anotheranon | teevee: Rome

I know I'm very late coming to the game, but I'm finally seeing HBO's Rome for the first time and am quite enjoying it.

For those even later to the game than I am - it's a historical drama that takes place in Rome after the Gallic War and covers the political/martial machinations between Caesar (military) and Pompey (Senate). A lot of the action is seen through the eyes of two of Caesar's soldiers.

The "making of" feature suggests that this series is what happens when hardcore historians are given a budget - my surface impression is that sets, costumes, social/mores, religion, etc. were researched to within an inch of their lives and presented as accurately as possible, with all the sex, violence, and gore that suggests. Even the two soldiers are based on people mentioned in a historical account of the Gallic Wars. If this is true (and I have my doubts, see below), I have to ask - why aren't more historical movies/tv shows as thorough and good as this? Is it funding, or just skimping on the details to appeal to a wider audience?

But, I'm no expert on Roman history so I'm throwing the question out there (aimed particularly at

wcg, but anyone who knows feel free to pitch in): are they getting this right? How much creative license are they taking? I'm particularly curious about the role of women, as Atia and the other female characters seem to have a lot more autonomy/freedom of movement than my high-school level "history of the Roman Empire" suggested.

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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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

teevee: Rome

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