Those About To Die (TV Show)
All in all: enjoyable on the same level Spartacus the tv show was, i.e. unabashedly trashy yet wish some surprisingly engaging character development. Given Roland Emmerich is responsible for one of my least favourite historical or "historical" movies, "The Patriot" and also for the Oxfordian eloge Anyonymous which I haven't watched, I liked this far better than I expected. My main reason for watching was that it's set in the Flavian era, which hasn't been cinematically and tv wise milked to death yet, and I had recently reread my definitely favourite work of Lion Feuchtwanger, the Josephus trilogy. BTW, I gather there's a book of the same title - i.e. "Those about to die" - which serves as inspiration but not isn't a historical novel but a non-fiction work covering the entire development from funeral games in ye early republic to elaborate mass productions throughout much of the Empire. As I haven't read said book, I only base this assumption on wikipedia and can't say whether it's any good, and can't compare or contrast, either.
The series follows several storylines, but the main one introduces us to our antihero protagonist Tenex, played by what's his name from Game of Thrones who was Ramsay Bolton there. Tenex (not his real name) has a traumatic backstory only revealed at mid point but hinted at earlier (he was a slave who as a child killed his master who was sexually abusing him and may or may not have been his biological father, then ran away), worked his way up in the seedy Roman underbelly and these days owns a betting club along with several other more or less legal things. He wants to start his own chariot racing faction in addition to the four which traditionally exist (Byzantium fans are only familiar with the Blue and the Green, but Rome did have more, that's true), an endeavour helped by the fact he's tight with the Blue's most successful driver Sporus and is about to become useful to the master of the games, none other than Emperor Vespasian's younger son Domitian (more about him later). As the Roman nobility gets their wealth in good parts by controling shares in the traditional four factions, they're not happy about this at all.
The other main storyline is that of Kala (Cala? I'm not sure about the spelling), a Numidian, who is my favourite character of the series. Her two daughters and son Kamwe get kidnapped and enslaved by the requesite evil Roman soldiers, but Kala, who in her hometown is a successful merchant, is determined to free them and follows them to Rome, where she's outbid at the initial slave auction for the two girls by Tenex and one of the minor villains, in reverse order (Tenex is only interested because the minor villain is his current main rival and he needs a spy there, so when Minor Villain buys one sister, Tenex buys the other), while her son inevitably ends up as a gladiator whose only hope for freedom is winning the favour of the crowd so he can get the wooden sword and be freed. Kala doesn't give up and talks Tenex into employing her. By the time the series ends, she's basically taken over the tavern, has succeeded in most of her aims, and though Tenex knows he should kill her as she by then knows all his secrets and is the only loose end, he really can't because she's become that indispensible to him. Yes, there's also UST between them in the later half of the season, but in a big surprise for the kind of show this is, they never have sex (yet?), not least because their relationship is complicated enough as it is. That the main m/f storyline of the season would be UST between Budding Overlord/Trusted Lieutenant who also happens to be a middle aged woman was something I did not see coming from the trailer, and I loved it.
Regarding Cala's kids: sadly, I don't think the script writers quite knew what to do with the daughters, especially the older one; the younger one is a traditional damsel in distress who serves as incentive for her mother and another character. Her son Kamwe is the requisite Gladiator to root for, and while his storyline is well executed, it's also incredibly predictable if you have seen any gladiator-centric tv show or movie from the 1962 Spartacus onwards. (Yes, of course inevitably he gets eventually forced towards the best friend he's made among his fellow gladiators. I do think Howard Fast might have invented that trope, but it's really been everywhere else since.)
Then we have the storyline of three Spanish brothers who have come to Rome to sell their fine horses and end up selling them to Tenex, who also hires them as stablehands. If I tell you two of the three get starry eyed the first time they see Scorpus race you know where this is going. Yes, among many other things the show serves as a sports movie. With more blood. The three brothers are the unabashedly nice and innocent guys a story with characters who are mostly anything but needs (see earlier entry as to why I, Claudius worked and several attempts to recreate its success not so much).
On the opposite end of the social scale, we have the Flavians and a senatorial couple (who serve as the aforementioned minor villains but early on main antagonists). Don't be fooled by Anthony Hopkins being everywhere in the marketing; he does not have that many scenes. He plays Vespasian and is already killed off in episode three. I felt a bit let down by Vespasian as written, not that Hopkins does anything wrong, he works with what he has, but the thing is, Vespasian famously had a wry, self deprecating sense of humor, as evidenced in his two best known quips. One was the "Money doesn't stink" one when his son Titus wanted to talk him out of putting a tax on urine, but at least that scene shows up later in the season via a memory flashback Titus has, so while I was all prepared to grumble about it not being there when Vespasian died, I can't. The other one is when he felt he was dying, and said "oh dear, I am becoming a God". The show's script, and therefore Hopkins, choses to play the later line absolutely straight. "I - am becoming - a God!"
(Look, he started out as a Sabine country lad good at a military career. He wasn't raised in the palace. Chances that he really thought he was divine are relatively low.)
Our main Flavian, the one with the most screen time and attention, is Domitian. Who evidently is inspired by Joaquin Phoenix as Commodus as much as he is by the historical Domitian. Also by just about it every other early Thor fanfic starring Loki. Basically, the characterisation is "budding psycho but really smart and also having rightful Daddy issues as Vespasian likes Titus better despite Domitian being ready to do anything for him" (btw, I'm sure that's how Domitian saw it, and since the show ignores Vespasian's brother who did what Domitian is credited with doing in the Year of the Four Emperors, he even has additional reason to consider Dad ungrateful) combined with "gay nerd versus older brother who is jock & soldier and used to bully gay nerd" (That's where the Loki fanfic element comes in. Mind you, while Domitian tells his boyfriend that Titus used to bully him in his childhood in episode 1 - causing me to mumble, hang on, wasn't Titus much older than you? Also raised elsehwere, since he one of Britannicus' childhood bffs and present when Nero killed him? When did he have the chance to bully you?), we actually don't see any bullying on screen, either verbal or physical. The one time Titus actually punches Domitian is after Domitian has had an unfortunate Judean captive dressed up as Titus' lover Berenice torn apart by a lion in the game, and in that case, he really had it coming.) Domitian being gay, incidentally, is the biggest fictional element in his overall characterisation. Which I'm fine with, given how many bisexual or gay historical figures in the past ended up depicted as heterosexual, but it unfortunately means our main representative for m/m is a budding psychopath, so there's that.
(Historical footnote, in case anyone wonders how we would know what a 2000 years old dead man's sexuality was: because Domitian ended up so loathed by the Senatorial historians who wrote about him after he was safely dead that they happily trash talked him in every way they could, and said guys had no problem writing about other Emperors having male lovers. So when Suetonius, aka the same guy who informs us that Nero was getting it on with the Eunuch Sporus, goes for heterosexual incest instead when it comes to telling us about Domitian's sex scandals, I dare say there was nothng to report about, not even a rumor. The hetererosexual incest was Domitian/ Titus' daughter Julia - as mentioned, in rl Titus was considerably older than Domitian -, with the added spiteful element that Domitian refused to marry Julia when such a marriage was offered, waited till she was married to someone else, then had sex with her as a way to humiliate Titus. Julia, of course, does not exist in this show. Nor does Domitian's wife, which I really regret, since she's one of my favourite characters in the Josephus trilogy. Her historical name was Domitia, which Feuchtwanger for obvious reasons changed into Lucia, and both in the Josephus trilogy and according to Suetonius, she must have been the only person never afraid of Domitian, not even when he banished her to an island only to bring her back because he couldn't do without her, using the lame exuse that "the people demanded it". Suetonius being a product of the Roman patriarchy has Domitian being unable to be without his wife as one of his downsides, btw. To round off the number of Flavian women not making it into "Those About To Die": Also not present is Caenis, aka the freedwoman who was Vespasian's life long lover and partner. Caenis started out as the slave of Antonia (the Antonia who was the daughter of Mark Antony and Octavia, and the mother of Claudius and Germanicus) before she was freed and must have been a fascinating person, so I am always looking for fictional presentations of her.)
Anyway, Domitian's actor chews scenery with the best of them, has on screen sex with his boyfriend Hermes and some other men, schemes with the best of them and has just enough sympathetic moments in between the villainous ones that one doesn't want him to get caught by Titus in his scheming. Until, that is, he's really cruel to Kamwe, but by then it's too late. As for Titus: he's severely underwritten, but Tom Hughes (Athos from the Three Musketeers, BBC series version, and Cormoran Strike) does a surprisngly lot with him in the later half of the season when he's Emperor, making his silent brooding a deliberate contrast to Domitian's scenery chewing. I don't think the relationship with Berenice works for me, especially since Berenice is also somewhat underwritten - it's never clear whether the show wants her to come across as doing the best she can for her people under the circumstances or as truly heads over heel for Titus, or as ambitious for herself -, and therefore its ending and Berenice's doesn't land the way it's supposed to, either. But Hughes really shines in Titus' last episode and his very ahistorical death scene. (The historical Titus died in bed, of an illness, with witnesses to his last words. Let's just say this Titus does not.)
The script writers get a historical bonus point for me for letting Vespasian point out that he's the first Emperor in a position to actually make his biological son his successor, as the entire rest from Augustus onwards went for adoption or usurpation. (This is almost true. The exception was Claudius who did have a biological son - Britannicus - but went with the adopted son and biological great nephew Nero instead. But it's definitely true that Vespasian-Titus was the first time in Roman history that the biological son of an Emperor became the next Emperor.) There are a few other good actual historical touches there, like the position of the Vestals, what they can and can't do (most fiction mentioning the Vestals just goes for the "no sex, or gruesome death" part, and ignores the rest), or the fact that our Patrician antagonist Marsus, who together with his wife Antonia holds the majority of shares for the Blue Fiction and is thus Tenex' main rival, is a Consul this year and therefore the lictors with their emblems always walk with him when he goes out without this ever being pointed out by anyone in dialogue. Marsus and Antonia seem to be inspired by Batiatus and Lucretia in the tv show Spartacus - i.e. villainous couple who are bad news for their slaves, and promiscious, but also genuinely in love with each other as can be seen when fortune turns against them. The actors aren't quite up to Lucy Lawless and John Hannah, but they do well enough, and the story manages to make them hissable for most of the season while making you feel for them in their downfall at the same time.
Most surprising "hang on, yes, that actually happened" moment for me: when the Earth shook in Rome because Vesuvius exploded near Pompeii. I mean, they went over the top with it with the aftermath - I don't think the ashes made it as far as Rome, winds or no winds - but they did feel the tremors in Rome.
Most pointed comment to the present: actually happens in the aftermath. Titus had only a short reign, a little more than two years, but within that time, he showed himself good at disaster relief in how he dealt with the aftermath of the eruption, including using huge amounts of the imperial treasury to help the survivors. This happens in the series, too, only for the Senators to bitch that using so much Roman money for refugees who are "invading" is just not right, and shouldn't Titus only care for "true" Romans instead. Sounds familiar?
In conclusion: not a must, but if you liked Spartacus (the tv show) back in the day, you'll probably like this one, too.
The series follows several storylines, but the main one introduces us to our antihero protagonist Tenex, played by what's his name from Game of Thrones who was Ramsay Bolton there. Tenex (not his real name) has a traumatic backstory only revealed at mid point but hinted at earlier (he was a slave who as a child killed his master who was sexually abusing him and may or may not have been his biological father, then ran away), worked his way up in the seedy Roman underbelly and these days owns a betting club along with several other more or less legal things. He wants to start his own chariot racing faction in addition to the four which traditionally exist (Byzantium fans are only familiar with the Blue and the Green, but Rome did have more, that's true), an endeavour helped by the fact he's tight with the Blue's most successful driver Sporus and is about to become useful to the master of the games, none other than Emperor Vespasian's younger son Domitian (more about him later). As the Roman nobility gets their wealth in good parts by controling shares in the traditional four factions, they're not happy about this at all.
The other main storyline is that of Kala (Cala? I'm not sure about the spelling), a Numidian, who is my favourite character of the series. Her two daughters and son Kamwe get kidnapped and enslaved by the requesite evil Roman soldiers, but Kala, who in her hometown is a successful merchant, is determined to free them and follows them to Rome, where she's outbid at the initial slave auction for the two girls by Tenex and one of the minor villains, in reverse order (Tenex is only interested because the minor villain is his current main rival and he needs a spy there, so when Minor Villain buys one sister, Tenex buys the other), while her son inevitably ends up as a gladiator whose only hope for freedom is winning the favour of the crowd so he can get the wooden sword and be freed. Kala doesn't give up and talks Tenex into employing her. By the time the series ends, she's basically taken over the tavern, has succeeded in most of her aims, and though Tenex knows he should kill her as she by then knows all his secrets and is the only loose end, he really can't because she's become that indispensible to him. Yes, there's also UST between them in the later half of the season, but in a big surprise for the kind of show this is, they never have sex (yet?), not least because their relationship is complicated enough as it is. That the main m/f storyline of the season would be UST between Budding Overlord/Trusted Lieutenant who also happens to be a middle aged woman was something I did not see coming from the trailer, and I loved it.
Regarding Cala's kids: sadly, I don't think the script writers quite knew what to do with the daughters, especially the older one; the younger one is a traditional damsel in distress who serves as incentive for her mother and another character. Her son Kamwe is the requisite Gladiator to root for, and while his storyline is well executed, it's also incredibly predictable if you have seen any gladiator-centric tv show or movie from the 1962 Spartacus onwards. (Yes, of course inevitably he gets eventually forced towards the best friend he's made among his fellow gladiators. I do think Howard Fast might have invented that trope, but it's really been everywhere else since.)
Then we have the storyline of three Spanish brothers who have come to Rome to sell their fine horses and end up selling them to Tenex, who also hires them as stablehands. If I tell you two of the three get starry eyed the first time they see Scorpus race you know where this is going. Yes, among many other things the show serves as a sports movie. With more blood. The three brothers are the unabashedly nice and innocent guys a story with characters who are mostly anything but needs (see earlier entry as to why I, Claudius worked and several attempts to recreate its success not so much).
On the opposite end of the social scale, we have the Flavians and a senatorial couple (who serve as the aforementioned minor villains but early on main antagonists). Don't be fooled by Anthony Hopkins being everywhere in the marketing; he does not have that many scenes. He plays Vespasian and is already killed off in episode three. I felt a bit let down by Vespasian as written, not that Hopkins does anything wrong, he works with what he has, but the thing is, Vespasian famously had a wry, self deprecating sense of humor, as evidenced in his two best known quips. One was the "Money doesn't stink" one when his son Titus wanted to talk him out of putting a tax on urine, but at least that scene shows up later in the season via a memory flashback Titus has, so while I was all prepared to grumble about it not being there when Vespasian died, I can't. The other one is when he felt he was dying, and said "oh dear, I am becoming a God". The show's script, and therefore Hopkins, choses to play the later line absolutely straight. "I - am becoming - a God!"
(Look, he started out as a Sabine country lad good at a military career. He wasn't raised in the palace. Chances that he really thought he was divine are relatively low.)
Our main Flavian, the one with the most screen time and attention, is Domitian. Who evidently is inspired by Joaquin Phoenix as Commodus as much as he is by the historical Domitian. Also by just about it every other early Thor fanfic starring Loki. Basically, the characterisation is "budding psycho but really smart and also having rightful Daddy issues as Vespasian likes Titus better despite Domitian being ready to do anything for him" (btw, I'm sure that's how Domitian saw it, and since the show ignores Vespasian's brother who did what Domitian is credited with doing in the Year of the Four Emperors, he even has additional reason to consider Dad ungrateful) combined with "gay nerd versus older brother who is jock & soldier and used to bully gay nerd" (That's where the Loki fanfic element comes in. Mind you, while Domitian tells his boyfriend that Titus used to bully him in his childhood in episode 1 - causing me to mumble, hang on, wasn't Titus much older than you? Also raised elsehwere, since he one of Britannicus' childhood bffs and present when Nero killed him? When did he have the chance to bully you?), we actually don't see any bullying on screen, either verbal or physical. The one time Titus actually punches Domitian is after Domitian has had an unfortunate Judean captive dressed up as Titus' lover Berenice torn apart by a lion in the game, and in that case, he really had it coming.) Domitian being gay, incidentally, is the biggest fictional element in his overall characterisation. Which I'm fine with, given how many bisexual or gay historical figures in the past ended up depicted as heterosexual, but it unfortunately means our main representative for m/m is a budding psychopath, so there's that.
(Historical footnote, in case anyone wonders how we would know what a 2000 years old dead man's sexuality was: because Domitian ended up so loathed by the Senatorial historians who wrote about him after he was safely dead that they happily trash talked him in every way they could, and said guys had no problem writing about other Emperors having male lovers. So when Suetonius, aka the same guy who informs us that Nero was getting it on with the Eunuch Sporus, goes for heterosexual incest instead when it comes to telling us about Domitian's sex scandals, I dare say there was nothng to report about, not even a rumor. The hetererosexual incest was Domitian/ Titus' daughter Julia - as mentioned, in rl Titus was considerably older than Domitian -, with the added spiteful element that Domitian refused to marry Julia when such a marriage was offered, waited till she was married to someone else, then had sex with her as a way to humiliate Titus. Julia, of course, does not exist in this show. Nor does Domitian's wife, which I really regret, since she's one of my favourite characters in the Josephus trilogy. Her historical name was Domitia, which Feuchtwanger for obvious reasons changed into Lucia, and both in the Josephus trilogy and according to Suetonius, she must have been the only person never afraid of Domitian, not even when he banished her to an island only to bring her back because he couldn't do without her, using the lame exuse that "the people demanded it". Suetonius being a product of the Roman patriarchy has Domitian being unable to be without his wife as one of his downsides, btw. To round off the number of Flavian women not making it into "Those About To Die": Also not present is Caenis, aka the freedwoman who was Vespasian's life long lover and partner. Caenis started out as the slave of Antonia (the Antonia who was the daughter of Mark Antony and Octavia, and the mother of Claudius and Germanicus) before she was freed and must have been a fascinating person, so I am always looking for fictional presentations of her.)
Anyway, Domitian's actor chews scenery with the best of them, has on screen sex with his boyfriend Hermes and some other men, schemes with the best of them and has just enough sympathetic moments in between the villainous ones that one doesn't want him to get caught by Titus in his scheming. Until, that is, he's really cruel to Kamwe, but by then it's too late. As for Titus: he's severely underwritten, but Tom Hughes (Athos from the Three Musketeers, BBC series version, and Cormoran Strike) does a surprisngly lot with him in the later half of the season when he's Emperor, making his silent brooding a deliberate contrast to Domitian's scenery chewing. I don't think the relationship with Berenice works for me, especially since Berenice is also somewhat underwritten - it's never clear whether the show wants her to come across as doing the best she can for her people under the circumstances or as truly heads over heel for Titus, or as ambitious for herself -, and therefore its ending and Berenice's doesn't land the way it's supposed to, either. But Hughes really shines in Titus' last episode and his very ahistorical death scene. (The historical Titus died in bed, of an illness, with witnesses to his last words. Let's just say this Titus does not.)
The script writers get a historical bonus point for me for letting Vespasian point out that he's the first Emperor in a position to actually make his biological son his successor, as the entire rest from Augustus onwards went for adoption or usurpation. (This is almost true. The exception was Claudius who did have a biological son - Britannicus - but went with the adopted son and biological great nephew Nero instead. But it's definitely true that Vespasian-Titus was the first time in Roman history that the biological son of an Emperor became the next Emperor.) There are a few other good actual historical touches there, like the position of the Vestals, what they can and can't do (most fiction mentioning the Vestals just goes for the "no sex, or gruesome death" part, and ignores the rest), or the fact that our Patrician antagonist Marsus, who together with his wife Antonia holds the majority of shares for the Blue Fiction and is thus Tenex' main rival, is a Consul this year and therefore the lictors with their emblems always walk with him when he goes out without this ever being pointed out by anyone in dialogue. Marsus and Antonia seem to be inspired by Batiatus and Lucretia in the tv show Spartacus - i.e. villainous couple who are bad news for their slaves, and promiscious, but also genuinely in love with each other as can be seen when fortune turns against them. The actors aren't quite up to Lucy Lawless and John Hannah, but they do well enough, and the story manages to make them hissable for most of the season while making you feel for them in their downfall at the same time.
Most surprising "hang on, yes, that actually happened" moment for me: when the Earth shook in Rome because Vesuvius exploded near Pompeii. I mean, they went over the top with it with the aftermath - I don't think the ashes made it as far as Rome, winds or no winds - but they did feel the tremors in Rome.
Most pointed comment to the present: actually happens in the aftermath. Titus had only a short reign, a little more than two years, but within that time, he showed himself good at disaster relief in how he dealt with the aftermath of the eruption, including using huge amounts of the imperial treasury to help the survivors. This happens in the series, too, only for the Senators to bitch that using so much Roman money for refugees who are "invading" is just not right, and shouldn't Titus only care for "true" Romans instead. Sounds familiar?
In conclusion: not a must, but if you liked Spartacus (the tv show) back in the day, you'll probably like this one, too.