Rome

Newsreader (Senate Crier) (fictional), played by Ian McNeice. The closest Rome comes to a narrator, and the mouthpiece for pieces of plot exposition not fully explained. The Newsreader announces daily the pronouncements of the Senate, public service announcements, business advertisements, and the current events of the Republic to the people in the Forum. He often uses dramatic gesticulations when using names of important Romans, like Gaius Julius Caesar. All these pronouncements would also — as portrayed in the series — be publicly displayed later in written form on the Senate-House door, for the literate few. The role is a more-or-less attested one in Ancient Greek and Roman society, as there was never any public gallery in the building where the government met and much of the population was illiterate. The Latin word for newsreader is praeco, and in many old translations is translated as herald. Seen in The Stolen Eagle, How Titus Pullo Brought Down the Republic, Pharsalus, Caesarion, Utica, The Spoils, and Kalends of February.