Ancient Rome in Silent Cinema

Free event

Tuesday 24 May
18:00-19:00 | IAS Seminar Room 11

Professor Maria Wyke

Hollywood has released a number of big-budget films set in antiquity, yet cinema has been fascinated with the ancient world and with Roman history in particular ever since it emerged as a new technology more than 100 years ago. Within a few months of the first public shows of moving images held in 1896, Nero was brought onto the screen trying out poisons on his slaves. The persistent presence of ancient Rome in early cinema raises important questions. Why did so modern a medium as cinema have so strong an interest in classical antiquity right from its start? What did ancient Rome do for cinema? And what did cinema do for ancient Rome?

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