The Eagle Inaccuracies

The film, The Eagle, follows a Roman named Marcus Flavius Aquila, played by Channing Tatum, on a quest to retrieve the eagle standard of the lost 9th legion. It is in part a personal quest by Aquila due to his father being the commander of the legion and the one to lose the eagle standard. He is joined by a slave named Esca played by Jamie Bell. It follows Aquila where he started out as the commander in a base in Britain. The base is attacked and he manages to save a group of soldiers who were taken hostage. In the process, he was wounded and from there was given an honorable discharge. He is sent to his Uncle Aquila’s villa, Aquila played by Donald Sutherland, and recuperates from there. Marcus hears rumors of the eagle being seen and sets
off on a quest to retrieve it to restore his family’s honor. From there they travel into hostile territory and meet the remnants of the 9th legion from there a series of misfortunes occurs which culminates in them finding the eagle. A battle occurs to defend the eagle and the deserters of the 9th legion come back and regain their honor defending the eagle. Most of the men die and Esca and Marcus then return back with the eagle. This movie has some accurate portrayals of Roman Life and other inaccurate forms of portrayal within the scenes of military life and non-military life. The movie starts with an introduction starting in 120 AD talking about 5,000 men and their standard going into Northern Britain and disappearing. It says that Hadrian ordered the wall built in shame to cut off Norther Britain. Hadrian did have the wall built to stop tribes from invading Rome’s territory in Britain (9). Whether or not Hadrian had the wall built in shame is another story. The first quarter of the movie is when the portrayal of military life occurs. The eagle takes central focus in the film as evidenced by the title. The Roman military did carry standards in the shape of an eagle but they were typically made of bronze or silver, not gold (1 Yates, James). The eagle did have its wings out stretched in the film, which is accurate (1 Yates, James). On many occasions, there are scenes of soldiers riding horses and later on in the film, Esca and Marcus ride for long periods of time. Saddles during the times of the Romans didn’t look like how they were portrayed in the film. Saddles in Rome were made of wood and filled with softer material and then covered with cloth (2 Yates, James). In the film, they’re leather saddles. In the film, there are also stirrups on the saddle which the Romans didn’t have (2 Yates, James). In the battle that occurs to get back the Roman hostages, the soldiers form a Testudo. This was when the soldiers formed a wall and ceiling of shields to protect themselves from their enemies (3 Yates, James). This was portrayed accurately in the film. Some of the weaponry show in The Eagle was accurate. This includes the Scutum, or the Roman Shield (4Yates, James). The way the swords looked in the film also looked accurate (7 Yates, James). The soldiers also used spears which the use during the time is accurate (8 Yates, James). The dress of the Roman soldiers was fairly accurate. Their helmets were made of leather and they looked this way in the film (5 Yates, James). The greaves in the film were made of leather but the Roman’s greaves would have been made of a type of metal (6 Yates, James). The portrayal of the Roman military was generally accurate within the film, The Eagle. The scenes within The Eagle that depict non-military or domestic life have some accuracies and some inaccuracies.
The first inaccuracies was the lighting situation. In some scenes they used Roman lamps like in the scene were Marcus is praying to Mithras and when Marcus and his uncle are eating dinner with the two gentlemen. In other scenes, torches are also used when inside which is inaccurate. Another inaccuracy was the use of chairs during dinner. During dinner, people would recline upon beds with their left arm on the bed supporting them and the right arm being used to pick up food. With the characters being seated in chairs, they use bother arms to pick up their food. The food eaten during dinner was partly accurate. Their dinner consisted of boiled eggs and fish in Roman society, these were some options for people to eat. The main discrepancy was that Roman dinner or Cena was eaten at midday and in the film, it was pitch dark outside. It doesn’t get dark that early in the afternoon leading to the conclusion that the dinner that was eaten in the film took place significantly later than the normal Roman dinner time. Marcus and his Uncle also have slaves as seen with Esca and Stephanos. Slavery was a practice in Rome and so there would be slaves. Slaves could also be freed in Roman society, called manumission. Typically it took a lot more work than just saying “You’re free” like in the film. So the practice of freeing slaves was accurate but it would take more work. It
could be argued that in the film, Marcus was in a time of life and death and that was why he freed Esca and was therefore incapable of filing the necessary paperwork. Marcus would still have to go through the necessary hoops to get Esca recognized as a Freedman. There is a scene in the film that shows Marcus’ bed that has a pillow, mattress and a fur pelt that’s being used as a blanket. There was a bedstead in the film and the Roman’s did have bedsteads (10). Romans who were poorer used fur pelts instead of blankets and if the Roman wasn’t poor they used cloth (10). There was also a scene of bunks used by soldiers in the military base. In the scene the soldiers had a mat that looked like it was filled with straw. This would be true with of soldiers in the field (10).