On Rome

I’ve been indulging myself with two seasons’ worth of the series Rome. I enjoy it a lot, though at times the wanton violence and sexuality gets a little old… yes, I understand that they’re trying to depict a pre-Christian experience, but still… There’s this almost romantic notion that before we had the “Judeo-Christian moral structure imposed on us” to quote several of the commentaries, there was no sense of shame in nakedness, no expectation to be faithful in relationships, no extreme requirements imposed on one’s life by one’s deity (or deities). Piffle!

Shame, guilt, sacrifice, and territoriality are built into us as humans. Among other less than lovely traits… to imagine that any culture was different is to imagine incorrectly. And while, yes, the forms may differ (we may feel shame over something very different than the ancient Romans did, for instance), the substance barely alters.

This is what bothers me about some strains of science fiction that are set in a future world — they seem to imagine that human nature will radically change between now and then, and we’ll all submit to a sort of Stepford Wives restructuring of our minds and interactions with others.

Since when, in the course of human history, did an entire body of people EVER submit meekly to that sort of thing? It doesn’t happen! Rebellion against authority is as central to human existence as is the propensity of those in authority to try to expand their powers. The same power struggles that went on in Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Greece, Rome, and every other empire that has happened since are still going on today, though they look different on the surface because technology has changed so much. But the same thing that motivated Napster and later versions of illegal file-sharing motivated the slave rebellions made famous by Spartacus. People don’t change.

But despite that quibble, I’m enjoying the series. I like their Upstairs/Downstairs approach to the well-known history, where you see the great dramas of Julius and Augustus Caesar and their noble families played out in juxtaposition to the mostly fictional characters of Lucius Vorenus and Titus Pullo.

One of the commentators called it a “Forrest Gump view of history” but it reminds me more of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern from Tom Stoppard’s play, watching and interacting with history but barely knowing what they’re doing and helpless to stop the events that are careening toward their inevitable conclusion around them. There are times when I feel as though we’re all that way — planted in history, watching it speed inevitably on around us, sort of clueless as to what’s happening even as we’re playing a role in making it happen…