{"id":9135,"date":"2023-10-21T08:06:26","date_gmt":"2023-10-21T02:36:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/what-did-the-romans-do-for-us-classicist-mary-beard-reveals-all-books-entertainment\/"},"modified":"2023-10-21T08:06:26","modified_gmt":"2023-10-21T02:36:26","slug":"what-did-the-romans-do-for-us-classicist-mary-beard-reveals-all-books-entertainment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/what-did-the-romans-do-for-us-classicist-mary-beard-reveals-all-books-entertainment\/","title":{"rendered":"What did the Romans do for us? Classicist Mary Beard reveals all | Books | Entertainment"},"content":{"rendered":"

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PAST MASTER: Dame Mary at the Colosseum in Rome (Image: PA)<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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Bear with me, but how often do you think about Ancient Rome? I\u2019m only asking because this slightly bizarre question has been doing the rounds on social media after a flurry of viral Tik-Tok videos of women quizzing husbands or partners. And the answer from the average bloke? A lot more than you might think, it turns out. \u201cEvery day\u201d, or at least \u201cseveral times a week\u201d, are among common responses.<\/p>\n

Mary Beard laughs when I suggest she\u2019s in some small way responsible for the current craze for all things Roman. She is, after all, our most famous classical historian, a star of radio and television, whose 2015 book SPQR: A History Of Ancient Rome was both critically and commercially acclaimed and sold by the situla-load (that\u2019s Latin for bucket). Frankly, there\u2019s no need to ask her how much she thinks about the Romans: a lot, if her brilliant new book, Emperor Of Rome, which examines the men \u2013 yes, it was always men \u2013 who ruled the Roman Empire, is anything to go by.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a wonderful mosaic of detail, sometimes from the most unusual of sources including graffiti, memos and bills, that builds a glorious picture of the role of emperor.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But it\u2019s the mere tip of the gladius (Latin for the swords carried by Roman foot soldiers) when it comes to the ancient world\u2019s domination of popular culture.<\/p>\n

From the oft-repeated Seventies TV drama, I, Claudius, to Latin-spraffing politicians and constant documentaries and films about gladiators, the Roman Empire\u2019s in rude health \u2013 despite having collapsed in ignominy some 1,500 years ago.<\/p>\n

Even Latin, that famously \u201cdead\u201d lingo, is now the fourth most studied language in British primary schools behind French, German and Spanish.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re keener on gladiators than the Romans were,\u201d she smiles.<\/p>\n

But as Beard, 68, tells me from the kitchen of her comfy book-lined Cambridge home, her latest work is an attempt to demystify the Roman emperors. They weren\u2019t all the psychopaths and murderers they\u2019ve been portrayed as, even in their own day.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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READ MORE: <\/strong> What lies behind Stephen King\u2019s scary influence on the world of horror? <\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Russell Crowe as Roman commander Maximus in Gladiator (2000) (Image: Getty)<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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Take Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus \u2013 better known as Caligula (37-41AD) \u2013 who infamously planned to make his horse a Consul, so we\u2019re told.<\/p>\n

He was described as insane, short-tempered and self-absorbed. But hang on, says Beard, could these stories have been inventions of the Romans themselves?<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy has Caligula gone down in history as a psychopath? Well, partly because he was assassinated. And once he was dead, there was a new broom, and everybody was dumping on the previous emperor. It was a chorus of \u2018I thought he was terrible\u2019,\u201d she explains.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd that goes on throughout history. Sometimes people really are monstrous and then they\u2019re assassinated. Other times, they\u2019re not particularly monstrous, but there\u2019s a palace coup and they get recreated as monsters because it\u2019s in everybody\u2019s interests they should be remembered that way.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI wanted to take a bit of a different view: Here you\u2019ve got the ruler of the biggest empire the West has ever seen. How the hell does he do it? When he gets up in the morning, what does he do? What does he eat, where does he go? Who does his paperwork?<\/p>\n

\u201cNow some of this means that I\u2019m not so hooked on the blood-stained corridors of power because I\u2019m more interested in thinking about what it was really like to be an emperor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t worry, however, if you don\u2019t know your Caesar from your Augustus. It doesn\u2019t matter. \u201cPeople might think, \u2018Oh, God, I don\u2019t know whether Claudius came before Caligula. I can\u2019t tell Marcus Aurelius from Antonius Pius. Is that going to be a problem with this book?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cActually, no. Outside of a small circle in Rome, most Romans probably didn\u2019t know. There\u2019s a lovely papyrus scrap from Roman Egypt and it\u2019s a guy with very good handwriting trying to make a list of all the Roman emperors\u2026 and he gets it wrong.\u201d Marcus Aurelius (161-180AD) remains one of the most famous emperors of the second century. His series of personal Meditations is a modern bestseller.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt one point, he looks back over his predecessors and says, in Roman terms, it was the \u2018same play, different cast\u2019,\u201d says Beard.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s my book in a nutshell. They all lived in the palace, they all went on some kind of military campaign, they travelled, they had sex. They did their paperwork, they answered petitions.\u201d So why do we remain so utterly fascinated by them?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    \u201cPartly it\u2019s because they are us writ large,\u201d she continues. \u201cThey are the blueprint for the modern world but in a more extravagant, larger-than-life way.<\/p>\n

    \u201cThey are more lascivious, more corrupt, more imperialist. They\u2019ve also formed a kind of template of power and what it looks like since the ancient world. So I think we\u2019re curious about how they did it, even if we disapprove of some of their behaviour.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    Brian Blessed, left, as Gaius Octavian, and Ian Ogilvy as Drusus, in 1970s TV drama, I, Claudius (Image: Getty)<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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    Does Beard see a comparison between the growing gap between haves and have-nots in contemporary society and the Romans? She cites \u201cimperial\u201d modern rulers like the late Silvio Berlusconi, former Italian prime minister, and shoe-mad Imelda Marcos of the Philippines. \u201cElagabalas [218-222AD] never wore the same pair of shoes twice. He was so rich. When we imagine what it is to be all powerful, we often focus on footwear.<\/p>\n

    \u201cThere\u2019s a wonderful story, about a would-be emperor, when the grandfather of one ancient writer manages to get into the palace kitchens of Antony and Cleopatra. He sees eight boars roasting and he says, \u2018Big dinner?\u2019 And is told: \u2018No, it\u2019s a small group, but we don\u2019t know when they want to eat\u2019. That\u2019s what was said about Prince Charles, always denied by the Palace, that he had seven eggs boiled one after the other so one would be perfect when he was ready to eat.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    Like such modern tales of the rich and famous, there\u2019s no point getting too hung up on whether they are true or not, she insists. They\u2019re useful as metaphors.<\/p>\n

    Beard admits that looking afresh at the emperors has given her a certain amount of sympathy for them and their ilk, right up to modern politicians.<\/p>\n

    It was, after all, a risky job.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    \u201cYou wouldn\u2019t have wanted it,\u201d she smiles. \u201cWhen the emperor Domitian [81-96AD] was assassinated at the end of the first century, the conspirators tried in advance to find someone to take over and actually had a couple of refusals.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Then there was Claudius (41-54AD), said to have been discovered cowering behind the palace curtains following the murder of his predecessor, his nephew Caligula.<\/p>\n

    \u201cIn whose interest was that told I wonder?\u201d muses Beard, who retired last year after a 40-year career at the University of Cambridge. \u201cWell, it was probably in Claudius\u2019 interest, wasn\u2019t it? \u2018I wasn\u2019t involved in the killing. Not me, Guv. I had nothing to do with it. I was just the choice of the army\u2019.<\/p>\n

    \u201cWe like to think that if we were living under an autocrat, we would be freedom fighters. No, we wouldn\u2019t, we\u2019d probably be keeping our heads down and going along with it. And what\u2019s striking about one-man rule of imperial power in Rome is that there\u2019s almost no opposition to the system. It flickers when Caligula is killed. But after that, there\u2019s no trace of someone saying, \u2018There shouldn\u2019t be an emperor\u2019. What keeps autocracies in power is not the murder and the violence. It\u2019s the fact people go along with it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    Roman emperor Caligula (Image: Getty)<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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    \u201cIn the course of writing this book, I came to hate the idea of dictatorship or emperorship more, but I did start to feel a little bit more sympathetic to the poor bugger who was emperor. It\u2019s a prison for him as much as a palace. And no one\u2019s ever going to tell him the truth. He can\u2019t trust anybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Rolling forward to the present day, I wonder if it\u2019s given her a smidgen of sympathy for the likes of Vladimir Putin or North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un?<\/p>\n

    \u201cIt doesn\u2019t make you like them, but it makes you see they\u2019re caught in the system too. Now, they\u2019re in a much better place than most people. But when you get that kind of autocratic rule, everybody is involved in not telling the truth. And what I think the Romans are saying in some of these anecdotes is that autocracy is a mad, dystopian world in which nothing is as it seems.<\/p>\n

    \u201cIt takes away your ability to judge with your own eyes. I don\u2019t know what an encounter between Putin and one of his advisors looks like, none of us do. But there must be a sense of, what do you say and what can you believe.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    And despite the popularity of the ancient world, there\u2019s an irony in the fact that the rise of STEM subjects like physics, maths and computing, has put the humanities on the backfoot in higher education. \u201cThere aren\u2019t very many people who say humanities are a bad idea,\u201d says Beard. \u201cBut there is a sense that they\u2019re not essential, right? It\u2019s very nice to have a culture in which some people read Latin. But if you\u2019re short of money, we\u2019re not going to pay for it.<\/p>\n

    \u201cThat rests on the idea STEM subjects are essential, that society would collapse without them. Whereas humanities are kind of a nice added extra. But humanities teach you to be a democratic citizen, you learn how to make decisions on the basis of inadequate evidence.<\/p>\n

    \u201cThat doesn\u2019t mean everybody has to learn Latin and Greek \u2013 I\u2019m very happy when people do \u2013 but these subjects are absolutely essential for the wellbeing of the body politic.<\/p>\n

    \u201cIt\u2019s no good saying that if we all became computer engineers, the country would be more prosperous. It would just be different.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    She continues: \u201cThe humanities have got to speak for themselves and say, \u2018There\u2019s a purpose here. And the purpose of education is not just to make a large salary\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Surely the fact a recent Prime Minister is well known for his love of the classics should help, shouldn\u2019t it? Beard is not quite so sure.<\/p>\n

    \u201cThe trouble is it has kind of fixed the idea of classics in peoples\u2019 minds as being something you do at Eton,\u201d she says carefully. \u201cOne of my life\u2019s projects has been to say Latin isn\u2019t just for the posh. Now I don\u2019t want to stop the posh doing it. I\u2019m a broad church kind of woman.<\/p>\n

    \u201cBut when you hear Boris Johnson on the radio, spouting a bit of Latin, or more often Greek, in a posh accent, you do wonder if that sends a signal to ordinary kids that classics isn\u2019t really for people like them?\u201d<\/p>\n

    \u25cf Emperor Of Rome by Mary Beard (Profile, \u00a330) is available to order from Express Bookshop. For free UK P&P, visit expressbookshop.com or call Express Bookshop on 020 3176 3832<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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    [ad_1] PAST MASTER: Dame Mary at the Colosseum in Rome (Image: PA) Bear with me, but how often do you think about Ancient Rome? I\u2019m only asking because this slightly bizarre question has been doing the rounds on social media after a flurry of viral Tik-Tok videos of women quizzing husbands or partners. And the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9137,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1023],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9135"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9135\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}