A Good Old-Fashioned Roman Barbecue

Rome’s changed. Back in 1964, a motion fresco like The Fall of the Roman Empire could move at the speed of Alec Guinness’s speaking voice, giving civilization time to make a grand march down into chaos. The legions waited 45 minutes before filing out to meet the barbarians. But in 2000, when Gladiator remade the same story for a younger crowd, it cut the preamble and started on the battlefield. There was only a little martial barking to sit through before the show began. And five years later, Capcom released Shadow of Rome, a game which might as well mark the end of history. The narrator barely growls out the words “PRE-CHRISTIAN ERA ROME” before we cut to action.