It’s not the stirrups that bothered me but the weaponry, specifically as depicted during the war scene in the beginning of the film. How acurate was that?
Didn’t I see a .22 caliber crossbow in one of the gladitorial combat scenes?
And it was…that Harelip scar on Jaquin Phoenix’s lip.
Did they have surgery to repair something like that back then?
It would not have been so apparent if they did not hyave so many closeups of the guy.
I am curious where you read that Commodus was killed in the ring. The story I heard (from more than one source) was that he was killed in his bath (on the last day of the year A.D. 192–Happy New Year!) in a conspiracy involving his mistress and a wrestler:
http://www.salve.edu/~romanemp/commod.htm
His successor, Pertinax, reigned for 87 days.
Boris B–you say you’ve done a little research. Do you believe that Commodus was responsible for Marcus Aurelius’s death? I’m familiar with the history, and I never heard anything to that effect. Everything I’ve read indicates that Marcus Aurelius died of natural causes, and I don’t recall any suggstion that his life was shortened by his son.
My reading, by the way, does corrobate that Commodus hated his sister and exiled her.
DRY wrote,
Nothing in the materials I read suggested that Commodus killed his father. The evidence for it is wholly speculative - Commodus was a devil; if his father was a decent judge of character, he’d have wanted his son as far as possible from being Emperor. Why wouldn’t a violent sociopath have taken advantage of the lack of modern forensic science to clear the way to glory? All I meant by my aforementioned nitpick was that I think it is perfectly acceptable in a work of historical fiction to fill in some of the gaps in our knowledge with dramatically-satisfying speculation. Some of the “errors” in Gladiator or just that - the tomatoes, for example (although I wish someone would remind me which seen they were in; I don’t remember them).
The murder as portrayed in the movie was classic palace intrigue. Commodus would plausibly have been left unguarded with his elderly father; he was still the Emperor’s flesh and blood even if he was a fink. I don’t think the movie is advocating the murder as revised history (although plenty of people have tried to revise history with no better evidence), but it seems perfectly plausible that a murder could be devised to appear like natural causes, given the relatively primitive state of forensic medicine at the time. If the murder did happen as the fiction suggests, it would look to us today as if … Marcus Aurelius died of natural causes. That’s why I call the movie good historical fiction.
I feel much the same way about this movie as I do with other movies of its ilk - The Ghost and the Darkness, Lawrence of Arabia, Amadeus (no, I’m not saying they’re all equally good; I’m saying they’re of the same genre). They’re interesting because they take some facts about interesting historical periods and rework them into a narrative. If people come away thinking they’ve seen a documentary, well - they’re misinformed. But I’m not going to blame that on the moviemaker. Wise moviegoers are protected by their healthy skepticism; they drop the willing suspension of disbelief after the credits role.
Even wiser moviegoers look the stuff up. If they are like me, they find that some of the craziest stuff - the stuff that seems least likely to be true, is in fact pulled straight out of history. Colonel Patterson really did come up with a scheme to trap a lion in a rail car with three experienced armed hunters, and they really did take several shots at the lion (at range of a yard or two) and miss. Commodus really did consider himself a god. Lawrence really was forced to shoot a young Arab he had befriended. Mozart really did die midway through writing his requiem (though it was Mozart’s students, not Salieri, who completed it). The stuff that leaves you shaking your head might very well be true.
In short, I’m happy with the speculation and the fictitious characters, and rather less happy with the stirrups.
… to make my writing unclear. My first paragraph is supposed to end with:
All I meant by my aforementioned nitpick was that I think it is perfectly acceptable in a work of historical fiction to fill in some of the gaps in our knowledge with dramatically-satisfying speculation. Some of the “errors” in Gladiator are just that - the tomatoes, for example (although I wish someone would remind me which seen they were in; I don’t remember them). The stirrups are also just another error (although I maintain that they were an editing error, not necessarily historical ignorance). The murder, I maintain, is not an error at all.
First of all, I should make clear that I haven’t seen the movie. As to historical fiction filling in knowledge gaps with speculation, I’m not sure what to think.
On one hand, if it develops interest in the period, why not? My own interest in the English Wars of the Roses came from Shakespeare, and I learned in the course of my study that Shakespeare got things wrong on several points. (Admittedly, his goal was to entertain, not to inform. Also, he was merely following some of his sources, which were flawed in some respects.)
On the other hand, misinformation or speculation passed off as fact isn’t ideal, either. God knows how many people now believe that William Wallace fathered English kings, thanks to Braveheart. And then there’s some of the theories in Oliver Stone’s JFK and Nixon. (For the record, I greatly enjoyed all three movies.)
As to Commodus and Marcus Aurelius, it’s interesting to speculate. Was Commodus actually present at Marcus Aurelius’s death? (I should point out that he doesn’t necessarily have to be physically present to be guilty of conspiracy to kill his father)
Also, had Marcus Aurelius already named Commodus as his political heir? I believe he did, but I’d have to check for sure. If this were so, Commodus really had no motive to kill his father, save impatience or a fear that his father would change his mind and name another heir. If, on the other hand, his father had not named an heir, Commodus does have a motive to kill his father and then claim that his father meant to name him heir.
All I know for sure is that if Marcus Aurelius DID name Commodus as his heir, it broke a tradition of previous emperors (the “adoptive emperors”: Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius and co-emperor Lucius Verus), who, instead of making their children their political heirs, named as heirs men unrelated to them who they believed would make the best emperors (“merit” as opposed to “blood”, as it were). Commodus’s behavior obviously spoke to the wisdom of THAT decision.
IIRC, in the 1964 movie “The Fall of the Roman Empire”, it was implied (or shown on screen–I didn’t see the whole movie) that Commodus murdered Obi Wan Keno…I mean, Marcus Aurelius (played by Alec Guiness, hence my little joke).
Dry : "On one hand, if it develops interest in the period, why not?"
This thread has done a fine job doing that on its own. Any recommended reading material on Roman history? How about gladiators?
to the OP:
Since you mentioned weaponry, the most glaring thing I noticed (I always miss stirrups, dangit) was the weird crossbow used in one of the arena sequences. The crossbow wasn’t used until the 10th-11th century. Additionally, the mechanism on the crossbow shown looked extremely complex and out of place.
Strangely, I don’t think you can say the same for the ballista (basically a giant crossbow) shown in the opening battle, but I can’t imagine they’d have a ballista for hundreds of years without thinking “hey, how about one I can carry?” and making a crossbow.
Ballistae go back, I think, to Dionysius I of Syracuse in the early 4th century BCE; Philip II of Macedon certainly used them. Like the use of wheels and stirrups, it seems to have taken quite a while for someone to think, “Hey, if that were small enough to put my shoulder…”.
Part of this is certainly the contempt of European warriors for missile weapons of all kinds. Additionally, the crossbow can be used by a (relatively) untrained soldier – like the arquebus, the learning curve is much steeper than for the longbow or composite (recurve) bow, and those with the more complex skills were loath to see their place taken by a draft of peasants. Finally, an unmounted archer is, by himself, quite vulnerable; a crossbowman needs to be part of a combined arms force, or he will get ridden down. Combined arms tactics, more or less abandoned after the death of Alexander the Great, only began to be revived in the 14th century, and weren’t really perfected until about 1700.
…with all this nit picking, it’s funny that no one pointed out that they all spoke English and many of them had English accents.
As with most historical fictions, the gross plotline was woven of whole cloth, but in this particular case, they did a very good job on the background details. I can safely say that there were no tomatoes in the movie; I saw it after reading this thread, and was specifically looking out for tomatoes for the whole movie. None. The closest I could find were small, round loaves of bread thrown at the competitors in the arena, but they were brownish, not red, and didn’t splatter like toamatoes would.
The ancient Romans did, in fact, have crossbow-like siege engines, as well as various other forms of large missile weapons. I didn’t personally notice any military technology that was exactly an an anachronism (although I’ll take folks’ word on the crossbow), but I was a little concerned that there seemed to be too much of it. Maybe the soldiers in the opening sequence were Maximus’ (Maximi?) personal elite soldiers, or something, but it seemed like an awful lot of them were wearing plate, rather than the cheaper banded or leather armor, for instance. Does anyone know how well-equipped the typical legionaire was?
When Gladiator was filmed there was a deliberate decision to make an “exciting feature film and not a documentary”. An example is that later Persian style reflexed bows were used rather than Roman style bows because they “looked better”.
The multi-firing ballista was based on the Greek Polybolus developed in ancient Rhodes by Dionysus of Alexandria. Ridley Scott asked for the Roman equivalent of an automatic weapon and that’s what they came up with.
The armour on the whole was very authentic exept for a few minor points, ie chainmail made with links too large in order to look better on film.
Chronos asks:
Well, we have to throw in one serious caveat (hey, Latin!) here: the typical legionnaire at what time? There was a lot of difference between the armies of Ap. Claudius Caecus and those of Valentinian I.
Having so said, the loricated (banded) cuirass was chiefly in use in Republican times and had pretty much been replaced by the mail shirt by the mid-1st century CE. The leather cuirass is even older, being the choice of the poorer troops before the rise of C. Marius (prior to the end of the 2nd century BCE, a legionnaire had to provide his equipment) and movie producers who can’t afford to buy mail for 5,000 extras. Republican legionnaires wore greaves, but Imperial ones didn’t, wearing leather or wool socks instead. The shield (scutum) got thinner and lighter from the late Republican years to the era of the “barracks emperors”. The javelins (pila) also gradually got lighter and shorter; the breakaway head wasn’t invented until late Republican times, sometime in the early 1st century BCE. Officers (legati and tribuni) came from a much higher social stratum than the troops, and could and did use their private wealth to buy fancy armor (not technically plate; it hadn’t been invented yet) and outfits.
After the collapse of Roman central authority in the mid 3rd century and the military “reforms” of Gallienus, of course, the troops became divided into border guards (limitanei) armed with whatever they could scrounge, and central reserves (palatini, dediticii, bucellarii) that became more and more dominated by mercenary (non-Roman) cavalry. After the defeat and death of Valens at the hands of the Goths (376), Theodosius I accepted large formations of barbarians under their own chiefs as foederati (whether he had any choice is still debated), and “Roman” armies consisted entirely of barbarian mercenaries until the Heraclians started to reform the military in the 7th century.
I LOVE this thread and am learning a lot, and considering all the discussion about weaponry I wanted to inject my own little joke. Back when I took Latin I remember a picture of a Roman soldier with lines pointing to all his equipment, and their names. What got the guys in the class laughing(these were high schoolers mind you) was the name for the sword’s sheath. Gladius was sword, and vagina was the sheath it, ahem, slid into.
DRY wrote,
That’s true. The “William Wallace fathered kings” thing is beyond speculation, and is wholesale fictionalization. It still didn’t bother me much; I’m pretty sure most of the audience had not heard of him before the movie (I hadn’t, and was quite surprised to learn that Robert the Bruce wasn’t the main character!)
I hate to make a recommendation sound like a legal disclaimer, but the first answer that pops into my mind is “It depends.”
It depends on what in particular in Roman History you want to read about. A certain period? Cultural history? Political history? Social development?
Also, how much knowledge do you already have? Are you looking for something scholarly, or something more “readable”?
I know there are many, many, many good books on Roman history currently in print. The classical history section at the nearby Borders is quite well stocked–I check it out every time I stop by.
Assuming you’re looking for information on gladiators specifically, I seem to recall seeing one or two books on gladiators or Roman entertainments (including Gladiators, Chariot Racing, etc) generally. Please note, however, that I haven’t read those specific titles, so I can’t give a very strong personal recommendation. What I know about gladiators, I largely learned from Avalon Hill’s Gladiator board game (Probably out of print, it was not a particularly big seller. It was a lot more fun than Bread and Circuses, the Chariot Racing game, however)
For general Roman history, particularly political, I’d recommend anything by Michael Grant. Some of the good contemporary (more or less) historians were Tacitus and Suetonius (though the latter tended to be a bit gossipy and sensationalist). I believe Penguin publishing has Suetonius’s Twelve Caesars and two of Tacitus’s books in paperback. I can personally recommend those.
Personally, I happen to be a fan of biographies of the emperors, and overviews of the lives of the emperors. Michael Grant wrote a good book on the emperors, with a very short chapter about each (extending from 31 BC to 476 AD, I think). Ivar Lissner also wrote a similarly good book. I’ve read both of these and can recommend them as well.
I’m sorry if you’re answering your question in generalities. Perhaps if there’s something specific you’re looking for, you can mention it on this thread, and maybe I, and perhaps others, can help you. Or you can e-mail me directly.
Happy reading! Roman History is absolutely fascinating. I started out “having” to learn about Roman regnal dates to help me at my (then) job: I used to work for an ancient coin company. I ended up studying the history in my spare time!
Argh. That last post above should read “I’m sorry if I’m answering your question in generalities.”
Well, if anyone’s still reading (and interested), I did a little research, going to Anthony Birley’s biography on Marcus Aurelius (which I believe to be one of the few in print about him).
Birley writes that Cassius Dio (a Roman historian) believed that some of Marcus Aurelius’s doctors might not have labored to save the emperor’s life quite as assiduously as they otherwise would have, in the hope of gaining favor with Commodus. Dio also implies that Marcus Aurelius may have believed his son to be at least partially responsible for his death.
I should comment that I recall reading that modern historians believe Cassius Dio to be, while not dishonest, not completely objective, either, and also one who was prone to stating opinion or speculation as fact (not the only historian to be guilty of this). And it should be pointed out that Marcus Aurelius DID NOTHING to indicate that he believed his son responsible. His last actions were to ask those around him to be loyal to his son, and to the empire.
It’s widely believed, by the way, that Marcus Aurelius died of the plague, but Birley speculates it might have been cancer.
Further speaking to the question of Commodus’s possible complicity in his father’s death is a lack of motive (save possibly impatience) on Commodus’s part. He had been named co-emperor with his father for three years at the time of his father’s death, and there was NO suggestion that Marcus Aurelius was rethinking that decision.
I guess I’m a little more bothered by this than you, though I’m not HUGELY bothered. I knew who William Wallace was, and, while he was certainly a brave fighter and a genuine Scottish patriot, he was also a ruthless man who DID murder many Englishmen. Not that Edward Longshanks was much better, but still, the movie seemed to whitewash Wallace’s character, while blackening Longshanks’. William Wallace WAS a sainted hero, and Edward a devil incarnate. IF you happened to be Scottish. If you happened to be English…
I don’t have a problem with speculation filling in the gaps, and I don’t have a big problem with fictionalization either. It’s just that I think the latter is usually unnecessary: History is often just as interesting when accurately told.
For example, turning back to Roman History: Nero fiddling while Rome burned. This is generally believed to be a falsehood told to discredit him. Nero would have played the lyre, for one, and not fiddled. But some facets of Nero’s real life are every bit as interesting, and even every bit as salacious: Nero fancied himself a performer, as did Commodus, and would often sing or give other public performances. Many of these were considered to be, shall we say, tedious, but Nero was emperor, and anyone who walked out of one of his performances would be committing an act of treason. So pregnant women were said to have given birth while attending his performances, and some men even feigned death and were carried away from the ampitheatre.
Personally, I think that’s every bit as interesting as some of the “Roman Urban Legends”.