Gladiator Movie Historical Inaccuracies

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The Movie Gladiator was directed by Ridley Scott and realeased in the year 2000. General Maximus Decimus Meridius was betrayed and murdered by his son, Commodus. Captured, Maximus rises through ranks of the gladiatorial arena for revenge for the murder of his family and his Emperor. The movie was a good movie, however not everything was historically inarrcurate. Although many things were true, the movie still had things which were faults or things that did not exist at all. For one, Maximus Decimus Meridius did NOT exist. He is a fictitious character. Maximus was based on Luscious Veras who was a general. But that is not to say a relationship much like theirs would not have been possible. There was great loyalty to good leaders in Rome and Marcus Aurelius was considered a “good” Caesar. Also, they would have never talked about turning the Roman Empire to Republic. If any talk was mentioned about this, the person responsible would have been slain. A Replublic Empire would have meant trying to override the emporer, which in Roman times would never happen. Some medieval weapons included in the movie did not exist. These were the maces and cross-bows used during the battle scenes. The gladiatorial program was also inaccurately portrayed. The normal program included beast-hunts in the morning, execution of criminals over lunch, gladiator in the afternoon. The thumbs up/thumbs down by the Emperor to signal that the gladiator could kill his defeated opponent was debated. Many people think it was the opposite of what the movie deppicted, however historics are still debating which way it really was. The Colosseum was not called the Colosseum until Venerable Bede's time, around AD 700. It was known as the Flavian Amphitheatre or simply, "the Amphitheatre". Also, Commodus was assasinated in the arena, but in a different way. He was assassinated by an athlete. There were

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