Roman Holiday

Have you ever noticed the way that the Romans generally get a bad press in movies?  They're always the villains, decadent invaders oppressing the local barbarians.  This despite the fact that they brought what we'd now call civilisation wherever they went - roads, aqueducts, a system of law and order, villas instead of hovels, underfloor heating, religious tolerance and much, much more - and the fact that our modern western culture derives many of its core concepts from the Romans (and through them, the Greeks).  I put  it down to the bloody Christians, who have never forgiven the Romans for allegedly oppressing them.  The fact is that if the Christians hadn't spent so much time proclaiming their god as the only true god and denouncing the Roman gods, then they probably wouldn't have encountered such hostility.  Besides, they've never got over the fact that Rome was at its greatest when it was a pagan empire - the decline only set in after Constantine converted to Christianity.

Anyway, bearing all this in mind, it was with some interest that I saw Caesar the Conqueror in the Movies4Men schedules the other day.  A 'peplum' from the sixties, I was curious to see whether Italian film makers would treat their ancestors any more sympathetically.  The film purports to depict Julius Caesar's campaign in Gaul, although its historical accuracy is highly questionable.  Whoever choreographed the battle scenes had clearly no idea of how Roman legions fought - they didn't just all charge at the enemy and pile in!  Indeed, one of the main reasons for the Romans' military successes against various barbarian tribes was its use of strictly regimented formations, with the legionaries using their shields as a defensive wall, behind which they slowly advanced and through which attacks couldn't penetrate.  Nevertheless, to get back to the point, the Romans in this one definitely seemed to be the more sympathetically portrayed of the two sides, with Vercingetorix, the Gaulish leader, portrayed as a cruel and bloodthirsty megalomaniac, in contrast to a thoughtful and measured (not mention overaged) Caesar.  That said, Vercingetorix did get to wear a pretty magnificent winged helmet at times, (although he didn't sport the traditional Gaulish handlebar moustache he's usually depicted with).  Several of the Gauls sported such headgear, whilst others seemed to be dressed more like Mongol warriors, (I can only assume that a film about Genghis Khan had recently been shot at the same studio).  Perhaps the most significant thing I learned from Caesar the Conqueror was that, in ancient times, everyone was badly dubbed and spoke out of synch...