Ancient History has made a comeback in Cinema and TV since the monetary success of "Gladiator." I have been involved in several of those projects, which is why this summer issue is finally making appearance. The question must be asked is how can these adapting writers fracture history? And not even for good reason, since ancient writers could write good narratives, they had to, it was important to keep an audience. Case in point: TNTs "Caesar". This program reminded me of another famous author so I hope he doesn't mind me paraphrasing him: "I come not to praise Caesar, but to bury him"

The only details about Caesar's existence which historians are sufficiently certain of is the chronology of the major events in it. However after putting this information for treatment in the modern writer hands we get this:

1. M. Porcius Cato Minor was thirteen years old when L. Cornelius Sulla grabbed Rome after the Battle of the Colline Gate in 82 B.C.E., that defeated the final Samnite revolt. This would mean he could not be able insult Cornelius Sulla in the Senate, as the show so dramatically showed. Oh wait there's more!

2. No evidence in any writings that Cato the Younger ever even met Sulla.

3. How could Gn. Pompeius Magnus saved Caesar from Cornelius Sulla? We have no mention of this in either Suetonius or Plutarch. If you go by the time line Magnus was still in Africa when Caesar was pardoned by Cornelius Sulla after the supplication of his relatives and Vestals.

4. Cornelius Sulla resigned as dictator in 79 B.C.E. and died in 78 B.C.E. He did not die while ordering Gn. Pompeius Magnus to straggle one of his clients, Plutarch tells us he suffered a major hemorrhage while ordering his lictors to strangle a fellow named Granius -a magistrate of Dicaearchia- and died the following day. Plutarch was no friend to Pompeius so there was no reason to doubt the veracity of his writings.

5. Interestingly, no mention of Caesar's flaminate to Iuppiter Optimus (the reason Julius Caesar was before Sulla, he wanted to be released from the duty that G. Marius had imposed on him.) I would think that would be an important plot point.

6. Where is mention of the Civic Crown he won for bravery at Mytilene? It was an prominent reason as to why Caesar was so beloved. Yet we just assume that the civvies loved the guy cause the scriptwriter tells us so..

7. Julia was born in 76 B.C.E. The Spartacian Revolt was crushed in 71 B.C.E. Amazing how she could look so mature at age five. (The Juli must be fast aging. From being in a relationship with Venus, no doubt.)

8. Pompeius Magnus celebrated his third triumph for the campaign against the pirates and the Mithridatic War in 61 B.C.E. This was ten years after the Spartacian revolt among whose insurgents he supposedly freed Julia's tutor, according to this Caesar writer.

9. The Pirates episode happened in 75 B.C.E.; with Cornelius Sulla dying in 78 B.C.E. The correlation between his running from the dictator and encountering the pirates is impossible. Caesar had returned to Rome and prosecuted Dolabella for embezzlement between his service under Lucullus and the trip was taken to study in Rhodes which ensued his famous capture.

10. I hate to harp but again Pompeius Magnus celebrated his third triumph for the campaign against the pirates and the Mithridatic War in 61 B.C.E. Caesar was consul in 59, during which the Spartacian Revolt did not happen nor a triumph of Pompeius Magnus took place.

11. His daughter died in 54 B.C.E.; the taking of Alesia is 52 B.C.E. and it is doubtful it took two years for the news of Julia's death to reach him even with the woeful state of the Republican postal service.

12. "In Latin, Rome is masculine; Egypt is feminine" Really? Any first year Latin student knows Roma is first declension, feminine; Aegyptus is second declension, masculine.

13. It needed an actor whose range as Caesar was better than sulky and suppressed. Caesar had moments of pure joy in his life, we are told by all his biographers. Richard Harris as Sulla wasn't bad casting but he was too old. Worse, this Sulla was not the deviated, controversial intellectual that ancient writers rave about. While I realize Harris was dying, but still it comes down to the scriptwriter's failure to come up with the source for Harris to draw from.

So what is the big deal you say? Well, people seem to take the info of the screen as dogma. So now like the aftermath of "Gladiator", we historians have to fight against more misinformation spread.

We see the same in the wargaming rules as well. In this issue we attempted to explore some myths about the Peltasts, the Greek speciality troops, that has been misrepresented in rule sets since WRG I. Hopefully, you gentle reader will be able to adjust your own favorite rules to better represent peltasts actual abilities on the tabletop to portray this important and critical phase of Greek warfare.