Odd thing I just now noticed about the King Arthur movie...

**Spartan198** · 05-31-2008, 11:10

Why would a Roman family be living north of Hadrian's Wall?

**CountArach** · 05-31-2008, 13:28

Because the movie has no element of historicity?

Also I do believe that Roman power extended beyond there. They would have had no concept of a "border" as we know it beyond the physical boundaries imposed by a mountain range or a river.

**Gregoshi** · 05-31-2008, 14:22

Originally Posted by Spartan198

Why would a Roman family be living north of Hadrian's Wall?

Because the grass is always greener...?

**cmacq** · 05-31-2008, 14:45

Relatively, new and very cheap labor. I was very surprised that they picked that setting. After the 2nd century AD, there was a slow and steady decline in population throughout the Roman Empire. From that point on, the shortage of labor became very important and the landed Senatorial class was always looking for new labor to work their fields as tenets. I believe the movie depicted the Roman family as from the Senatorial class as opposed to the Romano-British which would have been closer to the Artorivs character. By the way the Saxons were also active against the Picts and Scots in what is today Scotland. Actually, thats why Horsa and Hengest (the Horse and the Stallion) were given land in southern Britain.

**rajpoot** · 05-31-2008, 17:45

I can never get over the fact how the boy accepts his father being killed without a word.......and even more weird is, the the father is not willing to budge from his place even though he knows that the Saxons are coming.

**Martok** · 05-31-2008, 18:39

Well as my dad would say, "That's Hollywood for ya!"

**Spartan198** · 05-31-2008, 22:12

Originally Posted by Gregoshi

Because the grass is always greener...?

And the Picts are oh so friendly?

Originally Posted by asj_india

the the father is not willing to budge from his place even though he knows that the Saxons are coming.

Could be possible he wasn't aware of the Romans withdrawling from the island. When told about the Saxons, he did say "Rome will send an army".

**cmacq** · 06-01-2008, 02:27

Please I'm not defending this movie, yet...

I believe at this stage, I assume around AD 410, the Romans had been using the Saxons to fight the Picts and Scots for at least several decades. I think the Saxons engaged the Picts as far north as the Orkneys. Again, because of the sever manpower shortages throughout the Empire, and the practise of Senatorial class that in effect further removed huge numbers of people from being used by the Imperial state, the Roman military was forced to use outsiders.