James Dunlop has commented on another post:
My 1977 copy of The Eagle of the Ninth (by Rosemary Sutcliff) still has the entry from the Radio Times (with a photo of Anthony Higgins as Marcus … ) glued inside the front cover. I’ve also got a page torn out of the Radio Times lurking somewhere – I was nine at the time and it made a really big impression on me. I’m now an archaeologist who really doesn’t have much time for Romans, but when I re-read The Eagle of the Ninth last year, I still found Marcus a really lovely – and yet at the same time convincingly Roman – character.
Oh, and I remember there was that bit with the dream where the ghost legionaries turned round and had skulls instead of faces. That stayed with me for YEARS!! I was freaked out by skeletons for decades afterwards (though I’ve grown out of that little foible now, thank goodness!)
Oh I LOVED this mini series. It was broadcast in Australia when I was a kid. Wasn’t the theme tune brilliant too. (The BBC did a few wonderful kids series… Robin Hood was another one.) I tried over the years to find DVDs of it for my children, but never succeeded. Now I live in the UK and love anything Roman- is this the “Sutcliff effect”?
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