it&#39;s like the eye of a duck

Huh boy...

First, a disclaimer. I've never seen an episode of Rome, so everything I'm going to say about it is based on conversations we've had in Nova Roma. That said...

Rome is historically accurate in the same way that Braveheart was historically accurate. Lots of details are authentic, but the big picture has been twisted. The producers sometimes sacrifice historical accuracy on the altar of modern understanding. They're too often giving modern motivations to people who were motivated by very different things.

One of our senators is a Hollywood consultant, and he regularly tears his hair out about something done in an episode. He consulted on Gladiator, and was disappointed by Ridley Scott making compromises to appeal to the modern audience. But according to him Ridley Scott's sins were nowhere near as egregious.

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Not a ringing endorsement if you're comparing it to "Braveheart", a movie, that, while fairly entertaining cinema, falls down on almost every historical detail, from the timeline (Wallace was dead before Queen Isabella even came to England) to costumes (no kilts in the 13th century! And Wallace was a lowland Scot anyway!) to impositions of modern interpretations of patriotism and concepts of "country" on historical events.

I was actually surprised that Rome showed graphic portrayls of bloody animal sacrifice and strange fashions that aren't appealing to the modern eye, and thought perhaps that the producers were just being unflinching in trying to present Romans as they were, not as modern people want them to be, but I'll allow that I'm being hopeful. Does Rome truly suck as much as Braveheart?

Re: Gladiator: nothing ever looked quite right to me, but then, I was looking at the costumes which seemed to have too many modern materials to be believed. I think the movie was mostly meant to be about Russell Crowe in a short skirt, which while appealing isn't exactly historically satisfying :P

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I saw Braveheart, at least until I got up and walked out near the end of it. I haven't seen Rome. So I don't know whether or not I'd object as strongly to it as I did to Braveheart. My guess is I wouldn't.

At least one of the sacrifices depicted in Rome was inaccurate, apparently taking a ritual used by the Galii (the priests of Magna Mater) and conflating it into something Atia did. I wish that if they were going to depict a Roman sacrifice they'd gotten it right. We certainly have enough in the way of living experts who could provide the details. (John Scheid comes to mind.)

Someday someone will make a film about Rome where everyone wears only wool and linen. But I'm not holding my breath.

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The costume designer (the name is April Ferry, I think?) claims that she only used wool and linen, and FWIW, the overall "look and feel" seems plausible to me: the clothing looks like natural fibers (at least on screen), there is a lot of color on the statues, buildings, and clothing (no standard white togas or pure white statues to be seen).

I have no idea about how accurate the sacrifice was. It involved painted people waving fans and the goring of a bull on a platform, the resulting bloody cascade falling all over Atia.

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Well, the Romans did paint their statues. We only see them as white now because all the paint has flaked off over the years. They also painted the temples and other public buildings. The white toga virillis was de rigur, and the only exceptions were magistrates who wore the purple bordered toga praetexta and triumphators/censors who wore the purple toga picta (as in my icon). Minor boys also wore the toga praetexta.

The sacrifice of the bull was modeled on the annual festival of Magna Mater. But it would have taken place outside and the people bathing in blood would have been the Galii, the castrated priests of Magna Mater. If Atia wanted to seek the patronage of a goddess, she'd have been much more likely to ask it from Bona Dea, and that would have involved her drinking wine and kissing a snake.

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I knew about the painted statues, but I didn't know that there was that much wearing of white - I was under the impression that "all Romans wore white" was another fallacy encouraged by statues whose paint had worn off :P

So you're saying that most officials wore white, or most people in general? Because there are a lot of colorful robes going on in this show!

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Most men wore white. Women in the late Republic wore a lot of color, though very wealthy women would wear white stolas (outer dresses) in public just to show that they were wealthy enough to afford the laundering and whitening costs.

If an adult man was wearing a toga with a purple border, that meant he was a magistrate. If he also had vertical stripes on his tunic (see mine) he was either a senator (3 inch wide stripes) or an equestrian (1.5 inch wide stripes). Any other man wearing anything but a white toga in public was instantly identifiable as a perigrene, or foreigner. The toga virillis was the badge of roman citizenship within the pomerium, the sacred boundary of Rome.

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majzan.livejournal.com

Would you say its worth to invest in then? Personally I love this kind of movies and series, the roman empiere is so thrilling...

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I guess it depends on what you're looking for. If you want high drama and lush production, I'd say yes, definitely go for it! If you're looking for historical accuracy,

wcg's comments suggest that the creators took a lot of liberties.

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timcharmorbien.livejournal.com

I doubt that it's completely historically accurate, but I really liked the series - - the only reason I regret getting rid of HBO! :)

I just love Atia, she's so EVIL and has no idea she's being anything but pragmatic. And Pullo is just interesting - - .

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Atia is fascinating to watch - shrewd and conniving, changing her allegiances every time you turn around. It doesn't hurt that the actress is just phenomenally beautiful and elegant!

The interaction between Pullo and Lucius V. (can't spell his last name) is interesting to watch, because Pullo is so fun-loving and Lucius is so stern - very Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, though not really comedy :P

I'm only about 3 episodes or so in; it will be interesting to see how their loyalties divide because of Caesar's power grab.

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The freedom of a roman woman depended on her social class, and on who her husband was. If she was from a noble "citizen" class, and her husband was as well, then she could get away with a lot of things (like celebrities such as Paris Hilton do today). She could do things mostly because the menfolk were there to defend her -- and because she'd inherited a lot of property/money. The lower down in social ranking you were, the less freedom you had.

Most of the writers who discussed Roman women were from the lower classes, and as such had a view of women that was very restricted and/or misogynistic (Ovid comes to mind). But if you read the few writers from the upper classes (Julius Caesar, Marcus Aurelius etc.) or young men who had broken into the upper classes (Cicero), you can see a healthy respect for the power of a matriarch.

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I guess I'm just surprised to see their freedom of movement and agency - Atia starts divorce proceedings for her daughter in order to free her up for a more advantageous match (I would have thought that the daughter's husband could have stopped the proceedings at any time), the women walk around in the street on their own (or, at least, without male relatives), and Atia has multiple lovers in and out of her bed (admittedly, possibly an anachronistic "sex appeal" to modern viewers).

Maybe I'm conflating Roman attitudes with later Italian restriction of noblewomen (16th century Venice)?

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Yes, that's what you're doing.

Women were a lot more free in Rome, especially in the later part of the Empire timeline. They were literate, educated, could own property, could advocate for themselves, could purchase birth control and/or abortifacents, and could travel as they liked. When Rome fell in 444, women didn't regain that power until the 1100's, and then lost it again during the so-called "Renaissance" in the 1400's. We've only recently regained that sort of freedom since the 1900's.

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Interesting...in order to appreciate the accuracies (or not) in this show I'm going to need to reframe where I'm coming from. Can you (and/or WCG) recommend something I might find in the library ("Roman Culture for Dummies")?

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Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities is the best thing you'll find online. It's huge. For a good introduction to Roman culture, I recommend As the Romans Did by Jo-Ann Shelton. There's also the wonderful Masters of Rome series of books by Colleen McCullough, beginning with The First Man in Rome. I could lend you my copies of both books. It'd be a great excuse to meet you finally.

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I'd be willing to take you up on the loan, but I have no idea when I'd be able to arrange for pick up/drop off, not at least until after the 15th, certainly.

What's your schedule like late March?

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I'll be off work for the rest of this week after today, though I do have to teach tomorrow evening. Next week's a usual work until Thursday, then I'll be working the overnight shift Thursday night into Friday morning. The week after that is spring break at TU, and I'm hoping to get out of the state for a few days of it. Then back to the grind for the rest of the month.

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Was just able to peruse the link - this book was first published 1875. I know that the Victorians got a LOT of things wrong about antiquity; does later research bear out what's in this volume?

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It has its errors, especially with regard to details of law. But it's still considered an authoritative source, and it's certainly the best thing available online.

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a noble "citizen" class

You're mostly right, but I want to clarify what Romans meant by nobility. A family was enobled by having one of its members be elected consul. Didn't matter whether it was a patrician or a plebeian family. Furthermore, nobility didn't guarantee membership in a particular Roman class, where membership was based on personal worth at the last census. To be a member of the first class in 100 BCE, a family had to have wealth equal to 200 talents, which is roughly a million dollars in today's buying power. Senators had to be in the first class, and furthermore could not engage in any sort of commerce except agriculture. Equestrians could be from either the first or the second class, with its 120 talent census valuation. Lots of the older noble families were in the third class, since many generations of men had expended their family wealth in Rome's endless wars. Some few, like the Cornelia Sullae, had slipped all the way to the 5th class and lived in near destitution. I don't think any noble families were ever counted among the Capite Censi (headcount, with no wealth at all) because their cousins would invariably loan them some money to prevent the family being shamed.

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Wow!!!! Great information! I didn't know this aspect -- mine's from 5 years of Latin classes and history courses. What book did you get this from! *bounce*

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Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities is the most comprehensive reference. You can also get the information about the census classes in Colleen McCullough's novel, The First Man In Rome.

I'm a Roman reenactor, and a senator over in Nova Roma where I'm currently in the second year of my censuria. Check us out. If you want to exercise your Latin we have a Sodalitas Latinitas you're welcome to join.

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Wonderful! I just joined the Yahoo group. Thank you for the invitation! *bows*

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Did you join the main NR list at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Nova-Roma ? Or the Sodalitas Latinitas group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Latinitas ? You're certainly welcome in both, if you wish.

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I joined the main group, and just sent my intro post. I feel so stupid -- I didn't know anything like this existed! :))

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We also have a LiveJournal community, if you're interested. It's

novaroma.

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Joined! Thank you! I s'pect we'll be talking more in the future.

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I knew about Nova Roma through you, but I didn't realize it was international in scope - incredibly, I thought it was a local thing. Wow!

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