Hi,
I just found this topic and would like to add my few cents...
Some of the shootings for this movie were filmed in Hungary.
They built a roman fortress in a valley near Budapest (Hungary's capital). A lot of people were invited to the casting from various Hungarian reenactment groups and 4 guys from our group was chosen for the shooting as well. 3 of them played celts and 1 of them played a roman legionaire. Before the shooting, the "romans" got a week-long intensive training to make them fit and to make them learn how to move in formations. For most of the time, they used some 60 romans and 70 celts but for bigger scenes they doubled the number of people. They filmed a battle scene between celts and romans around the fortress (surprise, surprise!!!
) which took the team approximately two weeks of shooting time. Now they are finished with this scene, and most of the staff moved on to Scotland to continue working there.
I haven't been able to take part but I heard a lot of stories from my pals and, well... ergh... I see some pictures which were taken during the filming, which was of course "not-encouraged" and thus I can't share them but I think I can write down some things which may be of some interest... :wink:
The roman fort:
For me it looks very convincing. Very similar to the reconstruction built in Lunt - 4-5 meters high earth rampart with wooden palisade on top of it with a vallum around outside the walls. The gates are very similar to that of Lunt (only smaller in size) as well. There are some buildings inside the walls (blacksmith, barrack, praetoria) they even built a big donkey-operated grain mill. The buildings look great, they have a lot of details and there are stone-paved streets between them surrounded with open drainage ditches.
roman legionaires kit:
dark purple rectangular scutum with yellow pattern - very similar to the ESG scutum patterns
proper looking pilum with weight under joint
firs century belt with belt plates (figural and concentric circle motiffs) and cingulum
first century pugio in metal scabbard (attached via frogs to the belt)
first century caliga
first century gladius with balteus
brown feminalia
dark red short sleeved tunic
helmet is made of aluminium (looks like steel) its form resembles the brass Italic C found in Cremona
and
(sigh)
leather lorica segmentata
except the segmentata I would say they made the most authentic looking 1st century AD roman soldiers I have ever seen in a movie, though still doesn't reach the quality level of some recent documentaries made with reenactors (of course).
A good point is that the Hungarians managed to convince the "guy in charge" that the roman legionaires still wore their gladius on their right side in the second century AD, though he insisted hard to the opposite. :lol:
