From Critics at Large: The Modern-Day Fight for Ancient Rome

The Political Scene will be back next week. In the meantime, enjoy a recent episode from The New Yorker’s Critics at Large podcast. Artists owe a great debt to ancient Rome. Over the years, it’s provided a backdrop for countless films and novels, each of which has put forward its own vision of the Empire and what it stood for. The hosts Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss the latest entry in that canon, Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator II,” which has drawn massive audiences and made hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office. The hosts also consider other texts that use the same setting, from the religious epic “Ben-Hur” to Sondheim’s farcical swords-and-sandals parody, “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.” Recently, figures from across the political spectrum have leapt to lay claim to antiquity, even as new translations have underscored how little we really understand about these civilizations. “Make ancient Rome strange again. Take away the analogies,” Schwartz says. “Maybe that’s the appeal of the classics: to try to keep returning and understanding, even as we can’t help holding them up as a mirror.”

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

“Gladiator II” (2024)

“I, Claudius” (1976)

“A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” (1966)

“The Last Temptation of Christ” (1988)

“Monty Python’s Life of Brian” (1979)

“Cleopatra” (1963)

“Spartacus” (1960)

“Ben-Hur” (1959)

“Gladiator” (2000)

“The End of History and the Last Man,” by Francis Fukuyama

“I, Claudius,” by Robert Graves

“I Hate to Say This, But Men Deserve Better Than Gladiator II,” by Alison Willmore (Vulture)

“On Creating a Usable Past,” by Van Wyck Brook (The Dial)

Emily Wilson’s translations of the Odyssey and the Iliad

New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.

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