HUI216
Italian Civilization
Andrea Fedi
HUI216 (Winter 2007)
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5.1 Rome vs. Carthage (270 BCE)
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5.1 The 3 Punic wars
• One of the pivotal moments in the expansion of the
Roman republic was the wars against the
Carthaginians, wars which soon became part of
Roman culture and folklore (see Vergil's poem,
The Aeneid)
• Carthage was, long before Rome, the power to
reckon with in the Western Mediterranean Sea
• Rome, in contrast, was lagging behind in the
technology of naval warfare, so much so that
according to Roman historians the Romans studied
a captured Carthaginian ship to improve the
characteristics of their warships
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5.1 264-241 BCE: the First Punic War
• Rome and the Greek colonies of Eastern
Sicily fought against Carthage
• Rome played the role of big brother,
pretending to come to the rescue of Sicilian
cities which were very important to the
Romans, strategically (because of their
central position in the Mediterranean), and
economically (because of their thriving
commerce and agriculture)
• At the end of this war Rome assumes control
of Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica
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5.1 The next 2 Punic wars
• 218-201 Second Punic War
• Famous Carthaginian general Hannibal crosses the Alps
• Rome becomes the new ruler of Western Mediterranean
• 149-146 Third Punic War
• Destruction of Carthage, Africa annexed as a province
• War against the league of Greek cities
• Fearing that Carthaginians, whose powers were already
fading, might come back to pose new threats, Romans
fought another war and concluded it with the complete
destruction of Carthage
• Some historians, even among the Romans, argued that
this war was an easy political victory, and that it was
initiated to enhance the reputation of Roman leaders
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5.1 After the first Punic war (220 BCE)
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5.1 Roman historian Livy on the 2nd Punic war
(bk. 21)
• A number of things contributed to give this war its unique
character:
• in the first place, it was fought between peoples unrivaled
throughout previous history in material resources, and
themselves at the peak of their prosperity and power;
• secondly, it was a struggle between old antagonists, each of
whom had learned, in the first Punic War, to appreciate the
military capabilities of the other;
• thirdly, the final issue hung so much in doubt that the eventual
victors came nearer to destruction than their adversaries.
• Moreover, high passions were at work throughout, and mutual
hatred was hardly less sharp a weapon than the sword... The
intensity of the feeling is illustrated by an anecdote of
Hannibal's boyhood...
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5.2 Contemporary Italian songs on Hannibal
• A 1993 Italian rap song on Hannibal in Italian, and
the English translation of its lyrics
• http://www.italianrap.com/artists/artists_bios/almamegret
ta/lyrics/figli_di_annibale.html
• http://www.italianrap.com/artists/artists_bios/almamegret
ta/lyrics/figli_english.html
• There's another Italian song about Hannibal,
"Prova a pesare Annibale," by Giorgio Gaber
(composed in 1970, reminiscent of a text written by
Roman poet Juvenal)
• Niccolò Machiavelli mentioned Hannibal and Scipio
in a key passage of the Prince (1512-15)
• http://www.constitution.org/mac/prince17.htm (in English)
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5.2 The rap on Hannibal
• The rap, which some may find inappropriate, is still worth of
our attention
• It makes reference also to the passage of the American
army through Italy and Europe in WWII, and to the children
born during that period from interracial relationships
• The topic was somewhat popular in the Italian folklore of
the postwar era. The most famous example inside the world
of popular music is that of a 1944 Neapolitan song whose
lyrics were written by Guido Nicolardi (music composed by
E.A. Mario), "Tammurriata nera"
• you can find the text in Neapolitan here
• http://www.dentronapoli.it/Canzoni_Classiche/tammurriata_nera.htm
• info about the song, in Italian, at the following link:
• http://www.scudit.net/mdcannapolitam.htm
• The song became popular all over again during the 1970s, when it
was reproposed by a group called Nuova Compagnia di Canto
Popolare, under the direction of HUI216
Roberto de Simone
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5.2 The Roman Republic in 86 BCE
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5.2 The Roman Empire in 25 BCE
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5.3 The last 100 years of the Roman Republic
• The last years of the Roman Republic were
characterized by internal fights and social
tensions, violence and instability, a situation
that is clearly reflected in Latin literature
• The following slides illustrate some of the
facts that caused concern in Roman society
• Eventually, many Romans would be willing
to accept the trade-off, which some may
have believed to be just temporary, between
the peace and stability guaranteed by the
Emperors and the military, and democracy
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5.3 The first Slave war -- Tiberius Gracchus
• 135-132 BCE: the first Slave war in Sicily
• Tens of thousand of slaves, employed in the area's large
farms start a rebellion
• They want freedom for themselves, don't have other
sociopolitical goals, such as the elimination of slavery
• The Roman army has to intervene and fight all-out
military battles
• 134-133: Tiberius Gracchus, a member of the
Roman elite, becomes the people's Tribune and
proposes a reform to redistribute large portions of
public land (until then leased mostly to the rich
landowners), and to assign land more liberally to
members of the lower class, giving them a chance
to become independent farmers and small
entrepreneurs
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5.3 Tiberius Gracchus and his reform
• His proposal becomes a law, but he is
assassinated before provisions necessary to
implement that law could be approved
• Small farmers were the backbone of the
Roman economy during the first centuries of
its history
• Later on, with the expansion of the Roman
republic, large portions of the regions
conquered by the Romans were
appropriated by the Roman government and
leased to Roman citizens, especially to the
patricians
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5.3 Patrician landowners vs. small farmers
• The patrician landowners, thanks to this leased
public land and to the land they acquired
reinvesting their profits, created huge estates
mostly worked by the slaves (which also were
made available in large numbers and at cheap
prices by wars)
• Little by little it became difficult for the small
farmers to compete with those large estates, and
many of them lost or sold their land, and moved
into Rome or other large cities
• The expansion of Rome also made it easier to
import cheaper wheat from Sicily, North Africa or
Egypt, increasing the competition
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5.3 Small farmers during the Roman era
• In spite of those difficulties, a considerable number of small
farmers always got by: for example, retired soldiers would
get as a severance package a small parcel of land, often
close to the borders of the Roman state, so that they could
act as a military reserve in times of crisis, and they would
spend the last years of their lives working that land
• Towards the end of the Empire, burdened by heavy taxes
and with profits eroded by ever growing inflation, the small
farmers had to borrow money from the large landowners
and when they could not repay those debts, they would
offer their services instead
• Through this process, the independent small farmers of
Italy and Western Europe changed into the serfs of the
Middle Ages, while some of the wealthy landowners were
able to turn their economic power and their social prestige
into political power and they became noblemen.
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5.3 Another Gracchus -- 3 more wars
• 121: Gaius Gracchus, Tiberius's brother, tries to
finish the agrarian reform, but he too is killed,
together with hundreds of supporters
• 104-100: the Second Sicilian slave war
• 91-89: the Social War (Rome vs. its Italian allies,
"Social" from the Latin socii, "partners")
• At the end of this war all Latins, Etruscans, and
Umbrians are given access to Roman citizenship
• 82: the first Roman Civil War is fought in Italy by
two well-known generals of the Roman army, Sulla
and Marius
• They both use the troops under their command to
support their political agendas, using exchanges of
favors and exploiting the soldiers' personal loyalty to
them
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5.3 Other wars fought too close to Rome
• At the end of this civil war Sulla is victorious
• Proscriptions are used for the first time in Rome (they are lists
containing names of 'public enemies of the State,' whose
properties can be seized and whose lives can be terminated
without due process or the normal legal consequences)
• Sulla becomes dictator, but he soon resignes and inexplicably
retires to private life; dies in 78 BCE
• 73-71: the Third Slave War (the one the movie
Spartacus was based on)
• Roger Ebert reviews the movie Spartacus
• A selection of primary sources, in translation, on slavery in
Roman society and on the three slave revolts
• http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/asbook09.html#Slavery
• 67: Pompey, skillful general and one of the leaders of
Rome's conservative party, sweeps off the pirates
operating in the central area of the Mediterranean sea
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5.3 The Civil War between Caesar and Pompey
• 49-45: large-scale Civil War between the
armies of Pompey and of Julius Caesar
• 49-48: Caesar marches on Rome, occupies it
• Caesar defeats Pompeians in Spain, Greece
• Pompey flees to Egypt where he is murdered
by the local king, who thought Caesar would
appreciate it
• Caesar goes to Egypt, and makes Cleopatra
Queen of Egypt as a symbolic gesture to
dissociate himself from indiscriminate violence
and political murder
• The theme of clemency dominates Caesar's works
(esp. De bello civili)
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5.3 Caesar and the Pompeians -- Cato
• 46-45: Caesar crushes the remaining Pompeian
forces in Africa and Spain
• Cato, a famous member of the Pompeian party,
commits suicide in Africa, showing that one should
value freedom and democracy even more than life
itself
• For centuries Cato will be referred to as a cultural and
political icon, as the defender of republican values (the
values of democracy and freedom), and the best
example of moral integrity
• Medieval poet Dante will even promote him (a pagan
and a mortal sinner), to the position of guardian of
Purgatory, under the direct jurisdiction of God!
• Matilde Asensi, The Last Cato (2006)
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5.3 The Roman Empire
• 44: before he can become Emperor (if that was indeed
his plan), Caesar is murdered by Brutus, Cassius and
other high-level conspirators
• The fate of Brutus and Cassius, Judas, in Dante's hell
• 27: Octavian Augustus becomes the first Emperor
• His official title was not Emperor, but rather the less
threatening title of Princeps Senatus = First in the Senate
• For more than 200 years the Republican institutions (the
Senate, the Consuls) are kept alive under the Empire
• Emperors feared that too drastic a change could renew fights
and internal divisions
• Other titles used by the Roman emperors:
• Augustus = superior/venerable (from it the month of August)
• Caesar (from it the German Kaiser and the Russian Czar)
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5.3 Conclusions: time, history, life
• Inside the Greco-Roman civilization many believed
that communities or social organizations are not
different from any other biological organism that
exists in nature: they are born, they develop and
grow old, then decline and eventually die
• According to this view, which was very popular also
during the Renaissance, there are cycles in history
and politics as there are in nature
• It was only with the advent of Christianity and with
the spread of biblical ideas which had been first
developed inside Jewish culture, that our own
image of time as an arrow, speeding constantly in
one direction, became prevalent
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5.3 The Christian timeline -- Simple progress
vs. constant progress
• Christians represented the whole of history as a line that
originates from the creation of the universe by God,
advances towards the pivotal moment of the first coming of
Jesus, and will one day reach the final point of arrival, with
the second coming of Jesus and the so-called Judgment
day, which represents the fullness of time, the time when all
humanity is able to rejoin its creator
• And even though the Jewish/Christian linear image of time
and history, quite different from the cyclical view of Greeks
and Romans, already implied the idea of positive
developments, it was mostly after the Enlightenment and
the introduction of the cultural ideas of the French
Revolution, at the end of the 18th-century, that the original
Christian idea of time was associated to and almost
replaced by the notions of constant, practically unavoidable
progress and social evolution
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5.3 The cyclical movement of time
• The concept of a cyclical evolution of time, and the idea that
a community, small or large (a town or a state), is similar to
a biological organism, going through various ages like all
creatures in nature (youth, adulthood, old age), was indeed
common among the Romans and the Greeks, as it was
later on in Renaissance Florence (for ex., you find that idea
in many passages written by Machiavelli), or Venice
• Obviously there are exceptions and apparent
inconsistencies: even if you read Aristotle, you can find
references both to a cyclical idea of time and to a linear
representation of it
• The evidence that one finds in literary or historical texts, or
in letters and personal journals, is often in the form of
pessimistic comments interpreting dramatic historical or
political events as symptoms of malaise, signs of the end
that is presumed to be inevitable and imminent
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5.3 Cyclical time in Machiavelli's politics
• Greek historian Polybius and, much later, Florentine
historian/politician Machiavelli expressed this idea of
the cyclical evolution of political institutions
• Machiavelli claimed that sooner or later every
democracy is bound to degenerate (naturally, with the
passing of time) into a period of anarchy, up to the
point when the failing democracy is replaced by
monarchy; in turn monarchy will degenerate into
tyranny, tyranny may give birth to democracy, etc.
• Already some of the 15th century humanists, for
example Leonardo Bruni, identified the decline of
Roman civilization with the political crises of the first
century BCE, which in their opinion derived from the
gradual devaluation of the traditional Roman virtues
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5.4 Historical novel Pompeii (2003), by Robert
Harris -- First quote after the title page
• "American superiority in all matters of
science, economics, industry, politics,
business, medicine, engineering, social life,
social justice, and of course, the military was
total and indisputable. Even Europeans
suffering the pangs of wounded chauvinism
looked on with awe at the brilliant example
the United States had set for the world as
the third millennium began." (Tom Wolfe,
Hooking up)
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5.4 Historical novel Pompeii (2003), by Robert
Harris -- Second quote after the title page
• "In the whole world, wherever the vault of
heaven turns, there is no land so well
adorned with all that wins Nature's crown as
Italy, the ruler and second mother of the
world, with her men and women, her
generals and soldiers, her slaves, her preeminence in arts and crafts, her wealth of
brilliant talents…" (Pliny, Natural history)
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5.4 A map of Campania with the aqueduct known as
Aqua Augusta (from Robert Harris, Pompeii)
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5.4 The main characters in the novel
• Attilius: aquarius (fourth-generation aqueduct
engineer), sent from Rome to replace Exomnius; a
widower supporting his mother and sister
• Exomnius: engineer of the local aqueduct since the
time before the earthquake, a Sicilian from Catania
• Ampliatus: freedman, crafty businessman, pater
familias
• Corelia, his rebel daughter
• Pliny the Elder and Pliny the Younger, his nephew
• Romans inside caves and underground, caught as
they are about to become ghosts from the past
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5.4 The plot and the organization of the events:
The first day (Aug. 22, 79 CE)
• Looking for water, before dawn
• Fear and suspicion (directly related to the plot)
• Romans vs. locals: competence, work ethics and dedication
to the service of the community vs. laziness, religion and
superstition (related to the general theme of civilization)
• Style and punishment, our hero to the rescue
• The individual and society, public and private life, the bella
figura (see the work of Gloria Nardini)
• Searching for greater meaning or immediate satisfaction
(Epicureans vs. Stoics)
• "...he had been taught to lead his life according to the Stoic
school: to waste of time on nonsense, to do one's job without
whining, to be the same in all circumstances -- intense pain,
bereavement, illness -- and to keep one’s lifestyle simple" (20)
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5.4 The first day (Aug. 22, 79 CE)
• The pool of wonders and its present
problems
• Technology and society
• The meeting with Pliny, the educated admiral
• Strategic planning and heroic accomplishments
(Hollywood-style well-timed "operation")
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5.4 The second day (Aug. 23, 79 CE)
• On board the ship Minerva, en route to Pompeii
• Then and now: the shores
• Pompeii
• Multiculturalism and capitalism
• Roman decadence and sexuality
• The baths: technology and architecture,
civilization
• Corruption (then and now)
• Parcelization of power and civic duties
• Self-interest, amoral familism (farmers and citizens
stealing water)
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5.4 The second day (Aug. 23, 79 CE)
• The dinner and its sources: Petronius
(Satyricon), Tacitus
• Epicureanism
• Decadence
• Emptiness (Nero's moray)
• Exomnius's room in the brothel
• Work ethics, technology and society ("all to carry
water to such brutes as these")
• Corelia
• Proto-feminism and Victorian love
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5.4 The second day (Aug. 23, 79 CE)
• Pliny's measures (ancient vs. modern science)
• The Empire (power, intrigue, conspiracies)
• Riots for the water (the ignorant brutes and the
sophisticated intellectual)
• Then and now: abusing nature
• The expert mind in awe of technology
• The operation continues out of Pompeii
• Followers and leaders, the mind and the muscles
• Puritan work ethics: satisfaction for a work well done
• "he would try to fix the Augusta overnight. To confront
the impossible: that was the Roman way!"
• Our heroine to the rescue (with incriminating evidence)
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5.4 The third day (Aug. 24, 79 CE)
• Technology: cement underwater
• Love and fate
• "One was shackled to it from birth as to a
moving wagon. The designation of the journey
could not be altered, only the manner in which
one approached it -- whether one chose to walk
erect or to be dragged complaining through the
dust" (183)
• Pliny's discovery in the pool of wonders
• Water back in Pompeii
• The never-tired AttiliusHUI216
climbs the Vesuvius
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5.4 Third and fourth day (Aug. 24-25, 79 CE):
the eruption
• The destruction of Rectina's library (an entire culture and
civilization vanishing under our very eyes)
• "Pliny took it from the slave and inhaled it, catching in its
musty aroma of the whiff of the old republic: of men of the
stamp of Cato and Sergius; of a city fighting to become an
empire; of the dust of the Campus Martius; of trial by iron
and fire" (243)
• "Who knows? Perhaps, two centuries from now, men will
be drinking the vintage from this year of ours, and
wondering what we were like. Our skill, our courage"
(243)
• "Popidius's eyes were blank holes in the musk of his face.
He looked like one of the ancestral effigies on the wall of
his house." (248)
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5.4 Historical elements and themes associated
with them
• Aqua Augusta
• technology = civilization?
• The Roman fleet
•
•
•
•
military power
the empire triumphant over nature
citizenship and multiculturalism
cooperation and accomplishments
• Pliny and his books
• human intelligence and the continuous progress
of science
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5.4 Historical elements and themes associated
with them
• The eruption
• nature, death and decline
• The freedman
• the evils of capitalism
• social mobility in Roman society
• The relationships between Rome and
the local administrations
• State politics vs. local and individual
interests
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5.4 Celebrating the might of the aqueduct:
Aqua Augusta
• Oh, but she was a mighty piece of work, the Augusta -- one
of the greatest feats of engineering ever accomplished.
• … Somewhere far out there, on the opposite side of the
bay, high in the pine forested mountains of the Apenninus,
the aqueduct captured the springs of Serinus and bore the
water westward -- channeled it along sinuous underground
passages, carried it over ravines on top of tiered arcades,
forced it across valleys through massive siphons -- all the
way down to the plains of Campania, then around the far
side of Mount Vesuvius, then south to the coast at Neapolis,
and finally along the spine of the Misenum peninsula to the
dusty naval town, a distance of some sixty miles, with a
mean drop along her entire length of just two inches every
one hundred yards.
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5.4 The Aqua Augusta: leadership and
technology
• She was the longest aqueduct in the world,
longer even than the great aqueducts of
Rome and far more complex, for whereas
her sisters in the north fed one city only, the
Augusta's serpentine conduit -- the matrix,
as they called it: the motherline -- suckled no
fewer than nine towns around the bay of
Neapolis: Pompeii first, at the end of a long
spur, then Nola, Acerrae, Atella, Neapolis,
Puteoli, Cumae, Baiae, and finally Misenum.
(7)
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5.4: The Aqua Augusta: technology and
civilization
• "... the engineer could stand here, listening
and lost in thought, for hours. The
percussion of the Augusta sounded in his
ears not as a dull and continuous roar but as
the notes of a gigantic water organ: the
music of civilization. … in those moments,
he felt himself to be not in a reservoir at all,
but in a temple dedicated to the only God
worth believing in." (18)
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5.5 James Hay, Popular Film Culture in Fascist
Italy (1987)
• A number of historical movies were
produced in Italy during the 1920s and
1930s
• Some of the most interesting examples of
that historical genre, so popular then, were
movies based on Roman history
• It is not by chance that some of those
movies were produced with the financial
support of the Italian government
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5.5 James Hay, Popular Film Culture in Fascist
Italy (1987)
• Even when Fascist dictator Mussolini
appeared in newsreels, he often presented
himself like a cinematic character, the
warrior/leader typical of those historical
movies
• Fascist propaganda revived the idea,
already introduced in Italian culture and
society at the time of Italy's unification, that
the newly formed Italian nation was called to
a mission of civilization, to renew the glory,
together with the victories and the conquests
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5.5 Roman civilization became very popular in
Fascist Italy
• References to Roman civilization became very
common in Fascist Italy, in the arts, architecture
and most prominently in the language
• The word fascismo derives from the fasces, "A bundle of
rods bound together around an ax with the blade
projecting, carried before ancient Roman magistrates as
an emblem of authority. [Latin, pl. of fascis, bundle.]"
(The American Heritage Dictionary)
• To learn more about the Roman fasces, visit this page
• http://www.livius.org/fa-fn/fasces/fasces.html
• The self-imposed title of Mussolini, "Duce," derives from
the Latin Dux [=leader]
• Consider also the words used to designate various
fascist paramilitary units and their rankings (milizia,
manipolo, centurione, etc.)
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5.5 Fasces and other
Roman icons
(from
http://www.hist.uib.no/antikk/eftertid/fascdiv/page
_01.htm)
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5.5 The Roman fasces were the main icons of
Fascist Italy (http://www.hist.uib.no/antikk/eftertid/fascdiv/page_01.htm)
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5.6 Scipione l'africano (dir. Carmine Gallone,
1937)
• Relatively few historical films about the ancient world
were produced during the 1930s, but one in particular -Scipione l'Africano, which involves Scipione's (Scipio
Africanus's) conquests in Africa during the Second Punic
War -- received substantial public attention, having been
the subject of one of the most extensive promotional
campaigns in the Italian film industry during the 1930s
• The government helped procure astronomical investment
capital for Scipione (about 12.6 million liras, the most
ever spent on an Italian film before the war)
• Mussolini had taken great pride in the film before its
release, once visiting the set, where he was hailed with
chants of "Duce, Duce" by a costumed cast of thousands
(many of whom were draftees for the Ethiopian
campaign)
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5.6 Fascism and the ancient Romans
• Despite much unfavorable aesthetic criticism about
the film, critics and children alike seem to have
recognized its cultural importance
• In a highly publicized special issue in August 1939,
Bianco e nero published interviews with
elementary-age school children about the film
• One young student explained that
• The film illustrates the valor with which the ancient
Romans fought and the courage that they exhibited.
Now our Duce has reeducated the Italian people about
the love of country and about the spirit of sacrifice, about
order and discipline, restoring to Italy a new international
prestige and reviving the Roman Empire.
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5.6 Scipione l'africano and Mussolini
• There are few overt connections between the hero of
the film, Scipione, and Mussolini
• Nevertheless, it is difficult to ignore the similarity
between this movie's version of Scipione and the
image that Mussolini held in the minds of the Italian
public
• As one of the children interviewed for Bianco e nero
attests
• When you see the battlefield at Zama and a soldier says,
"Troops, we have conquered Canne!" I thought about our
Duce who said, "Let's conquer Adua!" And a few months
later he said, "We've conquered Adua!" When Scipione
talked to his soldiers before the battle, I remembered the
Duce. In the movie house we always applauded Scipione
and his men. I want to see the film again.
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5.6 Scipio and the future glory of Italy
• In the film's epilogue, Scipione returns to his
villa, where he is transformed again to a
family man, surrounded by his wife and
children
• His conquest and return invest the Empire
with a new vitality, and in the final scene
Scipione stands with a shaft of wheat (a
symbol of fertility), exclaiming
• Good grain; and tomorrow, with the help of the
gods, the seed will begin
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5.6 Mussolini as a classical hero
• Mussolini's appearances in early Italian
newsreels and documentaries (and his public
personality in general) conjure a pedigree of
acrobats and "strongmen" from 1920s Italian
films
• Ajax, Samson, and above all, Maciste (often
described in his films as "the good giant")
• And, like the heroes of popular literary romances,
these strongmen appeared in different films as
basically the same personality (Maciste in Hell,
Maciste on Vacation, Maciste Against Death,
Maciste in Love, etc.)
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5.6 Maciste -- Bartolomeo Pagano, the first actor to
play the part of Maciste in Cabiria (dir. Giovanni
Pastrone, 1914)
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5.6 Mussolini and the Greco-Roman movie
heroes
• Like these strongmen from the 1920s, Mussolini
was part of an ongoing serial of movie
appearances to which were attached such epitaphs
as Mussolini-aviator, Mussolini at the thresher,
Mussolini-athlete, and so forth
• One of Mussolini's most common personae in the
newsreels and documentaries was that of the
warrior
• During the late 1920s and the 1930s, Mussolini appears
in a variety of military uniforms
• It is no coincidence either that Mussolini consciously
associated himself with other warriors from Italian films of
the mid-1930s, visiting the set of Scipione and lauding
the spirit of Trenker's Condottieri
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5.6 Mussolini and the Greco-Roman movie
heroes
• In "Il Duce trebbia il grano nell'Agro Pontino" ("The
Duce Threshes Wheat in the Pontine Fields,"
1938) Mussolini appears bare-chested (itself a sign
or a persona), inspiring his in-film audience of
peasant workers with his prodigious display of
strength and endurance, and demonstrating the
"progress" of efforts to revitalize what was once a
marshland
• The narrator all the while explains
• "The Duce threshes without even the slightest signs of
tiring. . . . It seems that work gives him greater vigor."
• It is this documentary that, as a number of Italian
film historians have noted, aligns his role here with
that of Scipione at the end of Scipione l'Africano
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5.7 The plot of Scipione l'africano (from the
notes of Regina Marcazzò-Skarka)
• Scipione l'africano is a long film with scenes that abruptly
change from the Carthaginians to the Romans.
• Sometimes it may seem difficult to tell who is who. One
clear distinction is the more elegant stance and
demeanor of the Romans.
• The film begins showing text with an historical
explanation of the two enemies attempting to be the
rulers of the Mediterranean, Rome and Carthage. It
explains how Carthage is winning with Hannibal's
success at entering Rome's territory. The written
introduction ends telling how 20,000 Roman soldiers
were killed.
• (In the credits in the beginning it is stated that soldiers of the
Italian army were used as extras in the film.)
• The first scene begins with the fasces raised high into the
sky, and the clouds as a backdrop.
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5.7 The plot of Scipione l'africano
• Members of the Roman Senate talk about Scipio,
and how he wants to meet with them. He plans to
bring the war to Africa. The senators are skeptical.
• Then a man hints jovially that it would be good to
send Hannibal out of Italy. His comments are met
with unanimous cheers and hands raised in the air.
The cheering continues with arms raised when
Scipione appears and walks down steps with the
crowds making room for him. The procession lasts
about a minute with dramatic music.
• One soldier tries desperately to get through the
crowd to get a glimpse of Scipio, saying, "I followed
him through the war in Spain, at the very least I
should get to look at him."
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5.7 The plot of Scipione l'africano
• Then there's a dramatic scene with Scipio trying to
convince the Senate to fight Hannibal in Africa. He tells
them that Rome has to be free of him for once and for all,
and that the only way to accomplish the victory would be to
bring the Roman army to Africa.
• Someone expresses a concern that if the army goes to
Africa to fight, there will be no one left to protect Rome.
• If the senators don't agree with Scipio, will he take it to the
people? Scipio responds that he will do whatever he has to
for Italy. Lots of arguing takes place and eventually many
are yelling "Carthage! Carthage!"
• He walks surrounded by soldiers holding fasces and to
cheers of thousands yelling "Scipione! Scipione!" There's a
long scene with crowds of thousands with their hands
raised like he is a God, and the music in the background is
celebratory.
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5.7 The plot of Scipione l'africano
• Then there's a surreal scene with Scipio with a woman
and a baby, then a young boy. It's a scene of the
perfect loving family: Scipione is dressed
aristocratically and looking ready for battle, while his
son puts on a special hat, trying to look like his dad.
• Next there's a scene with Hannibal and his people
looking simple, low class and gruff.
• The Carthaginian soldiers leave their camp running
haphazardly. Someone tells Hannibal about Scipio's
plans.
• In the next scene the Carthagian soldiers come along
grabbing women and terrorizing them, ripping their
clothing and groping at their breasts. A little boy sits
crying by a large column.
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5.7 The plot of Scipione l'africano
• Next there is Scipio talking to his soldiers, then the
soldiers marching and peasants running to see
with excitement. Fasces are held high and people
walk forward in slow motion looking proud at them.
Scipio speaks of a real "patria" asking who will
follow. Scores run forward trying to grab hold of
one fascis.
• Then there's a scene where a woman is brought to
Hannibal. She tells him how she heard he wanted
children and she tells him she's not afraid. He
grabs her and starts kissing her then the scene
abruptly changes to the Romans boarding the
ships to go to Africa. There's a wonderful send off
with right hands raised and music.
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5.7 The plot of Scipione l'africano
• There are a number of scenes with meetings of both the
Romans and Carthaginians. There's also a jovial scene of
Roman soldiers singing and cooking outside. There's a
scene with Scipio then Hannibal talking to their own about
strategy.
• Scipio and Hannibal meet on horseback but peace is not
the choice of Scipio: he chooses to fight. He turns down
Hannibal's proposal for peace and tells him to prepare for
war, then scores of fasces are raised with dramatic music.
• The start of the battle is very dramatic with trumpets blown,
Hannibal's troops on foot, elephants and Scipio sitting
regally on his horse.
• The Romans shoot at the elephants and blood is squirting
out. It gets very chaotic, the elephants are squealing and
the soldiers are falling dramatically.
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5.7 The plot of Scipione l'africano
• A soldier is seen being carried in an elephant's trunk.
An elephant gets shot in the leg and falls to the ground
dropping the soldier on its back. There is screaming.
• The Roman horsemen are told to advance. "Vittoria
avanti" is the command. "Italia avanti!" (Move forward
to victory, Italy forward). All of the different units move
forward at a high rate of speed. They meet with the
opposition and they fight from their horses, wounding
their opponents with swords.
• "Chi vince?" the townspeople ask (who is winning?).
One says Roman soldiers, seemingly surprised. A
woman dramatically lifts a soldier's head and says
who's winning, but the soldier is dead.
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5.7 The plot of Scipione l'africano
• The battle continues with some soldiers on
horseback and others on foot. The Romans look
graceful and almost elegant while the
Carthaginians look gruff and clumsy.
• In an intense battle on the ground, a Roman
soldier holds the fasces high with great
determination.
• After victory, Scipio is seen with classical Roman
architecture in the background gracefully
embracing his loved ones and the film ends.
• He says, "Good grain, and tomorrow with the help
of the gods the seed will begin."
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5.8 Italy in the movie Scipione l'Africano
• The movie Scipione l'Africano warns the viewer from the
very beginning that the movie was filmed with the
participation of soldiers from the Italian army, and that it
was produced in Rome
• In the written scroll that sets the story before the opening
scene, the fight between Rome and Carthage is
characterized as a war between two nations ("nazioni"), two
peoples ("popoli"), i.e. two civilizations, not just two states
or two military powers
• From the very beginning the connections to Italy are
multiplied, even exaggerated: for one thing all the actors
speak the Italian language, and in fact right away, in the
opening scenes, there are hints of different dialects (from
the North, the center and the South of Italy!) in the
pronunciation of various characters from the street
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5.8 Italy in the movie Scipione l'Africano
• One of the men on the street discusses Rome's
politics and the deeds of general Scipio, and says
that he comes from Arezzo, using the Italian modern
name of the city instead of its Latin name "Aretium"
• He also remarks that in his city they are preparing for
the imminent fight, while in Rome all they do is talk
• Before the scene is over we also learn that
volunteers in other parts of Italy are getting ready to
defend Rome
• Clearly the fate of Rome is a major concern for all
Italians, an exaggeration, historically inaccurate, but
one which shows how the cultural connection with
ancient Rome was played out in Italy in the first half
of the 20th-century
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5.8 Italy past and present in the movie
Scipione l'Africano
• In fact the word "Italy" is heard in many scenes of this
movie, while it is rarely if ever mentioned in Spartacus,
and never once mentioned in Gladiator (if I'm correct)
• The continuity between past and present is insured
also by references to the war fought by the Romans in
Spain (at a time when Italian Fascists had recently
volunteered to fight in Spain alongside Franco's army),
and to the conquest of Africa (Italy had just conquered
Ethiopia between 1935 and 1936)
• Numerous scenes have large crowds saluting general
Scipio with their right hand lifted straight in front of
them, a detail that, while being historically accurate,
was also connected to the salute reintroduced in Italy
by the Fascists
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5.8 Italy past and present in the movie
Scipione l'Africano
• The gatherings of large mobs in Rome must also have
reminded the viewers of that time of the gatherings of
similar mobs to hear and honor Mussolini or the heroes of
the Italian army, the veterans of the various military
campaigns that I mentioned before
• The Roman soldiers in the movie make reference to the fact
that they are farmers and shepherds by trade, occupations
still very common throughout Italy during the 1930s
• In this movie Rome represents the whole of Italy and its
common interests, rather than the interests of the Roman
citizens and of the Senate
• In fact it is evident that even the people from the lower
classes are following very carefully the discussions that
take place in the Roman Senate, and carefully evaluate all
political decisions and their consequences
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5.8 Italy past and present in the movie
Scipione l'Africano
• When Scipio is organizing an expeditionary force to
invade Africa and bring the war closer to Carthage, the
Roman soldiers are shown marching at the rhythm of a
quasi-operatic song with the following refrain:
• "Chi ha chiamato? Scipione, Scipione... Chi ha risposto?
L'Italia, l'Italia..." (= Who called? Scipione, Scipione... Who
replied to that call? Italy, Italy...)
• While "Romans" is the term used more often to
indicate the soldiers, at times we also hear the term
"Italici" (Italics), a word commonly used to designate
the peoples living in Italy in the pre-modern era, but
also one that would have been used properly only at
the end of the Roman republic, or at the beginning of
the empire, when a real sense of unity inside the Italian
peninsula was first developed, with the full support of
the government and the backing of literature and the
arts
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5.8 Italy past and present in the movie
Scipione l'Africano
• Rome and Italy are closely associated inside the speech
given by Scipio before he leaves Italy to go fight in Africa
• Even Hannibal at one point says "La mia patria è l'Italia"
(=My homeland is Italy), a remark which seems almost
paradoxical, but is justified by the character who he
makes it clear that only Italy is a land able to excite lively
passions and strong feelings
• Living in Italy for 15 years to fight the war against the
Romans, even he, Hannibal, has grown attached to that
land. He says this with a strange sense of nostalgia,
before leaving Italy to go back to Africa to defend
Carthage, which he finds an ungrateful and unsupportive
fatherland, not the ideal country that one could live or die
for
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5.9 Movie projects on Hannibal, to be produced
by Sony, Fox
• I found some information on the Internet about Vin
Diesel's biopic Hannibal the Conqueror (2008?),
whose script is based on the novel written by Ross
Leckie. David Franzoni, from Gladiator, should
provide the script
• http://filmforce.ign.com/articles/365/365989p1.html
• The next article, from the Internet, mentions
another movie project focusing on Hannibal, with
Denzel Washington as the protagonist
• http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/07/26/10274974
10589.html
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5.10 Spartacus is a movie based on a 1951
novel by Howard Fast
• What Fast had to say in 2000 interview
• I was imprisoned for contempt of Congress for
refusing to "name names" to the House UnAmerican Affairs Committee.
• This set me to thinking a great deal about prison,
and when I was released, I began a very intense
study of ancient slavery and imprisonment,
particularly with a set of books (rare books today)
called "The Ancient Lowly." [Cyrenus Osborne Ward,
Charles H. Kerr & Company, Chicago. 1888. 2 vols.]
In these books, extensive information on the
Spartacus revolt was available. (from
http://trussel.com/hf/ancient.htm)
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5.11 The plot of the movie Spartacus (from the notes
of John Barodin): Spartacus, the gladiatorial school
• Spartacus tells the story of a slave revolt led by the
title character
• Initially, Spartacus was a slave in a Thracian slave
camp where he is bought by Batiatus, who runs a
gladiator school
• At the school, the men are taught how to fight but
do not fight to the death, as this would be bad for
the morale of the camp
• For good behavior, the gladiators are permitted the
company of a woman. Spartacus is assigned a
Britton, named Varinia, whom he treats with
respect. As a result, a relationship forms between
the two, and they soon fall in love.
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5.11 The plot of Spartacus: Crassus, the revolt
• When Roman senator Crassus visits the school with his
wife and another couple, the two women demand that four
of the gladiators fight to the death. Although Spartacus is
defeated in the fight, his opponent refuses to kill him and
instead hurls a spear in Crassus's direction. The slave is
immediately killed for his behavior.
• While at the school, Crassus buys Varinia from Batiatus,
and, when Spartacus finds out, he is outraged and starts an
uprising by the gladiators who eventually overrun the
school
• With Spartacus as their leader, the escaped gladiators
travel through southern Italy freeing other slaves who join
their ranks. His plan is to leave Italy and return home with
the help of pirates. It is while traveling through Italy that
Spartacus reunites with Varinia, who also escaped. The two
marry and Varinia is soon pregnant with Spartacus' baby.
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5.11 The plot of Spartacus: Glabrus, Crassus
• The Roman senate dispatches a small Roman force, led
by Glabrus, to deal with Spartacus. However, Spartacus
gets word of this and attacks the Romans while they are
sleeping and destroys the Roman force. Glabrus is freed
to return to the senate, where he is forced to admit his
incompetence in handling his forces. As a result, he is
banished from Rome by Crassus, his political ally.
• Crassus, wanting to increase his political power by
destroying Spartacus, convinces the senate to deploy a
much larger army to deal with the slave army. However,
this one is also destroyed, this time with more than
19,000 casualties.
• The senate, humiliated by the Roman army's inability to
defeat slaves, deploys another army, this time led by
Crassus himself.
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5.11 The plot of Spartacus: defeat, crucifixions
• This army leaves from Rome, while another two armies
are coming up from the south behind Spartacus.
• Seeing that he is trapped, he wills his troops north and
into battle against the army led by Crassus. Spartacus
and his army are defeated, and he is captured along
with Varinia and their newborn son.
• Crassus, determined to find Spartacus, threatens the
captured gladiators by saying that if Spartacus does
not reveal himself, the prisoners will be executed. As
Spartacus begins to admit his identity, hundreds of
other slaves yell, "I am Spartacus!“
• With Spartacus' identity still hidden, Crassus demands
that the 6,000 slaves be crucified on the road to Rome.
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5.11 The plot of Spartacus: the ending
• In the walk back to Rome, Crassus recognizes
Spartacus from the fight at the gladiator school and
spares him so that he can entertain Crassus by
fighting to the death in Rome. Spartacus wins the
fight but is the last slave to be crucified and is
nailed up to a cross just outside the gates to
Rome.
• In the end, Varinia achieves her freedom and,
while leaving Rome, sees Spartacus nailed up on a
cross just outside the gates. She brings her
newborn son to the dying gladiator, the first time
Spartacus sees his son. She pleads with him to die
and end his suffering, which he does as she rides
off a free woman.
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5.12 Hollywood's Rome: Spartacus (1960; dir.
Stanley Kubrick)
• A peculiar feature of the big historical movies
produced in Hollywood and dedicated to crucial
events in the history of Rome is how little they look
connected to Italy, and how much they seem to
emphasize the disconnect between Roman history
and Italian history
• In the case of Spartacus, for example, the only
references to Italy in the entire movie seem to be
the map of the Italian peninsula shown on the
background during the scenes shot in Spartacus'
tent, while his army of slaves is waiting for the
Pirates to put together enough ships for them to
escape from Italy
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5.12 Hollywood's Rome: Spartacus and Italian
geography
• With the exception of Rome, the few names of Italian
cities that are quoted in the movie (Brindisi, for example)
are quoted with their Latin names: a justifiable decision,
in favor of historical accuracy (although, one wonders,
why it does not apply to Rome itself), yet interestingly
very different from the choice of a significant Italian
counterpart such as Scipione l'Africano
• Even the places, the steep mountains and the open
plains practically bare of any vegetation, add to the movie
a generic imperial grandeur (the movie was shot in
Spain, with the participation of soldiers from the Spanish
army, at that time under the command of fascist dictator
General Franco), a sense of greatness that is commonly
associated with the very idea of an empire (be it the
Roman Empire or the one in Star Wars)
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5.12 Hollywood's Rome: Spartacus and the
Roman empire
• Scenes shot in a natural setting alternate with others shot
inside the residences of Roman senators in the city of
Rome, characterized by generic interiors, where the idea
of Roman civilization is simply conveyed by an
abundance of marble and, once again, by the size of
every hall and room. Practically no scenes are shot in the
streets of Rome, instead.
• The Roman empire here does not fully represent a
historical reality, it seems, rather it is transformed into an
abstract political entity: even the widespread use of the
term empire, instead of the technically more accurate
term republic, reinforces that idea (the Latin term
imperium meant domination, or the power of the
government over a land)
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5.12 Hollywood's Rome: Romans in Spartacus
• All the Romans that we see portrayed on the
screen are either members of the Roman
government (senators and soldiers), or are
connected to it through a relationship marked
by power and authority
• E.g. Peter Ustinov's character, who provides slaves
and gladiators for the entertainment of the wealthy
and powerful Romans, and yet is always fearful and
subject to the prevarication of those who represent
the state.
• Everybody else in the movie is a servant or a
slave.
• Average Romans are nowhere to be found.
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5.12 Hollywood's Rome: the Roman senators
in Spartacus
• The senators that we see on the screen are rather
Machiavellian, constantly trying to outsmart each
other with no care whatsoever for the idea of
serving the state and the common interests of
Roman society.
• The actors who play the part of senators
(Lawrence Olivier is Crassus, and Charles
Laughton is Graccus) with all probability would not
have been cast to act as Italians in a movie on
modern-day Italy.
• They were chosen to play the part of Roman Senator
simply because they were British, and with their British
accent they evoked the might of the most recent empire
in history, the British Empire
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5.12 Hollywood's Rome: sex in Spartacus
• To contribute to the generic idea of an empire there
are also hints to the "sexual decadence" of the
Romans, going after female as well as male slaves
• In a famous scene which was cut from the movie when it
was released originally, Lawrence Olivier is bathing
assisted by his personal slave Antoninus (Tony Curtis),
and he enters into a dialogue about "snails and oysters"
which is based on double entendres of a sexual nature.
• That scene has been restored in the recently released
DVD edition, and since the studios had lost the
original audio tracks, Tony Curtis was called in to give
voice to his character once again, while Anthony
Hopkins replaced the voice of the deceased Lawrence
Olivier.
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5.12 Hollywood's Rome: greatness
• Connected to the theme of the "perversion of morals"
presumed to be common in imperial societies is also
the behavior displayed by the two women
accompanying Crassus to see the gladiators in Capua
• They are constantly jiggling while they insist on having the
men fight to the death for their entertainment, and without too
many clothes on, allegedly to save them from the unbearable
heat.
• "Greatness" is one of the keywords of the movie, which
is repeated in many dialogues.
• From the point of view of the mighty Romans, the question is:
can there be greatness in a state that has adopted slavery?
• From the point of view of the movie's hero, Spartacus, the
question is: can one achieve greatness, having been born a
slave?
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5.12 Hollywood's Rome: the disconnect
between Roman civilization and Italian history
• It is worthwhile to consider how the movie was presented
in the original trailers, now included with bonus material
inside the DVD. One says: "In the year 70 B.C. Rome,
colossus of the world, faced its greatest challenge".
• In another Senator Crassus (Lawrence Olivier) is
presented to the audience as "the symbol of Rome's
power and might". The pitch describing the story in 25
words or less, as required, is the same in all trailers: "the
powerful story of the gladiator rebel who sprang from
slavery to challenge the awesome might of imperial
Rome".
• The opening titles of the movie show a series of GrecoRoman statues, mostly heads, and the last one before
the opening scene falls to pieces suggesting the idea of
decadence, of a civilization nearing its tragic end.
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5.12 Hollywood's Rome: the first scene of
Spartacus
• While the camera moves from a Roman soldier on top
of a wooden tower-post to a line of slaves carrying
rocks over the mountains of the Roman province of
Thracia, we hear these words solemnly spoken:
• "In the last century before the birth of the new faith called
Christianity, which was destined to overthrow the pagan
tyranny of Rome and bring about a new society, the Roman
republic stood at the very center of the civilized world. 'Of all
things fairest,' sang the poet, 'first among cities and home of
the gods is golden Rome.' Yet, even at the Zenith of her pride
and power, the republic lay fatally stricken with a disease
called human slavery."
• The coming of Christ and the spreading of Christian
religion may certainly be what marks the actual
difference between the Roman world and Italy or the
modern world in general. Still…
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5.12 Hollywood's Rome: ethnicity in Spartacus
• In Spartacus there is a Spanish gladiator, there is
an English slave (years before the Romans
actually conquered England!), and the protagonist
is a Thrace
• Only Italy is missing from the picture, with the
exception of the fact that Spartacus' friend
Antoninus once, when interrogated, says that he is
a Sicilian
• It is easy to notice that he is physically smaller and
less muscular than most other characters, and in
the story his special talents are singing and
recitation of poems!
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5.13 The plot of the movie Gladiator (from the notes
of John Barodin): Maximus the soldier vs.
Commodus the son of the Emperor
• "Gladiator" details the fall of the great Roman general
Maximus, who after learning that he will be succeeding
Marcus Aurelius as emperor of the Roman Empire, is
deceived by Aurelius's son Commodus
• Although Maximus wants nothing to do with assuming the
throne, he accepts so that he can right the wrongs of the
current Empire
• Commodus, outraged by the fact that his father would
give the throne to someone other than he, deceives
Maximus and sends him to be executed
• However, Maximus escapes and returns home to find his
wife and son dead
• Distraught by this, Maximus flees and is eventually
captured and sold into slavery, where he becomes a
gladiator
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5.13 The plot of Gladiator: Maximus the
gladiator
• Fighting not for the crowd's satisfaction but for survival,
Maximus and the other gladiators bond together and
soon become a crowd favorite
• Maximus' band of gladiators eventually fight at the
Colosseum where Emperor Commodus is a spectator
• Commodus, impressed by the passion and skill with
which Maximus fights, makes his way to the
Colosseum floor after the battle to meet the impressive
gladiator
• Commodus demands Maximus helmet be removed to
show his face, and Maximus' identity is revealed
• Commodus, thinking his rival was murdered long ago,
is outraged to see Maximus alive and immediately
schemes to have him eliminated
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5.13 The plot of Gladiator: the final fight
• However, the task is more difficult than it seems, as
Maximus has quickly become popular and thousands
of people flock to the Colosseum to see him fight
• Commodus, jealous of the popularity Maximus has
attained, arranges for a battle between himself and
Maximus, hoping to win over the crowd
• However, Commodus knows he is no match for the
gladiator in the arena. As a result, he wounds
Maximus before the battle and conceals the wound
under his armor
• The two Romans battle until Maximus, near death,
defeats Commodus and fatally stabs him, not long
before he too succumbs to death
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5.14 Hollywood's Rome: Gladiator (2000; dir.
Ridley Scott)
• What I said about Spartacus, can be repeated about
Gladiator
• Even in this movie the idea of the Empire translates into the
generic political ambitions of a few individuals
• No relevant mention of the systems that govern the administration of
a large state
• On screen are the political maneuvers of scheming senators and
Machiavellian members of the imperial family
• Sexual deviance is also brought forth to reinforce the idea
of the decadence of the Roman empire
• Commodus and his sister Lucilla have an incestuous relationship,
which is consummated at the end of the movie
• Commodus is portrayed as a sadist in a very crude, almost
grotesque way (see how Joaquin Phoenix jumps around and sticks
his tongue out at the sight of blood during the gladiatorial games in
the Colosseum, or how he looks at his sister's son Lucius)
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5.14 Hollywood's Rome: Gladiator and the
greatness of Rome
• Central to the thematic development of this movie is
the "idea," the "vision" of the idealistic "greatness of
Rome," better characterized by the Shakespearean
motto "there was once a dream that was Rome"
• The idealist Maximus attempts to "give power back to
the people of Rome and end the corruption that has
crippled it" (in the words of the Emperor Marcus
Aurelius to the film's good guy, Maximus)
• Rome has nothing to do with Italian civilization, it
seems, and it simply serves as the pretext for a story
about the fight of a good man to insure democracy,
equality, justice for all, and also to protect his family
• “Is Rome worth one good man's life?" says Lucilla at
the end of the movie, right before Juba, the Numidian
gladiator and friend of Maximus leaves Rome to go
home
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5.14 Hollywood's Rome: Gladiator and Italy
• Maximus has left his family in Spain, almost three
years before the story begins, and the only noticeable
reference to Italy in this movie comes out when we see
his wife and his child hoping to see him among the
Roman soldiers that come to kill him and his mother
(the evil praetorians, properly sporting all-black
uniforms)
• In the scene, the kid says: "Mamma, i soldati!" (=mammy, the
soldiers), and then calls out "Papà!" (=daddy)
• At another point in the movie, a street hawker in Rome shouts
"Vino! Vino!" (= Wine! Wine!)
• In the end even this historic fiction ends up being
mostly a moral tale about those staples of the
American way of life that are individualism and selfdevelopment, how one individual can make a
difference in his/her life and in the lives of many
others…
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5.14 Hollywood's Rome: Gladiator and
ambition, progress
• …as it becomes clear when we consider lines
such as the following:
• "the general who became a slave, the slave who
became a gladiator, the gladiator who defied an
Emperor..."
• "today I saw a slave become more powerful than the
Emperor of Rome" (these words are pronounced by
Lucilla, Commodus' sister, after Maximus fights in the
Colosseum for the first time)
• Maximus replies back to her that the only power he
has is "the power to amuse a mob," but Lucilla insists
that "Rome is the mob" (which looks like an auto-ironic
allusion to the power of the entertainment industry: to
be able to entertain the masses is in itself power)
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