Did Anyone Watch the Caesar Mini Series On TNT

[Kramerman]

Originally posted by Agathon
What did they translate his dying words as?

"Even you my child?" or "You too Brutus?"

Note: only one of these is correct.

I dont think historians could possibly know for certain what Caesar said.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Kramerman


I dont think historians could possibly know for certain what Caesar said.

I have the ancient Roman-era tape recording myself.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Kramerman

I dont think historians could possibly know for certain what Caesar said.

Yep. People were obviously there and it was a momentous event. It's recorded in Suetonius.

People often have him saying "Et tu Brute" which is what Shakespeare has him say in the eponymous play.

In fact that is not at all what he said. His dying words weren't even Latin, since like all educated upper class Romans he mostly spoke Greek.

What he said was, "kai su teknon" which means "Even you, my child."

Sorry to harp on about it, but this is a favourite bugbear of mine. Damn that William Shakespeare and his insidious influence.

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by Kramerman

IIRC, at caesars time they were using chain mail. later on they used lorica segmentata, which was the height of roman armor (really cool stuff, im not sure how effective it was tho).

Kramerman is correct about the chain mail, but its also possible that some troops may have used scale mail.

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by Space05us

people like to watch fire, it was a show put on for tv.
the Roman cavalry in the movie/mini series were indeed using a gladius, in real life they used a sword just a bit longer than the gladius though it was very similar in appearance.

The most important point was the inclusion of cavalry in the first place. At the time of Alesia a roman legion was about 4500 men of which a mere 120 were cavalry. The romans were an infantry army (almost completely) until long after Julius Caesar was gone. The cavalry that took part in the battle of Alesia on the Roman side were German auxilliaries.

There is actually very little hard evidence what swords were actually used by the legions in the centuries BC. Only one example of the 'gladius Hispaniensis' which was used by the legions of that time has ever been found. In the first century the infantry sword became shorter the 'gladius pompeii' and at some point the 'spatha' or calvary sword which was longer than the infantry weapon (although it is still short for a true cavalry weapon) was introduced.

[The diplomat]

I watched the mini-series. Overall, it was fun to watch.

A few points about the battle of Alesia:

The series showed the Gaul warrior with much better weapons and armor than they really had. In reality, Gaul warriors did not have heavy armor and helmets. In most cases, they had no armor at all, and even were bare chested.

Also, the Gauls used a lot of archers. The show did not seem to show the Gauls using any archers at all.

Last, wasn't the actor playing Ceasar a bit too young for the role? Ceasr seemed a bit too young in the show.

Does anyone know how old Ceasar was at that time?

[History Guy]

Aye, it was OK in parts, but overall, I wasn't too impressed.

The battle scenes were not very good. Too much computer animation is bad for a film. More over, what was filmed was reenacted incorrectly much of the time.

The guy who played Caesar was too young indeed, and he didn't fit the role. Caesar was not exactly the most manly type (let's face it, he was downright vain, plucking off his body hairs with tweezers and getting embarrased by his baldness). But, he wasn't perpetually a kid, nor did he actually ever have half as much hair as this guy did. In all respects, he didn't fit the role.

Richard Harris was good to see...but as Sulla he was too old. But that's OK. He's a good actor.

Overall, it was a strange mix. It could be rather good in parts, but in a lot of places it was pretty awful.