THE MORNING LIST
This week, we are going to meet the forgotten: soldiers of the Roman Empire, human under their breastplates, and French deportees who sang There Marseillaise entering Auschwitz! We also invite you to discover the solidarity between Blacks and American Jews to fight racism, to hear victims of acts of pedocrime committed by a Catholic priest, to dance to urban music followed on the Trace (TV) and to dive into a survey of “organic” products.
In the daily life of the soldiers of the Roman Empire
These Gauls are crazy! Here they are revisiting the legend of the legionnaires of ancient Rome, dear to Asterix and Obelix. This film takes an astonishing journey through time and space, which sometimes resonates with today’s world… Pierre-François Gaudry retraces the daily life of the soldiers of the Empire at its peak. It imagines the peregrinations from one end to the other of the immense territory of a young volunteer who, in 194 AD, joins the legion. “The guarantee of a prestigious status and a guaranteed income”even if the young man “knows that he will have to serve the Empire for twenty-five years”. During the first two centuries of our era, where the pax romanathe risk of death in combat exists, but the legionnaires are above all border guards, distributed throughout the 5,000 kilometers of the “limes”, the line dotted with forts which ran from the north Atlantic coast to the Red Sea and the southern shore of the Mediterranean.
A visit to the old garrison of Vindolanda, along Hadrian’s Wall in Scotland – a 120 kilometer wall built in 120 AD –, then to that of Lugdunum (Lyon), allows you to discover how on a daily basis activists (soldiers). Towns are developing around the camps, with everything needed to enable these “expats” to return to their usual way of life (taverns, thermal baths, etc.). A single coin, discovered in Vindolanda, could buy 25 liters of beer. A legionnaire’s annual pay was made up of 120 to 150 of these pieces, and Rome devoted more than half of its resources to its army. P.Ga.
“In the shoes of the Roman legionnaire”, documentary by Pierre-François Gaudry (Fr., 2023, 90 min). Available on France.tv until December 15.
A survey of products used in organic farming
While the organic sector is going through an unprecedented crisis, we can only rejoice that “Cash Investigation” is taking over the subject, with pugnacity and efficiency. The journalist François Carbona relies on the list of 392 products authorized in organic farming to conduct his investigation. Three caught his attention: the Bacillus thuringiensis, known as “BT”, the most widespread biological insecticide in the world, spinosad and pyrethrum. In front of his camera, scientists share their doubts about BT. At the CNRS, Raphaël Rousset is studying the intestines of Drosophila flies to assess possible toxicity. “Do you think we cut fruit flies in four? »humorously asks François Cardona.
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