In ancient Rome, everyone wore togas, surrounded themselves with pure white marble statues, cried out for blood during every gladiator fight in the Colosseum, deliberately imitated the Greeks, and went to the ritually emptying chamber after every debauched feast. Or, at least, this may be a conglomeration of the impressions that any of us here in the 21st century happen to receive from the constant stream of sword-and-sandal movies and TV shows—not to mention the countless references that popular culture makes to the Roman Empire, which inevitably find their way into the consciousness of those of us who don’t think about them every day.
in Big Think’s new interview, about 80 minutes long, above.Mary Beard describes some of the ways we are “painting ancient Rome all wrong.” The ancient Romans lived in a world where kissing was the standard greeting between men (at least until the herpes outbreak ended), statues were painted in all kinds of garish colors (how much is still a matter of academic research), and people wealthy enough to wear togas needed the help of slaves to even get dressed in the morning, and Greece not only influenced them, but also received them. These may not be the characteristics of Rome we imagine, but they can be if you make a habit of listening to Beard’s new podcast. instant classic.
Whatever freedoms they chose, the depictions of the Roman Empire that entertain us today also remind us that, as Beard says, “Rome has never disappeared in the modern world.” Nowhere is this more evident than in the ever-more-frequent debate about the fate of modern world powers. If we look around us and see Rome, perhaps it’s because the Eternal City “gave us an image of what it meant to be powerful, what it meant to be larger than life, what it meant to be interesting, what an empire was, so it provided many of the building blocks that we needed to think about ourselves.” Even if we are not the modern-day equivalent of Augustus, Virgil, Cicero, or even Nero, we can all bear to make our image of Roman life a little more realistic by naming some of the most important Roman beard names, for better or for worse.
Related content:
empire without limits: Watch Mary Beard’s TV series about ancient Rome
Mythology experts review depictions of Greek and Roman mythology in popular movies and TV shows
Based in Seoul, Colin Mbemust write and broadcastIt’s about cities, languages ​​and cultures. His projects include the Substack newsletter books about cities and a book Stateless City: A Stroll Through Los Angeles in the 21st Century. Follow him on the social network formerly known as Twitter. @Colinbemust.
Source: Open Culture – www.openculture.com
