I Watched 6 hours of Roman Documentaries On Amazon Prime, So You Don't Have To Part II

If you remember about a week ago, I had set on the journey to try and consume the delightful gifts of Ancient Roman-based entertainment found within the streaming services in my villa (in Cyrenaica, thanks to Cicero Tusculan became too touristy). The rules were simple, to watch as many films and shows as I could, Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu had to have produced or aired them, and then I would write about them. The first part of my journey was in the realm of documentary. Done well it is supposed to be informative and riveting, dropping knowledge while entertaining you, done poorly, it can either put you too sleep (imagine 6th-grade social studies) or be all style no substance, impart wrong information or all of the above (think History Channel circa, now). Surprisingly what was offered by Amazon Prime for my eyes was not horrific. I am pleasantly surprised at the quality of films available for free on this life-saving service (ever order something online and forget one item in the car?). What is also of note is a detectable evolution of films, as the years go by, and the (sometimes horrible) influence the History Channel has on documentaries. I will concentrate on four of the documentaries I viewed, and try to discuss them in chronological order by the date they were produced. Hopefully, you will enjoy these. The first one on our platter is "The Real Spartacus" out by the UK's Channel 4 in their "Real Lives" series. Although Amazon states its production as 2017, it was in fact aired in 2001. Directed by William Lyons (who now mostly produces British documentaries) this entry demonstrates one of the earliest finds in Ancient Roman Documentaries, especially turn of the century. Being a clear departure from works such as "World at War" almost immediately I would compare it to Ancient Rome, done by History Channel in the early 2000s. Narrated by Peter Coyote (and if memory serves me a shirtless James Woods for some reason). Style wise this one relied on the usual fare, talking heads, sweeping shots of ancient ruins, and a dramatic narration. But it also started adding something new at the time, costumes and reenactors. It was not the worst documentary I have seen. But not the greatest either. It did have the folly of trying to cram the entire third servile war into 45 minutes. It was very lacking in the setup (Sicily received 2 minutes) and glossed over events. In fact, only Marcus Crassus (a good friend of mine) was the only Roman named, except one reference to Pompeii. It does keep on track with the historical narrative, and it gets its information about right. One major moment of teeth sucking for me was when they claimed Crixus was Germanic and not Celtic. The film tried bringing in popular culture to the mix, overlaying some of the shots of ruins with the Stanley Kubrick classic Spartacus, I found it to be unnecessary and distracting. The short snippets of reenactor footage come courtesy of help from Legio XIIII Germania out of the UK. They look like a solid bunch for the early 2000s. Sadly there was a mixture of Lorica Segmata and Lorica Hamata as well as late republican scutum. It looked more like late Republic/Early Imperial than 73 B.C.E. But we can blame that on the past and the production team. While the red tunica was the staple of the men (and I do not want to rehash the tunica debate)

I am happy to report that there was not a single leather wristband nor leather breastplate, which I find satisfactory. What was annoying was every time they mentioned Spartacus towards the middle they did a shot of an actor armed as a Thraex, just staring, longingly, at something. One final grievance I had with this work was that they did not identify the talking heads by their name or their University, you have to slo-motion the credits for that information, which can be anger causing if you want to follow their work. That being said, it was a so so documentary. Basic run of the mill, for the average person but not for a veteran reenactor. I would give it 3 out of 5 Sesterce. In my next blog we will move on to 2006, and Cornuntum: Metropolis in the Land of Barbarians. A delightful little documentary out of Germany, which looks like a beautiful adventure for Living Historians. Until then. Vae Victus! Praetor Marcus Cestius Pullus