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. . . . . . . . . . "Thousand Year Dressing"
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For no reason whatsoever BBC2 had a Roman themed weekend recently
(themed weekends are becoming ridiculously popular in British TV) and
watching some of the amazing documentaries brought some things home to me.
The Romans had exactly the same hypocrisy and civil and social
dichotomy as we exhibit and were as equally unaware of it. We still have
this notion that just because over 2000 years have passed since the dawn of
the Roman Empire that we have since become more civilized. I beg to differ.
We dress up the last thousand years as a time of constant progress (apart
from the Dark Ages) and a millennial path towards a highly sophisticated
human race.
Apart from the fact that the Roman people were a perfect fighting
machine rather than intellectual pioneers there is scarcely anything to
separate them from the Greek civilisation that preceded it. As you may know
from the amusing scene from "Life of Brian" where the People's Front of
Judea list the few things the Romans ever did for them the Romans did
innovate but, fundamentally, if you landed in Greece in 2000 BC and then in
Rome in 25 BC you would only notice relatively minor differences.
That is another example of an underlying lack of progress but with
today's society that reverse rip-tide is all the harder to detect. We are
blinded by technology, by "Democracy" (begun by the ancient Greeks), by
modern culture (we still watch Shakespeare around the world though) and by
innate human arrogance to the fact that we, as a species, are no less brutal
and hateful and sickeningly hypocritical than we ever have been.
Examples. It came the time when, early in the 1st century AD,
Emperor Nero (the most complete bastard of all the Caesars) in a desperate
bid for popularity invested a fortune to make the various bloodthirsty games
that we know and love even more spectacular. He would pit 50 Gladiators
against 50 elephants and 50 tigers against some Christians and record
attendances followed. But it is recorded by some contemporary Chroniclers
that the people felt sorry for the elephants in particular as they seemed to
have so many human-like characteristics. Fuck the fact that they kept
countless human slaves as objects and saw dozens of needless deaths every
week in the local coliseum! Poor fucking elephants!
In combat, many acts that the Romans carried out that we would
consider to be war crimes, like raping and mass slaughter of women and
children, were thought as signs of the greatness of Rome and such scenes
were plastered all over public monuments.
Compare to now where exactly the same things happen but are just not
admitted to or are called collateral damage i.e. accidental. Accidental my
ass! Just think of the stomach turning slogans written on the nukes that
fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Not written by slobbering savages but by
highly trained American Air Force personnel. 1945 and we still had people
in this world rubbing their hands with glee as 100,000 people were
disintegrated at the push of a button.
Culturally as well, we haven't really moved on. David Letterman has
ancestors rooted in pre-Christ Rome who used to put on tightly scripted
satirical plays mercilessly ripping the piss out of politicians and society
in general. Drag queens were just as common as they are now. The only
difference (and I would argue just the opposite to a positive step forward)
is that, instead of being looked on as barely more than the scum of the
Earth, entertainers are now revered as being on an echelon above the rest of
us and are richer than most lottery winners.
Dramatic structure (e.g. 3 "Acts") and the only plotlines we ever use
originate in Greek theatre. We are still enormously entertained by
re-enacted murders, rapes, beatings, drug-taking (nothing new either) and
basically anything we fancy as being taboo.
In Roman times the aristocracy in particular indulged in bestiality
and sodomy as often as they could, although, it wasn't advertised throughout
the nation. Today, the ruling classes still indulge in warped sexual
deviancy but that is only known about if (as happened once with a British
politician) the people in question are found self-asphyxiated with a pair of
tights round their necks and a dildo where the Sun don't shine. I don't
even need to mention Bill Clinton.
What are the most visited sites on the Internet? Correct, porn. And
despite the fact that we've had 2000 years of a rather sophisticated
religion known as Christianity teaching the way to live and having ten
perfectly reasonable commandments being spread throughout the Western World
(which the Jews also follow, and I dare say, the Muslims to some extent) do
we see ANY tangible improvement in Human behaviour? Do we fuck!
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. anada 190 by Schoolboy (c)2000 anada e'zine .
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