Jump to content
UNRV Ancient Roman Empire Forums
Sign in to follow this  
Melvadius

Pushy Parents - New Mary Beard Series 'Meet The Romans'

Recommended Posts

As part of the advertising for Mary Beard's new TV series Meet the Romans' the BBC is carrying this article pointing up the fact that child prodigies even in the Roman period were both known and also suffered problems with pushy parents leading in some cases to unfortunate outcomes...

 

What were the Romans really like? Different from us in many ways, but there is much that is familiar in Roman family life and in particular parenting.

 

In 94 AD young Quintus Sulpicius Maximus died.

 

A Roman lad who lived just 11 years, five months and 12 days, he had recently taken part in a grown-up poetry competition, a sort of Rome's Got Talent. He had composed and performed a long poem in Greek.

 

And, though he hadn't actually won, everyone agreed that he had done amazingly well for his age. The sad thing was that only a few months later he dropped down dead.

...continued

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I read the article, too, and thought it was a curious read. I have no doubt that Roman parents were pushy, although somehow I don't think they were quite as demanding as Spartan parents <grin>

 

I'm curious to see if/when this is coming to the US; I'd be curious to see how she portrays the different aspects of Roman life.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I managed to catch this on iPlayer on a recent (rare) evening at home. Mary B never disappoints. Looking forward to parts 2 and 3.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I caught about half an episode on BBc one night. A really good series, from the brief clip that I saw; I just hope that the BBC release a DVD as I'm hopeless at catching programs when they are being aired, although I could always try to get it on BBC iPlayer.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

For those who want it, it seems that the shadows of the interweb are holding some downloadable versions of the program. An italian site (.it) with the name EZTV offers it to all roman lovers out there...

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

My attempts at finding out if there's going to be a DVD for this series have turned out fruitless. It doesn't really bode well that Mary Beard's other series on Pompeii has never been released, and that came out quite a while ago. We can still hope, though.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this  

  • Map of the Roman Empire

×