King Arthur - a defense of the movie
Feb. 3rd, 2005 02:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annwfynWhile pottering about in the library I found something interesting.
There actually was a Lucius Artorius Castus, who is a historical figure with the closest name to 'Arthur' that anyone has found. He was a career Roman officer who did command Roman Sarmatian Cavalry in Britain. Not Scythian, as I thought, but Sarmatian. He was long dead when the Romans left Britain, admittedly. He was around in the mid 2nd century, when he was promoted to 'dux' or 'rather important officer' and later won a major battle against the Armoricans in 185 AD.
So. If you take into account some serious re-arranging, the King Arthur movie did start off with a fragment of truth.
It's somehow very appropriate that the movie may have done what the Arthurian myth did all along - take something real, and then change and shape it to make the point the storyteller wanted made.
There actually was a Lucius Artorius Castus, who is a historical figure with the closest name to 'Arthur' that anyone has found. He was a career Roman officer who did command Roman Sarmatian Cavalry in Britain. Not Scythian, as I thought, but Sarmatian. He was long dead when the Romans left Britain, admittedly. He was around in the mid 2nd century, when he was promoted to 'dux' or 'rather important officer' and later won a major battle against the Armoricans in 185 AD.
So. If you take into account some serious re-arranging, the King Arthur movie did start off with a fragment of truth.
It's somehow very appropriate that the movie may have done what the Arthurian myth did all along - take something real, and then change and shape it to make the point the storyteller wanted made.
