Hollywood is notorious for attempting to push the envelope where decency is concerned. But as much as Tinseltown’s directors love flaunting skin to bring in big dollars, there still exists a conservative attitude where certain subject matter is concerned. It seems that despite a desire to tantalize the public into ticket sales, mainstream filmmakers are ...
Caligula, to sum up an epic mess, is one of the worst films ever put on celluloid. The entire production has an epic story behind it, one more interesting than the film itself. Gore Vidal wrote the original script. He had become friends with Bob Guccione, Penthouse publisher, who gave a ton of money towards ...
The Julio-Claudian Dynasty was the first family to rule the Roman Empire, and they have gone down in history as one of the most fantastical and interesting characters in the history of Rome. Ranging from the first emperor Augustus to the last, dissolute Nero, the emperors of the first dynasty established the political office that ...
Movies always have inaccuracies and in most cases we just let it go. I’m usually inclined to suspend disbelief. One of the things that movies and television tend to screw up, for example, is their math when it comes to dates. For example, in “Gangs of New York” the Butcher claims in 1863 that his ...
The British actress Jean Simmons has died at the age of 80. It tends to be a cliché, of course, but Jean Simmons’ career on stage and on the screen large and small literally lasted decades, with her last role in last year’s Shadows in the Sun. Enumerating Jean Simmons’ various roles would be beyond ...
The Julio-Claudian dynasty was the first family to rule the powerful political entity known as the Roman Empire. Capricious, unusual, and sometimes even cruel, this family has gone down in history as one of the most fascinating and corrupt political dynasties in history. Caligula, the third ruler of the Roman Empire, was without a doubt ...
10. The Colosseum is actually named the Flavian Amphitheater, but which Emperor built it? Most people look on this awesome structure and think of it as The Colosseum (or less accurately as The Coliseum as Edgar Allen Poe’s poem shows) – many people don’t realize that it’s actually called The Flavian Amphitheater. And who ordered ...
The mystery of Ovid’s exile has haunted scholars for centuries. Why would a famous poet of first century Rome be exiled to possibly the worst location in all of the Roman Empire? Why was he sent to Tomis, a city lying on the Black Sea in the frigid climate of Romania, surrounded by barbaric tribes ...
Gaius Julius Caesar Octavian Augustus Germanicus Caligula – yes that’s all one person, and you’ve probably more than one time in your life seen one of these monstrously sized Roman names and asked yourself, “What exactly does it mean?” In the United States and most of Western Culture we have three basic names that are ...
