{"id":722,"date":"2006-09-23T03:23:00","date_gmt":"2006-09-23T03:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=722"},"modified":"2006-09-23T03:23:00","modified_gmt":"2006-09-23T03:23:00","slug":"anachronisms-in-rome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=722","title":{"rendered":"Anachronisms in Rome"},"content":{"rendered":"

Living beyond the range of cable television and not willing to pay for a satellite dish, M. and I watch HBO series with a year’s delay.<\/p>\n

Right now we’re working our way through the first season of Rome<\/a>. And we like it, right from the starting sequence of the animated graffiti (based on originals in Pompeii<\/a>, or so they say.<\/p>\n

But despite the presence of historical advisors, anachronisms both religious and mundane creep in.<\/p>\n

For instance, in Episode 8, Cleopatra is shown smoking opium, which is wrong on two counts. First, as far as I can tell–and I have researched this some–the technology of smoking with a pipe, as opposed to throwing herbs or resins onto glowing coals, was unknown in Eurasia until Columbus sailed to the Western Hemisphere.<\/p>\n

Second, the pipe shown is not an opium pipe, but an East Asian tobacco pipe. The bowl is wrong.<\/p>\n

Opium had been used in Europe since the Bronze Age, at least, but not in pipes. <\/p>\n

Steven Saylor felt that Cleopatra’s character was wrong<\/a>, as well, but that is another story. <\/p>\n

The show’s makers fudged the stirrup question<\/a>. The Romans did not have stirrups–no Europeans knew them until a few centuries later. Yet if you look, you can see that riders in long shots are riding with them. Close up, however, they have been removed for verisimitude’s sake.<\/p>\n

I was skeptical about the brothel-keeper in Episode 7 counting with her abacus, but apparently the Romans indeed did have them<\/a>. The one in the scene looked more Chinese, however.<\/p>\n

And I wonder at seeing candles everywhere instead of cheap ceramic oil lamps<\/a>. The latter are not hard to find–they are still made for the Middle Eastern souvenir trade.<\/p>\n

On the religious side, in one of the early episodes, there is a brief depiction of the taurobolium<\/a>, or purification in the blood of a sacrificed bull. That rite was not known in the last days of the Roman Republic, which is when the series begins.<\/p>\n

The other rites, whether in temples or at home altars, have to be admitted as reconstructions. There is so much of basic religious practice that we do not know, really. Music, too, can only be guessed at.<\/p>\n

Quibbles aside, it’s worth renting the series on DVD if you have not seen it.<\/p>\n

Tag: Rome<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Living beyond the range of cable television and not willing to pay for a satellite dish, M. and I watch HBO series with a year’s delay. Right now we’re working our way through the first season of Rome. And we like it, right from the starting sequence of the animated graffiti (based on originals in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-bE","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1055,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1055","url_meta":{"origin":722,"position":0},"title":"Gods Below","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 27, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"\"Gods below!\" was a favorite oath of the characters in Rome, my favorite HBO series ever.I have been giving them a lot of thought lately, starting with Cloacina (scroll down to Poster 6).The line to the septic tank at the guest cabin was clogged beyond my ability to clear it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"polytheism\"","block_context":{"text":"polytheism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=polytheism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3961,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3961","url_meta":{"origin":722,"position":1},"title":"No to “Neopagan,” plus Other Pagan Blogging","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 11, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"\u2022 At Pagans for Archaeology, Yewtree makes the argument (started by Graham Harvey, as I understand) against using the term \"Neopagan.\" \u2022 Lupa at No Unsacred Place on greeting the land in a new place. \u2022 At The Alchemist's Garden, can your spirit helper be a machine? \u2022 Finally, at\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"animism\"","block_context":{"text":"animism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=animism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":459,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=459","url_meta":{"origin":722,"position":2},"title":"The smell of fatherhoodA week\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 25, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"The smell of fatherhoodA week ago, M. and I were at a festival in northern Colorado. We put the two big dogs in a boarding kennel, but we brought Susie, who used to be my dad's dog. She was a basset hound-something mix, she was dying of cancer at age\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9653,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9653","url_meta":{"origin":722,"position":3},"title":"Not Everyone in Salem was a Puritan","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 8, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Just a post-postscript to my earlier series of posts about witchcraft and Salem, Mass. We tend to phrase the story of the 1690s as Puritans hunting \"witches,\" and it is true that members of the Puritan churches set the moral tone in most of New England. But they were not\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"England\"","block_context":{"text":"England","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=england"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/England-Scottish-soldiers.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":666,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=666","url_meta":{"origin":722,"position":4},"title":"The Snake Motif","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 26, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Right before M. and I left on the road trip that culminated in my rattlesnake bite and hospital stay, I was having trouble with a blockage in the bathroom lavatory.I did not think that I could get my large plumber's \"snake\" down through the waste pipe behind the wall, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"polytheism\"","block_context":{"text":"polytheism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=polytheism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2351,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2351","url_meta":{"origin":722,"position":5},"title":"Oh, Let’s Just Talk about the Weather","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 8, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"I think my brain has slowed down this week. At one point the temperature dipped to -20\u00b0 F. (about -30\u00b0 C), and I was completely preoccupied with trying to keep heat and water in both my house and the guest cabin. There was one bad moment about ten o'clock at\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"blogging\"","block_context":{"text":"blogging","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}