Conducted ~6/2006

As a Python, Terry co-directed Monty Python and the Holy Grailwith Terry Gilliam before assuming full directorial duties for The Life of Brianand The Meaning of Life.

As an ex-Python, he wrote Jim Henson’s Labyrinthand wrote and directed Erik the Viking(a “Director’s Son’s Cut” of which is currently available in the UK from Arrow Films) and the recent adaptation of Wind in the Willows.

Just as fellow ex-Python Michael Palin has become associated with his frequent travel documentaries, so too Jones has also been connected with the documentary form in recent years – first with his miniseries about the Crusades, followed by a series of programs on ancient inventions, the hidden history of Rome and Egypt, and Medieval Lives, which examined the myths surrounding such historical archetypes as the knight, the damsel, the minstrel, and the monk.

His documentaries present a healthy dose of history within an entertaining (and often humorous) vehicle. As they say, “a spoonful of sugar…”

KEN PLUME: I suppose the first thing I have to say is how much I’ve been enjoying your Barbariansseries…

TERRY JONES: Are you in the States?

PLUME: I’m in the States.

JONES: Then how are you seeing it?

PLUME: The joys of the internet.

JONES: Amazing. I never knew.

PLUME: So on Friday evenings I’ll watch Have I Got News For You, and then the new Barbarians. In fact, I just watched your appearance on The Paul O’Grady Show…

JONES: Amazing!

PLUME: Well, it’s a shrinking world.

JONES: Yeah…

PLUME: It’s quite interesting to get a glimpse into UK life via television, and it goes to show that people are becoming more worldly – if they actually take a chance to look at what’s out there. Barbarians, I think in some ways even tops Crusadesas my favorite piece you’ve done so far.

JONES: Really…

PLUME: It certainly seems that there’s a real love and vitality that you’ve brought to the subject matter.

JONES: Yeah.

PLUME: At what point did that strike you as a kernel of an idea that you wanted to explore? Because you said in the past that something has to really interest you for you to want to explore it…

JONES: Yeah. Well, partly it was because I didn’t know anything about the classical world. I didn’t know anything about the subject. So that was quite interesting, anyway. But I kind of had a suspicion that the story of the Roman Empire must have some relevance to the world today, and to the sort of situation we have today. So I was kind of looking out for that, in a way, when we started – but it certainly became very clear as we got there was a very curious parallel. Nothing is absolutely the same, of course – history doesn’t really repeat itself, but the same people and the same motivations go on and…

PLUME: Human nature remains the same.

JONES: Rome was considering itself as the sole superpower for a long time, and it embarked on this policy of preemptive strike to neutralize states around its borders. But it was driven by fear. Their 9/11 happened in 390 BC, when the Celts overran Rome. So, you know, it was different, but there are similarities.

PLUME: I think the great thing about the pieces that you do is that it really shows that for all the differences there might be, the one thing that does remain constant is human nature.

JONES: Yeah.

PLUME: And humans will react in certain ways to certain circumstances across the board, no matter what time period you’re in.

JONES: I think that’s right. I think people don’t change. And I think people were the same in 500 BC and 1000 BC, but we just don’t know about them. You had the same kind of people seeking power, and using very similar methods to gain power. I mean, it was laughable when Caesar, driven by political considerations at home – he wants power, and he needs money, so he declares himself Protector of the Gauls. By the time he’s finished protecting them, he’s killed a million of them, and enslaved another million, and he owned all of Gaul and was very rich, thank you very much. Well, it’s not a million miles away from saving the Iraqis from their dreadful dictator, Saddam Hussein. By the time we’ve finished with them… So far, we must have killed about a quarter of a million of them and destroyed their society.

PLUME: But we bring freedom!

JONES: Right! Freedom! Yeah. But Halliburton and Kellogg Brown and all that lot, they’ve all done extremely well out of it.

PLUME: I found it fascinating – in the episode last night – regarding the Visigoths…

JONES: Oh yeah…

PLUME: And the description of… what was the society that was completely wiped out in Germania?

JONES: The Dacians…

PLUME: Yes. And the gold, and that pursuit of a coffer…

JONES: Yeah, that’s absolutely right. I mean they’re just wiping out the Dacians because they wanted their gold. They built Rome on the proceeds, really. Or what we regard as Rome.

PLUME: And it’s amazing how many military actions in history have such a base desire that are covered up in loftier stated goals. Although that one was pretty blatant as to what the goal was.

JONES: I mean, to do the Romans justice, they weren’t mealy mouthed about celebrating their acts of violence. I think that was one of the things that became very clear – Trajan celebrates by having his column show all of these pictures of Romans killing Dacians. And there’s a big celebration of an act of genocide.

PLUME: I found it even more fascinating what was done for the corresponding monument…

JONES: Oh yes, the one at Adamclisi, in Romania…

PLUME: Which was a threefold statement – that you’ll never pose a threat again, we’ll protect you, and I’m great.

JONES: (laughing) That’s the big difference between the Roman sort of carvings and monuments – which are usually you’re showing Romans killing people in one form or another – and, for instance, the Persian monuments in Persepolis, which are all sort of celebrating peace, and it’s people coming to present the emperor with gifts, and they’re all walking hand in hand. Or they’ve got their hand on the back. It’s not hands around the wrist, which is always the symbol of having captured somebody. But walking hand in hand and so there’s all that celebrating, friendship, and partnership.

PLUME: Well, peace doesn’t keep people in line!

JONES: (laughing) That’s true!

PLUME: In the research you’ve done, is there any society that is that forthright and celebratory of conquering as the Romans were?

JONES: To tell the truth, I think all of the societies would be, given the chance. But there is a really huge difference between the Persians – in what is now Iran – and the Romans. There is a cylinder in the British Museum that was uncovered beneath the ruins of Babylon, and it’s in cuneiform. It’s got cuneiform all over it, and the cylinder celebrates Cyrus the Great’s conquest of Babylon. But in it, he says, “I came as a friend.” And he said, “I didn’t allow my troops to terrorize anybody. We didn’t have to carry weapons. We were able to walk around the streets without weapons. And I freed all the slaves, and allowed them to return to their homeland. And I was celebrated as a great benefactor.” It’s almost called the world’s first statement of human rights. You might think, “Well, it’s the kind of thing a tyrant might put on, a bit of spin doctoring…”

PLUME: Right.

JONES: Except that it’s born out by the Bible. And in Isaiah… and I can’t remember the other book… but in Isaiah, Cyrus the Great is celebrated as the Lord’s anointed. I mean, he was Persian. He has nothing to do with the Israelis. But the slaves he freed are the Israelites. And he sends them back to Israel to rebuild their temple. And he’s a hero to the Jews. So there is corroboration about that. And then Cyrus’s successors – Darius, and then Xerxes – they leave records of what they’ve done, and any monument always starts with, “God is great, who created the world and created yonder skies, who created man, who created happiness for man, and who made Darius or Xerxes king.” But the idea that happiness for man is on the political agenda and there’s a statement of intent from the emperor, it’s kind of something I think we could do with nowadays.

PLUME: It’s odd… It’s almost a celebration of philanthropy.

JONES: It is, in a way. I mean, I don’t really know that much about the Persian empire, but certainly it’s got these statements, and there is some corroboration that it was a fairly benign kind of empire. The Persian emperor was king of kings at this time, and so he allowed other kings to stay as long as they paid tribute to him… Not like Rome, trying to turn everybody into Romans…. Into a new image of themselves.

PLUME: It’s amazing, as you see the deterioration of the empire, how many civilizations – and the people within them – used the Roman system of acclimation against the Romans themselves…

JONES: Yeah.

PLUME: By playing the double agent…

JONES: In the first two programs you probably noticed a lot of the people who rebel against them, like Arminius, have been brought up by the Romans and they’ve learned Roman military tactics. Because Rome’s big weapon really was the fact that it had this standing army. It had a professional army, and the others didn’t – so the others all had to go off at harvest time. They couldn’t stay the whole year. The Roman army was a professional army and could just hang in there and just win by sheer bloody minded hanging in, which is only what Trajan did in Dacia – he just hung in there and the Datians eventually just couldn’t carry on. So it was that. But then, of course, the army kept on swallowing more and more of the money, and it got costlier and costlier to run for the empire.

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