![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
What's Wrong with Hollywood?
Dec. 24th, 2011 07:33 amObviously there are innumerable things wrong with Hollywood's perception of antiquity (the Victorian bookie's green board on display outside the Colosseum in Gladiator comes to mind as an obvious symbol), but here is an annoying pattern that's just emerged for me.
In A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, all the slave Pseudolus wants is to be free, but his master tells him, "People just don't go around freeing slaves everyday." I've known that one for some time.
But last night I saw the silent version of Ben Hur (in what sense was he a prince, anyway?). Hur's mother is so pleased with the service of her slave Simonides (why not ben Simon?) that she tells him, "I would free you if the law allowedit?" Even more oddly he replies to this by saying, "I don't care about actually being free, so long as you allow everyone to think I am free?" What?
For those who didn't pay attention in Ancient history class, the manumission of slaves was quite common in the Roman Empire, and was an import form of patronage and wealth creation, since the freedman could start his own business, and his former master, as his patron, would have ultimate control of the newly created resources. In fact, shortly after the time of Ben Hur, the richest man in the world was Pallas, a freedman of the Emperor Claudius, who was also effectively the Prime Minister of the Empire. His brother Felix, also a freedman, would succeed Pilate as Procurator of Judea, incidentally.
So why do these films insist one exactly the opposite of one of the most obvious and important truths about Roman society (the very existence of the words 'manumission' and 'freedman' might have been suggestive)? In neither case does it materially affect the plot (Pseudolus is eventually freed, and Simonides refuses to denounce his mistress under torture, but freedmen were certainly liable to be tortured). While less common, manumission was certainly a feature of American slavery (although the final Supreme Court decisions that actually sparked off the Civil War seem to have disallowed it), so that couldn't have clouded the film-maker's thinking. Is it just to make the Romans appear more horrible (along the lines of making Masalla ignorant of the polite forms of discourse that allowed honetiores talk to inferiors about the difference in power between the classes without being insulting?)?
And this was supposed to be about 3 lines when I started...
In A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, all the slave Pseudolus wants is to be free, but his master tells him, "People just don't go around freeing slaves everyday." I've known that one for some time.
But last night I saw the silent version of Ben Hur (in what sense was he a prince, anyway?). Hur's mother is so pleased with the service of her slave Simonides (why not ben Simon?) that she tells him, "I would free you if the law allowedit?" Even more oddly he replies to this by saying, "I don't care about actually being free, so long as you allow everyone to think I am free?" What?
For those who didn't pay attention in Ancient history class, the manumission of slaves was quite common in the Roman Empire, and was an import form of patronage and wealth creation, since the freedman could start his own business, and his former master, as his patron, would have ultimate control of the newly created resources. In fact, shortly after the time of Ben Hur, the richest man in the world was Pallas, a freedman of the Emperor Claudius, who was also effectively the Prime Minister of the Empire. His brother Felix, also a freedman, would succeed Pilate as Procurator of Judea, incidentally.
So why do these films insist one exactly the opposite of one of the most obvious and important truths about Roman society (the very existence of the words 'manumission' and 'freedman' might have been suggestive)? In neither case does it materially affect the plot (Pseudolus is eventually freed, and Simonides refuses to denounce his mistress under torture, but freedmen were certainly liable to be tortured). While less common, manumission was certainly a feature of American slavery (although the final Supreme Court decisions that actually sparked off the Civil War seem to have disallowed it), so that couldn't have clouded the film-maker's thinking. Is it just to make the Romans appear more horrible (along the lines of making Masalla ignorant of the polite forms of discourse that allowed honetiores talk to inferiors about the difference in power between the classes without being insulting?)?
And this was supposed to be about 3 lines when I started...
