Terry Jones' Barbarians
Terry Jones' Barbarians is a 4-part TV documentary series first broadcast on BBC 2 in 2006. It was written and presented by Terry Jones, and it challenges the received Roman and Roman Catholic notion of the barbarian. Professor Barry Cunliffe of the University of Oxford acted as consultant for the series.
Episodes
New series in which Terry Jones discovers untold truths about early cultures subjugated by Rome, drawing on archaeological evidence that has recently come to light. The first programme explores Julius Caesar's reasons for attacking the Celts in 58BC, revealing his motives had more to do with acquiring wealth than protecting the Empire
Terry Jones investigates claims that early Germans, Dacians and Goths were nothing but primitive brutes : a theory supported by their merciless besieging of Rome in 9AD. In contradiction however, he learns they were well-respected as exemplary fighters by their Roman counterparts, and played a major part in the defence of the Empire
In Greece and Iran, Jones argues that far from being a godless rabble of swarthy bruisers in tiny skirts, it seems the barbarians of Greece and Persia were peaceable boffins whose innate humanity saw them develop what were, in essence, welfare states.
Around 400AD two Barbarian babies were born. One would grow up to become the fiercest of them all - Attila the Hun. The other, Geiseric, led the greatest wreckers in history - the Vandals. Jones finds out that Roman civilisation wasn't entirely destroyed by the invasion of these tribes the and how the Roman Catholic Church survived to tell the Roman version of the truth.
