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+--- Thread: HBO\'s "Rome" to present more realistic look at the (/showthread.php?tid=2040)
Re: HBO\'s "Rome" to present more realistic look at the - FlaviusCrispus - 07-24-2006
Quote:Glad to see another fan of Deadwood - the best TV seen in many years I think the problem with Deadwood was that it was all shot on location, and the costs were hugely expensive ($3m per episode?).
Deadwood is shot at a set about 10 miles from my house, in the Santa Clarita Valley above Los Angeles in California. The SCV has become a "second Hollywood" and may movies and TV shows (as well as documentaries for the History Channel that Legio VI has appeared in) are shot there, so "location" costs ought not be any more than for any other hour-long TV show set in a historical period. My friend Caius Man, who is also a co-founder of Legio V Victrix and our first centurion, was one of the production supervisors on Deadwood and just got done filming the second (and final?) season. His hours were brutal and he's not that sorry to see the end of the season, though he of course loved the show.
As to Rome, I'm fully aware that the armor, costumes and such can be nitpicked to death (hey, we're reenactors-- that's what we DO). And the show is not everything I personally would have hoped for. But it's still, in my view, the best thing that's been done on Rome since "I, Claudius" and I still enjoyed just about every episode. I'd like to see it go on and on, but two seasons and 24 episodes ought to cover a lot of ground. And I'm very much looking forward to seeing Octavian come into his own...[/i]
Re: HBO\'s "Rome" to present more realistic look at the - rkmvca1 - 07-24-2006
Quote:But it's still, in my view, the best thing that's been done on Rome since "I, Claudius" and I still enjoyed just about every episode.
I completely agree. Hollywood could have, and has done, much much worse. BTW I am told the Civil War re-enactors are much more nit-picky than you guys are. "Sir? We have to stop the shoot. The second guy in the third line is holding his musket wrong!".
rkmvca/rich klein
Re: HBO\'s "Rome" to present more realistic look at the - Ebusitanus - 07-25-2006
Now that you mention CW reenactors. They are very much used for CW movies and programs and one overriding factor over the stich count correctness is that a great percentage are old and overweight guys which already thus ruin much of the effect.
Re: HBO\'s "Rome" to present more realistic look at the - rkmvca1 - 07-26-2006
A very good point, Daniel. The same can be said for many of the "Indians" in Western movies -- usually quite well fed, and sometimes embarrassingly "white". Good Headdresses and loincloths, though.
rkmvca/rich klein
ps - there are a couple of interesting updates on RomeHistorian's blog. Nothing military, just interesting Roman anecdotes.
http://boards.hbo.com/forum.jspa?forumID=800001151
Re: HBO\'s "Rome" to present more realistic look at the - Ebusitanus - 07-27-2006
Hey...we disccused this not long ago:
Quote:Browsing the script for the latest episode - six - and I come across the following line: "The troops need paying. We must get the money somewhere."
Money. As much of an obsession for the ancient Romans as it is for us. The Romans were unabashed in their desire to get rich. Most, of course, never managed and spent lifetimes worrying about the next rent check. But it didn't stop them dreaming. 'Salve Lucrum' reads one of the more famous inscriptions on a doorway in Pompeii. 'Welcome Profit!'
Understanding Roman attitudes to money is, accordingly, a key to understanding the Romans themselves. There were the usual contradictions. The only people who could afford to be blasé about money were the super-rich, and they despised those who actually had to work and get their hands dirty to make it.
For the vast majority of Romans, (who were poor, overwhelmingly so by our standards), money had to be an obsession. Coin, what the Romans called 'nummi', was what you needed, and you did what you had to to get your hands on it. Hard cash to survive in a hard world.
One simple, but significant barrier to understanding Roman money is calculating a rate of exchange. What's the dollar/denarius rate today? This is trickier than it looks. Inflation means that any suggested equivalent almost immediately goes out of date.
The most effective way is to take an average wage in the ancient Roman world and to see what it would have bought you. That way you get a sense of how little you would have been forced to survive on. And calculating like this turns up some surprises.
The average annual wage at the time ROME is set was 900-1,000 sestertii. It meant you had to get by on between 2 to 3 sestertii per day. Now even the most basic room in Rome cost 2 sestertii per day. So you've already got just one sestertius to play with. That was enough to buy you one cup of good Italian wine, (admittedly a cheap cup would have cost only a quarter of that.) Alternatively it would have been enough to buy some bread, a tiny piece of meat, (probably pork) and some chickpea relish to go with it.
It's not much. And when you factor in the need for clothing, and the fact that most people contributed insurance to a funeral fund for fear of dying without receiving a proper burial, it's clear that some days you'd have to go hungry if you were to have a roof over your head. It's also clear that the line between surviving and going under was razor-thin. You'd make your own clothes, try and grow your own food, and depend wherever you could on a benefactor to bail you out when things got too tough.
The same calculations reveal the gigantic gap between rich and poor. A slave cost 5,000 sestertii minimum. Five times the annual wage. An immense luxury. Imagine spending five your times your entire annual salary on a single item. Even renting a slave cost 2,000 sestertii a year.
And we know that some rents, for a swank condominium on the Palatine say, were 30,000 sestertii per month. That's 360,000 sestertii per year. 360 times the average annual wage - for an apartment.
Re: HBO\'s "Rome" to present more realistic look at the - petrinus - 07-28-2006
wow, that puts it into perspective!
so why doesnt hbo and hollywood come here first, youd think thatd make the most sense, so many resources available and willing actors extras? hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
yes lets home january 2007 has something more worthy, ill be just returning from afghanistan then, thatd be a nice surpirise
Re: HBO\'s "Rome" to present more realistic look at the - Ebusitanus - 07-30-2006
I just received yesterday in the mail my "Rome" DVD collection and having a blast watching the series again at my leisure.
Now when taking a second look you focus much more on the background details and while there is alot to nitpick, there is also alot of great stuff one just does not notice at the first pass.
I find it also very weird that many of the "fark ups" could have easily been avoided by a simple purchase of an Osprey booklet or two. No idea how Ars dimicandi did not bring up the most ballant faults while helping the producers out.
Re: HBO\'s "Rome" to present more realistic look at the - Ebusitanus - 08-03-2006
I had been giving much grief over at the HBO forums about my nitpicking over the HBO Rome Helmet and how it should have been a Montefortino instead of this fantasy one.
Anyhow..so I was watching the series yesterday with the "All roads lead to Rome" historical details visual interactive comentary on while watching and..lol...Suddenly this meessage comes up on how they were using Montefortino helmets, designed after Celtic models, for this set and how proud they were on having got that detail right. I mean....I could just :lol:
Re: HBO\'s "Rome" to present more realistic look at the - Praefectusclassis - 08-03-2006
Quote:Suddenly this meessage comes up on how they were using Montefortino helmets, designed after Celtic models, for this set and how proud they were on having got that detail right. I mean....I could just:lol:
Rome helmet - Graham Sumner - 08-03-2006
Quote:I had been giving much grief over at the HBO forums about my nitpicking over the HBO Rome Helmet and how it should have been a Montefortino instead of this fantasy one.
Actually we have had a discussion about the 'Rome' helmet before on another thread, perhaps Jasper can help here. It was based on an example found near Emessa in Syria but was dismissed by Robinson as a Victorian fake and seems to have largely been forgotten since. It is worth remembering however that another silvered helmet of cavalry sports type was also found in the same area and that has been accepted as a genuine type.
Nevertheless whatever the origins of the Emessa/Rome helmet, it would appear at least in the archaeological record to be much of a one off, compared with the Montefortino or Coolus types. It would have been far better to have used them in the series. The Emessa helmet is more of an 'attic' type and the only Celtic connection would be that it looks like the helmets used in Asterix!
The DVD set is worth getting and as Daniel points out the makers say everything is as accurate as possible :wink: .
Graham.
Re: HBO\'s "Rome" to present more realistic look at the - Jeroen Pelgrom - 08-04-2006
Quote:Actually we have had a discussion about the 'Rome' helmet before on another thread, perhaps Jasper can help here.
Graham, see page 9 of this thread.
Re: HBO\'s "Rome" to present more realistic look at the - Ebusitanus - 08-04-2006
I could just not loose the awkward feeling that somehow my comments, or those of other shocked enthusiasts, might have gone through to the right person who suddenly for the first time actually heard the term "Montefortino" and found it cool enough to include it on the "historical background" interactive displays of the DVD set. Or perhaps the guys of Ars Dimicandi told them for the get go (I would think these guys, being the "boot camp" advisors for the set) but the crap had been already bought.
How come we never see these Dimicandi chaps posting over here...I´m sure they could tell us alot about what went on backstage.
I also wonder who the Indian manufacturer was who made the "HBO helmet". Perhaps it was our Deepeeka guys?
Re: HBO\'s "Rome" to present more realistic look at the - Tarbicus - 08-04-2006
Quote:I also wonder who the Indian manufacturer was who made the "HBO helmet". Perhaps it was our Deepeeka guys?
M..M..Mu......m.... No, can't say it. Go here:
M...m.......m...
Re: HBO\'s "Rome" to present more realistic look at the - Virilis - 08-04-2006
This is the best:
Quote:"A must for any collector of Roman arms and armor"
Re: HBO\'s "Rome" to present more realistic look at the - Ebusitanus - 08-04-2006
I mean...you must be really evil to design such a thing on purpose. Hey...Not even asking for some obscure piece of equipment here. But just the most causal stroll through Amazon and 15 bucks would have averted this.
I do not think these Museum replicas (The nerve for such a name!) guys are the real culprits. I would rather think that some half arsed production guy opened his only roman history book, saw the typical Trajan Column photo and faxed it over to India along with the order of rectangular scutum and Pompeii Gladius.
And now two years later we get told how historic everything is and how accurate they got their "Montefortinos". :roll: