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History professor livetweets reality TV show set in ancient Rome and it's hilariously instructive

"Roman history AND gratuitous nudity? This has it all!"

Gianluca Mezzofiore

on September 15, 2017

There's a new reality TV show in the UK which combines Love Island and...ancient Rome.

It features eight handsome, well-built lads who, dressed with sandals, togas, leather loin cloths and golden lame pants, will fight each other almost just like Roman gladiators used to do 2,000 years ago.

Their girlfriends will follow, support and live with them like ancient Romans did, inside a Roman palace.

The show, on ITV2, is naturally called The Bromans, and it sounds outrageously entertaining. But is it historically accurate?

Andrew James Sillet, Classics Lecturer at the University of Oxford, livetweeted the first episode and was pleasantly surprised by the results:

He pointed out that there's a lot of frontal male nudity in the show. Like, a lot:

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Sillett really couldn't complain about the show's educational content:

Turns out, the authors did their history homework:

The lads receive physical training by "Doctore", played by David McIntosh:

Naturally, our professor had some thoughts:

Thou the chariot was really accurate:

He also made a good objection about public voting:

On the whole though, Sillett really, really enjoyed the show, and will definitely watch again:

There was also time to wave goodbye to the brave gladiators who lost: