I don’t know. After consulting the web, I learned that the film is riddled with anachronisms. The attention to history and detailing was terrible. But nowhere among the long lists of anachronisms could I find any mention of the scene depicted here.
-
Sign up or login, and you'll have full access to opportunities of forum.
Roman Resources
- Thread starter RacingRodent
- Start date
Praefectus Praetorio
R.I.P. Brother of the Quill
I didn't say you could google it and get an answer in a minute. There are things in this clip which were not true in 180 AD. A hint - nature problems.
malins
Stumbling Seeker
not an expert in ancient agro-botany but ... the fields shown - those rolling expanses of nothing but wheat - are a very modern thing and would certainly not have looked like that. Not in 180 AD and not in 1800.
without pesticides you have all sorts of things growing along with the wheat (some of which would be nice to look at like poppies and cornflowers and others just random weeds) and without mechanization you would have a much smaller-level segmentation of the landscape.
in the close up ... the actual type of wheat might also have looked morphologically different, a lot of what the Romans grew would have looked more like this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farro. and then again in Italy itself wheat wasn't really mass-market produced for profit in large fields, during Imperial times ... most of that was imported. But I don't know where this scene is supposed to be set.
But well one can't really blame them for not recreating an entire ancient Roman agricultural lanscape ...
Last edited:
Praefectus Praetorio
R.I.P. Brother of the Quill
Excellent catch of the biggest errors: wheat without weeds, large sweeping fields of wheat, not the much smaller parcels that were used. As to the type of wheat, modern wheat is a dwarf strain developed for greater yield. Roman fields of wheat that ripe would be at least six feet tall. 90% of the plant was the stalk. Modern wheat is only about 40% stalk.
There are some other, more obscure errors.
malins
Stumbling Seeker
Oh yes that's also true - I was focusing on what the heads would look like. The shorter stalks of today are better suited for mechanized combine harvesting and also, nobody needs that much straw nowadays
Praefectus Praetorio
R.I.P. Brother of the Quill
Speaking of mechanized harvesting, it appears that the Romans invented it far earlier than we thought. Look closely to the left of the road. The is a long smooth swath of harvested wheat that would make a modern Combine jealous.Oh yes that's also true - I was focusing on what the heads wold look like. The shorter stalks of today are also better suited for mechanized combine harvesting and also, nobody needs at much straw nowadays
Frank Petrexa
Tribune
I have also read (and think its true) that subsistence farmers today do not plant a monoculture but plant different food (or fiber) crops in one big patch. Supposedly that helps keep down insect and mold damage--like making antibodies to several different antigens. It helps with soil quality (legumes with other crops) and water retention as well. Plus plants maturing at different times also confounds pests and fosters pollination. A monoculture also requires sorting seeds, and removing interlopers, which even with a lot of slaves is tedious and requires expertise.
Praefectus Praetorio
R.I.P. Brother of the Quill
OK, just one real error left. Look closely at the road. It's a common error that people make.
Praefectus Praetorio
R.I.P. Brother of the Quill
Looking close you see bare ruts on the side and grass growing in the middle. This is therefore not a Roman military highway (the Interstates, Motorways, La Voie Express, or Autobahns of the ancient world). These were stone-paved and quite straight and level, designed for legions to march quickly to where they were needed. However, most roads were more like country back roads today, with minimum effort in construction or maintenance. However, there is something about this road which is very wrong and out of touch with the times.
cruxlover
Tribune
Also with animal haulage rather than motor vehicles the grass in the middle would likely be trampled as much as the ruts each side.
Praefectus Praetorio
R.I.P. Brother of the Quill
Congratulations! Roads only began to look like that after the horseless carriage!
malins
Stumbling Seeker
Trained elephant with rotating blades or something!
well, if you actually need to live off mostly of what you and some neighbors grow ... a monoculture is just asking for disaster. Yields for one crop type can vary enormously from year to year but even if the yield is good and there was no disease in the field what if you get an infestation of your storage. So you want all sorts of different types of food plants, ripening at different times, etc. Another aspect is that plots would often be dispersed, that is in a village, one family would not work on one single continous plot but would have several spread around in different places.
Gibbs505
SERVORUM DOMITOR
Indeed, the standard method in England in medieval times was to rotate crops on a four year basis. There would be three different crops each on one quarter of the serfs plot with the fourth quarter held farrow for the season. At least that was the theory!
While I'm sure what's been said is true, it's important to recognise that cereal growing (barley, emmer and - especially, after the Romans had introduced it, spelt) in Britannia was far from mere subsistence farming, it was on an industrial scale, feeding not just the population but the voracious Roman army too (bread may have been as much as 70% of a soldier's daily intake of carbs), and exporting shiploads of grain to the continent, especially Italy, southern Gaul and Hispania.
spelt
spelt
Praefectus Praetorio
R.I.P. Brother of the Quill
If any here are interested in learning more about Pollice Verso, the Roman thumb gesture that condemned a loser in the Colleseum, I reviewed the matter in my Goth girl story, https://www.cruxforums.com/xf/threads/the-fate-of-a-goth-girl.8750/page-28#post-606762, post #548. Teaser, the gesture isn't what you probably think it is.
Being a friendly site, we don't do pollice verso here, only pollice recto (when we click 'like')
Loxuru
Graf von Kreuzigung
We are so extremely friendly, that we do a pollice recto for a crucifixion.
Traced back to Hangonius Tree, notorious sixth century Roman executioner?
Praefectus Praetorio
R.I.P. Brother of the Quill
How a Roman woman in the time of the Flavian dynasty would do make-up and hair. Contemporaneous with Amica, the slavegirl of Pompeii, by Velut Luna. Amica wouldn't do this for herself but would perform it for her mistress.