TV antiquity: Swords, sandals, blood and sand

By Sylvie Magerstädt

TV antiquity explores representations of ancient Greece and Rome throughout television history. The first comprehensive overview of the ‘swords and sandals’ genre on the small screen, it argues that these shows offer a distinct perspective on the ancient world. The book traces the historic development of fictional representations of antiquity from the staged black-and-white shows of the 1950s and 1960s to the most recent digital spectacles. One of its key insights is that the structure of serial television is at times better suited to exploring the complex mythic and historic plots of antiquity. Featuring a range of case studies, from popular serials like I, Claudius (1976) and Rome (2005–8) to lesser known works like The Caesars (1968) and The Eagle of the Ninth (1976), the book illustrates how broader cultural, political and economic issues have over time influenced the representation of antiquity on television.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Release date: Mar 14, 2019
• ISBN: 9781526100061

Sylvie Magerstädt

Sylvie Magerstadt is Lecturer in Media Cultures at the University of Hertfordshire.

Book preview

Part I

The ancient world as serial television drama

When Samsung introduced its new curved television screen in 2014, I was struck not by the technology but by its official television advert. Rather than using science fiction or another ultra-modern environment to showcase this innovative new gadget, the advertisement featured a father and son in their pyjamas in the middle of a gladiatorial arena. All the tropes of screen antiquity were represented in the 30-second clip: the crowds, the arena, the evil emperor and of course the gladiators with their swords and sandals that defined the genre. What this advert encapsulated for me was not only that the audience's interest in antiquity was alive and well, but also that there was an intrinsic connection between fictional antiquity and the (no longer so) small screen.

Less than a decade earlier, the television series Rome (2005–8) managed to capture massive audiences in the UK and the US, just as its famous predecessor I, Claudius (1976) had been a cultural icon in the 1970s. Throughout television history, high-profile shows like these have appropriated classical sources to attract sophisticated and mature audiences – often through boundary-pushing portrayals of sex and violence. Yet, other shows, like the successful Hercules: The Legendary Journeys (1995–99) and its spin-off Xena: Warrior Princess (1995–2001), have achieved a cult following by happily mixing various ancient myths and settings with very contemporary ideas and language in order to create a more family-oriented entertainment. All these programmes are part of a tradition of representing the ancient world on television, which, as this book hopes to show, is just as fascinating as its history on the big screen. Although it is very much indebted to its cinematic predecessors, TV antiquity has from the outset tried to develop its very own style and language. In this way, it also added a new dimension to representations of antiquity in popular culture. Yet, for a long time, antiquity in television has remained in the shadow of its more spectacular cousin. This might have been due to its strong association with the large-screen epic form. A number of books have explored representations of antiquity in Hollywood cinema and beyond, e.g. Elley, 1984; Wyke, 1997; Solomon, 2001; Richards, 2008; Blanshard and Shahabudin, 2011. Several recent publications have focused on popular contemporary television shows like HBO–BBC's Rome (2005–8) and STARZ Spartacus (2010–13), such as Cyrino, 2008 and 2015, while others mention select television programmes in works that focus primarily on the large screen (Solomon, 2001; Richards, 2008) or the ancient world in popular culture more broadly (Joshel et al., 2001). However, though much has been written about the ancient world on the large screen and some recent small-screen successes, a systematic and more substantial examination of the portrayal of antiquity on television is so far lacking. In addition, as most of these works have been written by classicists, the focus has naturally been on the reception of the ancient world, rather than on television history and culture. This book aims to address this gap in the literature in two ways. First, by offering a systematic overview of the genre throughout television history, and second by connecting the representations of antiquity to a wider discussion of developments in television aesthetics and style. Here, I will demonstrate why the genre is relevant not only to those interested in representations of the ancient world but also to scholars of television history and aesthetics more broadly.

Somewhat paradoxically, the emergence of television has often been credited for the popularity of large-screen epics during the 1950s and 1960s. For example, Jeffrey Richards (2008: 53) writes that ‘[m]ore feature-length films based on the Bible and/or the history of the Roman Empire were made by Hollywood between 1950 and 1965 than in any other period of film history. Why? One obvious reason is the rise of television.’ More specifically, during this period, cinema could offer what television could not – vivid colours and enormous scale. The ancient world epic allowed filmmakers to showcase the technological advances of their time, such as Technicolor, Panavision or CinemaScope, all of which featured prominently on the film posters advertising those spectacles. Yet, if screen size, colour and spectacle are indeed the main features of screen antiquity, then how can television offer an effective and stimulating portrayal of the ancient world? The case studies in this book will provide answers to this question by emphasising the features that are arguably distinct to television, namely seriality, complexity and intimacy.

In addition, recent developments in technology have created new opportunities for representing the ancient world on-screen, including some of the elements that were for so long the unique selling point of cinema. This book aims to explore these developments and outline the trajectory of antiquity through television history. It will investigate how the various technological and commercial developments in the television industry home and abroad have impacted on this specific type of programme. As we will see, these developments are also always linked to broader cultural debates, for example around censorship and the educational aspect of television.

As noted, cinematic antiquity has long been one of the key subjects for large-scale epics. From the first silent film productions in the 1910s and 1920s and the golden age of the genre after the Second World War to its recent revival with films like Ridley Scott's Gladiator (2000), so-called sword-and-sandal epics have experienced a number of ups and downs throughout its history. Some scholars have tried to categorise these various waves of popularity, such as Michael G. Cornelius (2011), who argues that early productions such as Cabiria (1914) were the first-wave, Italian peplum films of the 1950s and 1960s the second, followed by a third wave of films in the early 1980s (Conan, the Barbarian (1982); Lou Ferigno's Hercules (1983); the original Clash of the Titans (1981)), and the recent – fourth-wave – revival. Not all scholars agree on his inclusion of the more fantastical works of the 1980s into this genealogy. This already indicates one of the key issues for all of us interested in the topic of screen antiquity, namely where to draw the boundaries of the genre. Before I address this issue, however, we need to emphasise, as Alistair Blanshard and Kim Shahabudin (2011: 218) have done, that the Graeco-Roman epic never really disappeared from our screens in between those high points and that epic films set in antiquity ‘continued to play a significant role in shaping the reception of the ancient world in popular culture’. For example, many of the popular sword-and-sandal epics of the 1950s and 1960s had a second life on the small screen in the subsequent decades. The authors further suggest that classical epics ‘proved to have certain advantages here [as their] length makes them highly suitable to fill daytime television viewing slots on Sundays and public holidays [and their] coy attitude to sexuality and largely off-screen violence make them inoffensive for family viewing’ (Blanshard and Shahabudin, 2011: 218). As we will see throughout the book, TV antiquity did not always share this same ‘coy attitude’ and many of the serial dramas made for television are distinctly not suitable for ‘family viewing’.

One of the key problems when analysing screen antiquity is finding the right terminology to describe such diverse works as I, Claudius, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Spartacus: Blood and Sand (2010). With regard to cinema, scholars have similarly struggled to find coherent criteria for representations of antiquity ranging from Hollywood epics like Spartacus (1960) and arthouse productions like Pasolini's Medea (1969) to mass-market Italian musclemen films and comedies like A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966) and Carry on Cleo (1964). In addition, there are numerous overlaps with other genres, in particular with fantasy and action adventure, as evident in films such as Clash of the Titans (1981) or Percy Jackson & the Lightning Thief (2010).¹ Other genre crossovers are also evident, particularly in television, such as gangster film, melodrama, comedy and soap opera. I will explore these in more detail in the relevant case studies and in the conclusion at the end of the book.

The most common terms used in the literature to characterise these works are peplum, sword-and-sandal films and cine-antiquity. The first of these is primarily used to describe a particular subset of films set in antiquity, namely the Italian-made musclemen films of the 1950s and 1960s. As Andrew B. R. Elliott (2011: 59) suggests, ‘a great deal of scholarship has rendered this term in and of itself problematic, [but] the most precise . . . definition . . . restrict[s] the use of peplum to the group of films depicting the ancient world made in Italy by Italian directors in the period 1958–65’. It is named after the peplum or peplos, a short skirt dress worn frequently by the male heroes that feature in the films that are set in ancient Greece. The term has subsequently been used more generically to characterise a wider range of films set in antiquity, but it is also often used dismissively. Therefore, it is unable to capture the full range of representations outlined above.

Second, sword-and-sandal films similarly take their cue from the costumes and props that feature in one way or another in pretty much all of the films and television programmes set in antiquity. As Kevin M. Flanagan (2011: 90) notes, unlike other genre specifications, the term does ‘not ascribe an abstract psychological term (horror), or suggest an experience delivered through a specific mode of performance (the musical), but instead provide[s] a group identity through the material accoutrements’. As such, it is wonderfully evocative. But, like the term ‘peplum’, it is often used negatively and rarely applied to more artistic films representing antiquity, for example Fellini Satyricon (1969) or Michael Cacoyannis's The Trojan Women (1971), even though both films feature swords as well as sandals. What is worse, the term distracts from the ‘emphasis on less generalizably recurrent elements [such as] mythological and historical source material . . . narratives that focus on heroism and moral righteousness; value ascribed to physical strength and sacrifice for one's people’, which, according to Flanagan (2011: 93), are the more interesting features of these films. Moreover, sword-and-sandal films are also more strongly linked to spectacular epic productions. This link has meant that other forms of representation of antiquity were often overlooked. For example, as Blanshard and Shahabudin (2011: 216) highlight, ‘responses to Gladiator's release showed that, in the popular cultural imagination, the ancient world on film (indeed, for many, the ancient world generally) had become the ancient world in epic film’. In contrast, the authors point out that when Gladiator was seen by many as ‘the re-animation of the dead genre of cine-antiquity’ many overlooked the fact that ‘cine-antiquity never did die, although it did stop appearing in the form of the epic film’ (2011: 216, my emphasis). By separating screen antiquity from the epic form and using the label cine-antiquity to discuss a much broader range of works, Blanshard and Shahabudin make it easier to extend the analysis of screen representations towards television. Hence, I will use the label ‘TV antiquity’ to characterise the diverse range of programmes presented in this book. The advantage of this term is that it also captures what Richards (2008: 9) called the ‘Ancient World genre’, which is defined quite broadly by ‘archaeological authenticity, emotional truth, visual power and a desire to educate as well as to entertain’. Overall, TV antiquity seems to be the most inclusive term, able to capture both ends of the spectrum of representations, from Shakespeare's Roman plays to Kevin Sorbo's Hercules who tells his opponents: ‘Relax, enjoy the ride’. As such, it continues a line of depictions of Greece and Rome in art and literature that has always blurred the boundaries between history and myth and between education and entertainment.

Screen antiquity between high and low culture

When looking at the artistic predecessors to cinema and television, Blanshard and Shahabudin (2011: 3) emphasise that ‘it was not just high art that was attracted to antiquity [as popular] nineteenth century circus acts and burlesques often invoked the ancient world’. This dichotomy between high- and low-culture representations of antiquity continues on-screen. From the outset, television more generally has been trying to find a balance between education and entertainment. In particular, the public broadcasting framework in European television early on put an emphasis on sophisticated programming that emphasised the educational aspects of the new medium. Adapting classical literature therefore had a special appeal for British and other European television stations, as the early case studies in this book will indicate. However, the success of peplum cinema in the 1950s and 1960s also showed that stories set in antiquity need not always appeal to high culture. Television shows like I, Claudius and The Last Days of Pompeii (1984) have attempted to be both sophisticated and entertaining by blending the content of popular historical novels with the conventions of soap operas. Series like Hercules: The Legendary Journeys further pushed TV antiquity towards the ‘low culture’ end with its iconoclastic approach to myth and its often gaudy production values. With regard to contemporary television, Michael Curtin (2003: 124) identifies two creative strategies, one that ‘focusses on mass cultural forms [that demand] low involvement and are relatively apolitical’ and one that creates ‘products targeted at niche audiences [which] pursue intensity [and] seek out audiences that are more likely to be highly invested’. This dual approach is also evident in TV antiquity. The success of HBO and the emergence of online-streaming channels have favoured the second strategy, suggesting a distinct focus on quality. While ‘[ad]-driven networks struggle to be identified as sources of quality programming, by whatever terms their audiences may define as quality . . . mere membership in the culture . . . of HBO is a guarantee of quality TV, because HBO has made itself, not just its programming, the very brand of quality’, as DeFino (2014: 12) argues. However, international collaborations complicate such clear-cut definitions. As a collaboration between HBO and the BBC Rome, for example, follows the style of other HBO shows whose combination of sex, violence and witty dialogue appeal to a mature, niche audience. But, being broadcast on the BBC in the UK, it does not necessarily fit the label ‘niche’, although it is consistent with the emphasis on quality. Moreover, the public broadcasting status of the BBC and the subscription-based business model of HBO have in common that both are independent of the demands of advertisers. Yet, regardless of the reasons for aiming at quality, the ‘most successful quality series play to both high- and low-brow constituencies without offending or dismissing either, but it is a tough balance to maintain’, as DeFino (2014: 12) states.

As the example of I, Claudius and others demonstrate, references to literature have long been regarded as one indicator to signify quality in television. For example, the hugely successful HBO drama The Sopranos was ‘hailed for its cinematic and literary qualities . . . its Not TV-ness’, as DeFino (2014: 16) highlights. Moreover, critics described it ‘as having the characteristics of a novel (its length and complexity, its combination of epic and intimate scale, its focus upon character development)’ (DeFino, 2014: 16). In contrast, as we will see in Part II, early television shows were criticised for not being ‘televisual’ enough and too reliant on literary and theatrical conventions. It seems that at a time when television was still coming into its own, a more distinct break was favoured. Instead, contemporary works seek continuity with literary and cinematic predecessors in order to gain ‘legitimacy, first by demonstrating its capacity to adapt itself to high culture, and second by inviting literary scholars to impose their critical perspectives on the programming’ (DeFino, 2014: 116). As I will demonstrate throughout the book, both low- and high-culture varieties of TV antiquity demonstrate that the ‘past has proved a very useful vehicle for conveying lessons about the present’ (Blanshard and Shahabudin, 2011: 1). Many of the television shows discussed here follow in the footsteps of literary predecessors. Especially the nineteenth century was rich with historical novels set in antiquity (the Roman Empire in particular) as they offered a wide range of opportunities for reflections on political issues. Everything from the French Revolution to the British Empire found allegorical references in the stories of antiquity. As Richards (2008: 6) notes, this

fashion for Roman[-themed] novels essentially began with Bulwer-Lytton's The Last Days of Pompeii (1834) and climaxed with General Lew Wallace's Ben-Hur (1880) and Henryk Sienkiewicz's Quo Vadis (1896), novels by an Englishman, an American and a Pole respectively, but all hugely popular bestsellers worldwide, endlessly reprinted, translated and adapted for and performed on the stage and, during the twentieth century, in the cinema.

This statement also highlights the global appeal of these stories and the universality of their themes. All of the novels listed here have found their way onto both the large and small screen. The differences in adaptation between cinema and television, which I will explore in the case studies, provide significant insights into the unique potential of televisual representations of these themes.

Apart from historical novels, classical epics naturally provide a wealth of material for contemporary filmmakers, especially the works of Homer. His Odyssey, for example, has twice been serialised for television, as we will see in the second case study. More generally, screen representations of Homer's works have ‘taken up one of the most ancient art-forms and propelled it into the present day covered in twentieth-century ambitions, anxieties, hopes and fantasies’ (Elley 1984: 1). In addition, Elley regards the spectacular epic films as ‘merely the cinema's own transformation of the literary epic's taste for the grandiose, realised on a sufficient scale to impress modern audiences’ (1984: 1). As such, we could suggest that cinema simply follows in Homer's footsteps. Television, however, as we will see throughout the book, largely subverts the epic form by finding distinctly ‘un-epical’ ways of telling ancient stories. Yet, this does not mean that it is therefore not suited for adapting classical works like those of Homer. What it lacks in ‘epic taste’, it makes up with another feature of classical literature and one that television does best – seriality.

Serial storytelling

In her essay ‘Surge and Splendor: A Phenomenology of the Hollywood Historical Epic’, Vivian Sobchack (1990: 42) suggests that

The miniseries . . . transforms the Hollywood historical epic in a . . . profound way – formally altering its temporal field, and thus its construction of History. Indeed, miniseries is a revealing nomination. It suggests that the spatial displacement from cinematic to electronic representation has changed the existential sense and terms of epic excess, and that the electronic medium's new mode of episodic and fragmented exhibition has changed the sense and terms of the expansiveness, movement, and repetitiousness of epic – and historical – time.

Yet, this move towards a more episodic and fragmented narration in television is not altogether a new invention. As Elley (1984: 10) emphasises, ‘the Iliad and the Odyssey [started life] as a number of separate tales composed by wandering minstrels during the ninth and eight centuries BC [and] their content, while drawing on a common stock of tales with some foundation in historical fact, could be embellished to suit the particular tastes of the listener’. With regard to television, John Hartley (1992: 11) argues that it similarly ‘performs a bardic function, rendering into symbolic form the conflicts and preoccupations of contemporary culture’. This episodic style is also found in other ancient sources. When reading classical historians like Appian, Suetonius or Plutarch, we note that history is often recounted as a loose chain of events, heavily influenced by the cultural background and personal position of the individual storyteller. Moreover, myth and history frequently overlap, as is evident in Vergil's Aeneid (see Stahl, 1998) and the histories of Herodotus. Even contemporary historians writing about the ancient world generally have to draw on a ‘combination of scholarship, conjecture and fiction’, as Mary Beard (2014: 172) claims.

Other serialised forms of narration have also had an impact on screen antiquity. For example, as Flanagan (2011: 92) suggests, ‘American adventure serials [have provided a] template for the episodic, thrilling exploits of Italian pepla and the 1980s sword and sorcery cycle’.² Moreover, Glen Creeber (2004: 6) highlights that historical ‘novels often find their natural home in the television serial [as the] . . . separate episodes allow greater room for the adaptation of a complex and dense novel’. Two of the case studies discussed in this book – I, Claudius and The Last Days of Pompeii – are directly based on such works. While these examples were not serialised in their original form, ‘television [also] owes a great debt to literary serials: in particular the Victorian novels of Trollope . . . Thackeray . . . Elliott, and most importantly Charles Dickens’, as DeFino (2014: 117) notes. Although the scope of this book does not allow for an in-depth exploration of literary adaptations on-screen more generally, key issues will be addressed in the relevant case studies. However, DeFino (2014: 117) also acknowledges that the ‘serial narrative is much older . . . going back at least as far as the Homeric epics’. This trajectory from Homeric epics via historical novels and US adventure serials to the most recent screen representations is also reflected in the development of TV antiquity outlined in this book. The influences on the shows mentioned here range from Shakespeare to comic books, from Homer to Bulwer-Lytton and Plutarch to Robert Graves. As noted above, when it comes to seriality, though, it is Dickens's work in particular, where ‘each instalment [is written] as a distinct episode, with its own rising and falling action and resolution, punctuated by cliffhangers meant to entice readers back’, that has inspired serial television drama (DeFino, 2014: 117). In addition, Dickens's talent for ‘creating imperfect but ultimately sympathetic characters, and evoking story worlds that offer complexity, continuity, and closure’ (DeFino, 2014: 117), chimes well with more recent works of TV antiquity. For example, the soldiers Pullo and Vorenus in the series Rome or the prostitute Chloe in The Last Days of Pompeii are such ‘Dickensian’ characters trying to find their way in the complex world they inhabit. Nevertheless, there are a number of significant problems in simply comparing televisual and literary works. As DeFino (2014: 118) emphasises, although Dickens's work was ‘rich in character and story, [it] lacks the moral and narrative ambivalence of . . . later [televisual] works’, leading him to conclude that maybe ‘the cynicism of Trollope, or the relentless realism of Balzac would have better suited the HBO writers’ room’. As we will see especially in the first case study, this cynicism does not only apply to most recent works of TV antiquity, but has also been a feature of earlier television shows.

As seriality is one of the key advantages of television in comparison to cinema, this book will focus on serial drama rather than other made-for-television feature films. As Creeber (2004: 2) suggests, it is the ‘drama series . . . [that reflects and celebrates] the inherent dynamics of the medium for which it has proved to be so uniquely suited’. Quite often, made-for-television feature films merely mimic their cinematic counterparts and thus do not offer a unique way of storytelling. Moreover, due to developments in technology, these films, are ‘now almost indistinguishable . . . from cinema’, as Creeber (2004: 20) argues.

As we will see, serial drama has, perhaps surprisingly, not always been a staple of television. Early television, in the UK in particular, preferred to invest in single television plays as their trademark for quality drama. Consequently, early shows like The Caesars (1968) tended to refer to each of their episodes as individual plays (see case study 1) rather than emphasising their seriality. As DeFino (2014: 110) argues, when television first emerged in the 1950s and 1960s, networks ‘shied away from serials because of their potential to alienate viewers unwilling or unable to stay current with a program's story’, as well as ‘the unpredictable nature of television [that led to] unexpected hits and cancellations’. Here, the single play provided a much safer option for creating high quality (and thus more expensive) programmes. Yet, changed viewing habits, brought about by the emergence of recording devices and more recently online-streaming services, have over time made it much easier for audiences to engage with serial drama without the necessary commitment to a particular time slot each week. Trends such as ‘binge watching’, where several episodes or even a whole season are watched in one sitting, have further helped the popularity of serial television. Together with high-profile successes such as I, Claudius and more recently Rome, these serial dramas have become increasingly more attractive for television audiences and producers alike.

If done well, the structure and length of serial drama make it possible to ‘produce a breadth of vision and a narrative scope [that] can capture an audience's involvement in a way equalled by few contemporary media’ (Creeber, 2004: 4). This can happen in a number of ways. Sometimes, the breadth is produced by narrative complexity, particularly if the programme borrows from other television genres such as soap opera or crime drama. Here, multiple character arcs, large and diverse casts and complex relations between characters create multilayered and multifaceted storylines that would not fit into a two or three hour film. However, other shows discussed in this book take the almost opposite approach and achieve audience involvement through intimate character studies of a limited cast. Here, one could argue, as does Creeber (2004: 6), that serial television ‘drama is intrinsically better suited [than cinema] to explore and dramatise the complexity of character psychology as a whole’.

Apart from seriality, intimacy is another criterion to distinguish TV antiquity from its cinematic counterpart. As we will see, TV antiquity is able to offer a vision of the ancient world that does not depend on the spectacular. Here, the notion of intimacy provides an important counterpoint to the monumental spectacles of the big screen. As suggested by a number of writers, the presence of television in our homes affords it a level of intimacy not matched by cinema. From the in-depth psychological studies of Tiberius in The Caesars and the family antics displayed in I, Claudius to the intimate portrayal of ordinary citizens in Rome, TV antiquity draws the audience into its stories and makes us accomplices in their plots. Nevertheless, spectacle is not entirely absent from small-screen representations. As we will see, there is a notable increase in the visual spectacle in the most recent shows, not least due to developments in technology, such as HD and larger-screen sizes. Yet, spectacle is not always a matter of visual impact, action and scale. For example, Sandra R. Joshel (2001: 120) suggests that I, Claudius ‘altered the cinematic spectacle of Roman imperial power and corruption [by inverting] the spectacle [that in film] is externalized, fully staged in elaborate, often monumental, sets’ and instead made ‘the family . . . the spectacle’.

In order to distinguish these different types of representing antiquity and spectacle, I will draw at times on Friedrich Nietzsche's characterisation of types of history. In his essay ‘On the Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life’, the philosopher distinguishes between monumental, antiquarian and critical history (Nietzsche, 1874). Later, the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze applied these concepts to cinema. Deleuze associates monumental history with the large-screen epics of DeMille, Griffith and others. Yet, in contrast to monumental history, which ‘considers effects in themselves . . . antiquarian history . . . stretches out towards the external situation and contracts into the means of action and intimate customs, vast tapestries, clothes, finery, machines, weapons or tools, jewels, private objects’ (Deleuze, 1986: 154). In other words, antiquarian history is more concerned with the minute details of everyday life and the personal than with the grand political events and their key players. While Deleuze sees Nietzsche's notion of antiquarian history mostly represented in some of the details of major historical films, I want to propose that antiquarian representations of history on-screen can most readily be found in television. In contrast to epic representations of antiquity (with their focus on individual heroes and epic battles), televisual representations move the complex layers of intimate relations and everyday details into the foreground. As such, the shows can take the approach of Nietzsche's antiquarian historian, who explores the history of the city in all its minute detail, ‘its walls, its towered gate, its rules and regulations’ and finds in it ‘an illuminated diary’ that at its