Thoughts and historical accuracy on Spartacus series.

[HuangCaesar]

What are your thoughts on the Spartacus series on starz?

Here are my main notices of historical innaccuracey.

-Gladiators were expensive. The majority were not killed off like cheap entertainment. Arenas was for killing prisoners and criminals.
-Gladiators were fat to help with wounds.
-Spartacus is overglorified.
- Batiatus did not live in Capua I believe. Nor was Spartacus a champion.
-Roman equipment throughout the series is weird. In S1 they wear almost Trajan era equipment(lorica segmentata, Imperial helmet, Rectangle shield) in S2 the historical innaccuracey was probally fixed and they wear Chainmail and the older Republican helmets. And S3 is just all over the place. They wear Segmentata again, Coolus helmet, and a Republican shield. And they do not carry spears in real life. only Auxilia does.
-Spartacus' army would be larger than Roman one.
-Crixus died at Vesuvius.
-Spartacus decided to turn back at the Alps.
-the pirates betray him in the very end.

[Glaive]

I've not watched Spartacus, but from clips I've seen it looks as if the creators were going for a small screen 300, therefore historical accuracy would be waaaayyy down their lists of priorities.

[geala]

I watched one and a half of the episodes, could not urge me to stay for more of it. I think it is not very sensible to look for historical accuracy because that is not the focus of the series. I was however mainly disgusted by the way the combat was shown, there was no internal logic and sense in it. A remark to the "fatness" of gladiators. I don't think they were really fat. That's an overexaggaration and perhaps a misinterpretation of the diet. Ancient depictions of gladiators show massive and rather musculous men, not fat ball-shaped persons so typical for the USA and some parts of Europe.

[redxavier]

It's not completely accurate no, but it's superior in many ways to the wonderful Spartacus movie and presents gladiators far more accurately than Gladiator (although apparently Spartacus never fought as a Thraex). The first series takes a lot of liberty but then, little is known about Spartacus (which isn't even his actual name, a nice touch they reference) before he and his band broke out of the ludus. If you were to read up on the general beats of the Third Serville War, it's mostly there, with the main exception of the treks up and down the length of Italy and the attempt to escape via the Alps.

In relation to other historical series (Rome, Tudors etc.) you'd be surprised at how good it stands. Of course, one would have to watch the series to find this out.

And no, I don't think gladiators were fat.

[Hazzard]

With the "spears" as you referred to them, I thought they were just their pila and the soldiers were choosing to use those for whatever reason, perhaps a lack of room in most cases. I've only just finished watching series 1 though.
I thought Spartacus was German since apparently it was a name for a few German kings, but that's something nobody is certain about.
What seemed off to me was how in the prequel series and the first one was that Roman Legionaries were all over the gladiator school, I didn't think they were at the beck and call of the local people, but it might just be that way because they wanted to suppress gladiator results, for all the good that did them.

[Praetorian1]

I agree, and to me starz spartacus is probably THE most historically inaccurate series ever. I am amazed how i kept watching the series till the end. Some of the things which i don't understand in the series are for instance the dryness and the lack of water untill rain falls, dusty and filthy crappy roman towns in Campania, spartacus' rebels destroy the arena with all its ppl in a way as if all the arena was holding together by a single wooden beam, helmets, chainmail and segmentata armour get cut and stabbed as if they were made of cloth, the romans especially in battle, are sadly portrayed as pathetical, very untrained, imbecile idiots and so very easily killed, women join rebels and the next day they'r professional killers with any weapon they can grab, the rebels can see, aim, shoot and hit with arrows through a snow storm and the romans can't see anything, archery and spear-throwing being almost 100% accurate at all times, every 1 inch cut squirts blood, marcus crassus barely won, navea goes from a very soft, timid, tender, nice and caring person to a heartless, professional-killing, blood-high, berserker, agron's crucifiction wounds heal up almost intantly, way too much sex and gore scence, crassus's poor and plain house, blonde julius caesar being raped by a boy, romans kill from behind, way too much loads of blood, spartacus fights crassus personally and beats him, ladder fall smashes romans, rebels run on testudos of romans as if they are allowing them to, gannicus dies on a cross after the final battle, and much more. I can go on mentioning this stuff forever.
Also Oenomaus (or how its spelled) was not a black Numidian, he was a Gaul, and Spartacus and the rebels didn't slaughter Batiatus, his family, a whole bunch of guests, all the guards and everyone else inside and all of them escaped. Out of all the slaves of Gnaeus Lentulus Batiatus (not Quintus), some 200 gladiators planned escape and only 73 managed to escape after their plan was uncovered.
I think starz spartacus is incredibly and horribly historically inaccurate. I understand that moviemakers, especially these days, in historical-based movies tend to add some things for entertainment but in starz spartacus they seemed to have lost control of that.

[LinusLinothorax]

Also Oenomaus (or how its spelled) was not a black Numidian

Worse enough that Numidians are depicted as black Africans at all. Same happened in "Gladiator". Guess that is Hollywoods need to have Afro-American actors in leading roles in their movies, combined with a not too small amount of ignorance.

[213]

seriously? spartacus was basically an action spectacle+soap opera+porn that happened to be set in roman times. don't look for historical accuracy there.

those "body" slaves

http://www.grcomiccon.com/wp-content...artacus-05.jpg

[Rex Romanorum]

One thing you have to give to the series: best historical accuracy for a porn show ever. (along with caligula)

beyond that, i prefer kubrick´s movie.

[Ngazi]

Well beyond being porn, Starz's Spartacus and HBO's Rome should at least try to depict some culture and mannerisms of ancient people. I think Rome did it much better. There seems to be too few reasonable characters in Spartacus, and some historic liberties like piling up dead bodies to cross a trench just make no sense. What is the point in that?

[Spartan198]

I am amazed how i kept watching the series till the end.

Maybe, despite its historical liberties, you found it entertaining to some degree? That's why I watched it. People seem to forget that Hollywood is in the industry of entertainment, not education.

historic liberties like piling up dead bodies to cross a trench just make no sense. What is the point in that?

To make Spartacus and his army look like badasses. Like I said, it's entertainment.

[JaM]

i usually watch for some minor details to see how close to reality some historical TV series are... and with Spartacus, i was pleasantly surprised they went with the real historical armors for Roman Legionaries, at least in later seasons (2 and onward).. if you compare it to let say Vikings series from History channel, it strikes how unhistorical the Vikings are... just look how horrible armors they are using.. they even reused some 16-17.century cavalry armor and helmets, while their mail is just woolen wests colored in some metallic color which looks terrible.. no such thing observed in Spartacus... and while we might argue about the story not being accurately portrayed on what we know, truth is, we don't know exactly what happened back then, as Romans destroyed all mentions of Spartacus in their archives, so stuff we know is based on info 100-200 years after his death... so scenarist ideas might be as right, as what we think we know...

[decourcy]

Spartacus was Roman and an army Centurion. He was not Thracian; that was the gladiatorial style he fought in.

[Sir Adrian]

Roman Centurions did not fight in the arena. That would be like the queen of England cleaning sewers in her time off.

[JaM]

eventually, even Roman Emperor fought and died in the arena.. so its possible some former centurion (who end up being a slave - for example during Social wars a lot of Italic men were captured and enslaved, they fought in same legions as Romans did..) could end up fighting in the arena as well...