DecimusCaesar

I agree, most Roman games are just uimaginative spin-offs from Caesar III or Age of Empires: the Rise of Rome. Usually you have to look to mods of other games to have anything different. Has anyone here heard of the medieval combat game/RPG Mount & Blade? Essentially it's a third person exploration/combat game set in a mythical version of our Medieval period (without fantasy stuff like magic, dragons, orcs, wizards, elves etc). Anyway the game is developed by an independent Turkish studio, and a fairly large mod community has grown around it. One of those Mods is a Roman themed version of the game called 'Hegemony 268 BC'. Hegemony has a number of Classical civilisations to play as including the Roman Republic, Carthage, Seleucid Empire, Egypt, Macedon, Gaul etc. They also have some historically accurate units: Here's some Spartan Hoplites - and a here's a link to their site: Hegemony Forum I haven't played the mod yet. I don't think it's being finished, but it does look promising, and it'd be a nice change from all those city-building sim and RTS games.

Considering it will be Christmas soon what Roman (or Greek, Egyptian, Celtic) books, tv shows, films, games, items etc would you like to recieve this holiday? Is there anything you really enjoyed that you'd like to recommend to others on this site? What Roman themed items have you already bought or asked for? There might have been a few excellent books out there that have slipped us by - that haven't been reviewed on this site - or games or films not already mentioned on a 'Colosseum' thread.

I've read Jennings Aztec a few years back, but I can't recall if I ever finished it. I remember it had lots of explicit violence and sex in it though. The part where Mixtli orders a village to be massacred was pretty horrible, especially how he described killing the head priest by covering him in plaster and then waiting for the sun to dry around him, causing his skin to rupture and his internal organs to spill out. Aztec is a fascinating novel but it isn't for the faint hearted, those with weak stomachs, or the easily offended.

I hope everyone here at UNRV has a great time during the holiday!

I finally finished watching the series tonight. Not really accurate but enjoyable nonetheless. What I found odd was that despite the 6 hour running time it still felt a bit short, especiallly towards the end. I also found myself sympathizing with The Romans more than the Sicarii Jews - and I don't think that's what the show's creators wanted. The reason for this is because the Jewish characters all seemed to be under developed, which is the main reason why I felt the series could have been longer, or at least better developed. We spend most of the time at camp with O'Toole's idealistic but rather reasonable General Silva. He's the best character in the series, and the most fully developed and human. Peter Strauss's Eleazar was too much of a true hero to be approachable and understandable. I didn't really get his sudden conversion from an agnostic bordering on atheism at the beginning of the film, to his unwavering religious devotion towards the last hour or so. He imagined that God might have answered one of his prayers, but why that managed to fill him with so much righteousness that he asked everyone at Masada to commit suicide I don't know. It also helps that O'Toole's portrayl of Silva was excellent, and that he was much better than Strauss (but then again Strauss wasn't really given much space to develop his rather one dimensional 'hero' character). Anyway it was very good, but I wish I'd been given a greater look at the Jews on Masada. I was actually surprised to see how Romanocentric this series was. Even if the Romans are meant to be the villains.

I found this interesting talk by historian Michael Parenti about society during the time of the Late Republic. It lasts about an hour and a quarter. It's a People's History in the same vein as Howard Zinn's book. It's been reviewed on this site twice, but I've never had the chance to read it. Here is Parenti's own website: Michael Parenti's Site I don't agree with much of his analysis in this talk, but I do find it quite interesting. I for one never really noticed the casual racism from such famous classicists as Ronald Syme, Theodore Mommsen or Jerome Carcopino. Do you agree with what he says here?

Galla Placidia is one of the most interesting women of antiquity, so I'd love to see an adaption of her story to film or tv. I used to have a picture of her and her family (or a supposed picture...might just have been a late Roman Christian family) as my avatar for a long time. You might be interested to know that Galla Placidia has been portrayed on film before - she was portrayed by Alice Krige in the 2001 TV movie Attila; and if my memory serves me right she appears in the 2006 BBC docu-drama Ancient Rome: Rise and Fall of an Empire.

Marshall has suffered at the hands of test audiences before. His brilliant "The Descent" had a really downbeat ending, but American test audiences hated it. So they changed the ending allowing one of the protagonists to live. I think the same thing happened with "The Last Samurai" where the test audiences couldn't accept the fact that Tom Cruise bought the farm in the end. For a film that is all about metaphorically falling on your sword, this revised ending totally fudged the theme (for me anyway). Same with the Butterfly Effect - the guy was supposed to die in the end, but again

DC - thank you very much. That's a terrific complement. Can you tell me a little bit about this book's place in an English upbringing? I'd actually never heard about it until I saw it spoken of so highly in UNRV forums. Is it a commonly taught book at a High School level? How key is Roman Britain in what's taught in British history classes? I'm not sure there's any equivalent in the states basically because our history is so damn short compared to most of the rest of the world. -Jason Sadly the book isn't taught in schools in Britain, but Rosemary Sutcliffe's books are still popular 50 years after their publication. As a matter of fact I remember reading an article in the newspaper a few years back about encouraging children to read, and a few of Rosemary's Roman Britain books were mentioned as good starters for a certain age. As for Roman Britain, it is usually taught to primary school children. As a result it isn't really indepth, and it's sort of skirted over rather quickly along with the Vikings and Medieval castles. History isn't really taught in any detail till Secondary School, by which point you'll be filled to bursting with stuff on the Tudors and Nazis, over and over agin for years. On another note, Unfortunately I can't seem to find my copy of the Eagle of the Ninth. I'll keep on looking.

Attila (2001) has an atrocious script too. Why do historical films tend to have such bad lines - much more than its main competitors Romance and Sci-Fi? Do scriptwriters think that by having people spout lines in an "artsy-fartsy" manner it will make their script seem more historically authentic?

Well, There's something for everyone in that movie!

I'm not sure about it myself. If it gets good reviews I might go see it in the cinema. If not then I'll get in DVD. But if the film is terrible I'll avoid it altogether, like The Last Legion.

I've just checked Imdb and it has a 7.6 rating, which isn't too bad at all. Still can't find anything else about the film though, like DVD release dates etc. Come to think of it I don't think this film even has a distributor, which would probably explain a lot. Can't find much else though as most of the disussion about the film revolves around Rachel Weisz's bum and atheism.

I can't believe that this has passed me by. How come I've never noticed it before? It looks exactly like the type of book I've been searching for for years. I read a a review to a similar sounding book (not by Maty) in British Archaeology Magazine about six years ago (about life, humour and anecdotes about Greek and Roman life). This sounds exactly like it - even - better. Nice review Ursus; this will be going on my Christmas list!

Nice review! I enjoyed reading it. I read the book as a a child and it's laying around the house somewhere. Reading the review I feel compelled to dig it out again. Nice work!

It's odd that such an important battle has so thoroughly dropped out of public memory in the way that Hastings, Gettysburg or Stalingrad hasn't. Rarely is the battle even mentioned on a list of the most importnat battles of the Middle Ages. I personally believed that it paved the way for the spread of Islam and Arabic culture throughout the Middle East, and really put Islam on the political map. Before that the Byzantines and the Sassanid Persians had dismissed the Arabs as a primitive people on the edge of empire. Yarmouk showed them that they were a force to be reckoned with. I'm in agreement with George Nazfiger when he said - "Although Yarmouk is little known today, it is one of the most decisive battle in human history...... Had Heraclius's forces prevailed, modern world could be so changed as to be unrecognizable." It's a real tragedy that after all of Heraclius's stunning victories over the Sassanid Empire, that he'd be brought low at the moment of his greatest glory by an outside force. I was happy to see that one of the first titles in the best selling Osprey campaign titles was about Yarmouk - there's a link to it below: Yarmuk (Osprey Military)

Happy Birthday Kosmo!!

New update on Centurion. The film has been finished. Unfortunately the future doesn't look too rosy for the film. Test audiences hated it. The director was given orders to re-edit the film. The test audience hated it even more. Now the director's hoping it's third time lucky. Film critics and movie sites have smelt blood, and they are already moving in for the kill. I've read previews of the film that are totally dismissive of it, even though all we have about it is a brief summary of the plot and about five photographs. There isn't even a trailer. Movie critics tend to look out for stuff like delays, especially if the film isn't shown to critics before. I think this one's going to be a critical flop even before its release. A shame really, as the photographs look pretty cool. Here's some photos -

Thanks for the reply Nephele. I've started watching the series this weekend - about an hour on saturday - and so far I've found it enjoyable. Peter O'Toole seems to have aged a lot between Lawrence of Arabia in 1964 and Masada in 1981. So much so that he almost looks like a different person, although that might have something to do with him having lost a lot of weight. Anyway, this series has encouraged me to crack open Josephus's account again, so it can't be that bad.

Brilliant! A friend showed this to me a while back. If only the Ewoks in Return of the jedi were this interesting.

I recently got hold of the Masada Miniseries from 1980. It's the one starring Peter O'Toole and Anthony Quayle. I haven't watched it yet - it remains sealed on top of my PC. Has anyone seen this before? I hear it's well regarded as a drama, but how historically accurate is it? I'm loooking forward to watching it. Afterall if it has O'Toole, Quayle, and an epic score by Jerry Goldsmith then it can't be all bad. Plus it's about a very interesting period of Roman history. A good 6 hours and ten minutes ought to do the story justice. Any thoughts on this series?

Just recieved the Imperial Navy book and the Herod the Great book through the post today. I haven't gotten round to reading them yet, although I have flicked through them. The illustrations look pretty cool though.

I suppose the more action orientated story of Pompeii is more thrilling to many other people than the political dealings of Cicero. That's probably why most ancient epics seem to centre on the Romany army, rather than the politics of Rome.

Nice list GP! I've recently gotten hold of a biography on another famous ancient world general, Pyrrhus of Epirus, by Jeff Champion. Another great book by the same publisher would have to be Mithridates the Great by Maty. I also enjoyed Caesar: Life of a Colossus by Goldsworthy, which you included on the list.

Hope you enjoyed your day JGolomb!