Roma Eterna

I finally finished watching all the back tapes of Rome week on the History channel. As usual, it was a mixed bag of stuff. “Lust in Rome” was an awful documentary about the sinful practices of the Roman Emperors. They even went as far as to call Claudius “grotesquely deformed” as if his limp and stutter were the reasons behind his supposed debauchery.

The documentary about the battle between Caesar and Vercingetorix was well-done. They had two military historians pretending to be the two combatants in modern day France. They didn’t dress up in costumes or anything like that, and they “chased” each other in cars across the French countryside, but it was still quite effective.

At the top of my list is a series called “Life and Death in Rome.” This series had several episodes but I only managed to tape two of them. Sometimes the camera work was dangerously close to “MTV” style, but I like the host (can’t remember his name) and the stories were mostly about how the everyday person lived in 1st century Rome.

“Modern Marvels” also pulled out a very good episode about the Flavian Ampitheater, more commonly known as the “Coliseum.” It’s not exactly a “modern” marvel, but I like the way they talked about the Coliseum’s more recent history. Although, I can’t imagine that Paul McCartney’s concert did the fragile structure any good.

Whew! I am sated for now with all that Ancient Roman history under my belt, but it still makes me yearn for a decent copy of Pliny’s “Natural History.”

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