I Had To React To This Ancient Roman Historian On History Hit

I enjoy History Hit programs. They do just about everything, castles from various ages, weapons, navel battles, movies, etc. Dan Snow is a great presenter and I first came across Dan and his father co-presenting battles from all ages up to current. Then Dan started History Hit and uses all kinds of experts in different fields. As his ad for History Hit says..everything history.

The worst movie ever made about anything to do with Ancient Rome was SPARTACUS with Michael Douglas! Not only could they not figure out how to pronounce names, places etc but they got almost ALL facts wrong.

About stirrups, they didnt use them in the movie Alexander if i remember it correctly , maybe requirements to have to have them came after

Interesting about 'Italy' not being a thing prior to X to disassociate the modern day with its' roots. There is a similar 'argument' being pushed about Germany often, claiming that Germany 'Deutschland' didn't exist prior to 1871 because the state called 'Deutsches Reich' came into being than. Complete historical revisionism of course - the word deutsch ('of our people') exists for longer than we can trace back. The battle of Teutoburg forest is, for example, fought at a place called forest of 'Our people's fortress'. Deutschland is even more flexible in its' meaning than Italy is though, since it isn't tied to any geographical place in particular, hence the saying 'Germany is where a German soldier stands'.

History Hit's lineup can definitely be a mixed bag. And, unfortunately, the history often tends to get infected by sexuality and gender politics the further away you get from groups who have no interest in societal signalling.

The one about sex (Betwixt the Sheets?) is, I believe, usually hosted by a woman with a female guest, and it's almost unlistenable. The spectrum is roughly as follows:

MOSTLY WISHFUL THINKING
- female host, female guest
- gay host, female guest
- straight male host, female guest
- gay host, straight male guest
- straight male host, straight male guest
MOSTLY SCHOLARLY

I love history. I give all of their shows a few tries. But I have to call them as I see them. And the further toward the beginning of that spectrum, the more quips and snark enter the fray, compromising the sholarliness of the work in favor of things like comps to modern society.

That said, i still encourage anyone interested in history to try any number of the different shows that History Hit has to offer, and see which flavors are more to your liking.

Take care.

History Hit is a really good channel. It's run by Dan Snow, and features a lot of excellent historians. They have a lot of good medieval content, too.

Well if you think about actors requiring stirrups, it makes a lot of sense. Many would only know how to ride with them on and without them, it could easily be very bad. Though saying this, I would rather fall off a horse than having my foot stuck in a stirrup and being dragged.

He looks a bit like Michael from Vsauce.

I enjoy history, so thank you for your expertise. I enjoyed HBO Rome.

The Roman's had their own UCMJ

I was unaware of History Hit. Thank you for bringing this channel to my attention. I'm looking forward to the rest of your reaction, as well as checking out his other content. Especially since he's earned the Metatron seal of approval!

And there is the Asterix franchise

I don't care what anyone says, Gladiator is a great, epic, action FANTASY. It's not a documentary. Yes, I cry when Maximus dies saving the SPQR from an evil Emperor and also achieving revenge fir the death of his wife and child. Even if he was wearing a leather bracelet he was a hero.

Northern Italian here. There are a lot of Italians and more Sicilians who would find it insulting to call Sicilians Italian

I would just avoid the subject when able

With regards to being more scared of your commander than your enemy, this is best depicted in the 90s movie Judge Dredd starring Sylvester Stallone, when the gang leader in the mega block shouts to his underling who is terrified of Dredd “you want to be afraid of someone? Be afraid of MEEEEE!”

This just occured to me watching this.
Rome: Every soldier in Gaul is armored.
The clans of Gaul: generally lacking armor.
"Rome's tactics and skill are unmatched guys! it was the greatest!"

Is it just me or is it similar to... being surprised when some tanks mop the floor with 1910s era cavalry? Like... it doesn't even take tactics, it's sort of a one side is so materially outclassed it's a no duh moment?

I banished the History sHit channel into oblivion with the 'don't recommend channel' button ages ago. 😂

Now we need him to react to you reacting to him.

I honestly thought it was DJ peach cobbler… now that would be a discussion!

You should try watching the channel tasting history.

Before I clicked in the video, I thought he was reactiong to a DJ Peach Cobbler video. Metatron should react to his videos sometimes, the ones about the aztecs and the relation of egypt and rome are great

I am a big fan of History Hit and Metatron, so I was concerned that there may be a conflict of interest. I needn't have worried. I watched the video that you reviewed immediately prior to seeing your reaction. It was very good to see that you were impressed with the work. I enjoyed both immensely.

He doesn't look very ancient

This is just like watching "Vincenzo's plate" reacting to a well made carbonara.

All right, but apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?

I want to say first that I generally like your content, I really do, but these "reaction to a reaction" videos a bit less so.

For some nuanced discussion, even that's not strictly true. Rather, it's when you "mostly agree" (as is the case here) with the expert in question that I find it less entertaining.

To try to simplify it to an as rudimentary state as possible, the issue is that in most instances you're not reacting to the expert, but to the show/movie they're watching. It's less "there's a problem with what they said here," and more "I agree with them completely, but they could have mentioned X, Y, Z as well." And okay sure, they didn't mention that, but these videos are pretty obviously heavily edited and the expert themselves may feel pressure to be brief. It just comes across as unfair to the "expert" (in the instances that warrant calling them that) to be so.... I don't want to say "pedantic," because you're not really criticizing anything they said in many cases, but merely what isn't present in the clip of their reaction. Maybe they didn't, maybe they did and it was cut for brevity (whether by their thought processes in the moment or the editors). We'll never know.

In this particular instance, I also find the title more than a bit "clickbaity." Now maybe the second half of this will be different (because I can't know how you react to the second half of the expert's reaction until you post it), but THIS VIDEO SPECIFICALLY begins with the words "I Had To React [...]" which, the way current dialogue works, suggests a level of disagreement. Yet you basically agree with everything he says.

To put another way, if you reviewed the same clips he did and made the same remarks and then some you do here, I'd have zero problems with this video. If you reviewed the view in question and had significant problems with the remarks made by their expert, I would have zero problems with this video. But in this specific video, your reaction doesn't really add or detract from anything, it's basically "I agree, but slightly deeper."

This was really good. I can't wait for more. I'll have to check out the original, as well.

One day, I will make a Rome movie without leather bracers. 🙃

Really, someone needs to make a Metatron "I HATE LEATHER BRACELETS!!" meme and/or shirt.

If you do a part two, i would be a happy panda!

Well Well the metatron likes tristan hughes . And that is great . You have good taste my friend .

On "Italia" it did have some political meaning back in late republic and at least early imperial times. There was a difference in Italian areas and provincial conquered lands. I can't remember the details, but the Italian peoples got citizenship easier and faster, voting rights (as plebians, and I have half a memory they were given a new tribe) and such. Eventually the empire extended this to all the provinces, but initially there was a difference in attaining citizenship for non-"Italian" Roman subjects.

Lol, The Ancients is one of my all time favorite podcasts, one of the only ones that I can count on being for sure worth the 46 minutes. Didn't realize how scruffy Hughes is, only ever listened. Tread carefully, he is not a sensationalist.

Historian who talks about history 😁

I’m coming from the from the perspective of a soldier, not a historian. But the use of a whistle in battle makes perfect sense to me. It’s loud, it’s clear and more easily heard over the chaos of battle. Just like how in later years drums and trumpets were often used to give orders across a formation.
It could have been one of those things that was so common place that it wasn’t seen as significant enough to write down. As paradoxical as that sounds. Ex: there was a city in Egypt we know once existed because it’s mentioned multiple times in letters between two friends. But because it was so well understood between the two parties they never saw fit to write down the location. Therefore historians know it existed but have no idea where it was.

Your so dumb, why would a historian talk about history😂

Is his shirt making fun of goth punks?

He’s amazing, he’s such a fan of anything ancient history.

Oh wow. I've been watching Metatron for a little over a year now and I just now noticed that he wears that black Renaissance tunic with the puffyy shoulders in every episode. That's pretty cool.

Please watch dj peach cobbler. His rome videos have been fire lately.

Bro I LOVE your content. But this clickbait formula is getting old real quick for me.
Every single thumbnail is ragebait about some "woke expert" saying some dumb shit, but in the video you agree with 80% of what the "woke expert" says, because they arent really a "woke expert".
You do this in every single video man... its so boring and repetitive. I get that you have some stupid fans that fall for this kind of clickbait, but maybe you need to lose those fans.

Love this one. I was going to ask you if you would do one on Knightfull with the Templars and king Philip. Just wanted to see what you think of there dress and swordsmanship.

Rome is the best show I've seen. I didn't want it to end.

I saw this two weeks ago and, as I watched it, was curious to what your own reaction would be. 👍

Really unfortunate that we can't see the face of the historian you're reacting to for some of the time. Would have liked to see a bit of effort in post-production to move the webcam when appropriate. Or just move it bottom left for the whole thing.