The mightily stressful and incredibly close-to-the-bone BBC show traces the demise of four ancient worlds – and it’s wildly prescient stuff. Will we never learn?
Rome, 24 August, AD410. The empire that’s dominated Europe for five centuries is on the brink of collapse, its capital at the mercy of a barbarian leader. What do the people do? They do as they’ve always done. The rich scramble to hide their wealth. The poor run for their lives. The fateful decisions of a tiny number of power-obsessed men bring the mightiest civilisation on Earth to its knees. Sounds familiar? And yet. No one saw it coming … OK, apart from us, the hollow-eyed cynics of the future, watching the BBC’s latest iteration of a landmark series from the discomfort of our own civilisation’s real-time plummet.
The first, less-close-to-the-bone Civilisation aired in AD1969. An equally un-self-aware era when it was totally fine for a Tory politician in trilby and tie (Kenneth Clark) to chart western culture’s triumph over the barbarians. (Some may say: plus ça change.) Next, in 2018, came its well-intentioned successor fronted by Simon Schama, Mary Beard and David Olusoga. Which, like a weak emperor, was trying to be everything to everyone and thus, not unlike ancient Rome’s Honorius, suffered mixed reviews and plunging ratings. Now the sumptuous threequel strides into the arena, all fire, war, disease, disaster and slick Netflix-era dramatic re-enactments. It also comes, somewhat aptly, at a time of deep existential crisis within the BBC itself. Which in less ancient times was the instrument of another empire that fell …
