Spoiler alert: The demise of Logan Roy the weekend earlier than final marked the tip of an period. Or on the very least, it was notable for occasioning, within the Los Angeles Instances, maybe the primary newspaper obituary of a fictional character. Roy was the mogul-patriarch on the middle of the hit black comedy-drama Succession, which is now approaching the tip of its fourth and closing season on HBO. Brian Cox’s efficiency in that function had a lot to do with the success of Succession, so to talk, not least as a result of he clearly understood that, for all its of-the-moment references, the collection’ narrative is deeply rooted in ideas like dynasty and empire, which themselves lengthen approach again to antiquity.
Antiquity occurs to be the topic of two movies Cox narrated, simply earlier than the premiere of Succession, for the Youtube channel Arzamas. “Historic Greece in 18 Minutes” and “Historic Rome in 20 Minutes” ship simply what their titles promise, temporary however clear and well-informed primers on the classical civilizations that fashionable Westerners have lengthy considered the precursors to their very own.
After all, there have been no single, steady political or geographical entities known as “Historic Greece” and “Historic Rome”; slightly, these names consult with giant areas of the world during which city-states rise and fell — as their very nature and relationships with each other modified dramatically — over a interval of centuries upon centuries.
To those acclaimed movies Cox brings his signature irreverence-laced gravitas. On the very finish of “Historic Greece in 18 Minutes,” he tells of the Byzantine Empire, “which prolonged the lifetime of Greek tradition one other thousand years — leaving us the bizarre Russian alphabet, as an illustration.” This line is funnier if you understand that Arzamas is a Russian channel that has additionally put up movies on Russian historical past and tradition: the one on the nation’s twentieth-century artwork simply above, as an illustration, which Cox additionally narrates. Russia has inherited parts of the traditional Greek and Roman civilizations, as produce other distant lands like america of America. And wherever we reside, we are able to snort at Cox’s commentary that “if an historical Greek have been to see fashionable democracy, he would say only one phrase: oligarchy” — a type of rule Logan Roy knew all about.
Associated Content material:
Introduction to Historic Greek Historical past: A Free On-line Course from Yale
A Digital Tour of Historic Athens: Fly Over Classical Greek Civilization in All Its Glory
An 8-Minute Animated Flight Over Historic Rome
Primarily based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and tradition. His tasks embody the Substack e-newsletter Books on Cities, the e-book The Stateless Metropolis: a Stroll by way of Twenty first-Century Los Angeles and the video collection The Metropolis in Cinema. Observe him on Twitter at @colinmarshall or on Fb.
