So he comments on the swords and armor, but not on the fact that emperors aren't normally given to jumping down into the arena and fighting the prisoners themselves?
It’s better than some other videos, because the historian doesn’t just focuses on the 100% accuracy, but actually understands the importance of creating a movie that is interesting to watch. And he overall seems like a very interesting person, and not just someone who knows a lot about some period of time.
i dont know which specific other videos you are talking about. But just because some of these historians/scientists/scholars are hyper critical in their videos doesnt mean that dont "understands the importance of creating a movie that is interesting to watch". If i am a physisics who get asked to comment on the physics in some movie clips, then that's what im going to do. If im asked to explain what parts of the clip that is accurate and what is not, then thats what im going to do, even if i understand that a movie is first and foremost entertainment.
@@KevinUchihaOG i was talking specifically about historians, not other scientists. Obviously the science has to be correct, or at least make sense, of we are talking about science fiction. I'm studying biology myself and also get very annoyed, when there are things in the movies that don't make sense. And about history, I more than understand the importance of historical accuracy. But some guests in these types of videos are literally talking about every single minor detail in the costume, setting etc, and although if with many of them i agree, it feels like, if it was up to them, the movie would've just been the most boring documentary in the world. While this guy is pretty much like: yh, it's not perfect, but the movie doesn't get worse because of this particular minor detail. (Or something like that, i watched the video quite a long time ago)
@@sofiagolubtsova2268 The problem is that Gladiator is not about some minor inaccuracies... They literally change facts for the movies: the death of two emperors... And depicted germans like idiotic barbarians from a Conan movie...
03:34 That's the myth of the "blood runnel", or "blood groove". This is the historical nickname for the fuller, which has led to people believing blood running through it is part of how a sword kills. The only reason the fuller groove exists is to lighten the blade where the steel is unnecessarily thick. This also moves the point of balance down towards the grip, which makes the sword faster and less top heavy ("baseball bat-like"). Swords get stuck because they bite into bone or armour, there is no vacuum to overcome. Otherwise the teeth of crocodiles and big cats would also have blood runnels. I'm no historian, I'm just a hema and weapon smith student, but I can see how easy a proper historian, whose focus is on bigger military and political issues, can miss the minutia of blade mechanics so that this urban myth can propagate.
I too started yelling at my screen when he came out that, that piece of nonsense. He's a historian I s'pose not a weapons expert but still.....Research people!!!!! It's been debunked move on.
Yeah it's pretty ridiculous to assume the "only way" to extract a sword without a blood groove is to twist it. Friction might grip the blade a bit, but having stabbed many sides of ham (more or less analogous to human flesh) with butcher knives, I can say that the blade pulls out with just a slight tug. With the energy and excitement of a proper battle, I don't think a Legionary or Gladiator would notice any resistance in the slightest.
Another important thing to note is Commodus in real life did actually fight in the Colosseum as Emperor although the matches were always basically guaranteed for him and it contributed to his downfall
I believe Commodus had the swords of his opponents blunted, so they had barely any chance to kill him. When they realized what was going on, they tended to give up and let him kill them. Until one gladiator, I think he may have been made Commodus' bodyguard or something, found out that Commodus had been blunting the swords. So he took one of those blunt swords, went into Commodus' room, and stabbed Commodus with the blunted blade. Which would've been pretty hard to do. Like stabbing someone with a spoon... sort of.
It's not that the match were guaranteed for him, it's that Commodus actually was a great fighter, differently from his father. He was initially loved by the soldiers for this reason.
The part of Pompeii that drove me nuts particularly was they showed the main characters turning to stone at the end. Not remotely what happened. The stone figures were formed by later historians pouring cement into the voids left by the decomposed bodies.
I think you missed the point if what happened. It turned them to stone for the credits to roll where it showed real versions of the ash population.... in that blast they would have been bits of flesh and bone, judging from the velocity and what's traveling in the blast I.e rocks, crit ect... which would tear the charing flesh right off. Ofcouse they would have died instantly... but you have blatantly missed what they where doing in that scene
There were parts of it I thought were good, but overall it was disappointing considering the information they had to make it accurate. And the acting was atrocious !
It is widely accepted that the fullers or grooves in sword blades were not there to make them easier to pull out, but to simply make the blades lighter.
Widely accepted doesn't mean it's correct. The fuller were not only for lightening the load, it also serves as reinforcing the blade so it's more durable, and making it easier to retrieve the blade from a wound is a plus, even strong fighters would need a lot of force to retrieve a blade after a deep thrust
@@battle_toast You just saying all that doesn't make it correct either. It makes the blade lighter without weakening too much but it makes the blade weaker for sure to remove material. As for fuller making it easier for blades to remove from a body, the burden of proof is on the person who makes the claim.
Simon is a great historian, I've read a couple of his excellent books.....but he's not a vulcanologist and the volcano is being shown inaccurately! Whilst he my be describing what Pliny may have seen, with bombs and pumice tumbling from the sky like snow, this is a short phase of the eruption when Vesuvius explodes initially, so should have been a brief part of the eruption. If you look at the remains in Herculaneum (a town nearer to the volcano), that town was hit with a massive pyroclastic flow (a collapsing cloud of toxic gasses, super heated steam and ash at 500°C which is no longer able to support it's own weight when it gets too massive), so a massive ash cloud must form after the initial eruption, with spectacular lightning in the cloud and then what we should see is collapses of that cloud.... So it rolls and tumbles down the mountain, at 200mph, roasting/cooking everything it comes into contact with (death would be instentaneous for anyone in the way). By the time that cloud hits Pompeii the cloud has cooled, so the ash tumbles through the town much like an airborne debris tsunami. So the film should have been showing the collapse of the clouds of ash and then showing them rolling down the mountain at high speed, along with the falling of light weight ash as you see in the film, not the over proportioned tsunami wave from the sea with boats crashing through the town.
Thanks for taking the time to write this out and explain this too us :). I'm not planning on a career in vulcanology or anything related, but it was still interesting to learn a little something. As a scientist, I am always looking to better and more accurately understand the world, so where some might write your comment off as, say, pedantry, I however see the value. Honestly, from what you described? It sounds like that would be really cool to witness on the big screen. Although, that said, I have no idea how much harder or easier it would be for the VFX artists to be working more with cloud/gas/particle/etc effects than just "big fiery rocks come down, pew pew" and still have a realistic looking end product *shrug*. Because, in my humble opinion, what you're describing sounds at LEAST as visually captivating.
Some interesting things here, but the results of weapons getting stuck in a body is mostly a complete myth. I know from personal experience of striking targets that swords don't get 'grabbed' by the body. Bones can jar the initial impact and a lance or spear can go in deep enough to make a twisting falling target grab a little, but not much.
That's pretty interesting; I've read that particular danger in many sources - it's not one I'd have expected to be a myth. Are axes and picks any more difficult to extract, or do swords have an advantage there?
It caught me too when he said that. Then I remembered being taught that 20+years ago and I wondered if this is a case of a teacher not being up to date with actually historical combat, or simply perpetuating an old outdated viewpoint long since proven false.
@@patrickmcmahon6303 whose comment? Mine? If so I thought this was a forum for exchange of points of view? Weapons like swords don't get stuck in wounds very often at all, I thought that might be useful for people to know.
The fuller common on later swords was simply there to reduce weight. It was not a blood groove nor did it help in preventing any suction. Later 14th and 15th century longswords and arming swords often had diamond cross sections with no fullers too, and certain blade geometries simply don't need it.
The slaves as rowers was something i was sceptical about even as a kid when i saw Ben Hur. Doesn't take a genius to know that depending on people with no loyalty for your very survival is a mistake.
Galley slaves in the 16th century were motivated enough by the fact that not rowing would likely mean their ship was going to be sunk (with them on it) by enemy cannon fire. In the Roman era though, yeah; good luck controlling those slaves in the middle of battle.
My thoughts exactly. Regardless of how well you can tie them down, having a crew of potential angry mutineers outnumbering your regular crew by quite a lot sounds like asking for disaster.
@@gchecosse Actually not entirely true. Athens promised slaves and poor inhabitants/farmers money if they choose to be in the Athenian Navy. They did get loyalty due to being paid but there were slaves in the athenian warships
I've been to Pompeii. It's one of the eeriest places I've ever been. It was very hot and humid, but I had goosebumps and shivers all the way around it. I can confirm that Vesuvius did loom over it as depicted in the film. It was quite menacing.
@@brandonmcstay6401 well, the soil from the volcano would've made it a very fertile land. I think if I was a lowly farmer back then, I would've tried my luck and settled there. And probably end up dead as well lol
@@misanthropicservitorofmars2116 The word volcano comes from the God Vulcan, or rather the island of Vulcano, which itself is named after Vulcan. They believed the island was was formed from the debris coming out of a volcano. They believed that volcanos were the chimneys to Vulcans workshops, and that earthquakes were Vulcan making tools & weapons for wars fought by the God's. Also, Vulcan was married to Venus and the eruptions at Mt. Etna were thought to be Vulcan taking out his frustrations towards Venus, on his anvils.
One aspect I really liked in The Eagle was Tatum's character is briefly shown as a worshipper of Isis. The cult of Isis was at its peak in the Roman Empire in this period; that the filmmakers even threw that detail in rather than letting us assume he's worshipping Jupiter or some other Roman god is really cool.
In the book……which is one of my absolute favourites….. Marcus is a follower of Mithras and has to conceal the Mithras brand on his forehead as he goes North . It’s also how he identifies the native hunter who has survived the massacre by turning native.
@@carolb.4837 in the film he is a follower a Mithras and he hides the mark (I think at the top of his nose) created by wearing his helmet for prolonged periods. Can’t remember a mention of Isis
Contents 00:19 Gladiator 05:21 Pompeii 09:33 Ben Hur 15:03 The Eagle Gladiator is my 2nd favorite movie of all time, so it's cool to know it's relatively accurate as well!
So glad he spotlighted The Eagle and Rosemary Sutcliff’s wonderful stories. The movie isn’t really a great adaptation in some ways - it doesn’t do the characters very well. But it’s still a good movie on its own and I love how it built a believable Roman world. I highly recommend the book “The Eagle of the Ninth” to everyone. It’s one of the great classics of 20th century English literature.
Thanks for the recommendations. I enjoyed other fiction set in Ancient Rome, and wanted more, but hadn’t yet heard of Sutcliff or “The Eagle of the Ninth”. I wrote thm down and will check Audible, my favorite way to “read” these days. I hope they have them, their selection is pretty limited.🙂
It's always interesting seeing what type of historian you are working with. Some really prioritize accurate portrayal of events, years, dates, etc. Others appreciate the setting, equipment, the personality and feel of the historical figures portrayed.
The blood runner thing is already disproved by various swordsmiths, HEMA practitioners, et al. They are fullers made to remove material so the sword is lighter
If you've ever stabbed a rather large piece of meat (or butchered something using a cleaver -- which doesn't have a so-called 'blood groove') you already know this and didn't need 35 history degrees to realize it :D Butcher / farmer guy in Romania who killed several large pigs vs. qualified historian. :D
@@MrBooblo086 Living archeology " " is a valuable resource for expanding our knowledge of everything from ancient weapon systems to the practicality of ancient civic technology. The 'blood channel' thing is fucking absurd, this guy should know better.
I've heard that for the Eagle they trained real Military men for the Part of the Legionaires.I think that's why the scenes in the Camp and of the fight look so authentic.
I always thought that the circular formation in "The Eagle" was a bit of fanciful creative license, but the 36th Legion in Pontus actually did that, although on a much larger scale. The legion was completely surrounded so they formed up into a circle and fought their way out of trouble. Obviously, things tend to happen on much smaller scales in a movie for practical reasons, but the idea was actually based on something real.
@@123SEA1 The running testudo isn't ridiculous in the slightest. Also, the orbis formations were quite common for Roman legions/cohorts when they got surrounded. They're mentioned in Caesar's writings, and other historical works sometimes touch on the circular formations.
@@richardstephens5570 it wasn't just for missle attacks. They knew they were gonna be surrounded. To stop that and from people jumping into the circle to break the inner circle walls that keep the outer walls up, the top shields prevent that. Plus you have zero clue if a missle attack would occur. This served two purposes, stop rocks and other items from hitting them. Stop people from jumping in. Never seen a riot have you where people be throwing anything they can find over shields...
Ah, the age old myth of the "blood channel" on a bladed weapon. The fuller had nothing to do with creating an air channel to make it easier to pull the weapon out, and everything to do with reducing the weight of the weapon without compromising the strength of the material. A good comparison would be using a solid bar of steel in construction, when an I-beam is just as strong and far lighter.
i have worked stocking freight for over 30 years, i cut the top of boxes open all the time and turn them up side down and let the freight fall out of them. the freight falls out slowly because of suction, but if i also cut the flap at the bottom of the box the freight just instantly slides right out. so i easily comprehend the obvious concept of how the channel would make a blade easier to pull out of a body. but even having never done it i highly doubt the physiques of pulling a blade with channels along the sides out of a solid piece of meat filled with liquid would work the same way. i dont really see the channels making much difference. it is an entirely different kind of suction that would be created.
Bit bummed when he said that, supposed to be an expert, but I suppose you can't be an expert at every aspect! Certainly knows more about Roman culture than I.
@@anthonydevito1298 His reaction to the guys running out of the fort was pretty weird as well. I watched that film with my classics professor who absolutely despises that film and that particularly scene had him laughing like a loon.
The bit about blood runnels was complete nonsense. “Blood grooves” aren’t a thing, the grooves are called fullers and they are there to reduce weight. People get stabbed like 30 times in quick succession with kitchen knives all the time, which have no fuller, so the whole suction thing is nonsense. Disappointing.
To be fair, he might be talking about what the Romans 2000 years ago thought. I’m no historian but blacksmiths and armorers might have designed blades with “runnels” thinking it allowed for blood flow. I’m pretty sure this guy knows that fullers are used for both weight & strength purposes. But the Romans probably didn’t, so when he talks about the psychological effect of the opponent using a flat blade, in the historical time and specifically the combat being portrayed, it might make sense.
There's not much of it in that series, in many important aspects. But wth, at least some of the characters looked pretty so that makes it all okay, I guess. Even without Scribonia.
@@AimForMyHead81 Then that's a pretty damning assessment of modern media. Who the hell does a historical drama and plans for multiple seasons but omits the characters necessary to make it historically accurate?
@@AimForMyHead81 inclined to agree - it seems very accurate to me. Would have loved to hear his views on the battle scenes in "Fall of the RE".The battle scenes in that - v both the Germanic tribes,and the even better battle v the Persians.
@@Shan_Dalamani You need to elaborate on that. What historical figures were emitted? A character driven drama can't feel like a soap opera, you need to make amends when it comes to narrative and pacing. You also realise that the series was prematurely cancelled by the network because of the budget right? The series literally ends with Augustus becoming emperor and they couldn't go beyond that, hence the emmison of Scribonia, who was his SECOND wife. It had a budget of 200 million dollars. It was filmed on location in Italy with the biggest city sets ever built for any TV or film production. It featured an all star cast of A-grade actors and was meticulously crafted in every aspect from it's cinematography (shot on 35mm film cameras) and direction, to it's costume design and orchestral score. The fact they were even able to wrap it up as well as they did is a pretty incredible display of adaptive writing.
one thing I would like to point out, he talks about how the gladius would get stuck because it doesn't have any fullers (grooves) this is myth, fullers are on sword to make it lighter There are plenty of videos by smiths and sword experts about this
I’m impressed that they’re speaking actual Gaelic in The Eagle. It’s not likely to be the same as it was in that era, but it’s a nice touch that adds to the authenticity.
Thank you so much for telling people about the rowers in the naval ships! Those ships were not rowed by slaves! They were rowed by professional citizen sailors, proud citizen sailors, and most of the professional sailors in the navy were rowers! You would absolutely not put your navy in the power of slaves! Thank you for this fascinating video- it was wonderful hearing how accurate the depiction of the town of Pompeii itself was in the movie on Pompeii! Thank you for this wonderful video!
Testudo formation was only used during situations when the enemy had an advantage in missile power. The formations was turned into a tight fortress but movement and ability to fight while in testudo formation were also severely downgraded. I believe it was during the siege of Jerusalem that the besieging Romans formed a testudo, negating the enemy bowmen's arrows. *In the first episode of the mini-series Rome:* it is shown how a regular formation of legionaries could effectively deal with the opposing barbarians. Mainly because each front soldier only had to fight for a minute, then he fell back while the man in the second line stepped forward. The formerly first line man retreated all the way to the back and with a depth of ten men, he could rest for, what, ten minutes? British ancient/medieval warfare expert Mike Loades once tested how long a warrior/soldier fighting in the first line would last till he was utterly exhausted. With the test subject being a fit twenty-something volunteer dressed all in battle gear and swinging his sword all the time at other participants who played the attacker, the man lasted for almost 2 and half minutes if I remember correctly.
I think the battle scene in Rome is probably as best as one can depict a late republic battle against Celts but we don´t know for sure how they did it. The idea to change out the front combatant makes a lot of sense but has some pratical issues like avoiding getting hit whilst retreating back and maintaining formation.
@@DangeHD Of course. And in reality, the Romans did suffer losses, sometimes severe. Bear in mind that the opposing barbarians faced these problems: - exhaustion after 2.5 minutes - everybody getting in each other's way trying to 'score points' by killing a Roman - everybody taking even more risks and getting killed because of the warriors' competitive nature. And the series did give us its version of a Roman army Vs. another Roman army which turned out as expected: utter chaos!
I've actually read about a double testudo as well, where they stood upon the shields of other legionaries to form a second level and attack city walls I believe.
The thing about just taking a fit twenty something volunteer is that you're not taking someone that's been trained as roman soldier, conditioned, and experienced. You can't just take rando Chad off the street and expect performance. The Testudo was indeed intended for use as a defense against projectiles and as such was typically deployed for slow movement and with a hunched position if moving to keep the legs from being targeted. However, the way it was shown to be used in The Eagle, is not implausible, impossible or even stupid. You're making what you hope to be a short and 'sharp' crash through the enemy lines to get your buddies without arrows flying at you. You're using a normally cumbersome formation and using it in a faster and looser manner because you're not protecting yourself from arrows. Compressed in time scale or not, the portrayal given does not outrun a professional soldier's endurance before they broke to the open formation. And yes, you're right, when it was possible in large engagements they did rotate front line as best as they could to keep fresh fighters on the leading edge. But for The Eagle, you're talking about a quarter century there maybe, thirty guys at best without directly counting. What they were doing wasn't meant to be a long engagement. Plus, not how what was noted in the video. -Elite- training for that legion historically speaking. So I don't see the combat show as Hollywood fantasy.
@@Meravokas However impressive or plausible movies and tv shows depict Roman legionaries in combat, it still is 'Hollywood fantasy.' For instance, legionaries carried one or two pilae into combat and threw these into the attacking enemies just before they would get into hand to hand combat range. Those javelins thrown would devastate the enemy ranks, making most battles rather one sided slaughter fests.
The novel Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ was published in 1880. Lew Wallace was writing with a 19th century understanding of history, which would be considered obsolete by today's standards. It's a morality tale couched in a historical setting, not a painstaking representation of history.
@@calebshoemaker Yes, a great story. Have you read a similar book, Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz? I bet you would like it! Both were made into blockbuster films in the 1950's. And while I think the 1959 Ben Hur is one of the greatest films ever made, in my opinion the novel Quo Vadis edges out the novel of Ben Hur.
Lew Wallace was a Union general in the civil war. His father was a West Point graduate, which may have provided his son more knowledge of the Roman military than we can imagine. The cadets study history and military tactics in detail. However, I have not actually read the book Ben Hur, so am not at liberty to say whether the book or the movie is in error by his fault. Again though he wrote it as a novel, and the real message is to convey "a tale of the Christ." Lew Wallace was an attorney, also served as a governor of the New Mexico Territory once. He died in 1905.
@@hesavedawretchlikeme6902 Lew Wallace was the son of a West Point graduate, but he never attended West Point himself. He went to a private academy in Centerville, Indiana, but his focus was on writing, not history.
@@andrewmize823 yes, I have edited my comment on this, thanks for pointing it out. I have close relatives that were also West Point graduates and retired from the Army. Very intense study of strategies, tactics.
He may be a Roman historian but IM a blacksmith and I can say with certainty, the “blood runnels” he spoke of (actually called fullers) did NOT help the weapon being pulled out nor did they help channel blood from a wound. Their one and only purpose was strictly structural. It not only reduces the weight of the blade but helps strengthen it as well.
This just shows how important it is to get a variety of experts, especially younger ones as well that didn't learn terrible ancient weaponry myths in the 70s This man has a lot of book knowledge, but zero experience on weapons and armor.
@@FeelingLucky246 bruh… It's not that alone, he's said many things that are either wrong, misleading, or glossed over. I understad that these are movie scenes, some of these I loved watching the movies, but in regards to his information and his analysis, he's very questionable and seemingly dubious in his knowledge. I see what you mean, but there is truth to what others have been saying, for example: (I'm not trying to argue, but making some clarifications is all, no hard feelings) For example, the Romans used various pieces of armor, not just the Lorica Segmentata, but also Hamata, Squamata, Musculata, etc. The uniformity, although used in Gladiator as a clarification that they are Romans, is unrealistic, given the expensive quality and cost of producing the armor. - He calls a Roman Gladius, a Spatha, which would only come about in the mid-ish 3rd Century AD - He doesn't make note of leather bracelets, which have no record in archaeology, historical sources, first and second, and have no basis at all in history - The Fuller Groove Myth is also complete bs, given that fuller grooves are meant to make a sword lighter, not "create a vacuum and cause blood to stay within, which sounds brain-numbing. The concept of suction for this is also misleading and weightless. As someone mentioned, people get stabbed by things all the time, with no difficulty. The Gladius would face troubles and improvements if such a myth existed, having to stab all those times and then try and release, again, all those times. - They never used testudo like that in the Eagle. Testudo was used for protection against missiles, that of arrows, javelins, etc. The whole ramming part is ridiculous. The Orbis however is true to the record, as seen in Anatolia during the Great Roman Civil War (Caesarians vs Pompeians) - Commodus' gladiatorial sessions were skewed in his favor, having weapons blunted and victories guaranteed. He also died in his bath by his gladiatorial mentor, after a group of those on a hit list discovered said list and devised a plot to kill him. Doesn't make a note of the roman helmets used in Gladiator, which are off. - Leather Lorica Segmentata was never used, it was made of metal. Lorica in its latin roots may mean leather, but it was metal. I could go on and on.
HBO Rome and barbarians are accurate in time period, and armor in my opinion. Though, HBO Rome admitted that some of the scenes seem closer in timeline than they should and that was due to funding and limited time on air, etc.
Or Cleopatra with Rex Harrison, Taylor & Burton...and Spartacus with Kirk Douglas. Yes, the HBO Rome series was good. A friend of mine who was a writer, stated the Rome series was so expensive, they just could not afford to keep up the production. But very accurate.
This style of video is always interesting, and you guys did a good job here - only taking a few movies to look at and giving Dr Elliot enough time to get his opinions across. I hope you do more of these!
Wow! The info about trireme rowers being free military personnel & not slaves is something I'd never heard, despite great interest in the history of the era! It's amazing how tenacious some of these historic myths are in popular media - just like the "horned helmet" Viking thing...
I also think Gladiator is a great movie but the first thing that hit me in the opening sequence was that the saddles at base were modern and had stirrups. No, they didn't. Now, I am aware that training an extra or even a stunt person to ride and (pretend) fight as the Roman military did, even if you could get the Roman tack and horses who would tolerate it, would be too expensive even for Ridley Scott. However, they could have found some way to hide the bloody stirrups.
You also don't have homogeneous forests like that during the Roman invasion of Germania. During that time period, forests had all kinds of random plants and fungi growing in them, almost like the Amazon rain forest in terms of diversity. Homogeneous forests came centuries later when lumber harvests had depleted the forests of Europe. The barbarians aren't dressed correctly. The Romans are using trebuchets. Everyone is slashing with their gladius instead of stabbing. The Romans don't fight in formation. The barbarians don't fight in formation. There's so much wrong in that opening scene. Still absolutely fucking love watching it, though. 😂
The horses were also modern sized as were the actors. Just looked it up, based on archeology/statues, "horses" were between 13hh and 15hh, average size of soldier 5ft7. They rode ponies, probably a lot easier to ride without stirrups and also not that fast. As kids we rode bareback a lot, not so much as you get older, balance, center of gravity, I dunno. Of course they should have made it accurate, but have a feeling it would end up looking like (to the modern audience) the "oh how they danced" dwarves in Spinal Tap.
@excession3076 There is an excellent book by Ann Hyland called 'Training the Roman Cavalry' where she has reconstructed the gear based on archeological evidence and worked with it on her own verse based on Trajan's writing. Nowadays, at least one set of Cavalry reconstionists in the UK uses Roman saddles, though I suspect their bits are modern and much less severe. The Numidian auxillia didn't use any tack if we are to believe ancient historians.
Indeed. They built a Hippodrome and had a real chariot race. One of the many reasons Ben Hur held the record for numbers of Oscars won until the overrated, sappy "Titanic" came along in the 90's.
They did the whole thing properly, deaths included. Sad to say. But that is the reason its so well portrayed, because thats the sort of thing that would have happened small inconsistencies asside.
@theamericanextremist this is a common misconception but that was actually the 1925 silent film. No person died in the 1959 epic, though one stuntman did have a minor injury on set. This common misconception is likely due to people forgetting about the 1920s film (the original), and so accidentally consider Charlton Heston's Ben Hur as the original when reading about all of the deaths
As an earth scientist, I find the portrayal of the eruption of Vesuvius quite ridiculous. There are several good videos of pyroclastic flows, which is what hit Pompeii, on youtube.
3:38 Fullers or grooves had nothing to do with making it easier to get the blade out. Their purpose was to make the blade lighter. 15:58 using a testudo against charging melee combatants is idiotic.
@@damwonstyx1169 He's completely right. The purpose of a fuller on a sword is to make a larger blade with the same amount of material while keeping a strong shape. It's not a "blood groove" or whatever other people might ascribe to it. It has nothing to do with the wounds it inflicts. Legionaries would use the Testudo formation while under fire, like in a siege assault or against mounted archers for instance. They could move the formation, but it would be slow and it was vulnerable to infantry and especially cavalry assault since the legionaries are very tightly packed and there's no room to use their weapons. You used the testudo when the threat of enemy projectiles can't be dealt with by simply closing with the enemy. More often than not, it was more advantageous to just steadily advance to limit the amount of time they were exposed to enemy fire.
I think he said at the start that he was happy with a certain amount of accuracy. But yes- you can’t strike at your enemy at all and you are not deflecting projectile strikes.
But the film shows them forming testudo when shot at, then coming out of it when charged. Correction: I thought you were talking about Gladiator. Sorry!
He mentions blood runners. Those would be fullers: grooves in the length of the blade in order to reduce weight without compromising length or blade strength. I suppose they might have helped with airflow and removing the blade but that was not their original pupose.
The opening battle in Gladiator is FAR from reality such battle were fought. (for example: cavalry attacking in a dense forest, siege engines in a pitched battle, etc.)
Yeah he definitely did not look into battle tactics as a metric to measure because even Gladiator’s first scene had issues in this regard. Using catapults, fire arrows, and having formations in all our brawls. Definitely not historically accurate, but they definitely made it look more cinematic.
@@Kbo513 Do you honestly think battles were neat and pitched? That thousands of men stabbing each other and killing each other isn't occasionally gonna get disorganized?
@@TheSmolPrince Fire arrows were ineffective and was there for a cinematic experience and what made Roman formations formidable in history were that soldiers rotated among each man and stayed in formation as much as they can in order to not tired men out. That’s why Rome was formidable for so long - discipline and formation. The battle depicted was immediately a charge and all out brawl.
@@TheSmolPrince this historian even mentioned that in this engagement, the soldiers would have thrown two pillums before engaging with their gladius. There were instances were the Romans were ambushed like the Teutenbourg forest were Romans were just running to stay alive - in that case, yes pure chaos. In this Gladiator scene, they faced their enemy head on and their flanks were secured.
I'm blown away that rowers weren't slaves, I've thought that forever. But what he's saying makes sense and truth be told I've never read any historical or mythological text either Greek or Roman that talked about the use of galley slaves in the navy, I've only ever read about it in contemporary fiction.
@@friendcomputer2293 How much would that suck if the top brass decided to use slaves instead of paid contractors for your warship? I can see it now: "Oh our ship is being attacked? What if...what if we just, like, stop rowing? The other side will board the ship, kill all of our captors, and possibly set us free. They may even reward us with hookers and blackjack for helping defeat the Romans!" 😆
There was an analysis of the same scene in The Eagle at 16:10 by a historian on the Insider I think who completely rubbished it. The formation is completely wrong for the circumstances, the weapons are wrong, and the tactic overall wouldn't have been employed by a roman garrison.
For a “historian” he didn’t know that a blood groove isn’t for blood or air when removing a blade from someone it’s only purpose is for making the sword lighter
@@syndrathedarksovereign1609 Well, than he should not talk like he knows something about it and misleading people by confidently spewing this nonsense.
You gotta love how everyone thins the historian should know everything. Its not like they can make mistakes and we can learn diferent things from . Diferents sources. And everyone in here its now an expert cause they saw a youtube vidio from a wannabe historian.
And forgetting that Roman Nobles and an Emperor (or two?) participated in Gladiatorial games as well. Those PHD's must be a lot easier to get than i remember.
Finally someone who appreciates the sheer quality of the best movie in hostory, Ben Hur. Especially the race scene is one of if not the best sequences ever filmed. I don't care a bit about historical accuratesse there, the mosvie is just magnificent. It just has no real flaws: Cast, direction, script, camera and oh, Mikos Rosza's incredible score - what a movie! I grew up with it. My dad is a huge fan. He had the movie on a 2 or 3 vhs set when I was a kid. And I watched it in sequences. First, I was allowed to watch until the break between Judah and Messala. Later, until the sea battle. And finally, when my dad deemed me old enough, I was allowed to watch it fully, including the leprous caves and the race. I still love those monumental movies from the 50s and 60s, The 10 Commandments, Lawrence of Arabia, El Cid, King of Kings... Wow.
At least your dad portioned it for you to digest at proper ages, I watched the whole thing at like 10y old, and the lepers gave me nightmares, haha. I think the chariot scene was declared the best action scene of the 20th century, and rightfully so. What a flick.
@@mrcroob8563 100 horses died during the making of the 1925 version of Ben Hur directed by Fred Niblo not during the the making 1959 version of Ben Hur directed by William Wyler and starring Charlton Heston.
The chariot race was stunning but terribly inaccurate historically. No way would Messala or Judah take the reins. Chariot driving was the job of a slave or peasant.
@@druidriley3163 No one expects Ben Hur to be historically accurate. The whole galley slave thing is also wrong, galleys were manned by highly trained naval soldiers. (Not even to mention the appearance of the Christ and the healing rain in the end). Ben Hur is (1.) a movie from the 50s, when no one gave a damn about historical accuratesse (ever watched Cleopatra with Liz Taylor or El Cid with Charlton Heston? Great movies, but accurate? Not in the slightest. But, more importantly, (2.) Ben Hur is no historical film. It is a novel adaptation of the book “Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ” by General Lew Wallace, published 1880 by Harper, New York. The novel tells basically the exact story of the film (making it a rather accurate adaptation), but dives deeper in the rebellion. Judah plans to create a rebellion, gets into the race and wins agains Messala and later abandons the plans of rebellion and turns to the teachings of the crucified Christ. That aspect is cut short in the film - both his active planning of a rebellion (he acts way more reluctantly in the film) and his subsequent quasi-christianisation (though Christianity didn’t exist). But I was talking about the movie as a work of fiction. And as such, it is one of the greatest movies ever made. Ah, btw, Judah himself, as a member of the Jewish-Hellenic upper class could have participated in the race. Chariot races were not slave things, they were indeed more prestigious. But Messala, in such a race? Never. And Judah doesn’t get in as Judah Ben Hur, but as the adopted son of a Roman Senator - making both members of the Roman nobility.
I'm not sure about his comments about Romans never getting into Scotland. Marcus is supposed to be travelling as an oculust, and there are occulist stamps from Ireland, which is just as far outside the empire. Just because armies never got there doesn't mean other people didn't. Empires like this would have influence a long way outside their official borders.
the romans stopped at what is roughly the border between england and today's scotland. they didnt really go into scotland because they hated the locals(caledonians) , the weather, the atmosphere there and some other things..
I'm sure this man knows a lot about Roman history but when it comes to weapons and armour that does not seem to be the case. The bit on the fuller was particularly outrageous, the so called "blood grooves" weren't there to let the blood or the air out as he claims, they were there to reduce the weight of the blade and to get the centre of gravity closer to the handle. And while we're at it, no that was not a spatha in the Gladiator cavalry scene, that was a gladius, even though it should have been a spatha
The thing that always takes me out of Roman movies is seeing people slashing with a gladius. Yeah, you can do that, but that's not how they were used. They were a stabbing weapon. Thin to fit between locked shields. Small/short to save energy and stamina. If the Romans had problems with a gladius getting stuck, they would have used a completely different weapon.
I like it when professionals recognizes that changing some details, makes for more compelling stories. In this case Dr. Elliot is a lot like Jonathan Ferguson from Royal Armoires Museum. Ferguson is a weapons expert, and he makes a series together with Gamespot about weapons in video games. He also recognizes, like Dr. Elliot, that sometimes, you have to change parts of how the guns work/would be used in a real military setting, when implementing them in a game, to make the games more fun and compelling.
About the Romans never getting into the Northern Scotland, there was actually one exception. Emperor Septimius Severus scoured the land north of Hadrian's Wall for 2 years with a force of 50 thousand man, but the Celtic tribes would not give him battle, he apparently reached " the extremity of the island" before getting back to York.
Gladiator really brought the genre back into fashion after early Hollywood classics created this old dusty stigma around it. Huge credit to Zimmer for reimagining what music would fit despite Rozsa's established tropes.
In another one of these videos, the historian said it would be highly unlikely they would form a testudo under those circumstances and proximity to the enemy due to the time it took to get into and get out of that formation. Do you disagree with that?
3:35 - true that a gladius didn’t have any fullers, but fullers were not for relieving blood or air from the wound. That’s a myth. Fullers were meant to reduce the weight of a sword without comprising its strength.
Its always fun to compare and contrast these videos and see what one historian will absolutely peg the movie on that the other finds fine or even likes and then moves on from
Interesting, the other historian didn't like "Gladiator" and I think he stated testudo would not have been used on such circumstances. He also rightly pointed out that a forest is no good place for cavalry. ;]
Forest and cavalry does not work and Romans fighting in close formation fighting in a forest does also not work good so you are right the Roman army always did look for open space to fight as much as possible.
I absolutely adore The Eagle. The book was one of my formative favourites and they did a damn good job at it. The book (indeed, any of Rosemary Sutcliffe's books) are well worth a read.
Pompeii was one of the rare movies I couldn’t finish. I didn’t even make it to Vesuvius actually erupting! Nice to know it had some accurate moments, but I will not be giving it a second try.
Except, since Gladiator came out 3 years before the first Pirates, you heard hints of the Gladiator soundtrack in the Pirates of the Caribbean flick! hahaha
"Gladiator" is a fantastic remake. A remake of "The Fall of the Roman Empire(1964)". "Gladiator" also literally ripped off the Zulu war chant from "Zulu", also released in 1964. They still couldn't get the Roman legionnaire fighting style right though, just straight up hack and slash with very little thought for tactics. HBO's "Rome" was better in this respect.
Mind blown.. Infantry throwing two volleys of javelins, then fighting with swords. Of course! Dr. Simon Elliott does a marvelous job of delivering the facts, of Roman scenes, from movies. Thank you so much for this
Mr Elliott got a PhD, didn't manage get a job at a university and started writing books for a wider audience instead. That's okay. But since his works are hardly known to (or cited by) professional historians I doubt you can call him a "top Roman historian" (unlike, for example, Mary Beard).
Gladius was primarily used as a stabbing weapon, but because of the blade geometry it is one hellova choppa. Blood groove is there to reduce weight, it's not nothing to do with "running the blood". Flesh doesn't have miraculous suction when impaled by a sword. I was actually a bit surprised that Dr Elliott didn't mention anything about Lorica Hamata. Gladiators weren't always slaves, and rarely ended in death. Gladius wasn't used "on top of the shield (scutum)", but at roughly hip height which gives the best possible protection (with the scutum) when stabbing *in formation*. Scutum was a very large and heavy shield (roughly 1 meter tall, almost half a meter wide and weighted 10 kg). It wasn't something you swung anywhere fast. Roman Legionare kit (scutum and gladius, in particular) was designed to be used in a formation, and in that context it was an absolutely brilliant weapon set.
The opening scene, fantastic! The archery, arrows, bows: double fantastic! The Roman officer directing the Roman archers to loose the arrows: triple fantastic! He is a much overlooked actor and known bowyer. He deserves an academy award if for no reason, he won't sucker punch a much smaller man in stage! It was not a bad movie. The best part being that superb Roman officer directing the archers. He made the bows, you know? Someone please give that man a leading role! I think his first name is "Steve" or "Stephen".
I really wish someone would take a minute to absolutely destroy these movies for their horrific depiction of the barbarians. Barbarian litteraly only ment someone who didn't speak Latin (originally Greek, but in the context of these movies it would be Latin). It ment a person whose language sounded like "bar bar bar", that is all it ment. It had no meaning in terms of technological development. The barbarians had proper houses (they did not live in huts and tents as was depicted). Their warriors had mail armor and steel weapons. They fought in formations with shield walls, etc. They were not stone age peoples.
Overall I really like the analysis here. However, there is one part I absolutely HAVE to call out. There purpose of the fuller, commonly and erroneously known as "blood groove" or "blood runnels", is a method used to maintain the length and width of a sword whild shedding mass, and without compromising the strength of the blade. The Gladius Hispaniensis, being a short mostly stabbing weapon, was still fairly light, and did not need that kind of technology. Some spathas did have them, though. Also, the human body is under internal pressure; you don't need to "let air into a wound" to make it bleed more. The internal pressure will take care of that. And no, the lack of a fuller doesn't mean the blade will get stuck in soft tissues. Now, wedged held in place by the mass of the guy you just stabbed and his bones? Sure. But the insides of the human body aren't made out of glue! Also, the process of fullering a blade drives up the cost of each weapon due to the fact that the blade geometry becomes a lot more complex. Which means that after the Marius Reforms and the state having to foot the bill for troops' arms and armour (as opposed to the previous system of individuals providing their own gear and weapons), the need to provide thousands upon thousands of swords became a non-trivial budge line item and unit cost for each sword became a truly major factor. In the end, what benefits would be achieved by shaving a few ounces of steel off of each sword were outweighed by the additional labour costs. Which frankly is a practice that's never gone away (and was pretty much reinvented with the return of standing armies, at least in the Western world) : things that would make gear more ergonomic (for lack of a better word) would be passed upon because the costs would outweigh the benefits.
I beg your pardon? Maximus from Gladiator was a historical figure? Does anybody know which person this guy is talking about? That assertion seems very suspect to me.
@@corruptangel6793 I've always heard that he was a fictional amalgamation of several different historical figures. While there were several important Romans with the name "Maximus," I don't know of any with the name "Maximus Decimus Meridius."
Maximus was not a real Character. Maximus, the name, was the name of several generals throughout history. Russel Crowes character is completely made up and his name is not a real name, he has 2 cognomen lol. They just called him that because it sounded cool.
3:35 - true that a gladius didn’t have any fullers, but fullers were not for relieving blood or air from the wound. That’s a myth. Fullers were meant to reduce the weight of a sword without comprising its strength.
There was a wonderful reenactment/documentary of the events at Pompeii many years back. I can’t recall who produced it - BBC, History Channel, etc… but it had actors playing parts of citizens, scientific explanations of what was happening, and then cuts to the locations and even the remains of the characters they were reenacting. Fantastic series.
Excellent vid. My children caught a love of History from their parents, I am glad he liked Gladiator as it is a very personal favourite of mine, as my son bought it for me out of his first weeks wages. Ben Hur is a favourite that I have re-visited many times.
I have zero expectation of film makers being historically accurate but I do love expert reviews, including this one. I learn so much from the inconsistencies they highlight as well as the broader cultural context they explain. My only comment was that the editing was a little heavy. The gent was cut off a few times before the point was made. I already subscribe to History Hit. Uncovering The Bayeaux Tapestry and Ancient Britain are my family's two recent favourites. Need more episodes of Ancient Britain, please. Thanks!
I'd love his opinion on the merits of or the complete lack of on Spartacus, (1960) The Fall of The Roman Empire, (1964) I Claudius, (The 1970's BBC TV series)
Throw in Quo Vadis as well. While it was full of Hollywoodizations, it had its moments of brilliance also. There is a scene where Legatus Marcus Vinicius is leading a victory parade in Rome, driving his chariot with a slave holding a Laurel above Vinicius' head. The slave repeats the phrase "Remember, thou art only a man" over and over. This was to remind the hero that he was still a man and not a god. The practice is alluded to in the final lines spoken by George C. Scott in the film Patton. "All glory is fleeting."
They didn't seem to be including miniseries. I Claudius is wonderful and a favorite of mine, but alas, I suspect, not that accurate. The production values are very low (though the acting is fantastic), so no budget to assure an authentic look to the costumes, etc. Plus it's based on the novel by Robert Graves which, by his own admission, contains pretty much the worst thing that was said about everybody. Livia poisoning the fig trees seems a bit of a stretch to say the least.
If there is ever a part two of this (I'd certainly watch more!) I'd be curious on his thoughts on the Boudicca (2003) film with Alex Kingston, which as one can guess, is focused around the Roman conquest of Britain and specifically about Boudicca's rebellion. I'm very curious to see his thoughts, especially after the bit on The Eagle in this one.
Considering the though a bunch of undisciplined shirtless wild men was an “accurate” representation of Britannia’s culture id say he knows absolutely nothing. This portrayal comes from the literal smear campaign Rome led against them! Painting them as actual demon men! Simply because they lost to them a few times! These were not a bunch of shirtless men running Willy billy into battle. They were strategic fighters! Not “savages”
The Eagle…….yes high marks for the movie…..but it only has the bare bones of the magnificent novel. I can still recall the moment I took it off the shelf in the school library ( 1961) and as I look up from this keyboard I can actually see my own batted copy on the shelf.
Wait. This guys a historian yet he’s talking about a “blood groove” at 3:40. Well I guess he’s an expert on Roman history, not an expert of swords. The groove is called a fuller and it was ground into a blade, NOT to allow a channel for blood to flow or to release suction, but to remove material from the blade and thus make to lighter without sacrificing strength. This is a persistent myth about the purpose of the fuller that just refuses to die. Tests have shown that there is practically no difference between a sword with no fuller and one with when it comes to removing it from a torso. If you’re unconvinced, consider that there are many thrusting sword designs throughout history that do not incorporate a fuller. Some have diamond shaped cross-sections, some a triangular, some are flat. So what he said is frankly nonsense.
Tests prove it but it doesn't mean that was not part of the intention when it was done, lots of things don't fulfill their intended design. I don't think its a big mistake on his part, the myth has been around forever because I'm sure it was around back then, if nothing more than just 'bro talk'. "yeah man my sword has this groove to make a bigger wound" and without testing it, would make sense.
@@NoirTech83 there is actually a pretty good reason to suspect they did not think this way. If that was how they thought when designing swords we would see more thrust oriented swords with fullers, but we don’t. Fullers are pretty much exclusively used on swords intended for cutting. Why would they only include a feature on a swords that was not intended to be used? And I’m also pretty sure there are some evidence that this myth was invented in the Victorian era along with the myth of vikings having horned helmets and other similar myths.
I think there has been a mix-up and he's actually a historian about Romanian history, but he just decided to roll with it, even though he didn't know what he was talking about. Good job!
7:19 Good perfect view, of the mount Vesuvius. In reality, Pompeii is probably 2, or 3 times farther away than this 'view ' shows, in ACTUAL reality. Hollywood, always, always dramatizes things, this is one. Theatrics, and showmanship. Anyway, take care all. Distance between Mount Vesuvius and Pompeii is 25 kms or 15.5 miles or 13.5 nautical miles Mount Vesuvius, Naples to Pompeii, Naples, Italy. Driving Distance 25 kms or 15.5 miles or 13.5 nautical miles Driving Time 30 minutes
A roman historian who actually likes Gladiator? I can't believe my eyes.
Cheers!
as much as it can be quite inaccurate, its a banging great movie and a good watch
So he comments on the swords and armor, but not on the fact that emperors aren't normally given to jumping down into the arena and fighting the prisoners themselves?
@@Shan_Dalamani commodus is famous for taking part in, most probably, rigged, mock-up battles with various gladiators/slaves.
@@Shan_Dalamani commodus actually did that though
@@Shan_Dalamani except commodus did fight in the arena?
It’s better than some other videos, because the historian doesn’t just focuses on the 100% accuracy, but actually understands the importance of creating a movie that is interesting to watch. And he overall seems like a very interesting person, and not just someone who knows a lot about some period of time.
Totally agree
No, this makes it a lot worse. I want to hear him talk about history, not "what idiots think movie needs", wich either way is wrong.
i dont know which specific other videos you are talking about. But just because some of these historians/scientists/scholars are hyper critical in their videos doesnt mean that dont "understands the importance of creating a movie that is interesting to watch".
If i am a physisics who get asked to comment on the physics in some movie clips, then that's what im going to do. If im asked to explain what parts of the clip that is accurate and what is not, then thats what im going to do, even if i understand that a movie is first and foremost entertainment.
@@KevinUchihaOG i was talking specifically about historians, not other scientists. Obviously the science has to be correct, or at least make sense, of we are talking about science fiction. I'm studying biology myself and also get very annoyed, when there are things in the movies that don't make sense.
And about history, I more than understand the importance of historical accuracy. But some guests in these types of videos are literally talking about every single minor detail in the costume, setting etc, and although if with many of them i agree, it feels like, if it was up to them, the movie would've just been the most boring documentary in the world. While this guy is pretty much like: yh, it's not perfect, but the movie doesn't get worse because of this particular minor detail. (Or something like that, i watched the video quite a long time ago)
@@sofiagolubtsova2268 The problem is that Gladiator is not about some minor inaccuracies... They literally change facts for the movies: the death of two emperors... And depicted germans like idiotic barbarians from a Conan movie...
03:34 That's the myth of the "blood runnel", or "blood groove". This is the historical nickname for the fuller, which has led to people believing blood running through it is part of how a sword kills. The only reason the fuller groove exists is to lighten the blade where the steel is unnecessarily thick. This also moves the point of balance down towards the grip, which makes the sword faster and less top heavy ("baseball bat-like"). Swords get stuck because they bite into bone or armour, there is no vacuum to overcome. Otherwise the teeth of crocodiles and big cats would also have blood runnels.
I'm no historian, I'm just a hema and weapon smith student, but I can see how easy a proper historian, whose focus is on bigger military and political issues, can miss the minutia of blade mechanics so that this urban myth can propagate.
THANK YOU! I was screaming at the screen when this "expert" started spouting this utter nonsense.
I too started yelling at my screen when he came out that, that piece of nonsense. He's a historian I s'pose not a weapons expert but still.....Research people!!!!! It's been debunked move on.
Yeah it's pretty ridiculous to assume the "only way" to extract a sword without a blood groove is to twist it. Friction might grip the blade a bit, but having stabbed many sides of ham (more or less analogous to human flesh) with butcher knives, I can say that the blade pulls out with just a slight tug. With the energy and excitement of a proper battle, I don't think a Legionary or Gladiator would notice any resistance in the slightest.
Damn right. You even hear this nonsense about cutting weapons.
I was about to say that,,good answer 👍spot on!
Another important thing to note is Commodus in real life did actually fight in the Colosseum as Emperor although the matches were always basically guaranteed for him and it contributed to his downfall
strangled to death in the baths by his gay lover as well
Not quite the way it led to his downfall in Gladiator though kek Killed by a poisoned former general that *he* made a slave, now that's gotta sting.
I believe Commodus had the swords of his opponents blunted, so they had barely any chance to kill him.
When they realized what was going on, they tended to give up and let him kill them.
Until one gladiator, I think he may have been made Commodus' bodyguard or something, found out that Commodus had been blunting the swords. So he took one of those blunt swords, went into Commodus' room, and stabbed Commodus with the blunted blade. Which would've been pretty hard to do. Like stabbing someone with a spoon... sort of.
It's not that the match were guaranteed for him, it's that Commodus actually was a great fighter, differently from his father. He was initially loved by the soldiers for this reason.
@@walnzell9328 No, Commodus was strangled to death by his wrestling trainer.
"Just to be absolutly clear Pompeii was a shit movie" 😂 I love how hard he lays into that one!
But as least it portrayed a diverse population suitable for a modern audience 😂
@@garlicgorilla6540 That part was accurate enough.
This is the brutal honesty I come here for
The part of Pompeii that drove me nuts particularly was they showed the main characters turning to stone at the end. Not remotely what happened. The stone figures were formed by later historians pouring cement into the voids left by the decomposed bodies.
HAHA, never seen the movie but that is hilarious.
I think you missed the point if what happened.
It turned them to stone for the credits to roll where it showed real versions of the ash population.... in that blast they would have been bits of flesh and bone, judging from the velocity and what's traveling in the blast I.e rocks, crit ect... which would tear the charing flesh right off.
Ofcouse they would have died instantly... but you have blatantly missed what they where doing in that scene
@@The-Spanish-Inquisition490 this movie was too deep in some parts for most people to get
There were parts of it I thought were good, but overall it was disappointing considering the information they had to make it accurate. And the acting was atrocious !
The part of Pompeii that drove me nuts was the whole fucking movie…
It is widely accepted that the fullers or grooves in sword blades were not there to make them easier to pull out, but to simply make the blades lighter.
Yeah, I cringed a little when he said that.
Yes. My same reaction. But then again no expert can be an expert of everything.
You know things can serve multiple purposes
Widely accepted doesn't mean it's correct. The fuller were not only for lightening the load, it also serves as reinforcing the blade so it's more durable, and making it easier to retrieve the blade from a wound is a plus, even strong fighters would need a lot of force to retrieve a blade after a deep thrust
@@battle_toast You just saying all that doesn't make it correct either. It makes the blade lighter without weakening too much but it makes the blade weaker for sure to remove material. As for fuller making it easier for blades to remove from a body, the burden of proof is on the person who makes the claim.
Simon is a great historian, I've read a couple of his excellent books.....but he's not a vulcanologist and the volcano is being shown inaccurately!
Whilst he my be describing what Pliny may have seen, with bombs and pumice tumbling from the sky like snow, this is a short phase of the eruption when Vesuvius explodes initially, so should have been a brief part of the eruption. If you look at the remains in Herculaneum (a town nearer to the volcano), that town was hit with a massive pyroclastic flow (a collapsing cloud of toxic gasses, super heated steam and ash at 500°C which is no longer able to support it's own weight when it gets too massive), so a massive ash cloud must form after the initial eruption, with spectacular lightning in the cloud and then what we should see is collapses of that cloud.... So it rolls and tumbles down the mountain, at 200mph, roasting/cooking everything it comes into contact with (death would be instentaneous for anyone in the way).
By the time that cloud hits Pompeii the cloud has cooled, so the ash tumbles through the town much like an airborne debris tsunami. So the film should have been showing the collapse of the clouds of ash and then showing them rolling down the mountain at high speed, along with the falling of light weight ash as you see in the film, not the over proportioned tsunami wave from the sea with boats crashing through the town.
Thanks for taking the time to write this out and explain this too us :). I'm not planning on a career in vulcanology or anything related, but it was still interesting to learn a little something. As a scientist, I am always looking to better and more accurately understand the world, so where some might write your comment off as, say, pedantry, I however see the value. Honestly, from what you described? It sounds like that would be really cool to witness on the big screen. Although, that said, I have no idea how much harder or easier it would be for the VFX artists to be working more with cloud/gas/particle/etc effects than just "big fiery rocks come down, pew pew" and still have a realistic looking end product *shrug*. Because, in my humble opinion, what you're describing sounds at LEAST as visually captivating.
this comment was much needed. kudos!
I don't care about any Pompeii movie if it doesn't show people running around with their pillows bound onto their heads
Any film which shows people jumping over andesitic lava flows should have its producers chucked into a volcano.
He really isn’t though. So much of what he says in this is wildly inaccurate.
Ben Hur is a 7 out of 10 for accuracy but a 10 of 10 for a movie. Absolute legend.
Some interesting things here, but the results of weapons getting stuck in a body is mostly a complete myth. I know from personal experience of striking targets that swords don't get 'grabbed' by the body. Bones can jar the initial impact and a lance or spear can go in deep enough to make a twisting falling target grab a little, but not much.
That's pretty interesting; I've read that particular danger in many sources - it's not one I'd have expected to be a myth.
Are axes and picks any more difficult to extract, or do swords have an advantage there?
It caught me too when he said that. Then I remembered being taught that 20+years ago and I wondered if this is a case of a teacher not being up to date with actually historical combat, or simply perpetuating an old outdated viewpoint long since proven false.
What is the point of your comment.
@@patrickmcmahon6303 whose comment? Mine? If so I thought this was a forum for exchange of points of view? Weapons like swords don't get stuck in wounds very often at all, I thought that might be useful for people to know.
"I know from personal experience". Wow amazing.
So how many human did you butchered ?
The fuller common on later swords was simply there to reduce weight. It was not a blood groove nor did it help in preventing any suction. Later 14th and 15th century longswords and arming swords often had diamond cross sections with no fullers too, and certain blade geometries simply don't need it.
Yeah, I was really surprised by this observation myself.
Thank you!
The myth of the “Blood Groove” is far too prevalent.
I just paused the vid to see if anyone addressed this
That's not the only thing he said that raised my eyebrow.
@@Ashitaka255 I know we’re all not qualified but that being said this gent has a few things to read up on
The slaves as rowers was something i was sceptical about even as a kid when i saw Ben Hur.
Doesn't take a genius to know that depending on people with no loyalty for your very survival is a mistake.
Galley slaves were used in the 16th century but not in ancient times
Galley slaves in the 16th century were motivated enough by the fact that not rowing would likely mean their ship was going to be sunk (with them on it) by enemy cannon fire.
In the Roman era though, yeah; good luck controlling those slaves in the middle of battle.
My thoughts exactly. Regardless of how well you can tie them down, having a crew of potential angry mutineers outnumbering your regular crew by quite a lot sounds like asking for disaster.
@@gchecosse And that is exactly where the author of the novel Ben Hur, Gen. Lew Wallace, got the idea.
@@gchecosse Actually not entirely true. Athens promised slaves and poor inhabitants/farmers money if they choose to be in the Athenian Navy. They did get loyalty due to being paid but there were slaves in the athenian warships
Did they really do this without showing any of HBO's "Rome"? I would have liked to hear his opinion of that one.
Man, Rome was awesome, wish he had spoken about episode 1 opening scenes in the Gauls👍
Read the title. Rome isn’t a movie.
@@TheRausing1 very true, so it wasn't eligible...but it _was_ awesome 👍😎
@@munstrumridcully it can be the most awesome thing in the world, it’s still not a movie
I’m sure you have all seen it but if not, History Buffs channel has two videos on the HBO/BBC Rome.
I've been to Pompeii. It's one of the eeriest places I've ever been. It was very hot and humid, but I had goosebumps and shivers all the way around it. I can confirm that Vesuvius did loom over it as depicted in the film. It was quite menacing.
I been to Pompeii myself and Vesuvius is freakin massive! No way I would live next to that thing back in the day. Lol
@@brandonmcstay6401 me either. It has a real presence about it, almost evil like.
@@brandonmcstay6401 well, the soil from the volcano would've made it a very fertile land. I think if I was a lowly farmer back then, I would've tried my luck and settled there. And probably end up dead as well lol
@@JKribbit with how superstitious the romans were, they probably had interesting views on the volcano.
@@misanthropicservitorofmars2116 The word volcano comes from the God Vulcan, or rather the island of Vulcano, which itself is named after Vulcan. They believed the island was was formed from the debris coming out of a volcano. They believed that volcanos were the chimneys to Vulcans workshops, and that earthquakes were Vulcan making tools & weapons for wars fought by the God's. Also, Vulcan was married to Venus and the eruptions at Mt. Etna were thought to be Vulcan taking out his frustrations towards Venus, on his anvils.
One aspect I really liked in The Eagle was Tatum's character is briefly shown as a worshipper of Isis. The cult of Isis was at its peak in the Roman Empire in this period; that the filmmakers even threw that detail in rather than letting us assume he's worshipping Jupiter or some other Roman god is really cool.
I think that movie was based on a book, so they were probably going on some source material that was likely well researched at least.
the book is really enjoyable historical teen fiction, maybe give it a shot
In the book……which is one of my absolute favourites….. Marcus is a follower of Mithras and has to conceal the Mithras brand on his forehead as he goes North . It’s also how he identifies the native hunter who has survived the massacre by turning native.
@@carolb.4837 in the film he is a follower a Mithras and he hides the mark (I think at the top of his nose) created by wearing his helmet for prolonged periods. Can’t remember a mention of Isis
Is Mithras the Romanization of Isis, perhaps?
Contents
00:19 Gladiator
05:21 Pompeii
09:33 Ben Hur
15:03 The Eagle
Gladiator is my 2nd favorite movie of all time, so it's cool to know it's relatively accurate as well!
No Spartacus? :(
Gladiator is my joint favourite film as well.
What’s your favourite
@@jackeaston9256 The Crow
@@jackeaston9256 The Count of Monte Cristo
So glad he spotlighted The Eagle and Rosemary Sutcliff’s wonderful stories. The movie isn’t really a great adaptation in some ways - it doesn’t do the characters very well. But it’s still a good movie on its own and I love how it built a believable Roman world. I highly recommend the book “The Eagle of the Ninth” to everyone. It’s one of the great classics of 20th century English literature.
Thanks for the recommendations. I enjoyed other fiction set in Ancient Rome, and wanted more, but hadn’t yet heard of Sutcliff or “The Eagle of the Ninth”. I wrote thm down and will check Audible, my favorite way to “read” these days. I hope they have them, their selection is pretty limited.🙂
It's always interesting seeing what type of historian you are working with. Some really prioritize accurate portrayal of events, years, dates, etc. Others appreciate the setting, equipment, the personality and feel of the historical figures portrayed.
The blood runner thing is already disproved by various swordsmiths, HEMA practitioners, et al.
They are fullers made to remove material so the sword is lighter
I'm here after watching Metatron's debunking of this video.
If you've ever stabbed a rather large piece of meat (or butchered something using a cleaver -- which doesn't have a so-called 'blood groove') you already know this and didn't need 35 history degrees to realize it :D
Butcher / farmer guy in Romania who killed several large pigs vs. qualified historian. :D
@@MrBooblo086 Living archeology " " is a valuable resource for expanding our knowledge of everything from ancient weapon systems to the practicality of ancient civic technology.
The 'blood channel' thing is fucking absurd, this guy should know better.
Just a joy to hear this man commenting on stuff he clearly is knowledgable on. Highly apreciated it.
Unlike many of these comments 🤣
I've heard that for the Eagle they trained real Military men for the Part of the Legionaires.I think that's why the scenes in the Camp and of the fight look so authentic.
I always thought that the circular formation in "The Eagle" was a bit of fanciful creative license, but the 36th Legion in Pontus actually did that, although on a much larger scale. The legion was completely surrounded so they formed up into a circle and fought their way out of trouble. Obviously, things tend to happen on much smaller scales in a movie for practical reasons, but the idea was actually based on something real.
The running testudo was ridiculous however
@@123SEA1 It's always a testudo lmao
@@123SEA1 The running testudo isn't ridiculous in the slightest. Also, the orbis formations were quite common for Roman legions/cohorts when they got surrounded. They're mentioned in Caesar's writings, and other historical works sometimes touch on the circular formations.
@@weirdofromhalo The testudo was ridiculous in this movie because they weren't taking missile attacks. They had no reason to use it there.
@@richardstephens5570 it wasn't just for missle attacks. They knew they were gonna be surrounded. To stop that and from people jumping into the circle to break the inner circle walls that keep the outer walls up, the top shields prevent that.
Plus you have zero clue if a missle attack would occur. This served two purposes, stop rocks and other items from hitting them. Stop people from jumping in.
Never seen a riot have you where people be throwing anything they can find over shields...
Ah, the age old myth of the "blood channel" on a bladed weapon. The fuller had nothing to do with creating an air channel to make it easier to pull the weapon out, and everything to do with reducing the weight of the weapon without compromising the strength of the material. A good comparison would be using a solid bar of steel in construction, when an I-beam is just as strong and far lighter.
He didn't say that it was what it was for, just that it had that effect.
@@jawbone78 It doesn't have that effect.
i have worked stocking freight for over 30 years, i cut the top of boxes open all the time and turn them up side down and let the freight fall out of them. the freight falls out slowly because of suction, but if i also cut the flap at the bottom of the box the freight just instantly slides right out. so i easily comprehend the obvious concept of how the channel would make a blade easier to pull out of a body. but even having never done it i highly doubt the physiques of pulling a blade with channels along the sides out of a solid piece of meat filled with liquid would work the same way. i dont really see the channels making much difference. it is an entirely different kind of suction that would be created.
Bit bummed when he said that, supposed to be an expert, but I suppose you can't be an expert at every aspect! Certainly knows more about Roman culture than I.
@@anthonydevito1298 His reaction to the guys running out of the fort was pretty weird as well. I watched that film with my classics professor who absolutely despises that film and that particularly scene had him laughing like a loon.
I did a research paper on Commodus, he fought in gladiator fights but never gave his opponent a real sword
He did but he blunted the ends and gave them shitty armour
The film is pretty fictional in his history, he was a boy when he became emperor, was strangled in a bath I think, his sister was executed.
The bit about blood runnels was complete nonsense. “Blood grooves” aren’t a thing, the grooves are called fullers and they are there to reduce weight. People get stabbed like 30 times in quick succession with kitchen knives all the time, which have no fuller, so the whole suction thing is nonsense. Disappointing.
honestly thought this myth died years ago.
@@Crimzs it would if morons didn't keep resurrecting it like this guy.
To an extent I can agree, though the thing with the suction is actually dependent on the shape of the blade.
@@Crimzs As did I.
What's next? A Japanese historian gonna say that a katana is soo sharp that it can cleave through metal like butter? .-.
To be fair, he might be talking about what the Romans 2000 years ago thought. I’m no historian but blacksmiths and armorers might have designed blades with “runnels” thinking it allowed for blood flow. I’m pretty sure this guy knows that fullers are used for both weight & strength purposes. But the Romans probably didn’t, so when he talks about the psychological effect of the opponent using a flat blade, in the historical time and specifically the combat being portrayed, it might make sense.
I would love to see his assessment of scenes from the HBO series, Rome. I love seeing this sort of detailed analysis of accuracy!
There's not much of it in that series, in many important aspects. But wth, at least some of the characters looked pretty so that makes it all okay, I guess. Even without Scribonia.
@@Shan_Dalamani The HBO series is the most accurate portrayal of Roman society and customs you're going to find in any piece of media.
@@AimForMyHead81 Then that's a pretty damning assessment of modern media. Who the hell does a historical drama and plans for multiple seasons but omits the characters necessary to make it historically accurate?
@@AimForMyHead81 inclined to agree - it seems very accurate to me.
Would have loved to hear his views on the battle scenes in "Fall of the RE".The battle scenes in that - v both the Germanic tribes,and the even better battle v the Persians.
@@Shan_Dalamani You need to elaborate on that. What historical figures were emitted? A character driven drama can't feel like a soap opera, you need to make amends when it comes to narrative and pacing.
You also realise that the series was prematurely cancelled by the network because of the budget right? The series literally ends with Augustus becoming emperor and they couldn't go beyond that, hence the emmison of Scribonia, who was his SECOND wife.
It had a budget of 200 million dollars. It was filmed on location in Italy with the biggest city sets ever built for any TV or film production. It featured an all star cast of A-grade actors and was meticulously crafted in every aspect from it's cinematography (shot on 35mm film cameras) and direction, to it's costume design and orchestral score. The fact they were even able to wrap it up as well as they did is a pretty incredible display of adaptive writing.
This guy has such a great attitude and hilarious sense of humor!
This was absolutely brilliant, I could have listened to Dr Simon Elliott all day long, is there anymore videos with Dr Elliott, 👍👍👍👍👍.
I agree with you! I’m wondering the same thing does he have any more videos
Holy cringe lmao
@@chasepalumbo2929 why? Because he enjoyed the way someone narrates and wants to see more of their work? Wow.
@@chasepalumbo2929 you are cringe for saying that and ibet you watch tiktok daily rather than videos like this.
@@chasepalumbo2929 I agree with you. It sounds like Buster boy is trying too hard to sound intellectual or interesting.
one thing I would like to point out, he talks about how the gladius would get stuck because it doesn't have any fullers (grooves) this is myth, fullers are on sword to make it lighter
There are plenty of videos by smiths and sword experts about this
Yes. Everyone knows but this chump
I’m impressed that they’re speaking actual Gaelic in The Eagle. It’s not likely to be the same as it was in that era, but it’s a nice touch that adds to the authenticity.
Thank you so much for telling people about the rowers in the naval ships! Those ships were not rowed by slaves! They were rowed by professional citizen sailors, proud citizen sailors, and most of the professional sailors in the navy were rowers! You would absolutely not put your navy in the power of slaves! Thank you for this fascinating video- it was wonderful hearing how accurate the depiction of the town of Pompeii itself was in the movie on Pompeii! Thank you for this wonderful video!
I read a comment from another historian that some of those rowers were Roman Marines also.
Testudo formation was only used during situations when the enemy had an advantage in missile power.
The formations was turned into a tight fortress but movement and ability to fight while in testudo formation were also severely downgraded.
I believe it was during the siege of Jerusalem that the besieging Romans formed a testudo, negating the enemy bowmen's arrows.
*In the first episode of the mini-series Rome:*
it is shown how a regular formation of legionaries could effectively deal with the opposing barbarians.
Mainly because each front soldier only had to fight for a minute, then he fell back while the man in the second line stepped forward.
The formerly first line man retreated all the way to the back and with a depth of ten men, he could rest for, what, ten minutes?
British ancient/medieval warfare expert Mike Loades once tested how long a warrior/soldier fighting in the first line would last till he was utterly exhausted.
With the test subject being a fit twenty-something volunteer dressed all in battle gear and swinging his sword all the time at other participants who played the attacker, the man lasted for almost 2 and half minutes if I remember correctly.
I think the battle scene in Rome is probably as best as one can depict a late republic battle against Celts but we don´t know for sure how they did it. The idea to change out the front combatant makes a lot of sense but has some pratical issues like avoiding getting hit whilst retreating back and maintaining formation.
@@DangeHD Of course. And in reality, the Romans did suffer losses, sometimes severe. Bear in mind that the opposing barbarians faced these problems:
- exhaustion after 2.5 minutes
- everybody getting in each other's way trying to 'score points' by killing a Roman
- everybody taking even more risks and getting killed because of the warriors' competitive nature.
And the series did give us its version of a Roman army Vs. another Roman army which turned out as expected: utter chaos!
I've actually read about a double testudo as well, where they stood upon the shields of other legionaries to form a second level and attack city walls I believe.
The thing about just taking a fit twenty something volunteer is that you're not taking someone that's been trained as roman soldier, conditioned, and experienced. You can't just take rando Chad off the street and expect performance. The Testudo was indeed intended for use as a defense against projectiles and as such was typically deployed for slow movement and with a hunched position if moving to keep the legs from being targeted. However, the way it was shown to be used in The Eagle, is not implausible, impossible or even stupid. You're making what you hope to be a short and 'sharp' crash through the enemy lines to get your buddies without arrows flying at you. You're using a normally cumbersome formation and using it in a faster and looser manner because you're not protecting yourself from arrows. Compressed in time scale or not, the portrayal given does not outrun a professional soldier's endurance before they broke to the open formation.
And yes, you're right, when it was possible in large engagements they did rotate front line as best as they could to keep fresh fighters on the leading edge. But for The Eagle, you're talking about a quarter century there maybe, thirty guys at best without directly counting. What they were doing wasn't meant to be a long engagement. Plus, not how what was noted in the video. -Elite- training for that legion historically speaking. So I don't see the combat show as Hollywood fantasy.
@@Meravokas However impressive or plausible movies and tv shows depict Roman legionaries in combat, it still is 'Hollywood fantasy.'
For instance, legionaries carried one or two pilae into combat and threw these into the attacking enemies just before they would get into hand to hand combat range.
Those javelins thrown would devastate the enemy ranks, making most battles rather one sided slaughter fests.
The novel Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ was published in 1880. Lew Wallace was writing with a 19th century understanding of history, which would be considered obsolete by today's standards. It's a morality tale couched in a historical setting, not a painstaking representation of history.
One of my favorite books
@@calebshoemaker Yes, a great story. Have you read a similar book, Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz? I bet you would like it! Both were made into blockbuster films in the 1950's. And while I think the 1959 Ben Hur is one of the greatest films ever made, in my opinion the novel Quo Vadis edges out the novel of Ben Hur.
Lew Wallace was a Union general in the civil war. His father was a West Point graduate, which may have provided his son more knowledge of the Roman military than we can imagine. The cadets study history and military tactics in detail. However, I have not actually read the book Ben Hur, so am not at liberty to say whether the book or the movie is in error by his fault. Again though he wrote it as a novel, and the real message is to convey "a tale of the Christ."
Lew Wallace was an attorney, also served as a governor of the New Mexico Territory once. He died in 1905.
@@hesavedawretchlikeme6902 Lew Wallace was the son of a West Point graduate, but he never attended West Point himself. He went to a private academy in Centerville, Indiana, but his focus was on writing, not history.
@@andrewmize823 yes, I have edited my comment on this, thanks for pointing it out. I have close relatives that were also West Point graduates and retired from the Army. Very intense study of strategies, tactics.
He may be a Roman historian but IM a blacksmith and I can say with certainty, the “blood runnels” he spoke of (actually called fullers) did NOT help the weapon being pulled out nor did they help channel blood from a wound. Their one and only purpose was strictly structural. It not only reduces the weight of the blade but helps strengthen it as well.
This just shows how important it is to get a variety of experts, especially younger ones as well that didn't learn terrible ancient weaponry myths in the 70s
This man has a lot of book knowledge, but zero experience on weapons and armor.
he said one debunked thing and now yall are saying he got nothing on all weapons and all armor? bro...
@@FeelingLucky246 bruh…
It's not that alone, he's said many things that are either wrong, misleading, or glossed over. I understad that these are movie scenes, some of these I loved watching the movies, but in regards to his information and his analysis, he's very questionable and seemingly dubious in his knowledge. I see what you mean, but there is truth to what others have been saying, for example:
(I'm not trying to argue, but making some clarifications is all, no hard feelings)
For example, the Romans used various pieces of armor, not just the Lorica Segmentata, but also Hamata, Squamata, Musculata, etc. The uniformity, although used in Gladiator as a clarification that they are Romans, is unrealistic, given the expensive quality and cost of producing the armor.
- He calls a Roman Gladius, a Spatha, which would only come about in the mid-ish 3rd Century AD
- He doesn't make note of leather bracelets, which have no record in archaeology, historical sources, first and second, and have no basis at all in history
- The Fuller Groove Myth is also complete bs, given that fuller grooves are meant to make a sword lighter, not "create a vacuum and cause blood to stay within, which sounds brain-numbing. The concept of suction for this is also misleading and weightless. As someone mentioned, people get stabbed by things all the time, with no difficulty. The Gladius would face troubles and improvements if such a myth existed, having to stab all those times and then try and release, again, all those times.
- They never used testudo like that in the Eagle. Testudo was used for protection against missiles, that of arrows, javelins, etc. The whole ramming part is ridiculous. The Orbis however is true to the record, as seen in Anatolia during the Great Roman Civil War (Caesarians vs Pompeians)
- Commodus' gladiatorial sessions were skewed in his favor, having weapons blunted and victories guaranteed. He also died in his bath by his gladiatorial mentor, after a group of those on a hit list discovered said list and devised a plot to kill him.
Doesn't make a note of the roman helmets used in Gladiator, which are off.
- Leather Lorica Segmentata was never used, it was made of metal. Lorica in its latin roots may mean leather, but it was metal.
I could go on and on.
I would love to see his reaction to HBO’s rome or another Roman movie Barbarians *the one with Michael fasbender*
Centurion?
HBO's Rome is a masterpiece, I love that series so so so much
HBO Rome and barbarians are accurate in time period, and armor in my opinion. Though, HBO Rome admitted that some of the scenes seem closer in timeline than they should and that was due to funding and limited time on air, etc.
I would've loved to see him analyze scenes from:
-"Fall of the Roman Empire" 1964
-Netflix's "Barbarians" 2020
-HBO's "Rome" 2005
Or Cleopatra with Rex Harrison, Taylor & Burton...and Spartacus with Kirk Douglas. Yes, the HBO Rome series was good. A friend of mine who was a writer, stated the Rome series was so expensive, they just could not afford to keep up the production. But very accurate.
Absolutely.Can't think of a more accurate depiction of ancient Rome.Just superb.@@hesavedawretchlikeme6902
This was great to hear the view of a Roman historian I love all things Roman, thanks good watch.
Now I want to know what this guy thinks of Rome, the BBC series. His very detailed and motivated answers are brilliant.
This style of video is always interesting, and you guys did a good job here - only taking a few movies to look at and giving Dr Elliot enough time to get his opinions across. I hope you do more of these!
Wow! The info about trireme rowers being free military personnel & not slaves is something I'd never heard, despite great interest in the history of the era! It's amazing how tenacious some of these historic myths are in popular media - just like the "horned helmet" Viking thing...
I also think Gladiator is a great movie but the first thing that hit me in the opening sequence was that the saddles at base were modern and had stirrups. No, they didn't. Now, I am aware that training an extra or even a stunt person to ride and (pretend) fight as the Roman military did, even if you could get the Roman tack and horses who would tolerate it, would be too expensive even for Ridley Scott. However, they could have found some way to hide the bloody stirrups.
Thanks, i was looking for a comment on the stirrups.
You also don't have homogeneous forests like that during the Roman invasion of Germania. During that time period, forests had all kinds of random plants and fungi growing in them, almost like the Amazon rain forest in terms of diversity. Homogeneous forests came centuries later when lumber harvests had depleted the forests of Europe.
The barbarians aren't dressed correctly. The Romans are using trebuchets. Everyone is slashing with their gladius instead of stabbing. The Romans don't fight in formation. The barbarians don't fight in formation. There's so much wrong in that opening scene.
Still absolutely fucking love watching it, though. 😂
The horses were also modern sized as were the actors. Just looked it up, based on archeology/statues, "horses" were between 13hh and 15hh, average size of soldier 5ft7. They rode ponies, probably a lot easier to ride without stirrups and also not that fast. As kids we rode bareback a lot, not so much as you get older, balance, center of gravity, I dunno. Of course they should have made it accurate, but have a feeling it would end up looking like (to the modern audience) the "oh how they danced" dwarves in Spinal Tap.
@excession3076 There is an excellent book by Ann Hyland called 'Training the Roman Cavalry' where she has reconstructed the gear based on archeological evidence and worked with it on her own verse based on Trajan's writing. Nowadays, at least one set of Cavalry reconstionists in the UK uses Roman saddles, though I suspect their bits are modern and much less severe. The Numidian auxillia didn't use any tack if we are to believe ancient historians.
Bugger. I'm still half asleep. That should be Hadrian, not Trajan.
It’s amazing how they did the Chariot scene in Ben Hur that was the 1950’s, long before CGI.
It’s called killing a bunch of horses and wild stunt men just going for it
Indeed. They built a Hippodrome and had a real chariot race. One of the many reasons Ben Hur held the record for numbers of Oscars won until the overrated, sappy "Titanic" came along in the 90's.
They did the whole thing properly, deaths included. Sad to say. But that is the reason its so well portrayed, because thats the sort of thing that would have happened small inconsistencies asside.
@theamericanextremist this is a common misconception but that was actually the 1925 silent film. No person died in the 1959 epic, though one stuntman did have a minor injury on set. This common misconception is likely due to people forgetting about the 1920s film (the original), and so accidentally consider Charlton Heston's Ben Hur as the original when reading about all of the deaths
As an earth scientist, I find the portrayal of the eruption of Vesuvius quite ridiculous. There are several good videos of pyroclastic flows, which is what hit Pompeii, on youtube.
3:38 Fullers or grooves had nothing to do with making it easier to get the blade out. Their purpose was to make the blade lighter.
15:58 using a testudo against charging melee combatants is idiotic.
Thanks Professor You Tube
@@damwonstyx1169 He's actually correct. This 'historian' on the video said a number of very inaccurate things.
@@damwonstyx1169 He's completely right. The purpose of a fuller on a sword is to make a larger blade with the same amount of material while keeping a strong shape. It's not a "blood groove" or whatever other people might ascribe to it. It has nothing to do with the wounds it inflicts.
Legionaries would use the Testudo formation while under fire, like in a siege assault or against mounted archers for instance. They could move the formation, but it would be slow and it was vulnerable to infantry and especially cavalry assault since the legionaries are very tightly packed and there's no room to use their weapons. You used the testudo when the threat of enemy projectiles can't be dealt with by simply closing with the enemy. More often than not, it was more advantageous to just steadily advance to limit the amount of time they were exposed to enemy fire.
I think he said at the start that he was happy with a certain amount of accuracy. But yes- you can’t strike at your enemy at all and you are not deflecting projectile strikes.
But the film shows them forming testudo when shot at, then coming out of it when charged.
Correction: I thought you were talking about Gladiator. Sorry!
He mentions blood runners. Those would be fullers: grooves in the length of the blade in order to reduce weight without compromising length or blade strength. I suppose they might have helped with airflow and removing the blade but that was not their original pupose.
The opening battle in Gladiator is FAR from reality such battle were fought. (for example: cavalry attacking in a dense forest, siege engines in a pitched battle, etc.)
And flame arrows, there was no reason to use flame arrows unless you were trying to set something on fire. It just looks good on camera.
To be totally honest, I could listen to him talk on Roman history for hours.
Subbed
0:22 the first inaccuracy is that the chants are actually from the film Zulu. So not a chant Barabarians would have been using in Germania
Testudo wasn't typically used in the way The Eagle depicts it
Yeah he definitely did not look into battle tactics as a metric to measure because even Gladiator’s first scene had issues in this regard. Using catapults, fire arrows, and having formations in all our brawls. Definitely not historically accurate, but they definitely made it look more cinematic.
@@Kbo513 Do you honestly think battles were neat and pitched? That thousands of men stabbing each other and killing each other isn't occasionally gonna get disorganized?
@@TheSmolPrince Fire arrows were ineffective and was there for a cinematic experience and what made Roman formations formidable in history were that soldiers rotated among each man and stayed in formation as much as they can in order to not tired men out. That’s why Rome was formidable for so long - discipline and formation. The battle depicted was immediately a charge and all out brawl.
@@TheSmolPrince this historian even mentioned that in this engagement, the soldiers would have thrown two pillums before engaging with their gladius. There were instances were the Romans were ambushed like the Teutenbourg forest were Romans were just running to stay alive - in that case, yes pure chaos. In this Gladiator scene, they faced their enemy head on and their flanks were secured.
I'm blown away that rowers weren't slaves, I've thought that forever. But what he's saying makes sense and truth be told I've never read any historical or mythological text either Greek or Roman that talked about the use of galley slaves in the navy, I've only ever read about it in contemporary fiction.
Yeah. After all, you don't want dozens or even a couple hundred people with cause to hate you rowing your ships.
Yeah. Expensive military tech in the hands of people with cause to hate you and nothing to lose. It's hard to imagine Romans being okay with that.
@@friendcomputer2293 How much would that suck if the top brass decided to use slaves instead of paid contractors for your warship? I can see it now:
"Oh our ship is being attacked? What if...what if we just, like, stop rowing? The other side will board the ship, kill all of our captors, and possibly set us free. They may even reward us with hookers and blackjack for helping defeat the Romans!" 😆
There was an analysis of the same scene in The Eagle at 16:10 by a historian on the Insider I think who completely rubbished it. The formation is completely wrong for the circumstances, the weapons are wrong, and the tactic overall wouldn't have been employed by a roman garrison.
”Now I know what those sad villagers of Pompeii felt like.”
For a “historian” he didn’t know that a blood groove isn’t for blood or air when removing a blade from someone it’s only purpose is for making the sword lighter
tbf his focus isn't sword history
@@syndrathedarksovereign1609 Well, than he should not talk like he knows something about it and misleading people by confidently spewing this nonsense.
"Historian"
Bless you Henry.
You gotta love how everyone thins the historian should know everything. Its not like they can make mistakes and we can learn diferent things from . Diferents sources. And everyone in here its now an expert cause they saw a youtube vidio from a wannabe historian.
Germans with authentic Zulu war cry and 'blood grooves', glad he's an expert.
And forgetting that Roman Nobles and an Emperor (or two?) participated in Gladiatorial games as well. Those PHD's must be a lot easier to get than i remember.
Finally someone who appreciates the sheer quality of the best movie in hostory, Ben Hur. Especially the race scene is one of if not the best sequences ever filmed. I don't care a bit about historical accuratesse there, the mosvie is just magnificent. It just has no real flaws: Cast, direction, script, camera and oh, Mikos Rosza's incredible score - what a movie!
I grew up with it. My dad is a huge fan. He had the movie on a 2 or 3 vhs set when I was a kid. And I watched it in sequences. First, I was allowed to watch until the break between Judah and Messala. Later, until the sea battle. And finally, when my dad deemed me old enough, I was allowed to watch it fully, including the leprous caves and the race. I still love those monumental movies from the 50s and 60s, The 10 Commandments, Lawrence of Arabia, El Cid, King of Kings... Wow.
As long as you don't mind the over 100 horses that died in the making...
At least your dad portioned it for you to digest at proper ages, I watched the whole thing at like 10y old, and the lepers gave me nightmares, haha.
I think the chariot scene was declared the best action scene of the 20th century, and rightfully so. What a flick.
@@mrcroob8563 100 horses died during the making of the 1925 version of Ben Hur directed by Fred Niblo not during the the making 1959 version of Ben Hur directed by William Wyler and starring Charlton Heston.
The chariot race was stunning but terribly inaccurate historically. No way would Messala or Judah take the reins. Chariot driving was the job of a slave or peasant.
@@druidriley3163 No one expects Ben Hur to be historically accurate. The whole galley slave thing is also wrong, galleys were manned by highly trained naval soldiers. (Not even to mention the appearance of the Christ and the healing rain in the end). Ben Hur is (1.) a movie from the 50s, when no one gave a damn about historical accuratesse (ever watched Cleopatra with Liz Taylor or El Cid with Charlton Heston? Great movies, but accurate? Not in the slightest. But, more importantly, (2.) Ben Hur is no historical film. It is a novel adaptation of the book “Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ” by General Lew Wallace, published 1880 by Harper, New York. The novel tells basically the exact story of the film (making it a rather accurate adaptation), but dives deeper in the rebellion. Judah plans to create a rebellion, gets into the race and wins agains Messala and later abandons the plans of rebellion and turns to the teachings of the crucified Christ. That aspect is cut short in the film - both his active planning of a rebellion (he acts way more reluctantly in the film) and his subsequent quasi-christianisation (though Christianity didn’t exist).
But I was talking about the movie as a work of fiction. And as such, it is one of the greatest movies ever made.
Ah, btw, Judah himself, as a member of the Jewish-Hellenic upper class could have participated in the race. Chariot races were not slave things, they were indeed more prestigious. But Messala, in such a race? Never. And Judah doesn’t get in as Judah Ben Hur, but as the adopted son of a Roman Senator - making both members of the Roman nobility.
Dr Elliott must be a fantastic tutor, his passion is infectious. Bravo!
@@NigelsWargaming Thank you for your reply.
It thrills me when a historian describes history with such enthusiasm: it's infectious
I'd love to see another video with Dr. Simon Elliott talking about more movies and shows (maybe spartacus, rome, etc.)
I'm not sure about his comments about Romans never getting into Scotland. Marcus is supposed to be travelling as an oculust, and there are occulist stamps from Ireland, which is just as far outside the empire. Just because armies never got there doesn't mean other people didn't. Empires like this would have influence a long way outside their official borders.
Plus, he forgot about the campaigns of Agricola and Septimius Severus as well.
the romans stopped at what is roughly the border between england and today's scotland. they didnt really go into scotland because they hated the locals(caledonians) , the weather, the atmosphere there and some other things..
I'm sure this man knows a lot about Roman history but when it comes to weapons and armour that does not seem to be the case. The bit on the fuller was particularly outrageous, the so called "blood grooves" weren't there to let the blood or the air out as he claims, they were there to reduce the weight of the blade and to get the centre of gravity closer to the handle.
And while we're at it, no that was not a spatha in the Gladiator cavalry scene, that was a gladius, even though it should have been a spatha
The thing that always takes me out of Roman movies is seeing people slashing with a gladius. Yeah, you can do that, but that's not how they were used. They were a stabbing weapon. Thin to fit between locked shields. Small/short to save energy and stamina. If the Romans had problems with a gladius getting stuck, they would have used a completely different weapon.
I like it when professionals recognizes that changing some details, makes for more compelling stories. In this case Dr. Elliot is a lot like Jonathan Ferguson from Royal Armoires Museum. Ferguson is a weapons expert, and he makes a series together with Gamespot about weapons in video games. He also recognizes, like Dr. Elliot, that sometimes, you have to change parts of how the guns work/would be used in a real military setting, when implementing them in a game, to make the games more fun and compelling.
But never optic sights in a WWII game
Dr. Elliot: This chariot race is my favorite scene in the history of cinematography! Superb! Ben Hur is an incredible movie! Wow! Overall, 7/10.
About the Romans never getting into the Northern Scotland, there was actually one exception. Emperor Septimius Severus scoured the land north of Hadrian's Wall for 2 years with a force of 50 thousand man, but the Celtic tribes would not give him battle, he apparently reached " the extremity of the island" before getting back to York.
Gladiator really brought the genre back into fashion after early Hollywood classics created this old dusty stigma around it. Huge credit to Zimmer for reimagining what music would fit despite Rozsa's established tropes.
In another one of these videos, the historian said it would be highly unlikely they would form a testudo under those circumstances and proximity to the enemy due to the time it took to get into and get out of that formation. Do you disagree with that?
this guy is chatting bollocks. Others pointing out different errors in the comments too.
There was no reason to form a testudo in that situation, they were taking no missile attacks.
Yeah no way they'd have formed a testudo in this situation. It was a defensive formation against missiles, not useful at all in melee.
3:35 - true that a gladius didn’t have any fullers, but fullers were not for relieving blood or air from the wound. That’s a myth. Fullers were meant to reduce the weight of a sword without comprising its strength.
I’m a bladesmith. The grove is called a fuller and it’s ignorant to say it was for anything other than weight reduction.
Expert my ass.
Its always fun to compare and contrast these videos and see what one historian will absolutely peg the movie on that the other finds fine or even likes and then moves on from
Interesting, the other historian didn't like "Gladiator" and I think he stated testudo would not have been used on such circumstances. He also rightly pointed out that a forest is no good place for cavalry. ;]
Forest and cavalry does not work and Romans fighting in close formation fighting in a forest does also not work good so you are right the Roman army always did look for open space to fight as much as possible.
Blood runnels ? the grooves, or fullers, were to lighten the blade with no loss of strength NOT for blood to run down.
I don’t think he has to be perfect. I’m glad you dispelled the myth. But there’s bound to be some other things you learned right?
I absolutely adore The Eagle. The book was one of my formative favourites and they did a damn good job at it. The book (indeed, any of Rosemary Sutcliffe's books) are well worth a read.
As a historian - thank you for finding some movies "fabulous" - because you more you know, the less you can enjoy a movie about roman history
Great stuff, Dr. Elliott, keep 'em coming!
Pompeii was one of the rare movies I couldn’t finish. I didn’t even make it to Vesuvius actually erupting! Nice to know it had some accurate moments, but I will not be giving it a second try.
It really was unwatchable. I didn't finish it either.
I can hear hints of the soundtrack from "Pirates of the Caribbean" in both "Gladiator" and "Pompeii"
Except, since Gladiator came out 3 years before the first Pirates, you heard hints of the Gladiator soundtrack in the Pirates of the Caribbean flick! hahaha
"Gladiator" is a fantastic remake. A remake of "The Fall of the Roman Empire(1964)". "Gladiator" also literally ripped off the Zulu war chant from "Zulu", also released in 1964. They still couldn't get the Roman legionnaire fighting style right though, just straight up hack and slash with very little thought for tactics. HBO's "Rome" was better in this respect.
Mind blown.. Infantry throwing two volleys of javelins, then fighting with swords. Of course!
Dr. Simon Elliott does a marvelous job of delivering the facts, of Roman scenes, from movies.
Thank you so much for this
Throwing "light pila" at 100 metres, though? The Olympic world javelin record isn't even that far! They'd be lucky to get them out to 10 metres.
I love these types of videos, feels like I am in school again except I am actually interested in what the teacher is talking about.
Mr Elliott got a PhD, didn't manage get a job at a university and started writing books for a wider audience instead. That's okay. But since his works are hardly known to (or cited by) professional historians I doubt you can call him a "top Roman historian" (unlike, for example, Mary Beard).
do you have mary beard money? hahah
@@vincemelson9655 I wish I had. 😀
Gladius was primarily used as a stabbing weapon, but because of the blade geometry it is one hellova choppa.
Blood groove is there to reduce weight, it's not nothing to do with "running the blood". Flesh doesn't have miraculous suction when impaled by a sword.
I was actually a bit surprised that Dr Elliott didn't mention anything about Lorica Hamata.
Gladiators weren't always slaves, and rarely ended in death.
Gladius wasn't used "on top of the shield (scutum)", but at roughly hip height which gives the best possible protection (with the scutum) when stabbing *in formation*. Scutum was a very large and heavy shield (roughly 1 meter tall, almost half a meter wide and weighted 10 kg). It wasn't something you swung anywhere fast.
Roman Legionare kit (scutum and gladius, in particular) was designed to be used in a formation, and in that context it was an absolutely brilliant weapon set.
"Colloseum" is a word from medieval times. In Roman times it was known as "Amphitheatrum Flavium" .
Actually it is still known and called Anfiteatro Flavio
Ben Hur 1959 is the best movie ever. Still watching it in BluRay. Big fan if history movies so this video made my day!
The opening scene, fantastic! The archery, arrows, bows: double fantastic! The Roman officer directing the Roman archers to loose the arrows: triple fantastic! He is a much overlooked actor and known bowyer. He deserves an academy award if for no reason, he won't sucker punch a much smaller man in stage! It was not a bad movie. The best part being that superb Roman officer directing the archers. He made the bows, you know? Someone please give that man a leading role! I think his first name is "Steve" or "Stephen".
You are a genius and recognize real talent.
I know. It's a gift.
I really wish someone would take a minute to absolutely destroy these movies for their horrific depiction of the barbarians. Barbarian litteraly only ment someone who didn't speak Latin (originally Greek, but in the context of these movies it would be Latin). It ment a person whose language sounded like "bar bar bar", that is all it ment. It had no meaning in terms of technological development.
The barbarians had proper houses (they did not live in huts and tents as was depicted). Their warriors had mail armor and steel weapons. They fought in formations with shield walls, etc. They were not stone age peoples.
Overall I really like the analysis here. However, there is one part I absolutely HAVE to call out.
There purpose of the fuller, commonly and erroneously known as "blood groove" or "blood runnels", is a method used to maintain the length and width of a sword whild shedding mass, and without compromising the strength of the blade. The Gladius Hispaniensis, being a short mostly stabbing weapon, was still fairly light, and did not need that kind of technology. Some spathas did have them, though.
Also, the human body is under internal pressure; you don't need to "let air into a wound" to make it bleed more. The internal pressure will take care of that. And no, the lack of a fuller doesn't mean the blade will get stuck in soft tissues. Now, wedged held in place by the mass of the guy you just stabbed and his bones? Sure. But the insides of the human body aren't made out of glue!
Also, the process of fullering a blade drives up the cost of each weapon due to the fact that the blade geometry becomes a lot more complex. Which means that after the Marius Reforms and the state having to foot the bill for troops' arms and armour (as opposed to the previous system of individuals providing their own gear and weapons), the need to provide thousands upon thousands of swords became a non-trivial budge line item and unit cost for each sword became a truly major factor. In the end, what benefits would be achieved by shaving a few ounces of steel off of each sword were outweighed by the additional labour costs. Which frankly is a practice that's never gone away (and was pretty much reinvented with the return of standing armies, at least in the Western world) : things that would make gear more ergonomic (for lack of a better word) would be passed upon because the costs would outweigh the benefits.
I beg your pardon? Maximus from Gladiator was a historical figure? Does anybody know which person this guy is talking about? That assertion seems very suspect to me.
I've heard the same from other sources. Maximus the General was real, the story they give him in the movie is not.
@@corruptangel6793 I've always heard that he was a fictional amalgamation of several different historical figures. While there were several important Romans with the name "Maximus," I don't know of any with the name "Maximus Decimus Meridius."
Maximus was not a real Character. Maximus, the name, was the name of several generals throughout history. Russel Crowes character is completely made up and his name is not a real name, he has 2 cognomen lol. They just called him that because it sounded cool.
No, Maximus was a real general of Roman legions in their military
3:35 - true that a gladius didn’t have any fullers, but fullers were not for relieving blood or air from the wound. That’s a myth. Fullers were meant to reduce the weight of a sword without comprising its strength.
There was a wonderful reenactment/documentary of the events at Pompeii many years back. I can’t recall who produced it - BBC, History Channel, etc… but it had actors playing parts of citizens, scientific explanations of what was happening, and then cuts to the locations and even the remains of the characters they were reenacting. Fantastic series.
Excellent vid. My children caught a love of History from their parents, I am glad he liked Gladiator as it is a very personal favourite of mine, as my son bought it for me out of his first weeks wages. Ben Hur is a favourite that I have re-visited many times.
I have zero expectation of film makers being historically accurate but I do love expert reviews, including this one. I learn so much from the inconsistencies they highlight as well as the broader cultural context they explain.
My only comment was that the editing was a little heavy. The gent was cut off a few times before the point was made.
I already subscribe to History Hit. Uncovering The Bayeaux Tapestry and Ancient Britain are my family's two recent favourites. Need more episodes of Ancient Britain, please. Thanks!
I'd love his opinion on the merits of or the complete lack of on
Spartacus, (1960)
The Fall of The Roman Empire, (1964)
I Claudius, (The 1970's BBC TV series)
Throw in Quo Vadis as well. While it was full of Hollywoodizations, it had its moments of brilliance also. There is a scene where Legatus Marcus Vinicius is leading a victory parade in Rome, driving his chariot with a slave holding a Laurel above Vinicius' head. The slave repeats the phrase "Remember, thou art only a man" over and over. This was to remind the hero that he was still a man and not a god. The practice is alluded to in the final lines spoken by George C. Scott in the film Patton. "All glory is fleeting."
They didn't seem to be including miniseries. I Claudius is wonderful and a favorite of mine, but alas, I suspect, not that accurate. The production values are very low (though the acting is fantastic), so no budget to assure an authentic look to the costumes, etc. Plus it's based on the novel by Robert Graves which, by his own admission, contains pretty much the worst thing that was said about everybody. Livia poisoning the fig trees seems a bit of a stretch to say the least.
If there is ever a part two of this (I'd certainly watch more!) I'd be curious on his thoughts on the Boudicca (2003) film with Alex Kingston, which as one can guess, is focused around the Roman conquest of Britain and specifically about Boudicca's rebellion. I'm very curious to see his thoughts, especially after the bit on The Eagle in this one.
Considering the though a bunch of undisciplined shirtless wild men was an “accurate” representation of Britannia’s culture id say he knows absolutely nothing.
This portrayal comes from the literal smear campaign Rome led against them! Painting them as actual demon men!
Simply because they lost to them a few times!
These were not a bunch of shirtless men running Willy billy into battle. They were strategic fighters! Not “savages”
What a fantastic video. Thank you for this.
The Eagle…….yes high marks for the movie…..but it only has the bare bones of the magnificent novel. I can still recall the moment I took it off the shelf in the school library ( 1961) and as I look up from this keyboard I can actually see my own batted copy on the shelf.
not sure if in the eagle they would have used the testudo to fight the peasants... that was more of a projectile defence formation...
Wait. This guys a historian yet he’s talking about a “blood groove” at 3:40. Well I guess he’s an expert on Roman history, not an expert of swords.
The groove is called a fuller and it was ground into a blade, NOT to allow a channel for blood to flow or to release suction, but to remove material from the blade and thus make to lighter without sacrificing strength. This is a persistent myth about the purpose of the fuller that just refuses to die. Tests have shown that there is practically no difference between a sword with no fuller and one with when it comes to removing it from a torso. If you’re unconvinced, consider that there are many thrusting sword designs throughout history that do not incorporate a fuller. Some have diamond shaped cross-sections, some a triangular, some are flat. So what he said is frankly nonsense.
Tests prove it but it doesn't mean that was not part of the intention when it was done, lots of things don't fulfill their intended design. I don't think its a big mistake on his part, the myth has been around forever because I'm sure it was around back then, if nothing more than just 'bro talk'. "yeah man my sword has this groove to make a bigger wound" and without testing it, would make sense.
@@NoirTech83 there is actually a pretty good reason to suspect they did not think this way. If that was how they thought when designing swords we would see more thrust oriented swords with fullers, but we don’t. Fullers are pretty much exclusively used on swords intended for cutting. Why would they only include a feature on a swords that was not intended to be used?
And I’m also pretty sure there are some evidence that this myth was invented in the Victorian era along with the myth of vikings having horned helmets and other similar myths.
Almost instantly lost me when he started talking "blood grooves". Its like the history urban legend that refuses to die.
I think there has been a mix-up and he's actually a historian about Romanian history, but he just decided to roll with it, even though he didn't know what he was talking about. Good job!
Exactly what I was looking for ❤️ felt better than some lectures I've been to.
7:19 Good perfect view, of the mount Vesuvius. In reality, Pompeii is probably 2, or 3 times farther away than this 'view ' shows, in ACTUAL reality. Hollywood, always, always dramatizes things, this is one. Theatrics, and showmanship. Anyway, take care all.
Distance between Mount Vesuvius and Pompeii is 25 kms or 15.5 miles or 13.5 nautical miles
Mount Vesuvius, Naples to Pompeii, Naples, Italy. Driving Distance 25 kms or 15.5 miles or 13.5 nautical miles Driving Time 30 minutes