Roman Historian Rates 10 Ancient Rome Battles In Movies And TV | How Real Is It? | Insider

Roman generals almost never charge with the calvary he loses his ability to command the battle he's out there wrestling with a German and it's his subordinate who's in the center with the Infantry my name is Michael Taylor I'm an associate professor of history at the University at Albany I am an expert in ancient military history particularly focused on the military history of the Roman Republic and the Roman army today we're going going to look at ancient Rome battles in movies and TV shows and judge how real they are those are Roman tries so we have here A Time Travel scenario where Indiana Jones has been transported back to the siege of Syracuse uh in 212 BC a plane flying over this uh Siege where the Romans are trying to capture the Greek city of Syracuse during the Second Punic War one thing that indie gets wrong is uh Harrison Ford calls these ships trams um at this point the Romans are almost certainly deploying Quin KS a bigger ship has more rowers more power and as a more as a result more deck space since you can actually put bigger catapults um so if you're doing a naval Siege which is a aspect of the siege of Syracuse um you're you're going to want um Quin KS the sort of giant bolts uh penetrating the plane um that's not uh necessarily unrealistic I would be very surprised if any Roman uh uh catapult or ballista could range as far as they're shown in that scene trying to you know shooting a plane out of the air so famously the syracusan defense in the siege of Syracuse was overseen by Archimedes um the scientist and engineer um he also has set up a or rigged up a series of cranes um and some of these cranes have a chain and a grappling hook argum me these cranes are supposedly quite effective at um swinging around getting this grappling hook at the end of the chain onto a ship and in some instances capsizing the ships that story of course also over time improved into the telling including the fanciful notion that he rigged up a series of of mirrors or reflective Shields to set Roman ships on fire that seems to be physically impossible the the whole scene is is is um fanciful and and doesn't strike me as terribly historical so i' i' give it three a sling can actually be reasonably effective you certainly can absolutely kill someone the one downside is uh a shield uh or a shield wall as those soldiers are making is very likely going to repel those slings so uh slings are used for skirmishing um but if you have a really disciplined infantry formation you're not going to be able to break it apart just with slings and arrows we do have at least um one instance of one line throwing it followed by another line followed by another so a kind of uh rolling volley um that is attested in our sources in Hollywood films they very rarely show the Romans hurling their javelins um every Roman legionary carries two heavy javelins they're called uh singular pilum plural Pila um and they are very very lethal weapons they have a long iron shank if it goes through a enemy Shield it keeps going to what's ever behind that Shield so a a a peum volley is a really devastating event here they're fighting light infantry but it's actually a way to even the odds when you're facing a lot of missile troops you have things you can throw uh uh to to make them run away a testudo formation is just a a very close compact formation where not only are the shields in the front in the in the front of the formation locked together um but the soldiers uh in the rear ranks lift the their Shields over their heads the soldiers on their sides uh hold their Shields to the sides and basically it creates a a kind of box-like formation protecting uh uh the soldiers as they move forward um it is primarily attested in sieges the GU is actually walking up on the TU studo is also something that we hear of it's a way of of of getting guys over a low wall um and is is something that is even practiced in uh in the amphitheater sometimes as a kind of show of military agility I'm going to give it an eight I liked an attempt to show how tactics might work they again form a testudo there um but they don't need to form a testudo if there's some kind of overhead threat of of missile weapons um there it seemed that actually might be a a disadvantageous formation um because uh as they kind of show if you're in that dense formation and guys are coming at you it's hard for you to use your own weapons against them if I were a halfway sensible British Warrior I wouldn't jump on top of a Roman Shield because I know that there's a Gladius coming right behind it Circle so we do hear of a formation that you use when you are unfortunately like these Romans surrounded by enemy um and it's called an orbus basically a circle as a formation that you use if you need to form a perimeter on all sides um so whether or not it looked exactly like that obviously we we can't say but um uh that that is actually a real formation when we hear of Chariots getting taken out the advice is send someone with a missile weapon an Archer or a Slinger or in this instance a guy with a with a peum um and and kill the driver and then that's that disables the Chariot that's probably one reason why chariots do go away is um it is easy it is easy to kind of you kill one guy and then the whole system is sort of broken whereas um you know with the calvary men uh you might kill one Calvary man but there's there's others on those horses overall this clip I think is pretty good I I'd be tempted to give it a nine [Music] the sort of giant uh Stone throwing catapults what the Romans might call an onager because it kicks like a a wild donkey called an onar these huge catapults would probably not be deployed in a field battle the Romans might use catapults like that um you would use them in a Siege scenario because when you're fighting a battle you want artillery that you can really easily reposition as your forces move across the battlefield so the Romans do have field artillery that you can that is tactical can be used in a battle um but it's smaller it is a it can be carried on a cart flaming arrows might be used again in a Siege scenario if you want to shoot them to light the roof of a tower on fire or light buildings say behind a wall on fire um they don't do you any good in a again in a pitched battle if you hit a guy with an arrow his problem is that he has an arrow sticking out of it not that the shaft is on fire Hollywood needs light um and uh flaming arrows provide that for for the kind of spectacle of the scene if you plan to advance over a battlefield you don't necessarily want to set it on fire before your own forces move into it in terms of in what incendiary devices are available to the Romans um they have things like uh just putting charcoal in a pot and then those burning embers sort of pop out when the pot breaks upon impact they do seem to use a variety of um petroleum products uh that might burn um one thing one thing I would note um incendiary devices get really good in the Middle Ages and the secret ingredient there is gunpowder they don't have that in the ancient world so all of their incendiary devices are a bit subpar one thing that is inauthentic is um Maximus leading the charge himself Roman generals almost never charge with the they tend to position themselves right in the center of the battle where they can kind of control things and have the maximum situational awareness um so for Maximus to charge with the calvary note that he loses his ability to command the battle he's out there wrestling with a German and it's his subordinate who's in the center with the Infantry who is actually in the best position to actually exert any kind of command and control over that situation um Roman generals like to stay in the middle and they usually stay with the Infantry in part also because the Infantry tends to be the decisive point in Roman battle the the Romans basically do not use chariots uh in in any kind of tactical way aside from the ceremonial Chariot so uh there would have been no Sky [Applause] chariots I would say that is a that is a decent formation but if you're under any kind of Calvary attack or Chariot attack it seems one of the best things you can do is present a relative dense Mast formation um that prevents uh any one or two people from getting uh picked off I'd say I'd be inclined to give it around a seven this is a very rare clip that actually uh attempts to show a legion maneuvering over a battlefield um in in the uh Triplex AAS the three-fold battle lines that the Romans have um where their cohorts their individual units um are array in this kind of checkerboard [Music] formation so the Romans don't like to form a a single dense Mass formation um because that single dense Mass formation can be brittle it can be broken up by uh an obstacle if it gets disordered everything dis gets disordered each cohort fights somewhat independently of the other cohorts and that actually gives the overall Legion a a lot of tactical flexibility on the battlefield if I'm the the Romans in the front Rank and I see these guys rolling the fire logs I'm just going to kill the guys rolling the fire logs and then the problem is solved also my guess is those logs are kept on fire because they've put a lot of gasoline on them um the the Ancients are not going to have any kind of uh incendiary uh materials as effective which means probably the logs are just going to to to burn out as they're rolled forward so the swords uh approximate the Roman Gladius that is in use at this time um uh and one thing that that is inauthentic is you do not use a Gladius to sort of fence with the way they're fencing in this clip but a Gladius is always used with a scotum the sword is too short and chunky to effectively um Parry with um essentially if you were confronting an opponent you absorb and Parry his blows with your scotum and then you strike with your Gladius it's a the the scum and the Gladius are together a kind of weapon system I I would give this a seven the classic Legion uh moving across the field I've got to say I've got a soft spot for it um once everything degenerates into the scrum it gets a lot worse Chariot racing is particularly popular throughout the Roman Empire as a centerpiece of um games that are put on it's a dangerous profession um maybe maybe not quite as dangerous as being a gladiator but it it certainly is a a very hazardous performance that you're putting on charioteers sometimes wear safety gear but it's padded it's specifically designed for what happens if I fall off this horse we do know that that they would uh carry some kind of knife to cut the rains they could kind of bail out of their Chariot before before things truly spun out of control [Music] piracy at this point exists but no pirate is going to be in a position to have a huge Fleet and engage in a fleet style action against the Roman Navy these guys are going to be probably much more similar to the kind of Somali pirates that we've seen in the Red Sea um fishermen who with boats or or people who are sometimes Merchants sometimes Raiders but but not with the military capacity of even trying to engage uh any kind of Roman Force reming [Music] spe yes it's great to break their ores but it's even better if you can just get your RAM in the hull of their ship um and then that sinks it we absolutely um uh know that ships are sunk because of of ramming they found off the coast of Sicily um a series of rams left over from a naval B battle between the Romans and the carthaginians um and where every Ram is is picked up off the sea4 that's where a ship got rammed sank to the bottom the Timbers rotted away and now there's a ram on the on the floor of the Mediterranean as much as The Chariot scene is classic the naval battle is just awful um so I'm gonna say five okay so this is based on the battle of the tudo burger VA this took place in 9 ad and was an ambush by a Germanic Confederacy of three Roman Legions of that were moving through the tberg forest it's one of the heaviest uh uh losses that the Romans suffer during the Imperial period three Legions wiped out um over the course of uh three days and this is the Roman army amid our forests and swamps so the Romans don't necessarily typically March in a in a huge Square Varys and his soldiers are vulnerable simply because they're moving over narrow more poorly developed roads in a forest um that's going to require them a relatively long snaking column which those three Legions were supposedly yes drawn out into soldiers fighting back to back here um certainly would not be ideal it's something you only do if uh you you you're caught sort of unprepared in an ambush and the kind of formation that they you might want to break into if there's Germans all on all sides might be something like an orbis formation um or uh you know some some kind of of of square perimeter I'm going to give it an eight the military equipment actually looks quite good theica segment to armor is actually first attested at this battlefield um it's the first time we've recovered it archaeologically it's that kind of cool face mask we see the officer wearing also reflects a find that we found at the Cal crezy site I am not aware of any whistles being used we we certainly know that trumpets are used to uh usually at a grander level to Signal um troops to move in a certain way um uh here probably the centurion's most effective um sort of equipment is just going to be his own voice centurions are I think to to use the cliche they're the backbone of the Roman army they are um uh a very important officer in the Roman army there's centurions in each Legion um and that means there's actually a lot of people who can control troops at a kind of very local level um so even if the general doesn't know what's going on centurians can make [Music] decisions now we do know that Caesar's Army which like the Army in Spartacus usually fights uh uh in three lines and one reason for doing that is if the people in the front line um become come exhausted you can bring up cohorts from the rear ranks to replace them now that being said we do not have evidence of any kind of extremely coordinated system of rotating men within an individual Century or cohort um that's something they've kind of made up um what the the system that they show honestly seems clumsy and impractical to me you don't want that many men cycling around of formation when you're trying to maintain its coherence and like the goals are rushing against you um we also do have a textual um passage which describes a a battle fought shortly after Caesar's death as part of the Roman Civil War that simply says men stayed in the front rank until they were killed and then they were replaced so that probably is the simplest way to do it get back in formation you drunken fool Polo and Venus are based on actual centurions in in Caesar's Army um who fight valiantly for Caesar in Gaul Polo in this series just portrayed as this total screw up the actual historical Polo uh is a very very effective uh Centurion just like Venus um and uh you know is a is a professional military man some things that I like include the fact that all of the Roman soldiers are wearing male armor that is authentic I do like the idea of of Roman soldiers fighting in coherent formations I'm going to give it an eight the Romans are deploying a type of heavily armored uh uh cavalary called U cleanar or katati these are developed in the East they're initially developed probably in Iran um but the Romans uh learn of their effectiveness and copy them these are actually kind of the forerunners of of in some ways medieval knights most of these units are still in the East but it's not impossible that you would you would have uh cateracts uh fighting in the late Roman uh West with um both heavy armor for the rider heavy armor for the horse and and using a lance as kind of the primary weapon horse archers in general um uh can be extremely accurate the most accurate horse archers are going to be those who are raised usually on a kind of U step or pl's environment and kind of grow up doing horse archery that's where the Romans will try to recruit their horse archers if they can they can actually shoot to time their shot for when the you know in between the horse's Hooves hitting the ground so they actually have a pause to take an act a shot before the pump this film imagines that um Arthur is a uh late Roman Commander um and he's given the same name as a historical Lucius artorius casus he spent part of his career in Britain he probably lived in either the second or the third Century ad um uh many hundreds of years before this film is set I'm going to have to give it a one a simple fact that there are Romans in Britain uh in in the fifth century is is itself probably the most ridiculous thing Octavian ships are so much faster than our Egyptian tubs the Battle of acum is the last great battle of the Civil War Between Octavian the adopted son of Julius Caesar and Mark Anthony who had been one of Caesar's most loyal lieutenants they soon come to blows and at the Battle of actium Octavian uh beats Mark Anthony Mark Anthony is allied with Cleopatra Cleopatra has inher Ed uh the toic fleet um and the toames have traditionally had a fleet of very very heavy warships that's actually one of the more accurate things they say in in the film those ships are primarily designed it seems to do naval sieges um kind of like the siege of Syracuse we saw where you want big ships that can have a lot of uh of artillery pieces this is one of the rare Naval battles where it does seem that incendiary devices are useful possibly because the smaller ships that Octavian are using they're not going to be able to necessarily effectively Ram um all of uh Antony's you know big big ships throwing javelins is is not going to stop you from getting rammed um now it may prevent you from getting boarded that could be a consideration of if you if you think that ship is coming alongside you to um uh to board you you're going to want to try to kill as many soldiers on the deck of the enemy ship uh to prevent aborting um ironically the one advantage of doing that is if they've successfully rammed you and your ship is stricken um you might try you might try to get onto their boat and board them there are some um Rams that are fitted above the water line as kind of secondary Rams um and those do tend to be a bit narrower it seems the idea is to cause kind of secondary damage compared to the main Ram the the sort of big pointy pencil like um Rams above water not super accurate although again we do we do have some narrower above waterer [Music] Rams you don't do that with a Gladius uh if you're boarding an enemy ship you're going to have your scotum um and it's going to be messy and nasty and slippery and difficult but um you're gonna you're going to fight as best you can protecting yourself with your Shield you know striking with your sword I think the scene is just overall terrible um I'm going to give it a two I'm surprised to say but my favorite scene in terms of military accuracy um was from rizen I thought rizen um did the best job at actually showing kind of the range of actions that Roman soldiers can undertake if you enjoyed this video why not click on the next one

Channel: Insider

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Length: 22min 30sec (1350 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 18 2024