Furthermore, at the time of the Third Servile War there was no prominent Roman statesman named “Gracchus.” (The Gracchi had been prominent earlier.)
You seriously owe it to yourself to see all of them–be prepared to see Baldrick and Blackadder basically switching roles, though. All of them are worth the time. 
The costuming in the later seasons (series) is pretty good as well. Not so sure about the other details.
It’s Blackadder and the Percy-type that switch characters. Baldrick is always a dogsbody obsessed with turnips.
Yes, but in Blackadder the First he’s a clever dogsbody, much cleverer than Edmund or Percy. In the other three he’s an idiot (so is Percy/Prince George/Lieutenant George, but he remains a well-bred idiot), and Blackadder is the clever one.
I find the representation of the Roman army in the final battle in *Spartacus *rather puzzling. The Romans take great care to line up in a manipular formation, and then, just before the actual charge, they all seem to go “huh - how are we supposed to fight like this?”, abandon the formation, and form a closed battle line. Why did you form up in the first place, doofuses?
True, it’s something of a mystery just how the historical legions actually fought - did they really fight with gaps in their lines or not? How would that work? Did the centuries form overlapping halves? What was going on? - but the way the movie does it just doesn’t make any sense to me.
Also, the legionaries should have started the battle with throwing their *pila *- not just stand there like a bunch of schmucks.
(Now, don’t even get me *started *on everything else that’s wrong with that movie…)
Also not to be missed is Jones’ Medieval Lives series, available on Google video. It’s actually a documentary series, but generously garnished with Jonesian humor.
The Right Stuff
[qute]My ancient history teacher in college loved “Spartacus” - thought it was accurate in depicting certain aspects of Roman life.
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Spartacus, one of my favorite films, may accurately depict Roman life, but historically, it’s almost as bad as Braveheart. It doesn’t really gibe with the historical record, and the Machiavellian motivations given to many of the characters don’t ring true. Glabrus – the Charles Laughton character – didn’t even exist. The book also departs from the novel by Howard Fast (Yep – that Howard Fast, long before he wrote the american historical novels). Or you might compare it with Arthur Koestler’s very different take on the story, The Gladiators: The Gladiators (novel) - Wikipedia
If you want another film from the same period that gives you a good depiction of Rome, see A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum – they show Rome as a crowded, dirty, and frequently squalid town. A lot of the scenes were derived from depictions in Pompeiian art, and the the broadway play by Larryt Gelbart was derived from the comedies of the Roman writer Plautus, right down to the vcharacters’ names (Pseudolus, Miles Gloriosus). The screenp;lay was extensively rewritten by a pre-Doctor Who John Pertwee, who managed to get himself a bit part in the film. But it probably gave us the most realistic Rome until the miniseries Rome a couple of years ago. (Although I strongly suspect their depiction of the Vestal Virgins and Gladiator Training wasn’t entirely accurate.)
The brilliant thing is that the series goes through several kinds of comedy:
Slapstick/silly (I)
Sarcastic/dry (II & III)?
Black/Dark. “Goes Forth”
Well, yeah. But I’ve never yet seen a movie set in ancient times that gets the fighting right.
I think there’s some kind of law in Hollywood that every movie about ancient Rome must have a senator named Gracchus. Derek Jacobi’s character in Gladiator had the same name.
Not sure if it’s the same thing, but the HBO series Rome portrayed the legions at Philippi as lining up almost like a sword and shield-bearing assembly line: you would stand with your hand on the shoulder of the guy in front of you, he’d gradually make his way to the front, fight a bit, then fall back and it’d be your turn. Is that what you’re talking about?
ETA: Also thought it was kewl when Vorenus would shout “Testudo!” and they’d all huddle together and make a shield turtle.
Not really. That part is probably good, to some extent. The Romans almost certainly did employ some form of line rotation for the troops to keep the front line guys from getting worn out. It also portrays nicely how the legions worked by discipline and coordination, in formation, and not by individual soldiers breaking the line and going all banzai on the closest guy’s ass, like in some other on-screen portrayals (*Gladiator *- I’m looking at you). However, I was referring to the scene in Spartacus towards the end where you can see the legion lining up from above, from Spartacus’ vantage point on a hill, and there’s some bizarre tactical deployment going on. In the Philippi scene in Rome, you don’t really get a good look at any large scale tactical maneuvers (for good reason, I guess, as the directors probably didn’t know what they would have looked like), and it’s all wonky camera angles and whacky cuts. You can’t really tell for sure to what extent they’re using a “checkerboard” manipular formation or a more solid line. When the lines approach each other it does look like they have gaps of some sort left open in the formation, though. One thing that is missing in both *Spartacus *and Rome, in any event, is the legionaries throwing their *pila * (javelins) at each other before the lines clash, as well as other forms of missile bombardment that would probably have preceded the battle.
The Philippi scene is a damned cool battle scene, though. 
If you’re wondering why I keep going on about those gaps, there’s basically a debate going on about Roman infantry tactics, about whether the legions would fight in a formation composed of separate “squares” with blocks of soldiers, or in a more dense formation or a solid line, and also about how much space would be left between the individual soldiers, etc.
Now, if the real nerds show up, we can probably get a discussion going about the accuracy of the armor and equipment, the haircuts, and what have you.
We will, but Netflix pulled that crap on us where there’s a little wait for the next disk so they send you the first one from your next series.
The thing that impressed the living hell out of me is that they went through all the trouble to costume most characters pretty accurately for the time of the Battle of Bosworth, but then they put the older woman in a cotehardie with a Gates of Hell - you know, like how your grandma still wears the same kind of clothes she wore when she was younger.
Terry also did a series (and book) on the Crusades, which was wonderful, and he co-wrote the book Who Murdered Chaucer?: A Medieval Mystery, also very interesting.
Oooo. Looking up the amazon link, I found his book* Barbarians*. I’m going to have to get my hand on that, or on the DVD. It’s supposed to be a history of the civilizations that Rome considered to be barbarians. Nifty.
The clothing and haircuts in Rome are wonderfully accurate, mostly. One or two of the helmets are seriously out to sea though - there must be an unwritten rule that every movie or series set in roman times must included atleast one over-festooned monstrosity of a pink-plumed helmet (I think it’s the same one, and they pass it around - I seem to recall it from a wide shot in Ben Hur, and somewher near the end of Fall of the Roman Empire.)
In The Incredibles, when Helen is flying the plane, the terminology she uses to communicate with the tower as well as the attempt to get them to stop the missiles is apparently spot-on.
Shakespeare in Love is basically a romantic fantasy, but far more historically accurate (except for its obvious diversions for humor) than Elizabeth. I wouldn’t hesitate to show it to an English Lit class for its depictions of outdoor/open air theatre productions with boys playing women and Elizabethan era special effects and “mixed” audiences.
Zardoz.
You’ll see.
Roman movies in general are really bad when it comes to women’s costume, too. (Gladiator in particular is atrocious when it comes to this. And they really only had one woman to dress!) Rome is exceptional in that it shows some of the weirder women’s fashions, and not just billowy tunics and curly hair. Some of the things Atia wears are pretty fanciful, though.
In high school, we were shown John Wayne’s version of The Alamo. I was surprised to discover that it is actually fairly accurate.