Allusions To History and Science
- Scorpus was a real person, a celebrated charioteer in Rome who won an unprecedented 2,000 races before being killed in a crash at the approximate age of 27. Scopas’s character is clearly based on him.
- In her afterword, Caroline Lawrence notes that most modern audiences’ knowledge of Roman chariot racing comes from the 1959 film Ben-Hur, which recreates the excitement of a chariot race but contains several historical inaccuracies. She says that the 1925 silent film Ben-Hur, which has footage of an actual fatal crash that occurred during filming, would probably give the viewer a better idea of what a real chariot race would have been like.
Read more about this topic: The Charioteer Of Delphi
Famous quotes containing the words history and/or science:
“It is the true office of history to represent the events themselves, together with the counsels, and to leave the observations and conclusions thereupon to the liberty and faculty of every man’s judgement.”
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626)
“Our civilization is shifting from science and technology to rhetoric and litigation.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)