The world of cinema often seems to lack somewhat in imagination, and once they have found a popular character or idea they tend to do it to death. One of the perennially popular ways they go about this is by creating films on the ‘origin stories’ of the characters in the main film. These origin stories are often just as popular as the originals, but why?
Through the origin story, the history of the character is revealed. This is interesting because it expands the ‘universe’ and answers question we might have had about the character while watching the other films. The two most essential questions that this history answers are:
- Where do they come from and what does that tell us about where they go?
- What are the motivations of the character?
The ancients weren’t immune to the temptations of the ‘origin story’; in fact they were absolutely fascinated by them. Recently with two pupils I went through two of these. In a Classical Civilisation lesson we went through the origin of Athens, and in a Latin lesson the origin of Rome. For those who aren’t familiar here is a quick run down of each.
The gods realised that this place in Greece was the best location in the world to found a city and of course they all wanted to have the city named in their honour. The two front runners are Poseidon and Athena. In order to settle the question, they have a competition where they each offer the prospective city a gift. Poseidon offers war horses and Athena offers olive trees. On a vote, Athena’s gift wins. The city is named Athens.
Two twin sons of Mars – Romulus and Remus – are abandoned and saved by a wolf. Once they grow up they decide to found a city. Each wants to found it in a slightly different location. They both interpret the omens in their own favour and start to build. While the walls are still knee high Remus jumps over Romulus’ walls during and argument and Romulus kills him in revenge. The city is named Rome.
For the Athenians, the olive of Athena symbolised the power of peace. The olive was something that took time and peace to grow and was a sign of prosperity. If you were at constant war then a crop which takes years before it produces its first harvest wasn’t useful. This peace also indicated cultivation and learning, as it meant the young could be hanging around the city being chatted up by old philosophers. The choice of the olive tree was an indication that the Athenians were peaceable and their power came through culture and learning.
The murder of Remus was the first of many death in the creation, expansion, and maintenance of the Roman empire. They were a city founded on fighting and they never stopped. The Romans saw themselves as true sons of Mars, constantly at war, constantly expanding their rule. Fighting was in the blood, and they were very good at it.
Both these origin stories are interesting mythological narratives in themselves, but it was when I saw them metaphorically next to each other that they took on a new life. Each shows the image that each cultivated of itself, each shows who they thought they were and how they felt they ought to behave. They show us where each city is going. Athens wants to be a great centre of civilisation and culture, to exert this soft power widely and in peace. Rome feels called to fight and subdue the world, to follow in its founder’s footsteps. These motivations weren’t simply aspirations, but we can see them worked out in the genuine foreign policy of each nation. Their foundation stories are more than just stories, they are real manifestos which had a true impact on how each nation acted on the world stage.
I’m sure we all know other foundation stories. Perhaps we can re-evaluate them and use them to discover the image they had of themselves, and how this impacted their historic behaviour. I
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