The heritage of Classical Rome is not only reduced to the language field and traditional Western arts. When speaking about roman influence we tend to think of painting, sculpture and some kind of aesthetic values. Instead, we often ignore the roman influence on the movies. Next, we will review the most important aspects of roman movies.

Historical Review
Since the beginning there have been films set in ancient Rome. The first roman silent films were very popular in Italy, where they produced some of these movies as a propaganda tool in the disputes between the Papacy and the young Italian State who had just snatched many goods to the Church. The films which wanted to defend Church’s position portrayed Ancient Rome as a pagan and decadent society. These were the first versions of Quo Vadis (1912 and 1924). On the other hand, in films supporting the Italian State, Roman Empire was depicted as a strong civilization against barbarism, for example Cabiria (1914). Later, during Fascism, roman films were used as an excuse to justify Italian colonialism and nationalist fervor (Scipione l’Africano, 1937).

Quo Vadis (1912):

But roman films flourished after World War II, when the peplum genre became really popular. The name of this genre comes from the garment of cloth tied on the shoulders that ancient Romans used (peplum-i means tunic in Latin). Peplum films were the cheap Italian version of the great Hollywood roman movies. During the late 50s and early 60s more than 100 movies of this kind were filmed and later were shown in small neighborhood theaters. Some examples are Fabiola (1948) and The Last Days of Pompeii (1960)

At the same time in Hollywood they also produced movies based on the ancient Rome. Americans shot films about different historical events: slaves’ riots (Spartacus, 1960), Caesar’s office (Julius Caesar, 1953), Cleopatra’s myth (Cleopatra, 1963), the end of the Empire (The fall of the Roman Empire, 1964), etc. But there was a theme so popular that it became a subgenre: the persecution of Christians. They filmed some fantastic remakes of movies filmed previously as Quo Vadis or Ben-Hur.

Ben-Hur (1959):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enfWkWJZZ5U

Peplum genre fell into decline during the mid-60s when the number of films was reduced drastically. It was a sign that the genre was over-exploited. We had to wait until the arrival of the twenty-first century to see a revival of Roman films with movies as Gladiator (2000), which achieved a great success.

Main features of roman films

• The action takes place around political power and intrigue. There is often a background love story.
• The characters are simple and based on stereotypes.
• The heroes face dangerous enemies and perform astonishing deeds.
• Female characters are passive and always in the background. They usually are sweet, loving and good or, instead, attractive, seductive and evil.
• Villains usually are astute and tyrannical.

Inspiration
Many films used as main source 19th century’s most popular historical novels. Some examples might be: The Last Days of Pompeii (1908, 1935, 1959), Ben-Hur (1925 and 1959) and Quo Vadis (1913, 1924, 1951). During the 20th century the novel by Robert Graves, I, Claudius, had a great influence and inspired the TV series based on the Julio-Claudian dynasty.
Also the theatrical genre has been a great source for film producers. Plauto’s classic comedies inspired A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966). Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar play was adapted to film by Mankievick in 1953. Also Bernard Shaw’s plays were used as an inspiration source for writing the script of Caesar and Cleopatra (1945) or Androcles and the lion (1963).

Online resources

If you would like to read Gladiator film’s script in Latin click here. You can see both Latin and English (and Italian) versions so you can compare them. Enjoy it!