Depictions of the ancient world seem to be more prevalent that ever on television, home video and the cinema. Dr Marco Angelini of University of Technology, Sydney (UTS), looks at The Caesars (1968) and some of the other recent examples of depictions of Roman history to be made available on video and DVD and considers how they reflect conceptions of the modern world.
About the reviewer: Dr Marco Angelini is currently Student Equity Project Officer, Equity and Diversity Unit, University of Technology, Sydney (UTS). He gained his B.Sc. in Government and History and his M.Sc in Political Theory from from London School of Economic; his Ph.D. on the History of Philosophy from Queen's University of Belfast. He was Outreach Manager at University College London from 2006 to 2013 before joining UTS.
This article first appeared in Viewfinder 64.
Originally broadcast to great acclaim in 1968, The Caesars has since been almost wholly over-shadowed by the BBC adaptation of Robert Graves’ I, Claudius eight years later. This is a pity in some ways, because Philip Mackie’s six-part series represents the high point of a decade of ambitious and successful drama programming at ITV, centred on literary and historical adaptations such as Saki (1962) and The Victorians (1963), and as such it perhaps merits a more distinctive place in the development of television drama.
It stands up remarkably well to contemporary viewing due to its focus on the grim and pitiless realities of the exercise of political power that is true for any period. Indeed, in this sense The Caesars can be favourably compared with I, Claudius for the more restrained version of Ralph Bates’ Caligula which is somehow more menacing compared to the histrionics of John Hurt’s bravura show-stealer. Similarly, Roland Culver represents a far more impressive and aristocratic Augustus compared to the rough and earthy Brian Blessed; after all, Octavian did not become Augustus by virtue of being the last thug standing in the civil wars - he possessed political and organizational (if not military) skills that exerted an enormous weight on his contemporaries.
The success of The Caesars and I, Claudius however, as well as the consistent interest shown in this period, begs some broader questions about the relationship between these events and western culture and society. Generations of writers, thinkers and filmmakers have been re-creating the events and characters of this set of Romans’; from Frankie Howerd’s music hall romp Up Pompeii! (1969-70) and the Carry On’s ludicrous ‘infamy, infamy, they’ve all got it in for me’ to Shakespeare’s inaccurate ‘Et tu, Brute!’, down to the arched personal and political character descriptions of Suetonius. This should not surprise us - these figures and events are woven into the cultural fabric of the West, and represent an archetypal shorthand for key values and characteristics that we share: liberty, order, conscience, madness… Cicero, Caesar, Brutus, Caligula.
It helps of course, and is no coincidence, that we possess remarkable sources for these times: Cicero’s letters, Caesar’s war journals, the historical work of Polybius, Livy, and especially Suetonius. These were extraordinary times and the stakes could not have been higher- easily enough inspiration for ancient writers of all kinds. As a result, the political and institutional language of the modern world is deeply clothed in the language, custom and texture of the Roman world. The American revolution yielded a ‘Senate’, on ‘Capitol Hill’, with a presidency which increasingly takes on the aura of imperial deference (the recent US envoys to Iraq have been referred to as ‘pro-consuls’, without comment); whilst Italian Fascism was almost wholly indebted to the iconography and military symbolism of Rome. Napoleon went from ‘Consul’ to Emperor, whilst the German and Russian terms for ‘emperor’ owe a direct debt to the family name ‘Caesar’.
So much for the universality of Roman imagery and institutional forms, but are they really immanent in the shaping of our history since those times? Are we so similar to them that it is reasonable for The Caesars or the BBC’s recent blockbuster series Rome or their drama documentary Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire to pass off as representative of that world? After all, the realities of life in Rome are not something most of us would bear lightly; Romans were fascinated by the physical spectacle of blood-shed, turning it into an popular entertainment, and the sexual mores of post-Augustan Rome would surely shock even a Big Brother audience. But this fault-line is not really the point, because, for example, what makes Graves’ Claudius irresistible to us is not the historical accuracy of the Emperor’s musings (of which we know nothing), but rather that he possesses a historical and literary sensibility that is thoroughly our own- thus he is a modern character that nourishes our hunger to bring the voices of these men and women to life; a paradox we cannot escape.
In the end there is enough of us in the Romans, and vice versa (to coin a modern phrase), to make these re-imaginings meaningful- at least to make the impulse irresistible. The distance and otherness will inevitably make any attempt at a connection incomplete but altogether necessary, because any attempt to understand ourselves must include that 100 years between the consolidation of the Julio-Claudian dynasty and its demise; a century that helped define the balance between order and liberty, and what it means to use power. Re-imagining these men and women will not tell us who they were; it tells us who we are.
Dr Marco Angelini
TV representations of Ancient Rome currently available on Video and DVD
MEET THE ROMANS - WITH MARY BEARD (2012) GB. DVD. BBC. 180 minutes. RRP £12.99
ANCIENT ROME: THE RISE AND FALL OF AN EMPIRE (2006) GB. DVD. BBC. 360 minutes. RRP £19.99
ROME – Series 1 & 2 (2005-6) US/GB. DVD. HBO. 720 minutes. RRP £50.99
JULIUS CAESAR (2005) US. DVD. Metrodome. 135 minutes. RRP £19.99
SPARTACUS (2004) US. DVD. Universal Pictures. 167 minutes. RRP £12.99
LOST TREASURES OF THE ANCIENT WORLD - ANCIENT ROME (2003) GB. DVD. Cromwell. 48 minutes. RRP £10.99 BBC SHAKESPEARE – ANTHONY AND CLEOPATRA (1981) GB/US. DVD. BBC. 1T0 minutes RRP £12.99 BBC SHAKESPEARE – JULIUS CAESAR (1979) GB/US. DVD. BBC. 160 minutes RRP £12.99
I, CLAUDIUS (1976) GB. DVD. BBC. 650 minutes. RRP £44.99
UP POMPEII! (THE FRANKIE HOWERD COLLECTION) (1969-70) GB. DVD. BBC. 505 minutes. RR £24.99