The Plot
Upon the sudden death of Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, his trusted and successful general Maximus (Russell Crowe) is unlawfully imprisoned and condemned to the gladiator games by Marcus's twisted son Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix). As the new emperor, Commodus fears Maximus could use his heroic stature to depose him and become leader himself. But Maximus gains fame as a gladiator and uses his celebrity to cause further damage to Commodus' tenuous hold on the susceptible Roman people, hoping to inspire them to rediscover their lost values and overcome the corruption that is eating away at them. These actions prompt Commodus to square off mano a mano with Narcissus in the Colisseum with the fate of Rome at stake. The characters of Marcus Aurelius and Commodus appeared in Anthony Mann's epic "Fall of the Roman Empire, played by Alec Guinness and Christopher Plummer, respectively.
Historical accuracy
Although a fictional story – Maximus is a wholly invented character - the wider world of Gladiator fits in reasonably well with recorded history.
1. The real Commodus did indeed become emperor in AD180, at the age of 18, after the death of his famously thoughtful father Marcus Aurelius in his tent during a northern war.
However, while the story is squeezed into three years, Commodus actually reigned for 12 years. Also, according to the official history, Commodus got the emporership by fair means not foul. According to The Augustus Histories, it all began in 176 AD, when Marcus Aurelius was wrongly reported dead, resulting in his lieutenant in the East declaring himself emporer. Aurelius's reaction in the West was swift: he stripped troops from the Danube frontier, and led them against his lieutenant ...it wasn't long before the troops in the East learned that he was alive, and killed the usurper. Consequently, Marcus Aurelius raised his son to be co-Augustus in order to forestall this.
2. Commodus did become a despot whose rule was synonymous with corruption. His sister, Lucilla, did conspire against him.
However, unlike the film, the real Commodus executed her after the discovery of a plot to assassinate him.
3. Commodus’s obsession with gladiatorial games at the Colosseum is certainly true - as is the fact that he took part in them. It is recorded that he would descend to the floor of the ampitheatre to kill wounded wild animals; he would also regularly deliver the coup de grace to injured gladiators too weak to fight back. (Other emperors also wanted to be gladiators. Caligulia would regularly enter the arena to fight opponents, who were given wooden swords – the emperor had a real one)
However, the film may appear misleading in inferring that Commodus was celibate - in fact, he was said to have a harem of 300 women and 300 young boys. Also, his actual death was different to that in the film: he was actually murdered by strangulation at the hands of the athlete Narcissus, after senior senators felt their future was threatened by his meglomania.
4. The portrayal of the brutality of the gladiatorial games themselves is certainly true to recorded history. The Colosseum was built in 80AD by the Emperor Titus and in its first two weeks 2,000 gladiators were killed in it. The historian Seneca, writing around 40AD tells us how 'It was sheer murder...One man wins one fight, is slaughtered immediately after the next. The winner is sent against another man to be killed. It is a round robin of death.'
5. In the film, Oliver Reed’s character explains that five victories would win the gladiator-slave a wooden sword, and freedom – this was the case at certain points in Roman history.
6. Scenes showing women hurling themselves at Russell Crowe also ring true: a good gladiator was an object of desire to women (a piece of graffiti at Pompeii reads 'Celadus, the Thracian Gladiator, three times victor, adored by young girls.') Some free men chose to be gladiators, partly for this reason.
7. The greeting of the gladiators to the crowds before they fight in the film – ‘Hail Caesar! We who are about to die salute thee’ – was actually said on at least one historical occasion (albeit in Latin). The chorus, familiar to modern audiences from earlier swords and sandals pictures, was voiced in unison to the Emperor Claudius by 19,000 condemned criminals, who had been ordered to fight each other to the death as galley-slave oarsmen, sailors and swordsmen in one huge pitched battle on a lake.
8. The emperors did signal whether a wounded gladiator should be spared– but no-one is clear whether it was thumbs up or thumbs down. One certainly meant life, the other death, but modern historians are divided over which was which.
NOTE: A fuller explanation of these issues will appear in my finished book
More on Roman history
More on the games
Recommended reading
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