I am in agreement with the reviewer who says that most peplum pictures involving the Roman Empire start with the era of Julius Caesar and go through the pagan and Christian eras and then the fall. There are very few involving the original kingdom which was simply Rome and its suburbs and the Republic that came from it.
Modern historians are not in general agreement as to what constitutes myth and what constitutes fact in the early days. Two stories of the early Republic are combined into one film in Hero Of Rome starring former Tarzan Gordon Scott.
Scott plays Mucius Scaveola, the last name translated means left handed. He became such for an act of incredible bravura. When he went into the camp of the Etruscan king who was besieging Rome and missed assassinating him. When captured and ordered to be put to death, Mucius thrust his right hand, his sword hand into a flame and held it there for several seconds. The Etruscan king was so impressed he set him free.
The second story is the overthrow of King Tarquinis the seventh and last king of Rome. Tarquinis simply went into exile and out of history like Francois Villon or Jean Lafitte. But here the two stories are combined and as these stories are legend, the Italian filmmakers just did a little legend combining.
According to Wikipedia the Roman history Livy is the source for all of this. No other sources survive so his word has to be taken. Nevertheless Scott does a good job and Hero Of Rome is definitely a cut above the glut of peplum pictures from the early Sixties.
