Rome: 2nd Season
Just saw 2nd season, first disc of the HBO Series "Rome."
It promises to be as bloody and as riveting as the first season. Plenty of intrigue on the high levels and how it seeps to the chaos of the streets.
What's interesting is how the producers show Romans and their conquered peoples as totally lacking in what we consider the common virtues of compassion, pity, empathy.
To Romans, those values were weaknesses of the highest order.
I wonder -- scratch our surface -- how much of that element remains in us, hidden behind hypocrisy.
The end of World War II comes to mind. The Poles -- who formed a brave resistance to the Nazis -- were not treated as our allies. They were given to the Russians -- oh pardon me to those Marxists out there -- to the Soviet Union. Their hopes and dreams dashed.
What was that but a deal between power brokers?
The difference between now and then? It's hard for me to believe that the average Roman citizen would deplore violence used to stregnthen their empire.
In the light of that, it's odd that Americans often display sympathies against their empire's interests. Why is that, do you think? I have no idea, me.