Potentially Interesting Roman History

Episode XXX

Where does Roman History end? Ask someone this, and the first thing they’ll probably start thinking about is when the Roman Empire fell, and their minds will go back to, if they have ever read it, Gibbon’s estimable yet rather problematic The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, to see if they can remember a date. That date will be wrong.

Because the question was where does Roman History end, not when did the Roman Empire end, and Gibbon’s work itself is Roman History. So is the date 1776, when that work was first published? How about Robert Grave’s estimable yet rather problematic I, Claudius, a fine piece of work that has gone some way to rather unfairly cementing the legacy of Claudius in the historical narrative? That was first published in 1934 and is very much a piece of Roman History. One cannot discuss the history of Claudius without bringing up Graves’ depiction of him, even if it was written 2,000 years after his death.

Not everything vaguely modern automatically becomes part of the historical narrative in such ways, of course. Things are allowed to be flippant and transient and not trouble history at all, but sometimes, the historian sees things in modern portrayals of ancient times and cannot help but wonder if, at some point in the future, everyone is going to just believe that William Wallace fought the Battle of Sterling Bridge without a bridge in sight and did so whilst wearing a kilt and having his face painted blue.

If Robert Graves and Derek Jacobi can convince everyone that Claudius was definitely a stumbling, stuttering fool when the historical sources suggest otherwise, then why can’t they convince everyone that Commodus was stabbed to death in the arena or that Romans rode around burning forests on horseback launching huge fiery boulders at Germans dressed like neolithic club-draggers?

And this is why we sometimes get agitated about historical inaccuracies in movies. Not that the film itself got it wrong, but rather the idea that if enough of this shit gets out there, everyone will just believe this stuff is somehow accurate.

Derek Jacobi, who is a magnificent actor, is in that picture above, by the way. You can just see him in the background, with a beard. The beard is an interesting thing. One of the main legacies of the Emperor Hadrian was that he changed the face of the Roman Empire via his architectural programmes in a way unmatched since the time of Augustus, and the other was that he changed the face of the faces, too. The famously Hellenophilic Hadrian grew a beard and, in doing so, set in place a trend that lasted all through the Severan Age. Everyone who was anyone grew one. Pedro Pascal has one in that picture. The other two men do not. But, in real life, they both did.

On the left of the picture is Fred Hechinger as Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, or Caracalla as he was better known, and on the right is Joseph Quinn as his younger brother, Publius Septimius Geta, or simply Geta. Both of whom would have had beards. The imagery of Caracalla is some of the most notable imagery of any emperor still in existence. The two things most famous about Caracalla were his edict of AD 212 that made nearly all people of the Empire citizens (but to what end is a discussion for another day) and his famously scowly, beardy mugshot. His face is the thing that resonates down the centuries:

Marble bust of Emperor Caracalla, made between 212 and 215 AD, and exhibited at the Museo Nazionale Romano

Geta, too, had a beard, although most surviving imagery of him shows him as a youth and hence beardless. The reason so few images survive is that after he had Geta murdered in their mother’s arms, Caracalla ordered all images of his brother destroyed. However, one of the principal driving forces behind Caracalla’s hatred of his brother was that Geta was very popular with senators and the army because he looked like the spitting image of their father, Septimius Severus. Here’s Septimius, complete with, you guessed it, beard:

Septimius Severus, early 3rd century AD, Altes Museum

So, everyone had a beard. Why don’t they have beards in the movie? The other thing you’ll notice is that Caracalla is portrayed in a manner that totally belies his reputation. He was a grumpy, brutish soldier and a big man who liked a fight. Here, he is portrayed as a perfumed and powdered rich kid. As is Geta. I have no idea if this is how they are played in the movie, but stylistically, it looks as though the image they have tried to impose on the two brothers is something nearer to the infamously pampered Nero rather than two blokes who grew up in campaign tents on the battlefield and, in Caracalla’s case, died on one. If they wanted to make a movie about people who looked and presumably acted like Nero, why not just make a movie about Nero? The answer to that, I suspect, was that they assumed that audiences already had a narrative about the infinitely more famous Nero in their minds, and had they played fast and loose with the historical narrative, the audience wouldn’t have brought it. Because audiences are less informed about Caracalla and Geta, like Commodus in the first movie, they assume that they can get away with doing whatever they like with the historical narrative.

This makes historians like myself wish they had made the whole thing up to begin with. If you’re so worried about the audience recognising that you have messed about with the historical narrative so much, why not just invent your own? Ridley Scott and his writers have already invented people riding on rhinos and sharks in the arena; just invent your own emperors, too.

Do I think that audiences will now think that Caracalla was a clean-shaven, perfumed fop? Yes, partly. Audiences still think that William Wallace wore a kilt 600 years before tartan was invented, and that is entirely the fault of Braveheart.

It is not, however, Ridley Scott’s fault that Pedro Pascal, in the picture above, is wearing head-scratching armour with an odd Assyrian motif, nor that he is wearing wristbands.

Wristbands have long been a bane of the attentive Roman historian’s viewing pleasure. Everyone has them on in almost any Roman epic. Here is Paul Mescal in Gladiator II:

And Russell Crowe in the first one:

Here’s HBO’s Rome getting in on the wristband act:

Here’s Charlton Heston in Ben Hur way back in 1959:

Here is a still from a movie called Scipio Africanus: The Defeat of Hannibal which was made in 1937. You can (just) see the wristbands:

For comparison, here are segments of the relief on Trajan’s Column. Not a wristband in sight:

The wristband is a piece of medieval kit worn by archers to protect their inner arm. As many of my fellow archers will tell you, getting whacked on the soft part of the inner arm by a bowstring really stings. Romans didn’t wear them, particularly not flexible, soft leather examples. The sole reason that they appear in Roman movies and TV shows is that they look cool. That’s it. No other reason. Not for historical accuracy. They just look cool. Like burning arrows in battle scenes, they are simply cinematic props in what is a primarily visual medium.

Scipio Africanus: The Defeat of Hannibal was by no means the first movie to adopt the wristband as a piece of Roman armour, but it comes from the same time period as the publication of I, Claudius, and, as we discussed earlier, that work went on the influence how Claudius is seen in modern eyes. The 1930s influencing the 2020s.

Similarly, the wristband itself has now become a part of Roman History despite the fact that it was never worn. Like Graves’ portrayal of Claudius, the wristband, or conversations around it, have now become part of the Roman historical narrative without a single Roman ever having worn one. Just like Wallace’s kilt.

(For clarity, some forms of wrist coverings are known from ancient times, but never in this context)




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