LogFAQs > #977411193

HannibalBarca3 posted...

I wouldn't be too sure about that. People do take in more serious movies, well, seriously. That one famous scene in HBO's Rome:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7MYlRzLqD0
Read the comments, people actually believe this is how the Romans fought despite being an invention of the series. In truth Polybios describes Roman units rotating in battle, not individuals as the scene suggests. So, movies and shows can seriously influence the way people perceive the past and what looks "right" in a period piece, even if it's wrong, a concept called "historical verisimilitude" by Professor Bret Devereaux.

I wouldn't say the tactic is a complete invention of the show. We know they rotated out of battle and this is a good assumption of how they did such a thing. They had historical people on the show to help with accuracy. The whistle is a thing we believe they may have used as some were found on battlefields. It at least has historical bases as we don't exactly know how they rotated whole units. It is still up for debate in how it was actually done but this is the closest we ever got on a tv show.