Propaganda In King Arthur
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6 Pages
King Arthur, a movie filmed in 2004, portrayed Roman Britain in the winter of 467 A.D. Artorius Castus, also known as Arthur, was a Roman officer who commanded a unit of Sarmatian auxiliary cavalry in Britain. These Sarmatian knights include Lancelot, Bors, Gawain, Galahad, Dagonet and Tristan. When the knights completed their years of service in the army, Bishop Germanus asked them to complete one more mission for the Romans in order to gain their freedom. During their task, Arthur and the Sarmatians became close friends with a Woad, or Pict, named Guinevere. The Woads were tribespeople from Northern Britain who were one of Rome’s greatest enemies. Artorius formed an alliance with Merlin, the leader of the Picts. Once Artorius and his knights completed
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They battled on a flat plain near Hadrian’s Wall in cold weather which made fighting very difficult. Although the producers of the film claim King Arthur is historically accurate, their portrayal of Roman armory and weaponry, of Hadrian’s Wall and of the military were not portrayed as well as they claim. Roman armory and weaponry was very successful for its time, but the producers have failed to include some very important aspects of it. Legionary soldiers wore fairly light armor with very protective, articulated and yet flexible metal plates stitched together (Roberts, 2009, 38). However, in scene three of the film, two Roman legionaries get shot through the chest and are killed, clearly not equipped with the protective armor Romans had as depicted historically. The weapons used are somewhat accurate. The Roman soldiers principally used pila, or javelins, instead of swords (Odijk, 1989, pp.). Swords were their secondary weapon, not their primary one, and should be suspended from a belt together with a knife (Strong, 1997, 12). The Roman weapons were of high quality, as they were made of steel.
They battled on a flat plain near Hadrian’s Wall in cold weather which made fighting very difficult. Although the producers of the film claim King Arthur is historically accurate, their portrayal of Roman armory and weaponry, of Hadrian’s Wall and of the military were not portrayed as well as they claim. Roman armory and weaponry was very successful for its time, but the producers have failed to include some very important aspects of it. Legionary soldiers wore fairly light armor with very protective, articulated and yet flexible metal plates stitched together (Roberts, 2009, 38). However, in scene three of the film, two Roman legionaries get shot through the chest and are killed, clearly not equipped with the protective armor Romans had as depicted historically. The weapons used are somewhat accurate. The Roman soldiers principally used pila, or javelins, instead of swords (Odijk, 1989, pp.). Swords were their secondary weapon, not their primary one, and should be suspended from a belt together with a knife (Strong, 1997, 12). The Roman weapons were of high quality, as they were made of steel.