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.
