Hollywood accuracy in depiction of the Roman Army

[Anonymous]

Hello I am new here. My interest is the film industies accurate depiction of Ancient Roman army.<br>
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I first became interested in ancient Roman History from watching the 1953 movie, "The Robe" and the Sequel "Demetrius and the Gladiators." I taught myself as much as possible from books of Roman history including the writings of Tacitus and Suetonius. However the little details of Roman life were not addressed there.<br>
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Here are my observations of what was accurate and not accurate about "The Robe" The Praetorian Guard under Emperor Caligula (Gaius Germanicus) was commanded by the Praefect Cassius Chaera in history as in real life. He led the assassination of Caligula in the movie as in history. The details of the assassination were not correct..Caligula was killed in the tunnel leading to the Imperial arena, not in the Emperors box and Cassius Chaera personally struck one of the blows..unlike the movie.<br>
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The details of the Praetorian Guard were accurate in that the field uniform was exactly like the rest of the legions. They carried the pilum,gladus, a long Curved Rectangular Shield or scutum with lightning bolts decoration. They wore the military cingulim belt with groin protector, white tunics with a red stripe, over this the lorica segmentata, (steel plate armour) and the Long Red Military Cloak, I have heard this called by various names including the "abolla". However the Gladus they used had a large hilt similar to the long swords of the middle ages, the gladus had no hilt. Plus the length and shape of the blade was wrong it was too short and had a straight blade coming to a point. They did not use neck scarves to protect from the armor, this first showed up in "Gladiator" Also the helmets were wrong, they did not have<br>
salade types with their rearward protruding neck guard. Each praetorian private or "miles" had a crest on his helmet. Now I understand but for the officers crests were worn only on parade as a dress uniform. Considering they were guarding the palace that seemed to be appropriate. The only thing wrong was that like our US secret service guardian the president they wore civilian clothes, that is a toga with the sword concealed. This was because under Roman law, uniformed soldiers were not allowed inside the city gates for fear of military coups. So this was window dressing for the Roman public so as not to offend their sensibilities. It seems to me that the ungainly Toga would surely have hampered the praetorians if they had to take quick action to protect the Emperor.<br>
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The depiction of the Tribune Marcellus Gallio was accurate as an appoinment of a military tribune of the son of a Senator was a common practice as a training ground for his future career.<br>
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Caligula was accurately protrayed as dressing as a General officer wearing a breastplate and dagger with purple gold embrodered cloak. He was afraid of assassination so the armor was a protection. He also had various outlandish colored clothes, violating the convention of the time of the emperor wearing merely a white toga with purple stripe like a senator, or a purple cloak but I am not certain when the purple cloak came into use. I noted that according to their rank the palace court wore Togas for the senators and tunic for the lesser ranks which were not specified. They all seemed to have varioius colored headbands which I have hear indicted the profession that the wearing practiced, is this correct?<br>
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Now the movie "Spartacus" showed army guards in the Lybian mines wearin trousers. When were trousers used in the legions? Would it have been in cold climates like the desert in winter and in Germania during winter? Was there any rule or special units that dressed in trousers instead of the white tunic? Oh, I have read on the net the the legion used RED tunics but I have always heard in the first century the tunics were white.<br>
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I have been in Rome and seen Trajans' and Marcus Aurelius columns showing the various dress of the legions and some in Germany were shown wearing trousers.<br>
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Ok I am looking forward to some clarification and discussion on these issues. <p></p><i></i>

[Matthew Amt]

Ave!<br>
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Welcome to the RAT board! That's quite a first question, it should keep us lively for days.<br>
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My short answer is to assume that everything you see in a movie is WRONG, and go from there. If something realistic sneaks in, rejoice. But don't expect it. Enjoy the show, and get your history from reliable books.<br>
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Now, it sounds like The Robe might have gotten more of its basic history right than a lot of flicks out there. I've never seen it, so can't comment on the detailed accuracy of the equipment. That's usually my main focus, I'm a "hardware" kind of guy. And usually, what you see on a Hollywood Roman soldier is pretty much fantasy. Standard equipment is the prop director's imaginative interpretation of either Trajan's Column or the Louvre relief, with lots of brown and black leather, spiffy studs, forearm guards, and red capes.<br>
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Rather than go through your post point by point (sorry, I never have as much time online as I'd like!), why not take a browse through my Legio XX website?<br>
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www.larp.com/legioxx/<br>
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There you'll see more accurate armor, weapons, helmets, tunics, cloaks, etc., at least for the mid-first century. Most of the items you mention are not inherently wrong--trousers, for instance, were probably pretty common among soldiers in cooler climates, particularly if they were recruited from places like Gaul or Germany (as many legionaries were, not to mention the auxiliaries), and grew up wearing such things. Crests would be common parade wear for any legionary or praetorian, but it's likely that praetorians did more parading than the average legionary. And yes, praetorians apparently wore togas while on duty in Rome. (You can drop a toga off of you very quickly if necessary!)<br>
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A purple-bordered toga would be worn only by men who were or had been consuls, praetors (I think), or censors, not by any senator. The tunic worn by senators had 2 wide vertical stripes (clavi), while equestrians and other folks used narrow stripes.<br>
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The whole question of military tunic color is a HUGE and very dogmatic debate, but there's a page about that on my site, too.<br>
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But as I always say, the costuming and hardware problems in a movie are of no real consequence if the acting, plot, script, and directing are good. Basically, crappy armor doesn't necessarily make a crappy movie. Good armor will certainly help a movie, but it won't save a bad one!<br>
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A bigger problem with many movies about Rome is that they not only butcher the appearance and the basic history, they also inflict all kinds of bizarre motivations and thought processes on ancient people. I kinda wonder why producers go to the trouble of setting movie in ancient times when all their characters and activities are modern, and would work better in a modern setting. So many changes that movies make to historical events just seem pointless, often counterproductive.<br>
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Anyway, we will doubtless debate the ins and outs of this to no end, in fact you can probably find a few older posts on this board about Troy or Gladiator, or one of those awful Boudicca shows that came out recently. But does this get you started?<br>
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Pass the popcorn! (Wait a sec, I hate popcorn...)<br>
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Vale,<br>
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Matthew/Quintus, Legio XX <p></p><i></i>