Those About to Die (of tedium)

I have been watching the new epic drama Those About to Die, which is set in Rome in AD 79. (Well, what else would an ancient historian do with a free trial subscription to Amazon Prime?)

According to the makers (Peacock), it “explores a side of ancient Rome never before told : the dirty business of entertaining the masses, giving the mob what they want most : blood and sport”. Never before told? Isn’t this just like the mini-series Spartacus, or Ben Hur from 2010?

And it’s surely just a coincidence that the series has aired four months before the eagerly awaited Gladiator II.

I couldn’t identify a recognizable plot, other than (a) lots of nasty things go on in the seedy parts of Rome, (b) lots of nasty things go on in the imperial palace at Rome, and (c) it’s nasty and seedy being a slave in Rome.

The producers allegedly drew inspiration from a 65-year-old book of the same title by Daniel Mannix. I had a quick flick through and I can’t see any resemblance beyond the title and the fact that neither has managed to place Scorpus the charioteer in the correct faction (the term used to differentiate between the four “teams” of charioteers).

Scorpus the charioteer

In the TV drama, Scorpus is the star charioteer of the Blues (and — Episode Three spoiler alert — the Golds), whereas Mannix already assured us that “we have plenty of old records of the sport such as ‘Scorpus of the White Faction got first place seven times, second place twenty-nine times and third place sixty times’.”

In fact, the poet Martial, who was a contemporary and an eye-witness to (amongst other things) the opening of the Colosseum in AD 80, writes about “Scorpus and the Greens”! In addition, seven victories is laughably meagre for a champion charioteer. The well-known epitaph of the Hadrianic charioteer Diocles, who raced mostly for the Reds, records 1,462 victories. Unfortunately, I have no idea where Mannix got his information, as he begins his book with this rather unbelievable disclaimer: “so many sources were used in preparing this volume that it would be impossible to name them all”!

Although Those About to Die shows all the usual signs of writers who are resistent to the slightest historical advice, the admittedly entertaining twist in Episode Three (“Death’s Door”), alluded to above, does have — astonishingly (perhaps accidentally, though it could’ve come from Mannix) — a basis in fact: for Suetonius records that Domitian, when emperor, “added two factions of drivers to the previous four in the Circus, with gold and purple as their colours”. They did not outlast his reign. Nor did they predate it!

Shallow Flavians

I stayed with this dull drama for three episodes, long enough to see if Vespasian (played, rather low-key and with minimal screen-time, as an aged and infirm emperor by Sir Anthony Hopkins; see above middle) would die accurately. I must acknowledge that, yes, we did hear him say (as his biographer Suetonius reported) “Oh, dear, I think I’m becoming a god!”

But the writers have failed to capture anything of the genuine man, whom Suetonius claims was a witty fellow, a man of the people, in fact. Nor have they captured his elder son Titus, who was his father’s right-hand man all along. So there’s no basis for the spiteful on-screen sibling rivalry. Titus was also his father’s spitting image (unlike actor Tom Hughes, here sporting a full beard, moustache and bouncy quiff, and no double chin; see above left). Nor have the writers done Domitian justice in this caricature of an insane deviant (played by a mad-eyed Jojo Macari, who really should have gained 20lbs to play this part properly; see above right).

For those who would excuse the inaccuracies on the grounds that “it’s a TV show not a documentary”, that simply excuses sloppy writing, sloppy research, and misdirected budget.

There’s a scene (pictured here) where we can clearly see a bust of Caracalla (born over a hundred years later) in the background, and I’m sure I saw the Arch of Titus (not completed until AD 81) in one of the aerial views.

As for the lazy writing, when Vespasian warns his sons about the threat of “Parthians, Gauls, Britons, and Huns”, he displays an enviable skill for clairvoyance (the Huns would not emerge for another 300 years). Perhaps that doesn’t matter to the average viewer. But when your writer thinks it’s a good idea for a first-century Numidian character — in AD 79 — to address a Syrian character in Arabic, invoking the name of Allah, it’s time to hire a new one.