Artistic License History / Hispania

Culture

• Virtually no Iberian character other than Viriato and Césaro has a name that could have been believably Lusitanian or Celtic, rather seeming to have been chosen As Long as It Sounds Foreign. For instance, "Darío" is a Persian name, "Sandro" is a very modern Italian name form, and "Aaron" and "Esther" are Hebrew names of all things. Conversely, while it would have been not impossible to find Greek names in Hispania due to the presence of Greek colonies in the Mediterranean coast, Lusitania was pretty far from those places, so characters being named "Helena", "Héctor" or "Nerea" would have been an oddity to find there (Phoenician names would have been much more likely to find). The things gets so bad that one of the show's writers actually went in social media and used Viewers Are Morons as justification.
• "Viriathus" means "the torqued one", a torque being a kind of metal collar or wristband worn by Celtic chiefs and nobles. This brings two options to the table: either Viriathus was born in a noble family (which is still discussed today) or he was born under another name and simply adopted Viriathus as a title after becoming the Lusitanian chieftain (which is also considered a possibility today). Unfortunately, the Viriato from Hispania is poor yet carries that name from birth at the same time, making it doubly absurd.
• The Romans's names are not much better. For instance, in real life, a Roman (free) male name was composed of a praenomen, a nomen and a cognomen, but "Marco Quinto Cornelio" are two praenomen and one cognomen, which makes it impossible. The same exact naming mistake happens with Claudia's father Flavio Tulio Maro.
• In a related point, Roman noblewomen inherited forcefully a female variation of her father's nomen, so the daughter of a senator named Flavio Tulio should be named Tulia, not Claudia.
• Ancient Hispania was not an unified nation, being rather a melting pot of surprisingly diverse cultures, and no man from there would have declared himself Iberian or Hispanic as an identity like Viriato does in the series. Those words, in case they used them, would have been used the same way we use today "European" or "Asian" instead. In the best case, Viriato should have prided himself of being a Lusitanian, which was his true tribal identity.
• Speaking of the devil, the historical Lusitanians were essentially the opposite of the peaceful, openly pacifist villagers shown in the series. In real life, they were a very warlike tribe whose lower class often lived off brigandrage, tribal warfare and even mercenary service due to poverty and the low productivity of their lands (for instance, some Lusitanians served as guards and soldiers in other territories and Roman provinces, and a contingent of them even fought for Hannibal in the Punic Wars along with Celtiberian and South Iberian forces). In fact, they were considered at several points the most warlike tribe in Hispania.
• Hispanics in the series don't seem to employ slaves or keep any kind of slavery, while the Romans do and are called out on it. In real life, slavery was nigh omnipresent in all cultures at the time, and Lusitanians weren't the exception. For instance, the city of Salmantica, which is located pretty near to the series' place and whose Vetton inhabitants were allies to Viriathus, was known as a great market of slaves.
• Viriato's home village in the series is Caura, current day Coria in the province of Cáceres, Extremadura. There's a problem with this: Caura belonged to the Vettones, not the Lusitanians, so it could not be home village to a Lusitanian like Viriathus. Granted, Vettones were allies of the Lusitanians so often that they could go undistinguished in sources (a reason why they ended up piled all together in the Roman province of Lusitania when the peninsula was conquered), but they were two clearly distinct tribes.
• Every time Galba comes out in an official toga, it is a different one in design and color, but it is never the one a praetor should wear (that is, white with a purple stripe). In fact, in one episode he comes out wearing a completely purple toga, which was both illegal and blasphemous: one could only wear full purple in a triumph granted by the Senate, where it carried the religious meaning that the wearer had symbolically become Jupiter.
• The previous point is not the only accidental blasphemy shown, either. In an episode of the series, a Roman official casually orders not to bury several fallen legionaries in order not to waste time, which his men comply no problem. In real life, Romans were extremely superstitious about death rituals, and believed that any Roman corpse left unburied would become an evil spirit and curse them for having failed at giving him a proper burial. Leaving corpses behind like that was a last resort, reserved for very screwed up situations.
• Many of the female Roman dresses shown in the series have large clevagaes and show a lot of skin, which is wrong Common Knowledge about how Roman women dressed (they wore two kinds of bra named strophium or mamillare that made their chest smaller and less conspicuous, as in their views, excessively large breasts were comical and ugly).
• Claudia sometimes tries to turn Galba into a Henpecked Husband, to the extent of belittling him in front of his men for petty private matters, and this is not even Played for Laughs. In ancient Rome, this behavior would absolutely not have been tolerated in a woman (or a man, considering we are talking about making a fool of a praetor in public), to the point she might have ended up killed for that.
• In another instance, Claudia writes back to her father accusing Galba of raping female slaves. At the time and place, there was no such thing as "raping slaves" either legally or morally - slaves were basically talking objects with no sexual consent, and sleeping with one was not even considered legal adultery.
• In one of his speeches, Galba claims he will found a new Roman province. Historically, Galba was already the praetor of a province, Hispania Ulterior. Under Roman's law, any land annexed by Galba would have simply added to it. If he was ever interested in breaking away from Rome and founding his own nation in the vein of the later Sertorius, he never let anybody know it.
• In an instance, Galba also promises Claudia that they will return to Rome when he is chosen consul. In real life, consulships could not be issued while the candidates were away from Rome.
• In the series, the Romans show disdain towards the pottery vats used by the Iberians, as they consider them "barbaric" compared to their own wooden barrels. Aside from the fact that ceramics were never considered barbaric in Rome, but actually a luxury, barrels weren't introduced in Rome until Julius Caesar's time, and they were, surprise, a Gaul product.
• There's a reverent mention of patricians as an important faction in Rome, which in this case is a monumental anachronism, as patricians were an aristocratic concept whose significance was limited to the Roman Kingdom and the beginnings of the Roman Republic. The distinction between "patrician" and "plebeian" had lost almost all its value in Roman society more than a century before the time of the series, as it had been displaced by the less romantic and more typical distinction between "rich" and "poor". In fact, Galba himself was both a patrician and one of the richest men in Rome, so he would have been the least likely character to fear that a bunch of fellow oldbloods of various levels of wealth was in any way threatening to him.

Warfare

• Although pop culture has them as the quintaessential ancient Hispanic sword, falcatas were actually a thing from the coastal regions of South East Iberia (and it's even believed they were actually a Greek design brought through commerce, as they are very similar to the kopis and machaira). Most other Spaniard tribes preferred straight swords that would have looked almost identical to the Roman gladius, which in fact was a Roman copy of Hispanic swords found in the Punic Wars a century earlier. That doesn't mean Lusitanians never used falcatas, as they could have acquired them through sacking or commerce, but they definitely didn't produce them, nor considered them as a sign of their tribal identity, unless as war trophies.
• Going beyond the previous point, Iberian falcatas were carefully tailor-made for every warrior and not mass-produced like Sandro does. Also, despite his Insistent Terminology that they are named falcatas and not swords, the name "falcata" is actually as modern as 1872 and comes from a Latin expression. We don't know the sword's Iberian name, but it was surely not that.
• Legionaries are shown wearing the sword on the left side, when in real life they wore it on the right.
• None of the Lusitanians from the series wears armor or helmet in battle. This point is the nearest to being accurate, as they generally disliked any gear that hindered their movements on the battlefield, but they did not go completely unarmored either. Just some limb guards and maybe a few leather helmets would have been enough to recreate them faithfully.
• Both natives and Romans use bows and arrows a lot, to the extent that it seems to be their only other weapon aside from the falcata, which is just plain wrong. Historically, the bow was a weapon almost absent from the ancient western Mediterranean, and any culture west to Greece would only use it whenever and wherever Greek or Phoenician colonies had directly influenced them. In case of Hispania, the weapon fell out of use at some point before the Iron Age and only revived around colonies of the aforementioned cultures, while in the case of Rome, not even contact with the Magna Graecia brought the weapon to usage until late into the Roman Empire, before which they had to hire Greek auxiliaries to have archers in their armies (which is not the case here). Instead of bows, both of them employed javelins and slings, which are conspicuously absent from the series (which is strange for Hispanics even by pop culture standards, as the sling is pretty much the second most known ancient Spanish weapon due to the role of the Balearic slingers).
• Ancient Spanish villages or cities were fortified and built in hills and high terrains for defensive purposes. The one from the series? Without either wall or towers and planted in midst of a bucolic plain. Also, the huts used by Viriathus and his people were squared, not round.
• Marco is addressed as "general", which historically would be Galba's own manner of address given that he was the one sporting the rank of general granted by the Senate. The second-in-command role played by Marco should be called "legate".
• Roman generals didn't bring their wives or female relatives with them in their military campaigns, among other things because of the dangers, uncommodities and the sheer needlessness of it. The series's example is particularly blatant because the conquest of Hispania was one of the bloodiest in the history of Rome, to the extent that citizens and soldiers alike were scared of being ever called to serve there. Even since before the time of Viriathus, Hispania was the last place any Roman would want his loved ones to live.
• The Roman army in the series is apparently 100% composed of legionaries, while in real life it would have been formed by several others types of soldiers, like auxiliars, velites and the like.
• Roman permanent military camps were surrounded by a moat for defensive purposes and its tents were made of fabric. The one from the series lacks a moat and its tents are made of leather.
• Although most actors playing Romans are shaven, Marco sports a stubble, which would be bizarre for a person of his rank. In real life, Romans of the period considered facial hair a custom of barbarians, not only because Greek barbers had become popular as a civilized thing around 300 BC, but also because Scipio Africanus had more recently popularized the custom of shaving everyday, possibly also in the example of Alexander the Great. Sporting a beard was only acceptable in philosophers (and more in an Absent-Minded Professor sort of way), and this would not change until Roman emperors made it fashionable again.
• Speaking of the devil, in one episode Viriato and his men steal legionary uniforms and infiltrate the Roman camp, which would have been unrealizable in real life not only because they all sport either stubbles or full beards, but also by an additional number of reasons. For instance, likely few Lusitanians spoke Latin, and even fewer would have known Roman military customs well enough to disguise themselves as legionaries even for a day.
• A Roman soldier captured by Viriato claims to have joined the army in order to escape poverty. Assuming he was telling the truth, as it is implied, this is another error, as at the time only citizens who could pay for the relatively expensive Roman armor could enlist (which logically excluded paupers and beggars). Enlisting would not be an option for the poor until the Marian reforms in 107 BC, forty years after the events in the series.

Characters

• The real Viriathus was a chieftain who started the war with around 10 000 men and soon gathered even larger armies under his command, while the series portrays him romantically as a bandit leading a Five-Man Band based around a small village. Also, although he is popularly thought as a man of humble origin just as represented in the series, this is potentially Dated History; many modern historians believe he was actually a member of the Lusitanian ruling elite, specifically not a mere shepherd but the leader of a clan of owners of cattle.
• Assuming the character of Césaro is meant to be the historical Caesarus, it would be preposterous to think that he could have been left to rule peacefully a village as a vassal chief to Rome. In real life, Caesarus was Viriathus' predecessor in revolting against Rome, and would have been one of Hispania's most wanted had he been alive after his rebellion (his fate in real life remains unknown, but he might have died by the series' time given that his rebellion was successfully drowned).
• The character of Teodoro is based in a historical character named Astolpas, who was Viriathus's father-in-law. In reality, Astolpas never opposed to the marriage of his daughter to Viriathus, as the bridegroom was already powerful among the Lusitanians when he married her, and only became his enemy when Viriathus himself decided to execute him due to negotiations with the Romans.
• The name of Viriathus's wife is unknown, for it is not included in any chronicle, but whatever it was, it was not Bárbara, which is thoroughly alien to the time and place (it is a medieval name).
• Darío, Sandro and Paulo are apparently the historical Minurus, Audax and Ditalcus with an Adaptation Name Change. In real life, Minurus and company weren't Lusitanians like Viriathus, but Turdetanian allies.
• Although it can be understood as a narrative necessity to picture a clear Big Bad, the real Roman forces in Hispania weren't solely led by Servius Sulpicius Galba, or even led by him in the first place. When he partaked in the Massacre of the Lusitanians, Galba was actually acting under Lucius Licinius Lucullus, the governor of the Citerior province, and right after he left Hispania to never return. At the end of the Lusitanian War, the Roman generals were Quintus Servilius Caepio and Marcus Popillius Laenas, who were supposedly in charge of the bribery that ended Viriathus's life.
• Ironically to the previous, Caepio does appear briefly in the series's third season and in its short-lived spinoff Imperium, albeit in a heavily altered version with Historical Hero Upgrade included. Here, he is the praetor of Hispania Citerior (a job he never had in real life), a friend/rival to Galba (despite they never served together in history) and a honorable politician opposed to waging war against the Spaniards (exactly how he was not in real life) who is also unrelated to Viriato's death (maybe true, but not what it is traditionally believed). That said, he later does a Face–Heel Turn in Imperium, becoming closer to his real self.
• Claudia claims that Galba was a mere soldier when she met him. This is impossible, not only because the historical Galba was never "a mere soldier" (he was born to the wealthy Sulpicia family), but also because in ancient Rome, becoming a politician required either massive amounts of money or a massively influential family - certainly not things a lowly soldier could ever aspire to obtain. A youthful romance between a legionary and the daughter of a senator is a romantic idea, but not a realistic one in the time and setting.

Events

• In the series, Darío, Sandro and Paulo are brought to Rome as the (framed) murderers of Viriathus, thus playing a Historical Hero Upgrade of Minurus, Audax and Ditalcus. In real life, the aforementioned historical characters were certainly directed there by Caepio to get the rest of their reward, but they apparently never reached Rome. If they were really bribed or victims of a scheme, as Darío and company were in the series, the wisest decision would have been certainly disposing of them on the spot, as Caepio maybe did; sending them as prisoners to Rome would have only served to let the Senate know their version, which would have only harmed the schemer's reputation even if they weren't believed. For Galba, who was already suspicious of dirty money affairs both in history and in the series, it would have been the worst decision possible.
• In the spin-off series Imperium, after returning victorious from the war against Viriato, Galba is tasked with conquering Numantia. This never happened in history, as Galba had no part in the Celtiberian Wars and simply returned to Rome after finishing his affairs with the Lusitanians.
• Claudia once reveals Marco had a previous military career in "Orient," which leads her to ask him about the famed oriental princesses. However, assuming they are talking about the lands of the Seleucid and Parthian empires, which are the most oriental place the Roman armies ever reached, dates simply don't fit for Marco to have ever gone there. Historically, the only time Rome had campaigned in Asia up to that point was against Antiochus III in 189 BC, almost fifty years before the events in the series - that is, clearly much before Marco (who is played by an actor in his late thirties) was born.

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