Swallow your Pride and Tune into “Bromans”

For all that Bromans’ existence is predicated on testing just how much naked flesh can be shown on a major British television channel on the cusp of the watershed, the producers have made an effort to provide some historical information along the way.

Take the first two challenges: the episode opened with our lads chained naked at one end of the arena while their girlfriends wrestled to win them clothes. In terms of aesthetics, the appeal of this is unclear (see above). Historically, however, what better introduction could there be to daily degradation and humiliations suffered by the novice gladiator?

For all their celebrity, we should never forget that gladiators were among the lowest of the low: largely slaves and prisoners of war, even the minority of Roman citizens who volunteered to fight in the arena suffered the social stigma and legal disabilities of infamia.

After this ritual humiliation, the boys engaged in a trial of strength: hurtling around a street circuit dragging a chariot piloted by their lady.

I must admit to being impressed by the effort that had been put into sourcing an authentic chariot. Attempts to divine exactly how a Roman chariot might have worked have always been hampered by the fact that: a) none survive; and b) representations of chariots on mosaics tend to prioritise showing crashes.

To make their authentic chariot, Bromans’ props team seem to have taken a trip to the British Museum to study the only surviving 3D model of a Roman chariot: a child’s toy that could fit in the palm of your hand.

Roman Chariot [via VRoma Project}