MovieChat Forums > Rome: Rise and Fall of an Empire (2008) Discussion > Highly entertaining + informative though...

Highly entertaining + informative though lots of visual inaccuracies


Since I enjoy ancient Roman military history, I purchased this History Channel historical mini-series, ROME: RISE AND FALL OF AN EMPIRE. The History Channel puts out a lot of entertaining historical and prehistoric material that is usually available on dvd.

I can honestly admit that I was thoroughly entertained by this dvd series. Unfortunately, since I own a large number of ancient Roman military history books, I can detect obvious inaccuracies that really cause me distress.

The most obvious I will discuss here is the inaccuracy of the Roman legionary soldier uniform and armor depicted. I speculate that keeping production costs to a minimum might have been the major factor because whoever did the historical research for the mini-series would have immediately known better.
Throughout the entire 13-hour mini-series, the Roman legionaries are depicted in THE SAME UNIFORM AND ARMOUR that was standard at the time of emperors Vespasian to Trajan, circa, 69 AD to 100 AD. Even the first episode which is about the later Roman Republic period has the legionaries in this same outfit.

It's like watching the movie, "The Battle of the Bulge" where American M47 Patton tanks are used for German panther tanks. I just want to yell out loud...more, I want to contact the producers and scold them for treating the public viewers as idiots.

Just as the uniforms and weapons of the U.S. Army changed and evolved over the space of 200 years, the same was very true of the Roman army over the period of 500 years. The helmets, the armour, and the weapons, while remaining at the same technological sword and spear stage, did significantly change in design, materials, type, pattern, everything. The Roman legionary of 100 B.C. looked radically different that his 100 A.D. counterpart. And the Roman legionary of 350 A.D. looked nothing like his 100 A.D. predecessor.

Try to understand one thing. If you're the kind of person who's going to spend the money and time to watch this dvd series, then it can be presumed that you already know something about ancient history, especially Roman history. So you would immediately detect the discrepancies.

P.S., In the episode, 'Invasion of Britain', pretty, youthful Brigantes queen Cartamandua is married to what looks to be some white-haired, white-bearded 50-year old guy. Can that be true? Why would she do something like that?

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Weren't they a bit outdated in the way they portrayed the Emperor Domitian?
It seems more modern scholarship has revealed him to be a much better Emperor (and less of a cruel tyrant) than he was once thought to be.

The treatment of the Emperor Aurelian-who I knew little about-was a revelation to me. Why on earth did he get bumped off when he'd saved the empire?

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How would you compare this to the HBO mini-series, ROME?

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yeah I too was a little dissapointed that they used "hollywood Romans" troughout something depicting 600+ years of evolution..
There actually is no proof whatsoever that the romans wore red,as dye were extremely expensive back then..red dye WERE the cheapest at the time,but not that cheap lol..

Oh and this is not preshistorical times(lol) but classical antiquty..

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I must admit I was pleasently surprised by this series. I honestly didn't expect something this in-depth about Rome from the History Channel, considering their track record. What amazed me was how they covered some of the more obscure periods of Roman history - such as Marius's campaigns against the Teutons and the Cimbri (might not be all that obscure to Roman buffs - but to the general public it is) Ostorius Scapula's war against British guerillas, The Battle of Teutoberg forest, The Dacian Wars, and perhaps most surprising of all - the episodes about Decius and Herennius, Aurelian, Stilicho, Flavius Orestes, and Ricimer. Fair enough, they covered some of the more famous figures - Julius Caesar, Spartacus and Marcus Aurelius - but you've got to hand it to them to cover such obscure figures and events from Roman history - Decius and Ricimer especially.

Too bad the costumes were incorrect (that's almost certainly a budget problem), as well as the cheesy battle scenes, which seemed to consist entireley of about 30 guys kicking tables over and whacking each other with foam swords. But that can be overlooked in terms of the content.

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Another thing that I notice in a lot of docs is the Praetorian Guards in full armor walking around the streets of Rome. Augustus started using the Praetorians for bodyguards but, within the city walls, they were togate, much like earlier lictors, and carried the gladius instead of the fasces.

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