Line #3 ArtisticLicenseHistory/BarbariansRising


1	!!Culture
2	* First and foremost, the show's usage of the term "Barbarian" is exaggerated and sometimes incorrect. While its ample meaning as "non-Roman/Greek" is TruthInTelevision, it had still several cultural nuances that didn't apply to absolutely everybody, and it certainly didn't compose a collective identity in itself as the show presents.
3	** Romans would have never referred to Carthaginian citizens as barbarians, among other things because Carthage was a prosperous commercial empire with a very high culture and Greek influences just like Rome itself. The term was still theoretically fit, and Romans could have used it as a slur or to make a point, but definitely not as a casual tag. This was the reason why Viriathus used to be called "the barbarian Hannibal" by Roman poets, which shows they didn't consider Hannibal to qualify for a barbarian only for not being Roman or Greek.
4	** Spartacus was technically a barbarian because he was born in Thrace, but it is unlikely Romans would have emphasized his barbarism as a sort of definitory trait, given that he had been a Roman soldier and gladiator for many years before his slave revolt. The latter is a particularly bad example of a barbarian rising, too, as while Spartacus and his high command were Thracians and Gauls, the majority of the slave population in Rome was actually composed by Greeks and other Italians, that is, ''non-barbarians''.
5	* Perhaps most importantly, the barbarians were not freedom fighters against the evil, pro-slavery empire of Rome, as slavery was common virtually everywhere at the time. All barbarian tribes presented in this show practiced it, some of them even indulging in human sacrifices, ritual mutilations and other horrifying things even Romans were scandalized at (some of them rightfully, others not so much given Rome's own little dirty secrets, but still).
6	* Hannibal in particular was not a freedom fighter as stated in the show, but just a military man motivated by a family feud against another nation. Both Rome and Carthage were pretty morally questionable by modern standards in their own war, and the latter definitely wasn't more progressive or humanitarian than the former. Strangely, the show itself doesn't shy away from showing that Hannibal's oath against Rome was directly based on revenge, which turns it into a sort of inner contradiction.
7	* Lusitanians didn't wear simple shirts over trousers as portrayed in the series, but short tunics down to their thighs. This is strange, as otherwise the show got several elements of their tribe surprisingly right (though, sadly, not their weapons).
8	* Cumelios brands Hannibal in the arm with the burning tip of his falcata to test his bravery and mark their pact or some other cultural mumbo-jumbo. This ritual seems to have been made up for the series, as it is not recorded in any source.
9	* All the Boii Gauls from the series are portrayed with full, short beards and buzzcut-esque haircuts. In contrast, historical Gauls are described to usually shave their chins and sport long moustaches, as well as flowing manes of hair. This is another weird point, as Cumelios and some Lusitanians (though not all) do have more or less correct hairstyles for their own culture.
10	* The Iceni are shown to paint their faces, which there is no historical evidence of them doing.
11	* Members of Attila's entourage wear what seem to be modern hoodies.
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13	!!Military
14	* The Roman army was not composed by professional soldiers until 107 BC, despite what guests of the show claim in the episodes set before that year.
15	* Contrary to what the series shows, Lusitanians weren't a huge part of Hannibal's army, but only a small part of a diverse Hispanic contingent. It also included Iberians (from the southern Iberian peninsula), Celtiberians (from the peninsula's core) and Balearics (from the Balearic Islands), as well as possibly other, minor tribes. In fact, according to a source, the Lusitanians were so few that they were bunched together with a Gallaeci contingent.
16	* Neither Romans nor Lusitanians used bows and arrows at the time of the series.
17	* ''Barbarians Rising'' follows the popular belief that the falcata was a Lusitanian weapon, despite it was actually an Iberian one and therefore limited to the Mediterranean coast (and there is evidence that it might have been actually a Greek design brought there by sea commerce). Lusitanians favored straight gladii, like those used by Celtiberians and later adopted by the Roman themselves. The series might have got away with it by leaving to interpretation that the falcatas were looted or bought from other regions of Hispania, but instead it shows the Lusitanians explicitly calling them "their fathers's swords".
18	* Fairly universal throughout the series are cheap floppy leather breastplates and helmets on both Roman and non-Roman extras.
19	* Hannibal wears a bizarre fusion of an Attic type helmet and a Late Roman ridge helmet. Putting aside the fact that it's clearly made of modern plastic, it also has a Chi-Rho emblazoned on the front, a '''Christian''' symbol that wouldn't come into use until centuries after Hannibal's death.
20	* At one point Hannibal also wields what appears to be a replica of a Model 1816 French artillery short sword, ironically a weapon that was inspired by the Roman gladius.
21	* Boudicca wears a leather dress which has been cut into scale shapes to resemble lorica squamata, while one of her lieutenants wears a late medieval gambeson.
22	* Alaric, born in the 4th century, wears a very faithful reproduction of 1st century lorica hamata, which by his time had long since been replaced by more regularly constructed mail hauberks.
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24	!!Characters
25	* Hannibal and the Carthaginian elite were of Phoenician origin, which would make them look vaguely like modern Israelis, with olive skin and Semitic traits. Meanwhile, the show opts to portray them with '''black''' actors, and some of the guests imply rather unsubtletly that the Punic Wars were somehow important for black people's history. In real life, there were probably few to no black people in the Carthaginian army at the time, as most of it was composed by other Phoenicians, Berbers and white mercenaries like Hispanics and Gauls.
26	* The character of Cumelios seems to be based on Hannibal's Lusitanian commander according to Silius' ''Literature/{{Punica}}'', as he even dies in Cannae the same way Silius tells about the historical guy. However, the latter is described as young instead of elderly, and named Viriathus instead of Cumelios. (The name change can be justified, though, because viewers might have become confused at having two important characters with the same name.)
27	* The show makes it look like the Scipio who intercepted Hannibal in Hispania and the one who fought him in Zama are one and the same. In reality, they were respectively father and son. They also imply that Scipio Sr. was present at the defeat at Cannae, when he was actually in Spain at the time.
28	* Ditalcus wasn't a Lusitanian, but a Turdetanian deserter who joined Viriathus's party after it took off. The series also gives him a tragic background, namely that his entire tribe was butchered in a punitive action triggered by Viriathus, but this could not have happened in real life either; not only Turdetanians were traditionally enemies of the Lusitanians, they were part of a rich Roman province at the time, so there was no conceivable reason for Rome to vent their rage on them of all people.
29	* It's claimed that Viriathus's father and Tagus served under Hannibal in the Battle of Zama. However, the Battle of Zama and the Massacre of the Lusitanians are separated by 50 whole years. This means Tagus should be at least 70 years old at the time of the series, not an age easy to reach at the time (by their standards, he would have been quite the grandpa) and absolutely not one for such a physically demanding task as fighting in the frontlines (there ''was'' an example of a warrior this ancient at the time, king Masinissa of Numidia, but he only commanded his army and always went on horse or elephant). Similarly, assuming that Viriathus was in his thirties here as his actor was, his father would have begotten him at least around 40 years old, which would be a late age to be a father even today.
30	* Avitus - the Roman general often at Aetius´ side - is shown to have been killed during the Vandal sack of Rome in 455. In reality, he managed to become emperor in the chaos following Valentinian´s murder. Granted, his actual date of death was off by only a year, but even then, the show gets the circumstances wrong - he was killed by order of the Senate, rather than by ´´barbarians´´.
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32	!!Events
33	* The Lusitanians didn't ally with Hannibal in an EnemyMine scenario against Rome. In real life, the Spaniards that joined Hannibal did it because they were either already Barcid vassals or rogue mercenaries seeking to make a buck, not because any of them gave a crap (yet) about the threat of Rome. In fact, Spanish mercenary parties also fought ''for'' Rome during the war and afterwards.
34	* In the series, it is revealed that Hannibal had previously arranged his encounter with Magalus and the Boii Gauls. In real life, the Boii appeared upon Hannibal unexpectedly, so much that he had been thinking on changing his plans and only continued his travel as thought because Magalus convinced him to do so.
35	* Magalus claims there are very few Boii Gauls left because the Romans killed the rest, and only a few of them join Hannibal and Cumelios as a result. In reality, Gauls (both Alpine and Cisalpine) composed the biggest reserves in Hannibal's army, as many of them hated Rome and joined him through his travel to Italy. Gaul was still mostly unconquered by Rome at the time and would remain so until Julius Caesar's time.
36	* In real life, Viriathus took several years to kickstart his rebellion after the Massacre of the Lusitanians, not a single night. By the time it exploded, Galba had been replaced by Vetilius a long time before, so he never witnessed firsthand its effects. Vetilius was not an ArchEnemy of Viriathus either: the battle of Tribola was actually the first, only and last time they faced off, and it was by killing Vetilius that Viriathus got noticed by Rome in the first place. The statement made in ''Barbarians Rising'' that Vetilius was obssessed with Viriathus and carried a manhunt for him during many months is just plain wrong.
37	* Nothing in history indicates Marcus Crassus paid the Sicilian pirates off. They apparently betrayed Spartacus on their own.

Context ArtisticLicenseHistory / BarbariansRising