In fact, most scholars now believe that it was simply withdrawn from the province there is some evidence that places it on the Rhine at a later date. That led 19th-century historians to speculate that it was annihilated by northern British tribes. It simply disappears from archaeological records. After the 120s, there is no evidence of the legion being in Britain. The legion is known to have been stationed in Britain: it suffered a defeat by Boudicca during her rebellion in 60AD, and was involved in building work in York in 108AD. Even more intriguingly, this means both are based on what is almost certainly an historical fallacy.
#SWORD AND SANDALS MOVIES PATCH#
It is intriguing that both Marshall and Macdonald's films are concerned with the same patch of Roman British history: the fate of the Ninth Legion, or the IX Hispana, to give it its Roman title. The story has the young centurion Marcus venturing north of Hadrian's Wall to try to find the eagle – the legion's standard and symbol of honour – that has been lost with the defeat of the Ninth a generation earlier. The autumn will bring The Eagle of the Ninth by Kevin Macdonald, adapted from Rosemary Sutcliff's 1954 children's story by Jeremy Brock (who also adapted Giles Foden's novel The Last King of Scotland for Macdonald.) It promises to be a more thoughtful and decorous vision of the Roman province. The few survivors band together but are inventively picked off by a thoroughly nasty band of Pictish guerrilla fighters. In 117AD, the year Hadrian becomes emperor, the Ninth Legion is ambushed in Scotland and largely destroyed.
#SWORD AND SANDALS MOVIES MOVIE#
Marshall – best known for the horror movie The Descent – is the writer-director of Centurion, a bloodfest starring Michael Fassbender and Dominic West, which is released later this month.
But this year, two British directors are doing something different with that familiar material: Neil Marshall and Kevin Macdonald transport it into the mud, rain and bogginess of northern England and Scotland to tackle stories about Britain's past as the northernmost province of Rome's empire. S weaty, leather-clad beefcakes slugging it out with ferocious barbarians glamorous Roman ladies, exquisite but merciless, dripping with jewels the quiver of a jaunty coxcomb atop a shining helmet – for the filmgoer, this is the familiar world of the sword-and-sandals movie.
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