July 21, 2004
Fahrenheit A.D. 467
Apologies to Ray Bradbury
by Honora Howell Chapman
Private Papers

I have an idea: let’s send Michael Moore with his camera in a time machine back to fifth-century Britannia, decades after the Romans have stopped replenishing troops there, so that he can reveal the tragic consequences of Britons befriending Saxons (à la the Bushes and the Saudis with bin Laden clan) initially in order to fight off nasty Picts descending from Scotland to the north. (“Pict” is Latin for “painted.”) Imagine the conspiracy theories Moore could conjure up for our viewing pleasure, e.g., Unocal in cahoots with the Picts actually funded the building of Hadrian’s Wall—he has the incriminating tablets! Also, picture Moore slipping north beyond the wall, with unkempt hair, smeared and tattooed with the blue dye of the woad plant. Not a pretty sight—actually, pretty darn terrifying. The new swords-and-sandals “King Arthur” film does, in fact, make a bizarrely appropriate counterpart to Moore’s documentary.

But seriously, one possible lesson from this fifth-century debacle of western Roman political and military disintegration is rather clear (of course, we can quibble over the details, which is what we academics do best): combine really bad international policy with a weakened military, disease, and ineffective local government, and watch a civilization be overrun by the “barbarians.” The Britons themselves had once been considered barbarians, too, by the Romans back in the first century B.C. when Julius Caesar failed to take the island—times change, people change. Now Britain, abandoned by the central Roman government and left to fend for itself, was basically fed to the wolves—or, more precisely, it fed itself to the wolves. According to Bede in his History of the English Church and People, in the middle of the fifth century the Briton King Vortigern (check out http://www.vortigernstudies.org.uk/artsou/ammian.htm for Ammianus Marcellinus on fourth-century Britain) invited the Germanic Angles and Saxons to Britain, and they “were granted lands in the eastern part of the island on condition that they protect the country: nevertheless, their real intention was to subdue it.” (Bede, History 1.15) History is so messy—“friends” so easily become “enemies,” given a little incentive.

Furthermore, one person’s “barbarian” is usually someone else’s “freedom fighter.” The movie “King Arthur” chooses as its central theme the idea of freedom—freedom being the inalienable right of all people, as the virtuous military commander Arthur is at pains to prove both in word and deed repeatedly throughout the film. After all, Arthur leads knights who have been forcibly conscripted into the Roman army back in their homeland of Sarmatia. (Look it up in an atlas—go north of Dacia, which is above the Danube River, a region replete with provinces ending in -ia.) Whereas Arthur pronounces clemency for all and frees the imprisoned, including his Pict (!) Guinevere, the Saxon king, for instance, stops one of his men from raping a native only then to order her killed. This barbarian king never shows a twinge of regret when he orders his soldiers more than once to “burn it all.” In response to the onslaught of the newcomers to the island and the inequities of a corrupt system, freedom becomes the driving force behind Arthur and his knights’ great stand at Bath-hill (interesting as a metaphor for Rome itself, with its people’s love of whiling away the hours at the baths each day, the way we go to the gym, but more so). I half expected Mel Gibson in blue-face to appear in this scene yelling “FREEDOM” in a cameo!

But what would Mel have to say about the scriptwriter David Franzoni’s choice to inject the controversy revolving around the “heretic” Pelagius of Britain? By the beginning of the fifth century, Pelagius had upset Augustine’s theological applecart by arguing that people can avoid sin if they really, really try, and, lo and behold, here in the movie our hero Arthur is a Pelagian, since he is a serious proponent of freedom in all its manifestations, including free will! Bishop Germanus of Auxerre, portrayed with disdain for the Catholic hierarchy (both past and present?), is there on hand to cause real trouble for Arthur and his knights, and in his role as heresy-buster Germanus even breaks Arthur’s favorite Pelagius medallion. What are audiences making of these religious details?!

The evil bishop basically forces Arthur and his men to engage in a very dangerous mission north of Hadrian’s Wall to rescue a Roman senator and his son, who has special ties to the pope. I thought of Michael Moore again in the scene where Arthur discovers what a self-important turkey this senator truly is and how pampered and privileged the son, in turn, is. You could practically patch right into the scene in Moore’s movie where he tries to get the U.S. congressmen to enlist their children in the military, especially in order to go fight in Iraq and Afghanistan; one by one they wiggled out of it. Some things never change.

For those of you who want to know the “rest of the story” about Arthur, I recommend surfing the web to sites like http://www.medievalhistory.net/mdvlh/page0005.htm where you can find the earliest primary sources that speak of the time depicted in the film. (This will not, however, provide the later medieval material on the love affair of Lancelot and Guinevere.) From this medieval history site, consider, for instance, the personalized account of the British monk Gildas, who writes in 540 about the climactic battle shown in the film: “the siege of Bath-hill... when took place... not the least slaughter of our cruel foes ...(as I am sure) forty-four years and one month after the landing of the Saxons, and also the time of my own nativity.” Notice how he minces no words: “foes” are “cruel.” (Are we allowed to use this parlance nowadays, even after 9/11 and the recent beheadings?) Consider, also, how Gildas ties himself to the momentous occasion by synchronizing his birth with the battle. (My baby book records that I was born during the presidency of John F. Kennedy, the latter-day Camelot.) We all love being even a small part of history, don’t we?

In case “Troy” and “King Arthur” didn’t give you a sufficient “Gladiator”-fix, you won’t have to wait long. An Alexander the Great film is on its way starring Colin Farrell in the title role. If that weren’t enough, Mel Gibson himself is creating one on Boudicca, the queen of the Iceni who fought the Romans in Britain of the first century A.D.; three other movies on the same warrior queen are also in production. If you loved blue war paint in “Braveheart” and “King Arthur,” get ready for lots more barbarians at a Cineplex near you before the next Ides of March rolls around.