Terry Jones: Julius Caesar had Gaul; Bush just has gall

[Briar]

Julius Caesar had Gaul; Bush just has gall

Terry Jones


In 59BC, Julius Caesar declared he was so shocked by the incursions of the dangerous Helvetii tribe into Gaul, and the suffering of the Gaulish peoples, that he had himself appointed 'protector of the Gauls'. By the time he'd finished protecting them, a million Gauls were dead, another million enslaved and Julius Caesar owned most of Gaul. Now I'm not suggesting there is any similarity between George W Bush's protection of the Iraqi people and Caesar's protection of the Gauls. For a start, Julius Caesar, as we all know, was bald, whereas George W Bush has a fine head of hair.

In any case, George W Bush is not personally making huge amounts of money out of it. The money-making is all left in the capable hands of companies like CACI International, Blackwater Security and Haliburton.

It's true that Vice-President Dick Cheney's stock options in his old company, Haliburton, went up from $241,498 in 2004 to $8m in 2005 - that's an increase of 3,281 per cent.

But then Dick Cheney is bald.

...

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1939780,00.html

[neilepi]

1. Bush - not bald but causes others to pull their hair out

The new, unique, 2007 Anti-Bush Graffiti Calendar and related items

[bklyncowgirl]

2. Julius Caesar was also a brilliant military strategist

By the end of the Gallic Wars Rome controlled most of Western Europe. Bush has managed to screw up not one but two wars.

[Briar]

3. He certainly presented himself as one

in his Gallic wars. If nothing else, he knew the importance of controlling the medium and the message. But as Terry Jones points out, Bush has Faux news.

[fedsron2us]

4. Terry Jones dislikes the Ancient Romans more than he does Bush

We don't need these tired and dubious historical analogies to know what is wrong in the modern world.

[BootinUp]

5. Its a useful tool to remove the misconception

that we have become more civilized or (less able to commit atrocities) with time.

on edit added part in parentheses

[jimshoes]

6. Bloody Romans.

:evilgrin:

[bleedingheart]

20. what have they ever done for us?

[fedsron2us]

7. Plenty of better analogies from the more recent past

particularly the history of the British Empire where Jones Celtic ancestors were just as keen to participate in atrocities against the natives as the nasty Anglo-Saxons. Jones obviously has it in for the ancient Roman world as anyone who watches his TV series would realise. Since he is a medievalist by training not a classical historian he does not even master the ancient sources very well. In some ways I think he is exploiting the current horrors in Iraq to ride his own historical hobby horses which personally I find rather distasteful.

[Briar]

8. Comparisons with Rome

are well established. The British Empire did it too, and continuing the tradition with the American Imperium works perfectly well. Jones' opposition to the Iraq war is well established and of long standing, and has nothing to do with any distaste for ancient Rome. Though "Barbarians" certainly made an interesting case for re-examining the long spun assumptions about the nastiness of those who opposed Rome and its Church.

[fedsron2us]

9. The point is no one can do anything about what Julius Caesar

did to the Gauls. He has been dead for over 2000 years, as are all of his victims. We can do something about Blair and Bush who are still alive and wielding power. If Jones wants to do something about Iraq maybe he should make a TV series about what has been going on over there rather than how lovely it was to be invaded by the Goths and Vandals. As for comparing pre industrial empires with the modern world you may think it is 'well established' but I do not. Why not have comparisons with the Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian or Hellenistic empires since they have about as much in common with the modern world as ancient Rome. In fact nearly all modern Empires have at their core the modern nation state, and this institution has its origins in the barbarian kingdoms that Jones admires so much, not the classical world that preceded it.

[Briar]

10. He just wrote this article

and many others. It's a great deal more than I have done. His record as an opponent of the Iraq war doesn't need defending.

Though certainly the sum total of all opposition from all quarters to Bush and Bliar has been a big fat zero. Having power means that Bush and Bliar can ignore criticism: like Caesar they are writing the narrative, or at least the corporate media are doing it for them. That narrative includes the notion that "civilisation" is under threat and that therefore we must support their policies for our own safety's sake. Just as this misrepresents the truth of the present situation (where we have betrayed civilised values and are acting barbarically), so an argument that it also misrepresents the situation at the end of the Roman Empire can be valuable as well. Questioning assumptions and received opinions is worthwhile in itself, especially when so little of this is being done by the supposed guardians of our so-called democracy - our elected representatives and what now passes for the fourth estate.

[fedsron2us]

12. On reflection I have been a bit harsh on Jones on Iraq

I have spent the afternoon re reading nearly all his Guardian and Observer pieces on the subject and there are are some excellent articles in the subject. His series on the Barbarians still gets on my tits though. It was just a typical example of the historical TV series that Alan Bennett sends up so well in the History Boys.

[Lisa]

14. from what I've seen of the book, he does discuss other empires

The Persians, and the diverse "barbarian" kingdoms which my high school and college history courses just kind of skimmed by. (I haven't finished the book yet, but I'm going to be handing it along to a Persian friend, who's going to let me know what he thinks about the eastern sections.) Jones's point seems to be that what we think of as Western civilization actually has a bunch of ancestral cultures, not just Greece and Rome. I suppose Jones does have a hobbyhorse, but there are lots of other folks who have a "thing" for certain historical periods (the "Wild West"/Gold Rush, etc.) and pick and choose things to back up their own perspectives and ideology. I remember that some of the older historical texts made it sound like we wouldn't have had a modern world without ancient Rome -- that "Rome in the First Century" miniseries a few years back is closer to that perspective than to Jones's. I suspect it's just as inaccurate to claim that "Rome exemplified everything we value today", as it is to say that "Rome had no influence on our society" (or "it only introduced bad things into the world"), and there is so much that we don't understand about those centuries that anybody who keeps the debate going and stimulates more inquiry, I believe, is doing a valuable service.

[Briar]

17. Yes, I agree

that is a valuable service.

While I was watching "Barbarians" (with considerable enjoyment - Jones on the screen is a very genial companion) I kept remembering someone else who made some of the same arguments some years ago - Gore Vidal in his excellent "Creation".

[Lisa]

13. it became sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy, didn't it

The British (and later, American) obsession with things Roman -- art, architecture, and even requiring Latin in school -- had a big influence on Western culture. The neoclassical look of the White House itself -- plus resurrecting the names of ancient Roman cities and towns, and governmental bodies like "the Senate". In fact, it's such a pervasive influence that we've gotten used to seeing the Romans as "normal", and I think that Jones (and other historians like Francis Pryor) are providing an interesting perspective, in getting us to look at the similarities and dissimilarities between our world and earlier times -- and which of the things going on now were deliberate imitation of idealized history. I think it's quite thought-provoking to examine the Boudiccan and Varus massacres of the first century from different angles (what led up to them, etc.), and assessing a lot of contradictory opinions and evidence is par for the course when you're trying to understand cultures and geopolitics, regardless of the era. I don't have any trouble watching Adam Hart-Davis talking about innovative Roman technology, then reading Jones and Pryor's criticism of Roman-style imperialism. I'm also reading Bishop and Coulston's updated book on Roman military equipment (much of which was apparently copied from the Celts!), and working on various swords and helmets, since I'm associated with a Roman re-enactment group. When one thinks about what kept the Roman economy running, one pretty well has to consider things like slavery, conquest, and repression of dissidents. (Actually the classical archaeologist who got me interested in this stuff, has politics that make Jones seem like a Tony Blair apologist by comparison!)

The earlier poster noted that Jones is anti-Roman, but at least he is out in the open about it -- there have been plenty of authors who adopted an air of impartiality, while presenting very one-sided views. Many of my history teachers in Canada, several decades ago, boosted Britain so much that there wasn't room for anything else to be presented. We didn't hear much about the aboriginals, the immigrants, and other peoples until fairly recently.

I haven't seen the TV series yet, though I did look at a few chapters in the book. I have watched Jones's "Crusades" series multiple times, and I get something new out of it with each viewing -- I think it's remarkable how he manages to present individuals sympathetically, even amongst the more hard-line Crusaders, while examining the negative impacts of their actions and decisions.

[Briar]

18. My history was taught to me

from books that regarded the British Empire as a thoroughly "good thing" - vast areas of the world coloured in red and an implicit assumption that spreading Christianity and what we deemed good government benefited the backwards lesser peoples of the world. The history books were published before WW2, and I was reading them some years after Suez, but revisions of the view still hadn't penetrated my school's bookroom or my teachers' heads. (Sadly, it still seems a common assumption when we in the West look at other cultures.) In the last episode of "Barbarians", Jones points out that victors write the histories, and then asks why, in that case, the "barbarians" get such a bad press. His answer is that the histories are written by the Roman Catholic Church, which opens a whole other can of worms! Though I must say he also had some good things to say about the Romans - including noting that they were capable of self critical views of themselves. A friend of mine is an authority on Roman Baths, and like the archaeologist who interested you in the Romans is very realistic about their shortcomings as well as their strengths. Perhaps that realism is a positive legacy

[yurbud]

16. and Hitler was a snappy dresser, articulate, and a self-made man

who DOESN'T look better than Bush by comparison? Charles Manson? Idi Amin?

[MasonJar]

11. It seems that he is being more tongue-in-cheek than serious, and

I found the article mildly amusing. It did present some interesting comparison/contrast, such as the dead civilians. However, I must disagree with his final assessment of the midget-brain. He is exceedingly vainglorious and certainly a would-be tyrant.

[Lisa]

15. for the Bush family's sake, I hope there isn't a replay of the Julio-Claudian dynasty

All those people poisoning each other, or throwing their own kids into prison to starve, because they were scared of a coup. Accidentally choking on a pretzel looks benign by comparison!

[YOY]

19. Well that went right over the sheeples' heads.

But we loved it Terry.