MovieChat Forums > The Last Legion (2007) Discussion > Romulus Augustus and other factual error...

Romulus Augustus and other factual errors

posted 15 years ago by peter-501
20 replies | jump to latest

OK, I realize the movie plays fast and loose with history... BUT come on:

1) The Eastern Empire didn't have guards that wore Middle Age Persian Style armor
2) The Eastern Empire probably wouldn't have had female warriors from India - it would have made more sense to get a tall blonde woman, as the Eastern Empire did at times employ mercenaries of the northern Slavic tribes!
3) There were no stirrups in Europe in the 5th century
4) Romulus Augustus didn't have a drop a blood from Julius Caesar, he was a usuper, put on the throne by his father after Julius Nepos went into excile
5) The line of rulers in Rome was anything but straight, and had several dynasties. So there was no blood line.
6) Five emperors did not die in five years.
7) The armor looks great for the era of the Late Roman Republic and early Empire, but was nothing like this in the 5th century
8) The 9th Legion (Legio IX Hispana) wouldn't have been in Britain in the 5th century, since it was destroyed in Palestine in the 2nd century. The 9th Legion did take part in the invasion of Britain. Kudos to the creators for noticing that fact.
9) Romulus Augustus was sent to the Castel dell'Ovo, but it is hardly a mountain fortress. It was also NOT built by Tragan, but much earlier by the Scipio family and was fortified by Valentinian III only a few decades earlier!
10) The Germanic people's of Odoacer are called Goths, but that's not quite right. Theodoric, who killed Odoacer was a Goth, but the forces of Odoacer were not. They were Germanic and probably weren't quite the barbarians the film depicts

[–] pol-edra 15 years ago

I feel your pain. It must have been torture watching this movie and noticing all the non-historical bits, since there's more fantasy than history all along. In fact, I'm not entirely sure the few details directly imported from history books matter much in the plot. The literary references to characters and place names were more interesting, IMO.
So many of my friends are either professional historians or very clever and well-informed amateurs who cringe at history-abuse in fiction. I'm always very grateful for the information they provide but also a bit sad for the number of movies and novels they cannot possibly enjoy because of their love for non-fiction. I know it's not something you can decide ahead, before watching a movie or reading a book, but if you have that turn of mind and are pleased by historical accuracy / displeased by historical fiction or even historical fantasy, I can only advise you to stay away from that kind of movie. You're not likely to enjoy them.

I'm a Sidekick and proud of it.

[–] peter-501 15 years ago

I didn't expect this to be a masterpiece, but by half way through I sort of realized this was really on par with 300, as in totally out there and not even close to the truth.

My problem with this is that it would have been fairly easy to just make up a few characters at the end of Roman Empire, set them in Britain and have them do battle there... oh, right that was done already in King Arthur!

[–] pol-edra 15 years ago

"oh, right that was done already in King Arthur! "
he he! ;)
Pretty poorly done from the historical point of view as well, BTW. But a more pleasant piece of fiction on the whole I think. Less childish, maybe, thanks to the battle-scenes.

I'm a Sidekick and proud of it.

[–] Soylent-Red 15 years ago

The difference being that 300 was based word for word upon a graphic novel, and was disappointing for completely different reasons to this utter piece of tripe.

Spring loaded blades on swords? Machinegun ballistae used in an ambush?

And that's just the crap i can remember from this poorly scripted, poorly casted, poorly constructed pile of crap.

[–] Tsotha-lanti 15 years ago

Gibbon says that the boy was called Augustulus or little Augustus. :)

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Imagine that.

[–] erranthistorian 15 years ago

Other than the movie having never said it was even attempting at being historically accurate, it doesn't have a contract with the viewer to be so. As a historian and professor I've no problem with it based on its entertainment value versus its historio-authenticity. I used to judge movies like this based on that first, but then realized it ruined the experience and I was wasting hours and hours watching absolute rubbish. So, I switched it around and have much more fun discussing films and their varying degrees of accuracy with colleagues as I am a fan of counter-factual and alternative historical speculation.

And just so others know, Soylent is being a tad ignorant. The punch dagger, not a sword, with retractable blades is a katar, a perfectly viable weapon for an Indian fighter as it is an Indian weapon and used completely accurately in its uses and techniques in the film.

Also, those were not 'machinegun' ballistae, as that implies, vaguely, that the bolts were being propelled by gunpowder and it was a rapid-fire weapon, which it was not. It fire multiple missiles at once, another historically accurate, but somewhat poorly pulled off, for the film. (Especially considering that after both fire, a shot cuts to one almost simultaneously being reloaded by one soldier.)

[–] monkeyblood 15 years ago

one question sir, does the back of your hand hurt? that was quite a b-slap. well played.

[–] theromanempire-1 15 years ago

10) Just say they were....SCYRIANS.

[–] a-bollinger 14 years ago

True. Odoacer was a scyrian. They probably mixed him up in the movie with the goth Theoderic (who later murdered Odoacer). Odoacer is considered by present day historians as a very able leader, trying for some short time quite successfully (and politically bloody correctly) to have a working co-existence of Romans and "barbarians". - I know that as a scholar of ancient history, I should not expect too much historical accuracy in movies like this one. I usually don't. But I just cringed at the stereotyped presentation of the "Germanic barbarians" - and I especially disliked the completely erroneous presentation of "Odoacer" as a bloodthirsty, power-obsessed tyrant. That's just drivel.

[–] dust-7 15 years ago

People so often complain about 'nit-picking'. Mel Gibson had a film about the first major US engagement with the NVA in the highlands, called We Were Soldiers. Yet the film ends with a complete and utter fiction, and completely ignores the subsequent massacre of those replacements in there to 'sweep up', etc. You're right - it's not nit-picking. There's a limit to the fiction in historical fiction.

However, when talking about the Romans in England, historical fiction does sway toward the fiction and not the history. It's sort of an exception. In addition, you're talking about the Merlin story, in addition to that - which is complete fiction, and basically a French fiction at that.

There were periods were emperors were assassinated or died in battle just one right after the other. They could speak of female assassins, which is what she was, working as 'security' for certain Turkish rulers or others. But it's a stretch, and everyone can see the role was made to fit the actress not to fit the story. Hollywood film-making.

The idea that Excalibur was forged from a meteorite and magically made for the hand of a ruler, even if the ruler didn't realize where he would rule, is interesting. Again, there's so much around the Merlin/Arthur tales, Lancelot and the rest. And the idea that Arthur was only just this far removed from the last of a particular line of Roman Emperors is also intriguing and helps tie history together. But as you suggest - it was tied together in a much different way, and just as interesting.

Maybe they'll make a movie about it, someday.

[–] broncos24 14 years ago

yes it may have factual errors but it is just a movie an to create a story that is very loosey based on the last Ceaser they took some liberties on some historic events.

[–] remildragos 14 years ago

The problem is that it is based on a book. The book is good and while fictional too, it does try to be as accurate as possible. The failure of the movie comes from trying to be different from the book. And let's face it, the author Valerio Massimo Manfredi is a historian, the screenwriters are not.

[–] afhick 14 years ago

The last time I checked, the whole Arthur/Merlin sword-in-the-stone thing was a MYTH, made up some 800 years after the Romans left Britannia. Do people watch Lord of the Rings because Elves and Hobbits are accurately depicted? I hope not! So why watch a film like this for anything other than entertainment value? I thought it was fun!

"The Mountain Has Wings"

[–] TeOfLeDiKi 11 years ago

@afhickman: Finally! I just watched this movie for the first time and, while it certainly wasn't great, it was pretty enjoyable. The cinematography was gorgeous (except for a few scenes that were obviously shot in front of green screen), and it wasn't nearly as bad as most posters here complain.

It's not meant to be historically accurate, so to everyone who objected to the movie on that basis - . I do think that the connections between the story and the Arthurian legend could have been made earlier in the film and then carried throughout the story, rather than having the viewer knocked over the head with it in the final minutes.

If I were to "grade" the film, I'd give it a B or a B- overall. Not a waste of my time, definitely.

neat . . . sweet . . . petite

[–] berzelmayr 14 years ago

actually, the armour nad weapons were not only out of place regarding this Late Roman era, it also looked very cheap.

[–] 14 years ago

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[–] truther 11 years ago

I just caught the start of this movie on TV. It starts in the city of Rome, where Romulus Augustulus is crowned the new western emperor. In real life, of course, Rome wasn't the capital of the western Roman empire any more. By the time of the real Odoacer and Augustulus the capital was Ravenna. Before then it had been Milan. Rome the city hadn't been the capital since the 300s. There were more than a few 5th-century emperors who never set foot in Rome.

(At least the movie acknowledges that the eastern capital was Constantinople. So points for that.)

[–] will-694 10 years ago

Ummm . . . the tale is about a magic sword . . . you think reality was foremost on the writer's or director's mind?