[philman_36]

I gave up reading at his over-simplification of the reasons for the civil war
I agree. What makes it worse is this statement...
Whenever you’re talking about Rome, you must fight against the nonsense of a movie like Gladiator. You must fight against the nonsense of this program called Rome, some degraded spectacle on HBO.
What movie on the Civil War do you reckon he watched to formulate his beliefs. "Gone With the Wind" perhaps?

[ichabod1]

You must fight against the nonsense of this program called Rome, some degraded spectacle on HBO.

That program called Rome is friggin' awesome. It portrays Roman life -- what might have gone on in the Aventine, or behind the scenes of a Triumph. I have never seen a television program that approaches it. Not entirely historical, but based on history, I would recommend Rome to anyone that wanted to get interested in Roman life both at the Noble and the Plebian level.