Brill’s companion to ancient Greek and Roman warfare on film

Preview

[Authors and titles are listed at the end of the review]

With Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II on the big screen, Brill’s Companion to Ancient Greek and Roman Warfare on Film, the seventh installment of the War in the Ancient Mediterranean World series, immediately evidences its position within an ongoing and developing field of research: that of celluloid classics. The original Gladiator (Ridley Scott 2000) is often seen as a landmark in the history of celluloid antiquity: it marks both the end of the transition of emphasis on regulated violence to the relatable suffering it causes for perpetrators and victims alike, and the beginning of the transition of carefully-screened violence to sensationalized ultraviolence on the ancient battlefield.[1] Gladiator II seems to have taken this trend even further,[2] up to what I would label sensationalized hyperviolence, a stylized exaggeration of battlefield aesthetics originating in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings (2001-2003) and The Hobbit (2012-2014) battle spectacles.[3] As Scott has announced another installment (‘Gladiator III’ presumably), scholars, as well as, and as part of, cinema audiences, will be interested in further development of antiquity’s historical of fictional battlefields presented on the big screen. While volumes on several aspects of classics in cinema have been published in recent years, this is the first to look at Greco-Roman antiquity through the lens of armed conflict. The editor’s choice stems from the observation that warfare features prominently in the representation of antiquity on film, and he considers that, given the polarizing effect of many contemporary conflicts, “now is the right time to revisit and evaluate the role that warfare has played in celluloid classics”(24).

Brill’s Companion to Ancient Greek and Roman Warfare on Screen is divided into eight parts, the first and the final of which function as an introduction and an epilogue. The six parts in between each have their own focus in evaluating armed conflict on screen. Two chapters in Part 2 extend the introduction with a reductive approach of the authenticity of warfare on film; three chapters in Part 3 discuss the various aspects of the (mainly male) stardom in peplum and sword and sandal films, series, and scenes zooming in on warfare. Part 4, comprising four essays, deals with women in the context of warfare, both as warriors on the battlefield and as victims of men’s destructive actions. In two chapters, Part 5 analyses the implicit and explicit Eurocentrism in the presentation of historical battles; expanding the lens of sociopolitical approaches, the five chapters of Part 6 present case studies illustrating the bond between antiquity and modernity while criticizing contemporary issues. From a more cinematic focus, the three chapters in the final, explicitly post-Gladiator (‘for Millennial spectators’) Part 7 explore the paradigm of PTSD, the fetishistic depiction of violence, and the hyperbolic realness of fighting. The volume’s case-study based contributions to ‘companionification’[4] will serve the intended readership of researchers in the disciplines of Classics, Ancient History, film studies, communication studies, sociology, and psychology well, depending on their interests. Together, the introduction by the volume’s editor Konstantinos Nikoloutsos, and the epilogue by the series editor Lee Brice, provide those new to the topic with a convincing justification of the need for the specialized volume, an excellent overview of origins, developments and trends, and tantalizing suggestions for further research: into the increasing graphicacy of war violence,[5] the comic treatment of soldiers,[6] the relation between religion and war in celluloid classics, and an expansion of reception studies’ geographical range.

Individual research interests will draw students and scholars to this volume’s case studies, all of which are well written and make for a pleasant and interesting read, not least because of many rather impressionistic but highly enjoyable descriptions of what is meant to be experienced in another medium. Throughout the volume, quite a few screen captures are used to illustrate the argument; some come out well, others are vague or blurred due to the quality of the original material. Fortunately, several authors redirect their readers to readily available streaming versions. In general, contributions provide comprehensive biblio- and filmographies.[7] Explicit theoretical frames and methodologies, largely in statu nascendi in Reception Studies, are few; readers looking for frames that are well applicable beyond their own chapters are referred to chapter 17, in which Kaiti Diamantakou evaluates Lysistrata (Yorgos Zervoulakos 1972) along the taxonomic distinction between ‘version’, ‘intervention’, and ‘hybrid’, and chapter 18, where Hannah-Marie Chidwick draws on violence studies and critical military studies to consider to what extent ‘ultraviolence should be included in movies about men living in the Roman empire’ (p. 493, quoting from reviews of Centurion [Neil Marshall 2010], italics original). Several contributions make extensive use of the results of archival research; a case in point is chapter 13, in which Óscar Luis Lapeña Marchena explores specimens from Italian cinema—‘overshadowed by two internationally renowned genres: pre-World War I Kolossal and late 1950s peplum (p. 379)’—as responses to contemporary reality. The next chapter, by Robert Rushing, uses its filmography to account for the many variant titles of films in the peplum genre (featuring either Hercules, or Maciste, Goliath, Ursus, Samson, Kindar); others, notably chapter 11, point at the reuse of mass scenes as a typical feature of early Italian peplum.

Other aspects of generic interchangeability in sword and sandal are tied in with the genre’s epic scale (‘go epic or go home!’, Brice, p. 562 n. 12), the role of an omniscient narrator/voiceover (Elias Koulakiotis, p. 75), and exaggerated painterly aesthetics (Djoymi Baker, p. 177). Epic, too, is the focus on the male body and the stardom of the leading men, topics of the chapters in Part 3. These chapters offer valuable cinematic insights but do not directly engage with ancient warfare beyond the portrayal of the military leader.

Brill’s Companion to Ancient Greek and Roman Warfare on Screen thus offers a well informed and rewarding read for students and scholars, providing them with a companion in their effort to grasp the specificity of the topic, or to delve into the various aspects that bind alleged historicity with modernity. The volume is well produced with only few infelicities.[8] It will find wide readership and is recommended for any reader willing or striving to adopt a more critical stance vis-à-vis the increasing self-evidence and psychological effect of sensationalized ‘epic’ violence justified with reference to antiquity. It is especially recommended to Ridley Scott, if he indeed proceeds with the preparations for a sequel to Gladiator II.

Authors and Titles

Part 1: Introduction

1. Swords Made of Rubber: Cinematic Antiquity through the Lens of War (Konstantinos P. Nikoloutsos)

Part 2: Cinema vs. History: Testing the Accuracy of Celluloid Battles

2. Form and Function: The Importance of Military Formations in Cinematic Depictions of the Roman Army (Jeremy Armstrong)
3. Alexander in Ares’ Mirror: Armed Conflict in Oliver Stone’s Historical Epic (Elias Koulakiotis)

Part 3: The Leading Men of Celluloid Armies

4. “Hail! The Sign of the Cross”: Industrial Campaigns and Commanding Performances in The Sign of the Cross (1932) and Cleopatra (1934) (Michael Williams)
5. Richard Burton in Alexander the Great (1956) and the Mechanisms of Hollywood Stardom: Fashioning an Ancient Military Icon in Post-WWII American Cinema (Konstantinos P. Nikoloutsos)
6. Brad’s Biceps and Dwayne’s Delts: Stardom as Physicality and Digital Spectacle in Troy (2004) and Hercules (2014) (Djoymi Baker)

Part 4: Women and Military Conflict

7. Atalanta as Celluloid Warrior in Jason and the Argonauts (2000) and Hercules (2014) (Patricia Salzman-Mitchell)
8. Women on the Battlefield: Ancient Warrior Queens and Female Military Commanders on the Millennial Screen (Irene Berti)
9. “She Wants to Be Married and Give the Children Names!”: Women and the Roman Army in Post-Gladiator Films (Jorit Wintjes)
10. Women in Captivity: The Human Cost of Armed Conflict from the Trojan War to Modern Greek Cinema (Anastasia Bakogianni)

Part 5: Western Colonialism and Racist Attitudes

11. Rome vs. Carthage: Imperial and Racist Aspirations in Italian Films of the Twentieth Century (Arthur J. Pomeroy)
12. Porus vs. Alexander in Modi’s Sikandar (1941) and Stone’s Alexander (2004–2014) (Seán Easton)

Part 6: Ancient Warfare on Film and Modern Politics

13. Armed Conflict in Italian Historical Films of the Fascist and Post-WWII Era (1937–1954) (Óscar Lapeña Marchena)
14. The Noise of War: Sound, Politics and Space in the Italian Peplum (Robert A. Rushing)
15. “Make Love, Not War”: Roman Soldiers and 1960s Countercultural Masculinity in Fellini-Satyricon (Renata Senna Garraffoni)
16. Epic Combat in Ancient and Modern History: A Comparative Analysis of The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964) and The Longest Day (1962) (Jonathan Stubbs)
17. Lysistrata (1972): Political and Sexual Refractions of the Peloponnesian War during the Greek Junta (Kaiti Diamantakou)

Part 7: Ancient Battles for Millennial Spectators and the Impact of the Hollywood War Film

18. Sensational Violence: Brutality in Twenty-First-Century Cinematic Depictions of Roman Battles (Hannah-Marie Chidwick)
19. Rockules’ Revenge: The Portrayal of the Veteran Warrior in Brett Ratner’s Hercules (Owen Rees)
20. Romans and Zealots in the Global War on Terror: Asymmetric Warfare and Counterinsurgency in Risen (2016) and Ben-Hur (2016) (Oskar Aguado-Cantabrana)

Part 8: Epilogue

21. To Be Continued: Considerations of Ancient Warfare in Film (Lee L. Brice)

Notes

[1] A case in point is 300 (Zack Snyder 2006). Brice (this volume, p. 574) refers to its origin in Saving Private Ryan (Steven Spielberg 1998), Gladiator, The Passion of the Christ (Mel Gibson 2004), and Braveheart (Mel Gibson 1995); cf. Chidwick (this volume, p. 481), ‘As the twenty-first-century silver and small screens increasingly assail their viewers with the “cinematic staple” of somatic violence, audiences have come to expect the same brutality in the portrayal of ancient battles’.

[2] Solly, Meilan. “The Real History Behind Ridley Scott’s ‘Gladiator II’ and Life as a Fighter in the Ancient Roman Arena.” Smithsonian Magazine, November 21, 2024; Svetkey, Benjamin, and Julian Sancton. “Gladiator II: Fact vs. Fiction.” The Hollywood Reporter, October 30, 2024.

[3] To be continued in The War of the Rohirrim (Kenja Kamiyama 2024), transferring epic war fantasy back to anime following the disappointing reception of The Rings of Power (series, 2 seasons, multiple directors, 2022-2024).

[4] Coined for classical studies by Matthew Chaldekas, BMCR 2024.05.39.

[5] A further volume in the series, Warfare in the Ancient Mediterranean World, will address the topic of violence in ancient warfare.

[6] As in, e.g., Life of Brian (Terry Jones 1979).

[7] A notable exception is chapter 15. Renata Senna Garrafoni’s analysis of Satyricon (Federico Fellini 1969) nonetheless argues convincingly for an interpretation as post-war anti-fascist.

[8] P. 8 ‘rush tup’; p. 22 n. 43 ‘audiences <are> familiar’; p. 62 n. 29 ‘into to’; p. 72 ‘Capitolini Museums’; p. 172 ‘the fact <that>; p. 289 ‘makes is’; p. 434 ‘states that that’; p. 522: repeated use of : instead of · in a quotation from Euripides (Herakles 633-6); p. 545 n. 68 ‘was resulted’.