Daniel P Mannix’s 1958 book Those About to Die is a colourful account of the “games” in Ancient Rome. It purports to be non-fiction but Mannix wasn’t a historian and you won’t find his volume on the reading list of many Classics courses. Nevertheless, it was a source for the revered Ridley Scott movie Gladiator and now it has inspired a big-budget 10-part drama starring Anthony Hopkins and directed by action blockbuster hero Roland Emmerich.
We’re in 79CE. “Rome, once the beacon of civilisation, is now a cesspool of corruption and decay, its citizens only interested in two things: bread and games” says Tenax (Iwan Rheon, Game of Thrones), in a voiceover at the opening of the first episode. This is no bad thing so far as the shady Tenax is concerned – he owns the most profitable betting tavern in town. Punters flock to his bookies to place bets on either the red, green, white or blue racing teams – “factions” – that compete in the brutal chariot races held in the vast Circus Maximus.
Meanwhile the emperor, Vespasian (Hopkins), is building a new sports arena, which will become known as the Colosseum. It will be smaller to allow fans to get closer to the gladiatorial fights than they can at the Circus Maximus (which, according to some sources, had a capacity of 300,000).
He plans to give it to the people rather than the ruling classes and that’s put a few patrician Roman noses out of joint. At the same time, the plebs are going hungry because of problems with the food supply chain. As history has taught us, unrest at both the top and bottom of society always makes for interesting times.
The main storylines in the first couple of episodes revolve around race-fixing and horse-drugging while political shenanigans bubble away in the background. Lots of time is spent introducing us to what feels like most of the people living in Rome and, possibly, the empire.
There’s Scorpus (Dimitri Leonidas), a brilliant charioteer who is also a drunkard; Vespasian’s sons, military man Titus (Tom Hughes) and scheming politician Domitian (Jojo Macari); a Rome-bound family from the province of Numidia in North Africa; three Spanish siblings who’ve come to Rome to sell horses; a group of rebellious patricians, and others. It’s a bit of an effort to keep up.
The series wants to be a cross between Game of Thrones and I, Claudius and, visually at least, it’s on the money. The Circus Maximus is spectacular, the teeming streets and marketplaces of Rome look vibrant and lived in, and the alleyways and slums where Tenax and his henchmen conduct their business are suitably seedy.
Some of the CGI is a little underwhelming, but they probably spent most of the budget on Hopkins. All too often when a star of his stature is billed in a show, they turn up, rattle through a couple of lines and then disappear with their fee, but Hopkins has a reasonably substantial role and convinces as an emperor now thinking of his legacy.
What really lets it down is its script, headed up by Saving Private Ryan writer Robert Rodat. The dialogue is often painfully clunky, with leaden exposition – though it’s not without humour. At a slave auction, the auctioneer shows off a British girl for sale.
“Not only beautiful, but she cooks all the wonderful dishes for which the Britons are so famous,” he says and gets big laughs from the crowd.
Those About to Die is no Gladiator but it does get better as it goes on. It’s not an unqualified thumbs up… but I wouldn’t want to see it put to the sword either.
‘Those About to Die’ is streaming on Prime Video.