Whether it’s back stabbing intrigue, shiny armour and swords, decadent rulers and erotic banquets, or bawdy jokes – Ancient Roman history has something for everyone.

It’s no surprise then that it has long fascinated filmmakers.

But, which movie or TV adaptions of Ancient Rome do historians like the most? We asked four experts to nominate their favourite, or not so favourite, screen visions of Ancient Rome.

WATCH: Starz brought Spartacus to the small screen in 2010. Video: YouTube

Some fifty years after Stanley Kubrick’s epochal movie featuring the now-centenarian Kirk Douglas (born in 1916) who, as a son of poor Jewish immigrants from the Tsarist Empire reportedly closely identified with his lead character, STARZ came up with a television series that eventually spanned four seasons on the life and times of Roman history’s greatest slave leader.

Those able to put up with lots of steamy action and gory, if often comically stylised, violence will get some terrific value out of the TV series, Spartacus.

Apart from some genuine liberties in the final season – but then the Roman sources did in all likelihood repress any traces of the negotiations with Spartacus and his formidable band of freedom fighters – the narrative closely follows the known history, and the casting and setting are excellent.

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The series paints a compelling picture of the social peculiarities and hardships of gladiatorial life, as well as the lives of the aspiring municipal aristocracy and the entrepreneurial upstarts of regional Capua, at this time a major city south of Rome.

It also presents the breathtaking arrogance of the Roman nobility – in this case chiefly the family of M. Licinius Crassus, a ruthless power-broker and plutocrat par excellence of the late Republic.

The language used also makes a hilarious and quite successful attempt at mimicking some of the Latin mannerisms – more than one oath is taken by the unsuspecting private parts of Jupiter Best and Greatest.

As someone who has done extensive research on the slave wars of the late Republic, as well as Crassus’ role in suppressing Spartacus’ revolt – he battled the rebels with an army of eight legions, only two less than Caesar needed to conquer Gaul – I personally much enjoyed this series and would enthusiastically recommend it to all but the faint or prudish of heart.

Banner: HBO/ Rome

This article was first published on Pursuit. Read the original article.

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Michael Schmitz

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Faculty of Arts

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