"It's sometimes hard for us to believe that the ancient Romans really existed in the quotidian sense. But they were real, visceral, passionate people.
"Certain things are repressed in our own culture, like the open enjoyment of others' pain, the desire to make people submit to your will, the guilt-free use of slaves. This was all quite normal to the Romans."
Carolyn
I love the Rome series. It is unrelievedly, in-your-face Un-PC. It's not all brutal and bestial. The Romans knew how to behave, how to be civilized. It's just that they didn't always do so. Nothing new there. I like how they approach the pagan cults -- it's interesting to see characters taking their pantheism as seriously as I take my Christianity. But the society certainly is debauched even though they make clear that not everybody was taking part in it.
If there is one thing that makes me think that we are the new Rome it is the decline of morals amid the overwhelming military power, amid the attempt to take the "pax Americanus" to the rest of the world.
I think I understand why Rome needed a Caesar, because I think I see why WE are going to need a caesar to bail our butts out of the crack we're getting ourselves into, and when I was younger I would never have bought into that idea.
Right now it feels like we're in a chinese finger trap with regard to our freedom. The harder we pull to get out of the trap the more tightly we find ourselves bound.