Stewart – Roman Revolutions

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum

By Stewart | May 2, 2022 | Comments 0 Comment

Richard Lester’s A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum, depicts the a slave named Pseudolus and his attempts to become a free man. Pseudolus has been trying to buy his freedom for quite awhile, until he sees the perfect opportunity to get his freedom by helping his master Hero, obtain the girl of his dreams. Hero promises Pseudolus his freedom if he can help Hero marry a woman named Philia, who lives next door in the house of Lycus, which is a house of courtesans. Pseudolus is able to improvise a plan to help young Hero, as his parents are out of town and cannot control the actions of either Hero or Pseudolus for the time being. The pair discover a roadblock in their plan, when Lycus informs the pair that Philia has just been sold to a heroic Roman captain who is coming to retrieve his new wife in a matter of hours. The pair decide to lie to Lycus and declare that a plague took over her country of Crete and that she the plague. They say they can look after her until the captain arrives and Lycus agrees. At first, Philia is reluctant to marry Hero and wants to honor her contract, but then the two fall in love, and Pseudolus and Hero hatch a plan to flee with Philia and to marry in secret. When soldiers of the captain visit Lycus, they declare the bride must be ready in an hour and if she is not, then his house will be ransacked and the rest of his women will be taken. Pseudolus decides to trade places with Lycus, to try and better his and Hero’s chances of fleeing with Philia. Once the captain of arrives, Pseudolus does his best to stall until Hero can return with mare sweat to create a sleeping potion for Philia. Eventually, Pseudolus uses another slave, Hysteria, as a decoy of a dead Philia to try and trick the captain that his bride has died. The captain is at first fooled, but Hysteria “rises from the dead” after the captain declares he will cut the bride’s heart out in honor of her. Pseudolus, Hero, Philia, Hysterium, Lycus, and another women Gymnasia all try to flee Rome and lead the captain and his soldiers on a chase through the countryside.

Eventually they are all caught and brought back to Rome, but it is revealed that both the captain and Philia are the long-lost children of Hero’s next door neighbor, Erronius. Erronius had been a long journey to find where his children went, but once he returns home, he is able to see that the captain and Philia are his children. In the end, everyone is happy, as Hero gets his bride, Pseudolus is now a free man, and even the captain gets 2 new brides. The movie is played out as a comedy and musical and was very enjoyable to watch.

Gladiator

By Stewart | April 13, 2022 | Comments 0 Comment

Ridley Scott’s Gladiator follows the story of fictional Roman war general, Maximus. Maximus is a highly respected general in the Roman army who holds a great friendship with Emperor Marcus Aurelius in the film. As the war looks to be ending, Maximus would like to return home to his family as he has not seen his wife and son in almost 3 years. The Emperor would look like Maximus to succeed him as the leader of Rome, but Maximus is hesitant on taking his offer. At the same time, Commodus, Marcus Aurelius’s son, has big aspirations to take the throne from his father, and upon hearing that Maximus will be named the next leader of Rome, Commodus kills his father and frames Maximus for the murder. After this, Maximus is sent off to be killed, but he kills the soldiers who attempt to kill him and he journeys home. He sees that his family has been murdered and his land burned and this is when his plan for vengeance starts. Maximus is picked up by a merchant who sells slaves, and Maximus is ultimately sold to a man named Proximo. Proximo purchases Maximus along with other slaves to fight in the gladiator pit in his province. Maximus becomes a formidable force and fan favorite there, so when Commodus who has taken the throne of Rome, decides there needs to be 150 days of games, Proximo takes Maximus and the other gladiators to fight in Rome. Right away Maximus becomes the fan favorite because of expertise and his defiance towards the king. Commodus is shocked to see Maximus is alive again and does everything in his power to try and get him killed in the gladiator fights, but Maximus always prevails. Later on, with the help of his former servant, Cicero, and Commodus’s sister, Lucilla, Maximus attempts to overthrow Commodus and put Gracchus in power to restore the Republic. He also wants to escape to meet up with his men so they can fight Commodus’s army. This plan is foiled and Maximus is imprisoned once again, but Commodus wants to kill him himself. They fight in front of the crowd, but Maximus is able to beat the man who ordered his family’s death and complete his plan for vengeance. Gracchus is put in power and Maximus reunites with his family in the afterlife.

This movie portrayed themes of vengeance, power, and resilience. I was happy to see that Maximus was able to complete his plan of trying to restore the Republic and killing Commodus. Maximus never gave up and knew what it was gonna take in order to complete his plan. Even when the odds were stacked against him he never backed down and always showed true resilience.

Classics Colloquium (3/17): The Tragedy of a Nurse’s Moral Injury

By Stewart | March 17, 2022 | Comments 0 Comment

The Nurse Antigone zoom reading was presented to honor nurses all over the world through the lens of Sophocles’s play, Antigone. The webinar detailed a group of actors, nurses, and other volunteers acting out Antigone. Afterwards, the organizers of the play held a discussion period where some of the readers, many of them nurses, gave their thoughts about the play and what they took away from the experience. Nurses from New York Presbyterian and representatives from John’s Hopkins were also given time to discuss what they took away from the play and how it related to their experiences during the pandemic. This was a great webinar to attend as I was able to listen to a rendition of Antigone and hear about the experiences of nurses during the pandemic. Many of the nurses involved in the webinar were able to relate to the play on a personal experience, as they compared the actions of several characters in the play, to their actions during the pandemic. Many of the nurses had to do whatever it took to save patients during the pandemic, even if they knew they would face consequences for their actions. Their actions compared to the actions of Antigone, as she realized that she needed to properly bury and honor her brother, even though she knew she was not allowed to. Her conscious would eat her alive if she had not and resulted in “moral injury”, this is similar to nurses in the pandemic who suffered moral injury, as the pandemic took a toll on them. Within the play, the chorus could be seen as nurses in the pandemic, as the chorus had the knowledge and answers to avert tragedy, just as nurses have the expertise to combat tragedy in the real world. People do not listen to the chorus, just as they do not listen to nurses a lot of the time. One nurse reflected on his experiences in dealing with conflict during the pandemic as he really had to think and understand what his patients were going through in order to connect them and help them in the best ways possibles. I enjoyed hearing about this because it gave me a first-hand perspective on how difficult it was for nurses to work during the pandemic. Not just physically, but mentally, nurses were exhausted and were doing everything they could to save people, even if it meant they might get in trouble and face disciplinary action. Antigone’s action in the play are a direct parallel to the nurses who did and continue to stand up to the inequities in health care. These inequities were very prevalent during the pandemic, and nurses spoke up about these inequities in order to get everyone the help they deserved and needed.