I'm John Batchewitt, Professor Ed Watts.

He's written an extremely romantic and entertaining version of 2,000 years.

Because here come heroes again.

The Grakis, how do I know their heroes?

Because they die before the end of the movie.

Professor Tiberius Gracchus and Gaius Giacus,

they're not common people.

They're born to the gentry.

What is it that they see?

Well, so I think you have their two very different figures.

So Tiberius Grakis is born into the family of Scipio-Afrikanus, right? The sort of leading

family of the people who've created this Roman Republic's empire across the Mediterranean. And initially,

for the first part of his life, he's being groomed to be part of the political establishment.

So imagine somebody like, you know, like a Kennedy in the 1970s, right? You're just groomed, you're going through the steps so that you can basically

move to be the next generation's representation of leading sort of Roman politicians. And then

something goes terribly wrong. And the, uh, his, his uncle kind of steps away from him.

His career basically tanks.

And he doesn't really have options to be an establishment figure anymore.

He had a couple choices, right?

He could have stepped back and tried to rebuild his political career slowly.

What he decides instead is he is going to

demagogue against the wealth inequality that exists in the Roman state. And so he runs a campaign

...