Roman Historian Rates 10 Ancient Rome Battles In Movies And TV | How Real Is It? | Insider

Roman generals almost never bear the ordeal. He loses his ability to command the battle. He's out there fighting a German and it's his subordinate who's in the center with the Infantry. My name is Michael Taylor. I am an associate professor of history at the University. At Albany I am an expert in

ancient

military history, particularly focused on the military history of the Roman Republic and the Roman army. Today we will look at the

battles

of

ancient

Rome in

movies

and television shows and judge how

real

they are. Those are Roman. Try, we have a time travel scenario here where Indiana Jones has been transported back to the siege of Syracuse in the year 212 BC.

C. a plane flying over this siege where the Romans are trying to capture the Greek city of Syracuse during the Second Punic War. What indie gets wrong is that Harrison Ford calls these boats trams. At this point, the Romans are almost certainly deploying Quin KS. A larger boat has more rowers, more power, and as a result, more deck space since you can actually fit larger catapults. um so if you're doing a naval siege which is an aspect of the siege of Syracuse um you're going to want um Quin KS, the kind of giant rays that penetrate the plane, um that's not necessarily un

real

istic, I would be very surprised if some Roman catapult or ballista could go as far as shown in that scene, trying to, you know, shoot a plane in the air.

The famous defense of Syracuse at the Siege of Syracuse was overseen by Archimedes, the scientist. and the engineer um, he has also installed or assembled a number of cranes um and some of these cranes have a chain and a grappling hook. I argue that these cranes are supposedly quite effective at swinging and getting this grappling hook at the end of chaining themselves to a ship and in some cases capsizing the ships. That story, of course, also improved over time, including the fanciful notion that he set up a series of reflective mirrors or shields to set Roman ships on fire, which appears to be physically impossible.

The whole scene is fanciful and doesn't seem terribly historical to me, so I give it a three. It can actually be reasonably effective. You can certainly kill someone. The only disadvantage is a shield. The shield wall those soldiers are making will most likely repel those slings, so slings are used for skirmishes, but if you have a really disciplined infantry formation you won't be able to break it with just slings and arrows. I have at least one instance of a line throwing it followed by another line followed by another, so it is a kind of rolling volley, that is attested in our sources in Hollywood

movies

, they very rarely show the Romans throwing their javelins which every Roman legionary carries. two heavy javelins are called uh singular pilum plural Pila um and they are very, very lethal weapons.

They have a long iron handle. If it breaks through an enemy shield, it continues towards whatever is behind that shield, so a peum volley is truly devastating. In this case, they are fighting light infantry, but it's really a way to even the odds when you're facing a lot of missile troops. You have things you can throw to make them run away. A testudo formation is just a very compact one. formation where not only are the shields in the front at the front of the formation joined together, but the soldiers in the back rows raise their shields above their heads, the soldiers on their sides hold their shields at their sides and it basically creates a sort of box-shaped formation that protects soldiers as they advance.

It is mainly attested in sieges. The GU actually walks towards the TU studio. It's also something we hear about. It's a way to attract guys. on a low wall um and it's something that is even practiced in uh in the amphitheater sometimes as a kind of demonstration of military agility. I'm going to give it an eight. I liked an attempt to show how the tactics could work. Again they form a testudo there um but they don't need to form a testudo if there's some sort of aerial threat from missile weapons um there it looked like it might actually be a disadvantageous formation um because uh, like they kind of show if you're in that dense formation and The boys are coming towards you, it is difficult for you to use your own weapons against them.

If I were a halfway sensible British warrior, I wouldn't jump on top of a Roman shield because I know there's a Gladius coming right behind him. Circle so we heard about a formation that you use when you're unfortunately like these Romans surrounded by enemies um and it's called orbus basically a circle like a formation that you use if you need to form a perimeter on all sides um whether that's the case or not It looked exactly well, obviously, we can't tell, but um uh, that's actually a real formation. When we hear that the tanks are being eliminated, the advice is to send someone with a missile gun, an archer or a slinger or, in this case, a guy with a peum um and kill the driver and then that disables the tank, that's probably one of the reasons cars disappear is um it's easy it's easy to kill a guy and then the whole system is kind of broken.

Whereas, you know, with the Calvary men, you could kill a Calvary man, but there are others on those horses. Overall, I think this clip is pretty good. I'd be tempted to give it a nine, the kind for giant stone-throwing catapults. The Romans might call him onager because he kicks like a wild donkey called onar. These huge catapults probably wouldn't be deployed in a field battle. The Romans could use catapults like that. You would use them in a siege scenario because when you're fighting. In a battle, you want artillery that you can easily reposition as your forces move around the battlefield, so the Romans have field artillery that you can, which is tactical, can be used in a battle, um, but it's smaller, can be carried on a The chariot's flaming arrows can be used again in a Siege scenario if you want to shoot them to set the roof of a tower on fire or illuminate buildings, say behind a burning wall, they are of no use to you. nothing in an inclined situation.

Battle, if you hit a guy with an arrow, his problem is that he has an arrow sticking out of him, not that the shaft is on fire. Hollywood needs light, um, and the flaming arrows provide that for the kind of spectacle of the scene, if you plan for it. To advance on a battlefield you don't necessarily want to set it on fire before your own forces enter it in terms of what incendiary devices are available to the Romans, they have things like just putting charcoal in a pot and then those burning embers come out when The pot breaks on impact.

They seem to use a variety of petroleum products, uh, that could burn one thing, one thing. I would point out that incendiary devices get really good in the Middle Ages and the secret ingredient there. It's gunpowder, they don't have it in the ancient world, so all their incendiary devices are a bit lacking. One thing that is not authentic is Um Maximus leading the charge himself. Roman generals almost never charge with them, they tend to position themselves right in the center. of the battle where they can control things and have maximum knowledge of the situation, then, for Maximus to bear the ordeal, he notices that he loses his ability to command the battle, he is out there fighting a German and it is his subordinate who is in the middle. with the infantry, who is actually in the best position to exercise any kind of command and control over that situation.

Roman generals like to stay in the middle and usually stick with the infantry, also partly because the infantry tends to be the decisive point. In Roman battle, the Romans basically don't use chariots of any kind tactically other than the ceremonial chariot, so there would have been no celestial chariots. I'd say it's a decent formation, but if you're under any sort of Calvary attack or Chariot attack, it seems like one of the best things you can do is field a relatively dense Mast formation that prevents one or two people from being taken out. . I'd say I'd be inclined to give it about a seven, this is a very rare clip that actually attempts to show a legion maneuvering over a battlefield in the Triplex AAS, the three battle lines that the Romans have, where their cohorts and its individual units are arranged.

This kind of checkerboard formation, so the Romans don't like to form a single dense mass formation, because that single dense mass formation can be fragile, it can break with an obstacle if it gets messed up, everything gets messed up. , each cohort struggles a little. independently of the other cohorts and that really gives the Legion as a whole a lot of tactical flexibility on the battlefield. If I'm the Romans on the front and I see these guys rolling the logs, I'm just going to kill the guys that are rolling. the fire logs and then the problem is solved.

I also assume that those logs stay on fire because they have put a lot of gasoline in them. The Ancients aren't going to have any kind of incendiary material that effective, which means. The logs are probably just going to burn as they go, so the swords approximate the Roman Gladius that's in use right now, um uh, and one thing that's not authentic is that you don't use a Gladius to sort. up close with the way they are fencing in this clip, but a Gladius is always used with a scoto, the sword is too short and thick to parry effectively, essentially, if you engage an opponent you absorb and parry their blows with your shorts. and then you attack with your Gladius, it's the scum and the Gladius are together, a kind of weapon system.

I'd give this a seven, classic Legion, uh, moving across the field. I must say that I have a soft spot for Once everything degene

rates

into scrum, it gets much worse. Chariot races are particularly popular throughout the Roman Empire as a centerpiece of organized games. It is a dangerous profession. Maybe not as dangerous as being a gladiator, but that's what it is. It is certainly a very dangerous act that you are performing. Charioteers sometimes wear safety gear, but it's padded and designed specifically for what happens if I fall off this horse. We know that they would carry some type of knife to cut the rains.

They could get off their wagon before things really got out of hand, piracy at this point exists, but no pirate will be in a position to have a huge fleet and engage in a fleet style action against the Roman Navy, these guys are probably It will be much more similar to the type of Somali pi

rates

that we have seen in the Red Sea, fishermen who have boats or people who are sometimes merchants, sometimes raiders, but not with the military capacity to even try to attack someone. type of

roman

force reming spe yeah, it's cool to break his ores, but it's even better if you can place your ram on the hull of his ship and then that sinks him.

We absolutely know that ships sink due to ramming. found off the coast of Sicily um a series of rams left over from a naval battle B between the Romans and the Carthaginians um and where each ram is collected from the sea 4 that's where a ship was rammed it sank to the bottom the timbers they rotted away and now there's a ram on the floor of the Mediterranean as much as The chariot scene is classic the naval battle is just horrible um so I'm going to say five okay so this is based on tudo burger battle VA taking place took place in the year 9 AD. and it was an ambush by a German Confederation of three Roman legions moving through the Tberg Forest.

It is one of the greatest losses suffered by the Romans during the imperial period. Three legions annihilated in the course of uh. three days and this is the Roman army in the middle of our forests and swamps, so the Romans are not necessarily marching in a large square. Varys and his soldiers are vulnerable simply because they are moving along narrow, poorly developed paths in a forest. that would require them a relatively long serpentine column that supposedly those three Legions were divided into soldiers fighting back to back here um it certainly wouldn't be ideal, it's something you only do if you're caught unprepared in an ambush and the type of formation you're in. you might want to go in if there are germans everywhere it could be something like an orbis formation um or uh you know some kind of square perimeter.

I'm going to give it an eight. the military equipment actually looks pretty good the theica segment of the armor is actually attested for the first time on this battlefield um it's the first time we've recovered it archaeologically it's that kind of cool face mask we see the officer wearing and also reflects a find we found at the Cal Crezy Site I am not aware of whistles being used. We certainly know that trumpets are used to, usually at a higher level, signal troops to move in a certain way. Here probably the centurion's most effective type of equipment is just going to be his own voice centurions I think I should use the cliché they are the backbone of the Roman army they are um uh a very important officer in the Roman army there are centurions in every legion um and that meansThere are actually a lot of people who can control troops at a very local level, um, so even if the general doesn't know what's going on, the centurians can make decisions, now we know that Caesar's army, which just like the Spartacus's army generally fights in three lines. and one reason for doing so is that if the people on the front line become exhausted, you can bring in cohorts from the rear ranks to replace them.

That said, we have no evidence of any kind of extremely coordinated system of rotating men within an individual century or cohort, um, that's something they've invented, um, so the system they show honestly seems clumsy and impractical to me, You don't want so many men running around in formation when you're trying to maintain consistency and the targets seem to be rushing against you. We also have a textual passage describing a battle fought shortly after Caesar's death as part of the War. Roman Civil that simply says that the men remained in the front row. until they were killed and then replaced, so it's probably the easiest way to do it.

Get back in formation, you drunk fool. Poles and Venus are based on real centurions in Caesar's army, um, who fight bravely for Caesar in Gaul. Polo in this series. just portrayed as this total mistake, the actual historical Pole uh is a very, very effective centurion just like Venus um and uh, you know, he's a professional military man. Some things I like include the fact that all the Roman soldiers are wearing clothes. male armor that is authentic. I like the idea of ​​Roman soldiers fighting in coherent formations. I'm going to give it an eight. The Romans are deploying a type of heavily armored cavalry called U cleanar or katati, these are developed in the East.

Initially they were probably developed in Iran, but the Romans learned of their effectiveness and copied them, they are actually kind of precursors to, in some ways, the medieval knights, most of these units are still in the East, but it is not impossible that you did it. You would have cateracts fighting in the late Roman West with heavy armor for the rider, heavy armor for the horse, and using a spear as their primary weapon. Horse archers in general, um, can be extremely accurate, the most accurate. Horse archers will be those that are usually raised in a sort of U or pl echelon environment and grow up practicing horse archery, that is where the Romans will try to recruit their horse archers, if they can they can shoot on the spot appropriate. by the time you know between the horse's hooves hit the ground then they have a pause to act and take a photo before the bomb, this film imagines that Arthur is a late Roman commander and has been given the same name as a historical figure .

Lucius artorius casus spent part of his career in Britain, probably living in the 2nd or 3rd century, many hundreds of years before this film was set. I'm going to have to give you the simple fact that there are Romans in Britain, in the 5th century, is in itself probably the most ridiculous thing. Octavian's ships are much faster than our Egyptian tubs. The Battle of Acum is the last major battle of the Civil War between Octavian, the adopted son of Julius Caesar, and Mark Antony, who had been one of Caesar's most loyal lieutenants, they soon come to blows and at the Battle of Actium Octavian defeats Mark Antony.

Mark Antony is allied with Cleopatra. Cleopatra has in her inheritance Ed, the Toic fleet, and the Toames have traditionally had a fleet. of very, very heavy warships, that's actually one of the most accurate things they say in the movie, those ships are designed primarily, it seems to do naval sieges, kind of like the siege of Syracuse that we saw, where you want big ships that they can have a lot. of artillery pieces, this is one of the rare naval

battles

where incendiary devices seem to be useful, possibly because the smaller ships Octavian is using won't necessarily be able to effectively ram all of Antony's, you know.

Big big ships throwing javelins won't stop them from ramming you. Now you can avoid being accosted. That might be a consideration if you think that ship is approaching you to board you. I'm going to want to try to kill as many soldiers on the deck of the enemy ship, uh, to avoid the abortion. Ironically, the only advantage of doing so is that if you have been successfully rammed and your ship is hit, you might as well try, you might as well try. Get on your boat and board them. There are some Rams that are installed above the water line as sort of secondary Rams and those tend to be a little narrower, it seems like the idea is to cause some type of secondary damage compared to the main Ram. the kind of big pointy pencil like um Rams on the water is not very accurate, although again we have, we have some narrower Rams on the water.

You don't do that with a Gladius uh, if you're boarding an enemy ship, you're going to have your shield um and it's going to be tricky and nasty and slippery and difficult, but you're going to fight the best you can protecting yourself with your shield, you know, hitting with your sword, I think the scene is generally terrible um, I'm going to give it a two, I'm surprised to say it, but my favorite scene in terms of military precision um was from rizen. I thought rizen um did the best job of showing the range of actions that Roman soldiers performed.

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