Movies based on the story of TheIliad as told by its traditionally reputed author Homer—such as the 2004 Troy, Helen of Troy (both the 1956 movie and the 2003 mini-series) and The Trojan Horse (1961)—automatically include scenes concerning the artifice of the Trojan Horse and the sack of Troy, conveying an impression that these events were part of the Homeric epic poem on Troy. but in reality they do not feature in TheIliad at all, which concludes with the funeral of Troy’s champion warrior Hector. Homer in fact alludes to the Trojan Horse episode all up only thrice in the “follow-up” epic poem The Odyssey and then only briefly in passing.
‘Helen of Troy’ 1956 (It-US)
Epic Cycle ~ it was left to other ancient authors, some roughly contemporaneous with Homer and some later, to, as it were, fill in the gaps in the popular tale of the Trojan War between the end of Homer’s Iliad and the Odyssey. This collection of non-Homeric verse in dactylic hexameter acquired the name of Epic Cycle (Epikòs Kýklos), and exist today only in fragments and as later summaries made in Late Antiquity and the Byzantine period.
‘The Iliad’ (image: etc.usf.edu)
Aethiopis ~ this lost epic poem (c.776BC), comprising five books, is attributed to Arctinus of Miletus. Arctinus spices up the Trojan conflict by introducing two new allies of the Trojans into the story. First Penthesilea and her band of fierce Amazon bellatrixes (women warriors) from Thrace enter the fray against the Achaeans (Greeks). The Amazonian Queen more than holds her own against the men, cutting a sway through many of the Greek warriors until Achilles bests her in hand-to-hand combat and kills her…creating something of a double-edged sword for himself as in the act of killing Penthesilea he makes the unsettling realisation that he is in love with her (real Freudian messing with your head stuff this!) Arctinus then brings in Memnon, king of Aethiopia➀ (Ethiopia) and his vast army to bolster the besieged Trojan side. Memnon is deemed almost equal in martial skills to Achilles and the two über-warriors and demigods square off in mortal combat. After a titanic struggle Achilles kills the Aethiopian warrior-king which causes his army to flee in terror. A fired-up Achilles launches an attack on the Trojans but gets too close to the city walls, giving the initiator of all the troubles, Paris (whose behaviour is consistently dishonourable and cowardly), a chance to take a pot shot. Paris’ arrow pierces Achilles’ heel, the only vulnerable spot on his otherwise immortal body, but Paris still gets no credit for it it is Apollo (god of archery) who guides the trajectory of the arrow truly to its target➁.
Amphora depicting Achilles & Penthesilea in combat (6th cent. BC), British Museum, London
Ilias Mikra (“Little Iliad”) ~ this lost epic, in 4 books, is mainly attributed to the semi-legendary Lesches➂ (of Lesbos(?), flourished 700–650BC). Lesches covers the conception and construction of Odysseus’ Trojan Horse➃ and the awarding of the dead Achilles’ arms to Odysseus over Ajax, prompting the latter to lose the plot altogether, attack a herd of oxen and commit suicide in shame. The rest of the Little Iliad follows various escapades mostly involving Odysseus who treks off around the Aegean in company with Diomedes, collecting sacred objects which the Achaean prophecies decree are the preconditions necessary for Troy to be conquered. One such adventure takes them in disguise behind the enemy’s walls to steal, with Helen’s help, the Palladium (an archaic cult image said to preserve the safety of Troy).
Odysseus & Diomedes purloining the Trojans’ Palladium (The Louvre, Paris)
Iliou persis➄ (“The Sack of Troy”) ~ the surviving fragments of this epic, comprising just two books, is usually attributed to Arctinus, giving it a comparable vintage to the Aethiopis. The verse opens with the Trojans discovering the “gift” of the Wooden Horse. After debating it the citizens fatefully ignore the warnings of the prophetess Cassandra and Laocoön and decide to dedicate the horse to Athena as a sacred object. After the Trojans drunkenly celebrate their supposed triumph through the night the Greek traitor Sinon signals to the Achaean fleet to return, Odysseus and the other warriors disembark from the wooden horse and wholesale carnage, destruction and slaughter spells the end for Troy and its citizens.
The sack of Troy (source: Heritage Images/ Getty Images)
The Aeneid ~ this part of the story is also covered in later surviving versions by the Roman poet Virgil in his Aeneid and by Quintus Smyrnaeus (of Smyrna). Virgil’s Aeneid (12 books, written between 29 and 19BC) focuses on one of the minor participants of the Trojan War mentioned in the Iliad, a Trojan hero named Aeneas who escapes from Troy with his supporters (the Aeneads) before the Wooden Horse ruse is executed. Homer provides the template for Virgil’s epic poem which follows Aeneas and Co on their circuitous wanderings and adventures around the Aegean and Mediterranean seas (including an excursion to the Underworld) in Odysseyesque fashion, before settling in Italy and becoming progenitors of the Romans.
Aeneas’ wanderings after Troia (source: readthegreatbooks.wordpress.com)
Posthomerica ~ Quintus Smyrnaeus’ Posthomerica (14 books, written 3rd–4th century AD) picks up the story from the end of the Iliad and continue the narration of the war. Quintus modelled his work on Homer’s and also drew heavily on material from the Cyclic poems of Arctinus and Lesches, revisiting the well-trawled landscape of the capture of Troy through the Wooden Horse, the eradication of Troy’s royal family, including the killing of King Priam by Neoptolemus (Achillles’ son) in a sacred temple and his bestial murder of Hector’s infant son, violations for which the gods punish the returning Greeks with a series of misadventures – eg, Menelaus is delayed from leaving the Troad and driven off-course by storms and winds, taking seven or eight years to get back to his kingdom in Sparta; his brother King Agamemnon, the commander-in-chief of the Achaean expedition, is murdered immediately upon his return to Mycenae➅.
Ajax, Aeneas, Paris & others in combat (source: ancientworldmagazine.com)
➀ some sources refer to it as Scythiopia
➁ none of this gets a mention in the Homeric poems
➂ also attributed to other ancient writers like Cinaethon of Sparta and Thestorides of Phocaea
➃ or should we say Epeius’ Trojan Horse as it was he who built the gigantic equine decoy in rapid-quick time
➄ as in Ilion or Ilium, the Greeks’ name for Troy
➅ and of course there’s the curse of Odysseus’ decade-long tortuous trek trying to return to his home island Ithaca, as recounted in the Odyssey
THE street names around Macquarie University in the northwest of Sydney have an unambiguously militaristic ring to them. Many, many bear the names of historical battles, wars and military campaigns. In particular the battles of two 19th century wars, the Crimean War and the Napoleonic Wars, figure heavily in the street configurations – there’s Balaclava Road, Waterloo Road, Talavera Road, Vimiera Road, Taranto Road, Busaco Road (actually misspelt as the correct spelling of the Peninsula War battle is “Bussaco”), Trafalgar Place, Nile Close and Crimea Road itself. Then there’s Culloden Road, Abuklea Road, Libya Place and Agincourt Road on the Marsfield side, and Khartoum Road, all from various other wars involving the British and English imperialists. Khartoum also lent its name to a very atypical cinema that existed in the North Ryde area long before the university, tech industry or shopping centre came along. The part of North Ryde, which is now called Macquarie Park, was largely green-belt bushland before the 1960s, punctuated by pockets of agriculture, Italian market gardens, citrus orchards and farms, plus an incongruously-placed greyhound racing track on the site of the future university campus. At the time the area which backs onto the Lane Cove National Park had not been developed commercially and its attractive natural surrounds drew the Northwood Group of artists to it who painted the orchards, market gardens, farms and waterways.
Nestled in among all of these market gardens and bushland was the Khartoum Open-Air Theatre, North Ryde’s first licensed cinema. Located on the corner of Khartoum and Waterloo Roads and carved out of a former orchard, it looked like the type of run-down picture house you’d encounter in a country town rather than in Sydney suburbia. The less than majestic Khartoum, held its first public screenings in early 1938. Debut feature for the theatre on opening night was Cecil B DeMille’s The Plainsman.
≜ ‘The Plainsman’ (1936)
The picture theatre’s knock-up construction from timber and corrugated iron earned it an affectionate (and not inaccurate) nickname from locals, “The Shack”. Roselands “Theatre Beautiful” it was not! The entrance section and projection booth were made of timber. “Open-air” really meant open-air with an obvious lack of shelter. The structure had a partial roof but most of the seating was exposed to the elements – the covered (padded) seats cost the princely sum of 1/6d while the uncovered (and less comfortable wooden) seats went for 1/-.
≜ Khartoum Theatre, an undisguisedly rudimentary open-air cinema absolutely devoid of any “bells and whistles”
The theatre’s owner was one Mr N Johnstone and was later partnered by Jack Peckman who doubled as projectionist. The Khartoum functioned as a two-man operation. At intermission or between double features the theatre would regularly provide an unorthodox form of entertainment for the patrons, wood chopping contests (in keeping with the bush ambience?). On wintry nights, if heating was needed, fires were started in 44-gallon drums (wonder if anyone alerted the local fire brigade?)(‘Khartoum Theatre’, www.cinematreasures.org)
Despite its primitive and seemingly incommodious facilities the Khartoum maintained a steady patronage from locals even after the North Ryde Skyline Drive-In, just one block away, opened in 1956. The greater threat however, not only to the Khartoum but to cinemas everywhere, was the arrival of television. (‘Cinemas of the 20s and 30s’, City of Ryde, www.ryde.nsw.gov.au/).
North Ryde Drive-In (photo: David Kilderry/ Drive-Ins Downunder)
“The Shack” managed to keep going at North Ryde—longer than many of the other, conventional cinemas, in the Ryde district—until 1966 when it closed down, bringing an end to 28 years of big screen entertainment in the former orchard. The Wild One with Marlon Brando was the feature chosen for the final screening on closing night in 1966 (‘Sydney’s lost cinemas: Ten of the best which enchanted audience before biting the dust’, Brian Kelly, The Daily Telegraph, 07-Sep-2016, www.dailytelegraph.com.au).
Khartoum Theatre, North Ryde, 1938-1966, one screen, 480 seats
Gladiator: Gladiatorius, from the Latin, gladius (“sword”)
We’ve all see gladiator movies, right? And most of us have probably seen either the eponymous Gladiator or its celluloid forebear Spartacus, or some inferior version of the cinematic sub-genre. A bunch of armed desperados fighting for their lives in the arena for the pleasure of Caesar and co. On the screen gladiators all seem much of a muchness with some variations of weaponry, but it may surprise some to discover that contrary to the world of movies, in reality there were a whole host of different types or classes of gladiatorial warriors plying their brutal and perilous trade in Ancient Rome.
Spartacus (1960)
The first record of gladiatorial contests in antiquity dates to 264BC and there’s some evidence that the Etruscans were forerunners to the Romans in this combative pastime. By the time of the opening of Rome’s Colosseum (80AD) the gladiatorial games (Munera gladiatoriaⓐ) were a serious business, with prize money and betting on matches the norm. Gladiators served a two-year internship with one of four special arena-schools (ludus) that specialised in training new gladiators of different types. With the fights strict rules and etiquette applied in the arena (pompa), and careful planning went into the bouts. The organisers sought to put on strategic contests with well-matched opponents…these promotions were above all entertainments, and no one involved with the promotions wanted them to end too quicklyⓑ.
Let’s look first at the types of gladiators that we’re probably most familiar with thanks to Hollywood, Cinecittà, etc. before moving on to other ones that film-makers didn’t bother to research. Moviegoers will recognise the lightly-armoured gladiator wearing a manica (arm guard) who fights with a weighted net (rete), dagger (pugio) and three-pointed trident (fuscina or tridens), trying to ensnare his sword-wielding opponent within his net and skewer him. The movies are not big on the typology of gladiators, tending to lump them altogether under the generic name, but this arena net-fighter in the Roman world—resembling and modelled on a fisherman—was called a Retiarus (pl: Retiarii). It would be very unusual for a Retiarus to fight another Retiarus, gladiators of the same class did not normally fight each otherⓒ, it was much more interesting to see a gladiator tests his skill and weapons against an opponent with a distinctly different set of weaponry. In particular Romans were fascinated by the prospect of a lightly-armed gladiator and a heavily-armed gladiator going head-to-head, the former testing his speed and agility against the skill and precision of the latter (Marlee Miller).
Retiarius (Lower right)
Secutor (Bas-relief with secutores. National Museum of Rome, Baths of Diocletian, Rome. 2nd-3rd century AD)
Symbolic battle of the sea The Retiarus would usually be matched, for contrast, against a heavily armed gladiator with a helmet, long sword and shield. This was the Secutor (“follower” or “chaser”)ⓓ or the similar Murmillo. The Secutor held a scutum (large oblong shield) and gladius (short sword, 64-81cm in length) with protection on his right arm and left leg. The full-visor helmet worn by both the Secutor and the Murmillo had a fish-like appearance, imbuing the Retiarus v Secutor/Murmillo contest with the symbolism of a battle between angler and fishⓔ.
Murmillo: Murmillo stands triumphant, in a 4th century CE mosiac from Torrenova, Southern Italy. (Source: Corbis / Getty Images)
The Retiarus seems to have provided the inspiration for another entrapment style of gladiator, the Laquerius (= “snarer”). Laquerii pursued a similar strategy and tactics as the net-man but used a lasso or noose to catch and subdue his opponent. The “snarer” in the illustration below is armed with a trident though his usual weapon would be a poniard or sword. The Veles (= “skirmisher”), armed with a spear, sword and parmula shield, was another lower-level gladiator with a similarly indirect style of fighting.
Laquerius: “The Snarer” (image: escenarys.com)
Barbarian vs Greco-RomanThe Thraex (Thracian) gladiator was a bit of a variation on the Secutor theme…entire head enclosed in a broad-rimmed helmet, a parmula shield (small, circular, lighter but still made of steel), armoured greaves (leg guards) and a Thracian short curved sword (a sica) about 34cm-long. The Thraex was usually up against the Hoplomachus (so-named for his equipment which resembled the Greek hoplite soldier), whereas the Murmilloⓕ tended to be matched with both. The Hoplomachus (“armoured fighter”) wore heavy protective gear and a bronze helmet and was armed with a small concave shield, sword and spear (hasta).
Proto-gladiator The Samnite gladiator (from Samnium in southern Italy), thought to be the first type of Roman arena fighter, was the prototype of the Secutor, Murmillo, etc., with similar apparel and weaponry, short sword, rectangular shield and rimmed helmet. The Samnite was very popular during the Roman Republic, but when Samnium became an important ally of Rome under Augustus, the Samnites stopped featuring in the contests.
Scissor (Tombstone bas-relief to Scissor Muron. Louvre Museum, Paris. 1st–2nd century AD)
There was also the gladiator types who used an unusual weapon, the Scissor…his fighting instrument had two parts, a long tube that protects the gladiator’s arm, and at its end, a thin cylindrical pipe with a crescent-shaped blade. Scissores were often pitted against Retiarii, which could be to his advantage if he could get close enough to cut his opponent’s net with the pincer movement of his open scissors. Another, minor type of gladiator, the Arbelas, utilised a weapon, the Arbelos, which resembled a cobbler’s semi-circular blade.
Gladiator vs the animal kingdomTwo very different types of gladiators shared the arena with captured animals. One type, called Bestiarii (“beast-fighters”) fought wild animals like lions, leopards and bears in the amphitheatres, but with the odds massively stacked against them. As condemned criminals or prisoners-of-war they were basically “thrown at the beasts as punishment or spectacle”, most with nil chance of survival (Encyclopedia Romana). The second, the Venatores (“hunters”) were much more fortunate, they were fully armed and got to hunt down an assortment of beasts.
Venator vs leopard: Roman mosaic, Galleria Borghese, Roma, 4th century AD. (source: Henry Yad Henry/Pinterest)
The Dimachaerus (Greek for “bearing two knives”) fought their opponents (often the Hoplomachus) using two swords (usually a pair of curved scimitars). These ambidextrous gladiators were considered by the elite and the people alike as having low prestige, due to the general disapproval of their method of fighting and reliance on dual weaponry (the sica), which the Roman populace considered sneaky (‘The Roman Guy”).
Other gladiator classes tended to be even more bizarrely left-field – the Andabata gladiator was drawn from the noxii (criminals who had been sentenced to death in the arena). These unfortunates armed with a gladius were forced to fight blindfolded (ie, they wore a helmet which was devoid of any aperture rendering them effectively sightless). The Essendarius romped spectacularly into the arena aboard a war chariot (called an essendum), but whether he immediately dismounted and fought on foot or initially from the chariot is a matter of speculation. The Cestus seems more boxer than gladiator, he had no body armour and his only weapon was a padded glove containing pieces of iron, blades and spikes. The Bustuarius (= “tomb-fighter”) fought not in the arena but about the funeral pyre as part of the ceremony honouring the newly deceased. Accordingly he was given even lower status than other gladiators.
The Crupellarius was a kind of despised apprentice gladiator. He fought weighed down by heavy armour that comprised a “bulky continuous shell of iron”. Historian Tacitus described the Crupellarii “as a contingent of Gaulish, slave, trainee gladiators”, adding that “they were too clumsy for offensive purposes but impregnable in defence” (Book III, 43, 46 in The Annals of Tacitus, Loeb, 1931).
Stone tablet of a pair of gladiatrices (Photo: De Agostini/Getty Images)
Women’s place in the arena?: Did the Gladiatrix (woman gladiator) exist in the ancient world? Yes! It was very rare and typically met with male censure but there was some Roman gladiatrices who were active in the sport. Sources for the gladiatrix are very threadbare however…historian Cassius Dio makes reference to Emperor Titus permitting female gladiators to perform but on the proviso they were of “acceptably low class”ⓖ (there is however some evidence of elite women, as well as from other classes of Roman society, participating as gladiatrices including as Venatrixes from the 1st century BC). Where they did take part in amphitheatre fights a gladiatrix fought against her own sex – with the single exception mentioned by Cassius Dio, that Emperor Domitian staged night games which pitted gladiatrices against dwarfs.
Sideshow to the main event Gladiatorial combats in the Colosseum, like Shakespeare’s Tragedies, were deadly serious affairs, but like the Tragedies it was considered prudent to include an outlet for comic relief. In the pompa this was provided by performances by the Paegniarii, pseudo-gladiator entertainers who fought “burlesque duels” with blunted or mock weapons, especially during the midday break (‘List of Roman Gladiator Types”). The appearance of dwarf (pumilus) gladiators in the amphitheatres were probably also part of the light entertainment fare for the spectators.
Editor: this was the producer who financed or sponsored the gladiatorial spectacles
Lanista (manager): the owner-trainer of a troop of gladiators (known as a familia); involved active player in the trade of slave-gladiators; rented gladiators to the editor for contest events
Lorarius: an attendant who whipped reluctant combatants or animals into fighting
Rudis: the referee; a senior referee was called summa rudis
𖡒 𖡒 𖡒 𖡒 𖡒
A gladiator who won his freedom was awarded a rudis (“wooden sword”) and was known accordingly as a Rudiarius. Some retired gladiators became trainers or Doctores (“instructors”), assistants or referees. Some gladiators or ex-gladiators hired themselves out as bodyguards for wealthy and important Romans.
Gladiator Mosaic (Panel 4) from Torrenova, Southern Italy
Gladiator movies’ legacy of lingering myths If you were to rely solely on English and Italian language gladiator movies as a representation of historical accuracy you would come to certain conclusions. One would be that all of the arena fighters seemed to be infames, eithercriminals or enslaved “barbarian” prisoners-of-war who were pressed into the profession against their will. Initially this was the case, however by the end of the Roman Republic the demographics had shifted to the extent that volunteer gladiators, known as Auctoritas, comprised half of the amphitheatre fighters (Encyclopedia Romana)ⓗ. A second conclusion to draw from viewing examples of the sub-genre on screen is that gladiators fought to the death and therefore there was a high casualty rate in the arena. The reality was quite different. Sine missio (👎🏼 no mercy given) contests were rare, it was much more common occurrence for bouts to end with a missio outcome (👍🏼 mercy granted). Often economics rather than compassion swayed the outcome, gladiators were a very valuable commodity to the editor/owner and the rich and powerful had a vested interest in protecting their investment (Miller). Historians vary in their estimates of the numbers who died as a result of the combats but the concensusis that it was low. According to Suetonius(Life of Nero, XII. 1), in one full year in Nero’s Campus Martius amphitheatre no one died. It needs to be remembered that the Rome’s gladiatorial games constitutedonly a small window of the year, about 10 to 12 days and that most gladiators only fought about twice in that period (Encyclopedia Romana), which in itself would limit the death toll.
Secutor vs Retiarius (illustration source: forums.taleworlds.com/)
ⓐ Munera gladiatoria was part of the system that required Roman citizens of high status and wealth to provide public works and entertainment for the pleasure of the Rōmānī people
ⓑ for the combatants too, there was no virtue perceived in easily defeating a weaker opponent (Encyclopedia Romana)
ⓒ an exception to this was the Provocator (= “challenger”) who wore heavy legionary armature and fought other Provocatores
ⓓ the Secutor was so named because he would pursue the lightly armed Retiarus – from sequor (“I follow, come or go after”)
ⓔ Retiarii tended to be derided as a type of gladiator—they were seen as an effeminate (low) class because of their indirect fighting style—the net-man was described derogatorily as Retiarius tunicatus (“tunic”), despite the fact that he was one of the most successful gladiators in the arena
ⓕ introduced to replace the Gallus, “barbarian” prisoner-gladiators from Gaul
ⓖ that many Romans thought the gladiatorial profession was suitable only for the lower, especially criminal (infames), classes, is a recurring theme, notwithstanding this some middle-upper class citizens did fight in the arena. Known as Eques, these lightly-armoured knights fought on horseback but were only permitted to pit their skills against other members of the Eques
ⓗ even one Roman emperor, the egocentric Commodus, “volunteered” to participate in the Colosseum gladiatorial combats as a Secutor (and Venator) sparking widespread disapproval among Romans
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Reference materials, articles and blogs consulted
‘Types of Gladiators That Fought In The Colosseum’, The Roman Guy, www.theromanguy.com
‘The Roman Gladiator’, Encyclopedia Romana, http://penelope.uchicago.edu
‘Gladiators: Types and Training’, Marlee Miller, The Met, August 2023, www.metmuseum.org
‘5 Famous Ancient Roman Gladiators’, Michael Waters, History, Upd. 07-Jun-2023, www.history.com
‘The Roman Scissor: Gladiator, Weapon, or…? (AKA: Return of the Arbelos’, (Alessandro Bettinsoli), Eleggo.Net, 18-Dec-2016, www.eleggo.net
As a kid I was wholly immersed in what film critics call ”epic films“…those mega-large scale productions with sweeping scope and spectacle, unfettered extravagance, lavishly costumed, a cast of thousands (actual persons, not a computer-generated substitution of a multiplicity of images for people en masse), exotic locations, loosely set in a far ago historical context which could be Biblical, could be Viking sagas, Sinbad the Sailor/Arabian Nights adventures, 16th century pirates, Spanish Conquistadors in the New World, 12th century Crusaders venturing forth for the Holy Land or from countless other pages in the chronicles of history. Even movies which mix myth with history like the Robin Hood sagas or the Arthurian legend drew me to their flame. But it was the world of antiquity, in particular the BC era as interpreted on celluoid screens large or small that most fired my imagination. My all-time favourite viewing entertainments back then were “sword-and-sandal” movies. Yes okay I admit that when we got a TV set in the late Fifties, watching Westerns started to consume the lion’s share of my leisure time, but by circa 1960 there was just so many damn TV westerns, “horse operas”, “oaters” call them what you like monopolising air time on the box, that you had to be discerning to avoid them (which I wasn’t!).
King of Kings (1961): dubbed “I was a teenage Jesus” by critics upon its release
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The Peplum:
This quintessential term in the epic film lexicon comes from the garment worn by Greek women in the Archaic era, the peplos. What the Hellenic women of antiquity called a peplos—a long outer robe or shawl which hung from the body in loose folds and sometimes was drawn over the head—is a far cry from how moviemakers in the mid-20th century conceived the garment. Peplaⓐ in the Greco-Roman cinematic universe were a much sexier affair, mini-length tunics to show off shapely legs (and worn by both sexes).
Peplum fashionistas
In that less prescriptive age when no one fretted much about the adverse physiological (or psychological) effects on juveniles of their maxing out in front of the idiot box 12 hours a day, my penchant was to get as much Hollywood epic blockbusters into me as I could manage—this included such classic Hollywood biblical and historical fodder as Ben-Hur, The Ten Commandments and Spartacus —seeing them in the picture theatre and again on television when they turned up there. If I had to nominate one ancient world epic flick as my all-time favourite though, I’d probably plump for the 1963 Jason and the Argonauts movie– admittedly a smaller scale ‘indy’ production without the big name star drawing power (maybe more “epic-lite?”). It’s stellar appeal lay in part, like its more famous fellow Greek myth story, “The Odyssey”, in the adventure-packed extravaganza of its Classical heroic tale, its virtuous protagonist’s quest and ultimate triumph against the longest of odds stacked against him. But what elevated Jason and the Argonauts above the pack for my 11-year-old self was undoubtedly the film’s fantasy special effects. I was captivated by the myriad of fearsome legendary creatures created by Ray Harryhausen’s ground-breaking SFX wizardry—though to more discerning adult eyes they must have looked decidedly “hokey” and “stilted”—the glorious highlight of which was the iconic scene where Jason single-handedly battles the frenetic army of animated sabre-wielding skeletons – and emerges triumphant of course!
Jason and the Argonauts (1963): Harryhausen’s Special FX
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At some point in my juvenile years I developed a special fondness for Italian-made sword-and-sandal ⓑ flicks, something which I find hard today to rationalise. These are films, made primarily between the late Fifties and the mid Sixties, with trite, ludicrous and meaningless translated titles like Goliath and the Vampires, Hercules Against the Sons of the Sun, Samson Against the Sheik and Ursus in the Valley of the Lions.Most are set in ancient Greece, sometimes in Rome or elsewhere within the Empire (occasionally somewhere more exotic), and characteristically with storylines and events riddled with anachronisms.
Ursus finds himself in the Amazon in this 1960 entry
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The sword-and-sandal formula
Robert Rushing defines the peplum as “depicting muscle-bound heroes…in mythological antiquity, fighting fantastic monsters and saving scantily clad beauties”. Sloppily dubbed into halting English, atrociously woodenly acted, scenes lacking continuity, the plots are ludicrously formulaic, typically involving a superhuman strong man hero who stereotypically runs through his repertoire of superhuman feats of strength, triumphing over all foes while rescuing a beautiful but defenceless heroine (typically wearing the briefest peplum imaginable) and sometimes liberating the oppressed masses to boot at the same time. Unlike Hollywood’s lavish epic spectacles (Quo Vadis?, Cleopatra, Ben-Hur, etc.) , these Italian homegrown peplums were decidedly low-budget flicks which zeroed in on the hero’s beefcake attributesⓒ. (‘Sword-and-Sandal’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org). The Italian cinematic peplum was indeed a curious passion of my pre-teen to early adolescent years.
Hercules (1958) with Steve Reeves: prototype for the Italian sword-and-sandal film
Hercules by another name
The ur-peplum was Hercules (Italian title: Le Fatiche di Ercole), released in 1958, starring American bodybuilder-turned-actor Steve Reeves, an instant hit which pocketed >$5,000,000 profit for the producers and backers and unleashed a steady stream of sequels starting with Hercules Unchained. As a variation to Hercules, other strongman protagonists were added to subsequent peplum movies, including Samson, Goliath, Ursus and Italy’s own folk hero Macisteⓓ. By 1965 the peplum was pretty much passé in Italy, with the void quickly filled by Spaghetti Westerns and Eurospy films.
My fascination with this Continental movie sub-genre was even more remarkable and unfathomable because, even then, I knew that the films were egregiously badly put together! Watching them was like being drawn against your better instincts to look at something as horrific as a car crash…you know it’s wrong but you just can’t resist the temptation. The unequivocal fact that the sword-and-sandal pictures were such thoroughly execrable, absolute turkeys of films perversely had precisely zero impact on my satisfaction quotient during my early impressionable years!
This 1964 ”Sword-and-sandaller” Maciste Contre Les Hommes De Pierre was released in English as Hercules Against the Moon Men, (“Hercules meets Sci-Fi”)
Footnote: Now at an age where I am hurtling towards senectitude I find the grainy and tired-looking footage and the equally tired storylines so unappetising that I couldn’t even stuck it out for 10 minutes, let alone stay the course of a peplum…but even with my profoundly diminished enthusiasm I still hold a soft spot for the deeply flawed sub-genre…I guess that’s simply nostalgia kicking in – the remembrances of things past which seemed better then (ie, in my youth) than they do now guided presumably by a more mature, more measured outlook.⿻⿻⿻
The sub-genre’s popularity in the early ’60s prompted the Three Stooges to get in on the act with a slapstick, farcical take on the Italian peplum The Three Stooges Meet Hercules (1962)
༻༻༻༻༻༻༻༻༻༻༻༻༻༻༻༻༻༻
ⓐ plural of peplum
ⓑ “sword-and-sandal” and “peplum” are used interchangeably to describe this sub-genre, both terms have a disparaging connotation. The sorcery component of the sub-genre was something I could take or leave
ⓒ so to have the lead convincingly looking the part, professional bodybuilders, athletes and wrestlers were transformed into actors and cast as the Herculean-like protagonist
ⓓ Maciste as strongman in the peplum films was resurrected from a previous incarnation in the silent era of Italian cinema
