Talk:The Stolen Eagle

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Contents 1 Screenshot 2 Formatting Quote 3 Octavian's age 4 Forms of surrender 5 Strabo 6 the Legion and marriage 7 Blue Spaniards 8 "Historical Inaccuracies" Octavian vs. Octavius 9 The Opening Battle

[edit] Screenshot

I would have preferred a screenshot with the recovered eagle, but was unable to find one among the online trailers. If anyone can find a better shot, please replace Image:Rome episode 1.png (note: the image should be 320px wide and 180px high). --MarkSweep (call me collect) 08:18, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Not the right shape to fit in the infobox, but I added a picture of an Aquila to the page.

Beowulf314159 22:34, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Formatting Quote

OK - I've reverted to quote spacing again.

I'm not sure whether your intense dislike of spacing quotes is part of the style manual or not, but my rational for using them is as follows:

Bullet points, which otherwise be ideal, won't work with multi-line quotes. The second line, and those following, cannot be made to line up with the initial like. Using an indent spacer doesn't indent the same amount as a bullet - and none of the couple of other tactics I tried to use to get bullets to work, dod.

Dividing lines are indistinguishable from the horizontal lines used as the main section dividers. I tried used a shorter horizontal rule, in the same manner that publishers use to divide breaks in the text flow, but you removed those as well.

Spaces aren't ideal, but nothing else to date seems to work constantly across multi-line quotes, on all pages.

If you can find a way to delineate mutli-line quotes, that works across all episode pages, that can't be confused for other page elements, that doesn't use spaces, that's fine - I'm not clinging to spaces out of any strong personal preference. I'm doing it because it's the only thing that seems to function unambiguously.

Beowulf314159 15:28, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Octavian's age

Somebody signing only as 68.194.241.81 commented that the way Octavian's age is depicted is "not actually inaccuracy, in episode 6 when talking about losing his virginity Octavian is said to be 13, and obviously some time has passed between eps 1 and 6" ... I beg to differ : Whether or not Octavius was 13 when he lost his virginity or not, something is deeply wrong here. Alright, he's "only 13" later in the series, and might be assumed to be younger at this point, but this does not change the fact that the Max Pirkis is obviously too old to portray an 11 year old, and that the responsibility of making the trip from Rome to Gaul with a prize gift, even under supervision by a trusted servant, is much too great for one so young (no matter how ambitious and politically minded mama is, and how trusted the slaves are, which may not be much, given her threats at departure). Also, by the time the events pictured in ep 2 (with the crossing of the Rubicon : 49 BC) happen, he is already 14 ... This should have been taken into account for later episodes (but I've not yet studied the timeline, so cannot assay when ep 6 might really be taking place, late 48, when he was 15, if already existing evaluations are right). But given milius' notorious record in adapting facts, or even existing data, in his scripts, I'm not at all surprised such a discrepancy should be present. Since he also vandalized this part of the article, before making an inaccurate "qualification", I'm taking the liberty to suppress it, having explained the fallacy of it. Any comments can be added onto this, or taken directly to me --Svartalf 22:25, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Your argument makes sense to me. I was just tidying up, not trying to change what was put here - and thus incorporated that comment into the main point better. That particular comment about Octavian's age has been in the page for quite a while - Beowulf314159 22:49, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Yep... you did it while I was writing the comment above, I got the surprise as I was about to do the deleting. I was deeply riled up by mr number's shenanigans from the start, but had not studied the historical and series timeline deeply enough to feel right about acting on it before tonight, and decided to proceed anyway. Do we agree to let things stand as per latest edit? --Svartalf 23:28, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I have no problem with that - your arguments make perfect sense to me. I went back and added your arguement about it being unlikely that an 11-year-old would be sent into a war zone. That seems to me to be a more "solid" arguement for it being an error than "he looks 16". If you're happy with that, it looks good as it stands from my POV - Beowulf314159 23:33, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Forms of surrender

You know - I think it would have tickled Caesar's vanity to have Vercingetorix to surrender to him personally and not the state of Rome :) - Beowulf314159 22:57, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Quite possibly... A great man for vanity was Julius Caesar. But I strongly doubt he would have allowed himself such a trivial pleasure, at the risk of endangering his position... He was berated by the Optimates for his illegal wars, and pandering to the plebs with the huge profits thereof ; and he knew he was under frequent accusations of wishing to make himself king, the ultimate crime in Republican Rome. (which is why I guess he contended himself with overly extended stints as dictator, even more power and staying within republican forms) So it's unlikely he would have flouted the senate by taking personal victory and surrender from the Gauls rather than receiving them in the name of Rome.--Svartalf 23:19, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Strabo

I notice that Caesar's paymaster and possibly secretary bears the name Strabo... and the link under the guest stars takes us to an article that mainly mentions the historian and geographer of that name. Is there any evidence whether the character is indeed supposed to stand for the geographer (who would have been a child at the time), or any other historical Strabo, or is he only supposed to be homonymous to them? --Svartalf 23:19, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it can be the historical Strabo, as you note, he would have been 8 or 9 years old at the time. I think I put that link in more for the comment on "Strabo" being a common nickname. The character is actually shown on camera in the second episose. He is not a boy of 10 or 11 at that point. - Beowulf314159 23:28, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] the Legion and marriage

I include this here because it's mentioned in this episode, and I'm not sure it would be more appropriate to ask in Vorenus' article. We are told that Vorenus married "by special dispensation". Could anybody direct me to sources telling whether legionaries were or not allowed to marry ? (of course, he couldn't have married before enlisting ;) ) Should this be mentioned in inaccuracies or in historical background? --Svartalf 00:34, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Things that make me go, "Hmmm....". Just a quick Google, and I found this,

Vespasian made the term of service a flat 25 years, though discharges still seem to be given only every other year. Soldiers were forbidden to be legally married while serving, though of course many had local girlfriends, common-law wives, and children. Upon discharge, a soldier's "marriage" was recognized as legal, and any children he had were recognized as legitimate and Roman citizens. This is not only a nice "perk", since illegitimate children of civilians generally could not become citizens, but it also made a growing recruiting pool for the legions. A steadily increasing number of recruits listed their place of origin as "in castris", "in the camp", meaning their fathers had been soldiers (not necessarily that they had actually been born and raised in a military fortress!).

I'm not sure how useful this quote is. Vespasian ruled more than a century later than the timeframe covered by this episode. - 2006/May/20 23:31 EST

at http://www.larp.com/legioxx/orgoff.html. I can't vouch for this as a reliable site even though they do seem to have an impressive bibliography attached to it, they don't cite this fact specifically, so I'd treat it cautiously.

In any case, this is referance to Imperial legion practices, although it's possible to apply this kind of rule to any legion formed after the Marian reforms. - Beowulf314159 00:42, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Ah, a much better referanced work: http://it.geocities.com/paginedistoria/cherry.html. Note that it says such restrictions start "at least from the time of Claudius". It seems it's not exactly an error but it might be a historical liberty, or at least stretching a possible point to make a better story. - Beowulf314159

Nope, you're right - it's an error! "The ban seems not to have been in effect in the late Republic: Caes. Civ. 3.110.2."

The forces under Achillas did not seem despicable, either for number, spirit, or military experience; for he had twenty thousand men under arms. They consisted partly of Gabinius's soldiers, who were now become habituated to the licentious mode of living at Alexandria, and had forgotten the name and discipline of the Roman people, and had married wives there, by whom the greatest part of them had children. - Caes. Civ. 3.110.1-2.

Beowulf314159 00:56, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Adrian Goldsworthy's book The Complete Roman Army has an entire section explicitly detailing the ban on a regular Roman soldiers' right to marry, and how it is a special privilege belonging only to centurions and higher. What this of course led to, was a number of children mysteriously appearing from females that seemed to follow the armies around...heh Ezedriel

[edit] Blue Spaniards

Does anyone know anything about who the Blue Spaniards that captured Octavian were? Should the fact that Octavian was held prisoner by them be mentioned in the article? --Zegoma beach 19:30, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Historical Inaccuracies" Octavian vs. Octavius

The use of the name Octavian should NOT be considered an historical inaccuracy, as claimed in the article. It is true that his name was "Octavius", but "Octavian" is the accepted English translation. If Octavian is an inaccuracy, then so are many other proper names in the series. Cicero was pronounced "KEY-ker-oh" by the Romans, not "SIS-er-oh." Caesar was pronounced like German "Kaiser." Cato was "KA-toh," not "KAY-toh." The producers' choice of Octavian over Octavius conforms to their choice that the scripts be written in English, not Latin, despite the fact that the Romans didn't speak English.

[edit] The Opening Battle

Despite the differences, the opening battle featuring Pullo and Vorenus seems very close to the depictions of them in De Bello Gallico. Pullo charges forward and Vorenus comes forward to get his sorry hide out of there. It takes an artistic license like the rest of Pullo and Vorenus' appearences in the series(and they're fighting a Celtic tribe, not a Belgae tribe), but it does seem similar to Caesar's description.--2ltben 02:54, 16 August 2006 (UTC)