This presentation explores a recent evocation of the ancient Roman world on screen, the
epic historical television series THOSE ABOUT TO DIE, streaming on Peacock/Amazon Prime
(2024). Over the course of ten action-packed episodes, the drama series THOSE ABOUT TO DIE
charts an original narrative course by focusing on the socio-historical transition from the elite, big-
ticket, ultra-dangerous Roman sport of chariot racing in the Circus Maximus, to the rise of large-
scale, lavishly produced, mass-appeal gladiatorial shows in the Roman arena. This transition
coincides in the plot of the series with the building and opening in 79 CE of the Flavian
Amphitheater, or Colosseum, led by the Emperor Vespasian, and his sons, Titus and Domitian.
Within this authentic historical hook, the series THOSE ABOUT TO DIE vividly portrays
the class conflicts, social tensions, and financial power-plays seething in first-century AD Rome
between the greedy aristocrats who control the traditional chariot-racing factions from their
Palatine villas and the struggling boot-strap entrepreneurs and petty criminals who run the lucrative
gambling business in the shadowy Aventine betting houses. Caught in between the two equally
unscrupulous sides are the common people of Rome, who demand ever more thrilling blood sports,
more extravagant stakes, and more violent entertainment in the arena, seemingly impervious to the
corruption, cheating, and even murder all around them.
This presentation explores the reception trajectory of the new series and how it looks back
to important earlier screen productions set in the ancient Roman world of chariot racing and
gladiatorial games, such as BEN HUR (MGM 1959), SPARTACUS (Universal 1960), and
GLADIATOR (DreamWorks 2000). This presentation reveals how THOSE ABOUT TO DIE also
breaks new thematic ground in the representation of sports gambling and its intersection with
politics, society, and spectacle in the ancient Roman arena. The series THOSE ABOUT TO DIE
offers an innovative and contemporary take on the interplay of the diverse social classes as they
mingle together in the seedy urban underbelly of the sports betting world in Rome.

Monica Cyrino is Professor of Classics and Chair of the Department of Languages,
Cultures, and Literatures at the University of New Mexico, USA. She earned her BA in Classics
at UC Berkeley, and her MA and PhD in Classical Philology at Yale University. She is the author
of Big Screen Rome (2005), and Aphrodite (2010). She is the editor of Rome, Season One: History
Makes Television (2008), Rome, Season Two: Trial and Triumph (2015), and Screening Love and
Sex in the Ancient World (2013); and she is the co-editor of Classical Myth on
Screen (2015), STARZ Spartacus: Reimagining an Icon on Screen (2017), Screening Love and War
in Troy: Fall of a City (2022), and DOMINA: Screening a New Livia for the Twenty-First Century
(forthcoming). She has won numerous teaching awards including the national Society for Classical
Studies Excellence in Teaching Classics Award, the UNM Outstanding Teacher of the Year Award,
the Presidential Teaching Fellowship Award, the College of Arts & Sciences Teaching Award, and
the UNM Alumni Association Faculty Teaching Award. She has also served as an academic
consultant on several recent feature film and television productions.