Something I have always noticed about films set in this time period.

Wealthy Romans would have had gyms to go to in their spare time. Some wealthy Romans had also been in the military.

However, let's also keep in mind that in the 1950s actors weren't required to have physiques like this unless the film took place in ancient times. Hence, we have actors like Heston, Brynner (who worked out like mad for this film), Victor Mature, Steve Reeves, and a whole bunch of Italians who did the gladiator films in the 60s.


The Fabio Principle: Puffy shirts look best on men who look even better without them.

Well, FYI, there's about a thousand years between Rameses II and the Roman Empire. Not exactly the same time period.

However, I take your point - "Ancient": pre-Dark Ages back to the Sumerians (3000 BC). That's a period of about 4000 years, and would include the Trojan War and gladiators.

Greeks and Romans made a cult of the good body, but everyone would have been in better shape, overall, than today because everything required more physical action - even just walking to the latrines several times a day.

My beef with the slaves being ripped is that you need to have a diet rich in protein to get that look, not just exercise. Your average slave wouldn't get a diet like this, so they would have looks more like younger versions of the various old men slaves.

Joshua, as a stone mason, would have had a better diet. However, when he came back from the silver mines, which was a sentence of death, he should have been emaciated and in need of several months of care and good food before he trotted off to Egypt with Moses.

Not to mention they all have really good teeth.

In this film, Moses and Ramses were warriors! Egyptian pharaohs were commanders in chief of their armed forces, and the king and his male relatives were expected to act as warriors. To that end, they were expected to lead their armies into battle, as Ramses did in the movie, and warriors including the monarch had to spend a lot of practicing with the sword and club or whatever they had to use, and to be able to handle a one-man chariot. And as a pharaoh would have access to the best food in the kingdom, a pharaoh in the prime of life like Ramses would probably be pretty fit and have visible muscles.

The same is true of the heroes of most biblical epics, most were warriors or from a warrior class, and Samson was famous for his muscles and Ben Hur spent ages as a galley slave and professional-class charioteer, he'd have an athlete's build if anyone ever did! The only exception to this is Jesus himself, who is always played as weedy and effete on film. The real person was more likely to be thin and wiry, people who walk all over their nation with no visible means of support aren't going to be soft.