When Coleman was approached about consulting for the movie, she was impressed that the team at Dreamworks SKG, which produced the movie, "seemed interested in trying to achieve authenticity."

"I could see that a new film about the Roman empire would be very successful in generating interest," she says.

Franzoni says he has received a letter from a teacher in Oakland who was using the film as way to teach non-English-speaking students the origins of their language.

But the increased interest does not justify the historical inaccuracies to Coleman.

"I'm frustrated to think that all those errors could have been avoided," she says. "It just seems a shame that they went a certain length of the way, but not the whole way."

At the preview, Coleman met producer Stephen Spielberg and mentioned several errors in Latin quotations and inscriptions.

Spielberg asked her to send a list so that corrections could be made through voice-overs and digital re-imaging. But although she sent the list, the corrections were never incorporated. Franzoni said he believed the list never made it to Spielberg, who has a history of correcting errors in his films.

Coleman says she believes that the Hollywood vision of Rome is based more on 19th and 20th century interpretation than on primary reasearch. She points to the work of Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood painter Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema as feeding the "sword and sandal" look of prior films.

Franzoni also criticizes previous Hollywood portrayals of the Roman empire.

"To me, Spartacus is one of the biggest lies put on the screen," he says, referring to the classic film.

When he was writing, Franzoni did not look at any of the old Roman movies.

"I only watched All's Quiet on the Western Front and Seven Samurais," he says.

Coleman receives several inquiries a week about historical aspects of the movie, and tries to answer every one of them.

"I'm a little backlogged," she says.

The compensation she received was a welcome addition to the moderate salary of an academic.

"With my fee I was able to buy a kit for a tiny greenhouse that sits on my deck and is a true Dreamwork," she says.

As to whether she intends to work on Hollywood films in the future, Coleman says, "I think one consulting job will do."