall we though that the first film in the series was watchable but it becomes worse with the second and third being almost unwatchable, with the main focus being on vulgar and dark aspects of roman life. There is very little logic or plan in the story and most of it consists of reading tombstones and over-excitement after finding on them Mr. Eroticus, Mrs. Volupta and similar names.

The authors probably thought that it is very hard to say something new about such well studied subject and this drove them to another extreme.

A great subject, and we have no doubt the host is an expert that could lead us to knowledge.

But Mary Beard narrates, and she has prominent speech impediments which turn the letter"S" into an irritating sensation in the listener's ear. And she uses the letter"S" (possibly, tens of) thousand of times in each episode. (count the number of "S"'s, and soft "C"'s, in this short review. Multiply by one hour)

This series also suffers from a common modern blight on documentaries, the desire to make them ultra-exciting in every second of the show.

Mary Beard is overly familiar with her audience, indulging in clumsy vulgarities, just minutes into the first program.

You also feel a sort of tension from the rapid edits, bombastic music, and a new image every half second throughout the program.

The viewer never gets a satisfying look at the marvelous Roman architecture and art that are a substantial portion of the narrative in the show.

Perhaps the producers believe that the audience does not posses enough of an attention span left to enjoy informative documentaries without pyrotechnics.

Pity, the subject matter is most interesting, but the viewer will have difficult job of relating due to the over blown production values and the constant spitting noise in the narration.

And this is typical of other recent BBC documentaries.

We need a new champion of documentaries and history based TV. The BBC used to be that, but not so much anymore.

PEOPLE OF ROME

... and here I am again, reflecting on yet another documentary show the pandemic has given me to be entertained in my forced confinement, that says (or neglects to say) important very true things but that perhaps the general public might not like or understand.

I have complained that in most shows of this kind and also in books and papers, the ancient Egyptians are often falsely represented by scholars who sort of edulcorate an ancient quite unpleasant reality.

But what do we want to portray and have people understand, a factual past or a pretty and noble one that is not really true?

After all, the sources we have are writings by members of the ancient elites, who obviously were anything but objective.

In this case I refer to Mary Beard´s Meet the Romans. Due to her expertise and ability to communicate, I sat back to listen, watch, enjoy and get in touch with the ancient Romans (more exactly, the people living in that huge metropolis) as they really were.

At the beginning she mentions slavery, the tragic consequence of wars of conquest, but also that those same slaves were frequently freed by their masters after some time and they became full Roman citizens, with all the implicit rights.

This is quite untrue, after obtaining freedom, as freedmen, they still owed allegiance and were supposed to be at the service of their former masters in their many activities, not all legit o commendable. If this was not done, they could revert to slavery as ungrateful servants.

Nothing of the sort is mentioned in the show, that would certainly put limitations to this kind of precious regained freedom.

Then Mary mentions the peasants, who, according to her, in many cases flocked to imperial Rome attracted by the opportunities it offered, like so many other outsiders.

But no mention of why many of those peasants did so and the dire consequences to the Roman empire in the long run. Those peasants ended up in Rome because they had lost their farms to the voracity of patricians and other members of the elite that were expanding their latifundia, cultivated with cheap slave labour.

It was those hardy peasants that formed the bulk of the legions that created the empire (now merging into the idle and troublesome crowd receiving panem et circenses), and their increasing replacement in time with mercenaries (´auxiliaries´) or recruited men from the conquered provinces, slowly contributed to seal the fate of the former strong empire.

One wonders why all these nuances are omitted misrepresenting the ancient past, as it really was.

Outstanding documentary, another great BBC documentary which sets standards for historical themed TV documentaries. Mary Beard is truly passionate about early Rome and it really comes through in her forensic study and explanation of one of the most overlooked groups of people ever. Ironically she explains more about how the majority of ordinary Romans actually lived than any other documentary or movie I've ever seen. It's a outstanding documentary, simple and explicative with the narration carrying you very well into roman culture. In this program, Mary asks not what the Romans did for us, but what the empire did for Rome. Together with her expert guests MB really emphasizes the muck and the stench and the cramped conditions - it's radically different to the Hollywood presentation of posh blokes in togas. Mary Beard's Rome is a chaotic and dangerous place, where 'home' was just a bedroom where you slept alongside half a dozen other people. All life went on in the streets, shops, eateries and baths, without any real form of policing (apart from when there was a big match on at the coliseum, and then the legions were dispatched to keep order so folk could go watch without their homes being looted...)

Overall, MB presents an engaging selection of seemingly random snippets which build up to a surprisingly complete picture over all three episodes. She even uncovers a couple of Roman jokes which translate pretty well to modern times (although she needs to work on her delivery). The films don't restrict themselves to the city of Rome, either; plenty of evidence comes from other sites as far apart as the British Museum, Ostia and Herculaneum. The charcoal remains of home furniture, preserved by Pompeii's ashen outburst, are both rare and revealing. The filming leans towards the current trend of soft-focus blurry boundaries, an over-used effect -- but these programs aren't afflicted by a shrieking soundtrack of pointless helicopter shots. It's all much more down to earth! And where music is used.... it's appropriate. Mary Beard isn't the world's most glamorous presenter - if you care about such things -- but instead she speaks directly and with great understanding on a fascinating subject. These three hours gave me plenty to mull over, as well as a greater understanding of this period of history. 9/10 Watch it!!