The Portonaccio Sarcophagus’ Roman Cavalry Charge: New Insights (and a Postscript on the Film Gladiator’s Clash with the Germans)

The Portonaccio Sarcophagus portrays on its front side one of the most realistic engagements between Roman cavalry and barbarians during the Imperial period. The Sarcophagus was fashioned, it appears, for Marcus Aurelius’ general, Aulus Julius Pompilius. It displays a fierce encounter with Germans along the Danube at about the same time that the reconstructed cavalry charge shown in the popular film, Gladiator (2000), has General Maximus destroying hoards of Germans in 180 A.D. While the Sarcophagus was subject to symbolism, space restrictions, and artistic convention, there remains no doubt that it otherwise embodies the features of an actual Roman battle and reveals some aspects of combat that have previously been overlooked. In the center of the action, Pompilius and his lieutenant wield “Battle Truncheons,” deadly “clubs” that do not seem to have an exact parallel in other depictions of Roman cavalry in action. There also appears to be a coordination between cavalrymen and their accompanying foot soldiers who are working together in cramped quarters to destroy barbarians as efficiently as possible in a “Hammer and Slash” type of combat. The Sarcophagus iconography also clearly demonstrates just how incorrectly the cavalry scene in Gladiator was recreated for modern film audiences.