Terry Jones: Blood and circuses
Terry Jones, Python turned historian, travelled from Ireland to Iran to debunk the myths of Rome. Boyd Tonkin talks to him about imperial power - then and now
Published: 19 May 2006
Terry Jones is rather keen on Druids, whom he sees not as sheet-draped shamans squinting at the sun but as a highly trained "class of professional intellectuals" entrusted with all the learning and lore of Celtic societies. So you might imagine that a born-again Druid in search of a blessed location would like nothing better than an airy modernistic dwelling tucked away down a sort of enchanted grove, just a sacred bough's throw away from Hampstead Heath. Jones, of course, is no professional historian, but the Monty Python veteran does rank as an unusually gifted amateur. As birds twitter around his secluded patio, he explains that "What fascinates me about history is turning received opinions on their head". Other subversive raids on the past have resulted in cliché-busting documentaries and books on medieval themes: Crusades, chivalry and Chaucer. Now, the guerrilla scholar-entertainer has dared take on the might of Rome.
Co-written with producer Alan Ereira, Terry Jones's Barbarians (BBC Books, £18.99) partners the four-part TV series - made by Oxford Films - that begins its run on BBC2 a week today. To say that his project aims to cast doubt on the virtue of the Roman Empire and the value of its legacy is rather like suggesting that Queen Boudica of the Iceni - inevitably, one star of this show - had a few tiny contractual niggles with her overlords. After almost two millennia, it's payback time.
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