Gladiator Music - 2003

History :

               While it is obvious that an impressive amount of historical and scholarly research was undertaken by the filmmakers, much of the plot is fiction. The fiction does however, appear to be inspired by actual historical events, as will be shown in the appropriate sections below. In this sense, the film is perhaps best seen as a collage, or artistic representation of ancient history, as opposed to an accurate, chronological, reconstruction of events.It also appears that Scott attempts to present not just a reconstruction of empirical facts, but also desires to present to us his vision of the culture of ancient Rome, the spirit of its time, and the psychological outlook characteristic of its period. In other words, its zeitgeist, and for the psychology of the characters, their mentalite. On that note, Ridley Scott, much to his credit, has gone further than any filmmaker before him. Only Fellini, in The Satyricon, has attempted to do this before, and in so doing, Scott, while historiographically imperfect, avoids many of the annoying anachronisms of psychology present in such films as Spartacus, Cleopatra, and Ben Hur.Clearly, director Scott, and screenwriter David Franzoni, understand that history is more than a regurgitation of empirical data, and that to understand a society, one must be able to do more than recite names and dates, one must also attempt to understand the psychology and culture of its characters. Hence the film emphasizes Maximus's worship of his family and ancestors, his obsessive compulsion for virtue and duty, and the stoical elements ever present in his character.

If the ancient sources can be trusted, Commodus was even more bizarre in real life than he was in the film.

            Commodus, whose full name was Caesar Marcus Aurelius Commodus Antoninus Augustus, was proclaimed Caesar at age 5 and joint emperor (co-Augustus) at the age of 17, in 177 CE, by his father, Marcus Aurelius. Reality was very different than the film in this instance. Commodus was, as depicted in Gladiator, present with his father during the Danubian wars, and yes, this is where Marcus Aurelius died. As for the actual circumstances of his father's death, see below.

Historians from the time of Commodus have not been kind to him. As aristocratic intellectuals, they were not amused by his crude antics. Hence, our present day historiography still reflects, rightly or wrongly, this ancient bias. His father, possessing the virtues seen as noble by the literate aristocracy, was, and often still is, regarded as a great man, while his son was hated by the Senate and ridiculed by historians. Yet it is said that the army and the lower classes loved him. Cassius Dio, a senator and historian who lived during the reign of both Commodus and his father wrote, in regards to the accession of Commodus, that "our history now descends from a kingdom of gold to one of iron and rust, as affairs did for the Romans of that day."

Indeed, some historians even question his sanity. Commodus, in his own time, was accused of being a megalomaniac. He renamed Rome Colonia Commodiana, the "Colony of Commodus", and renamed the months of the year after titles held in his honour, namely, Lucius, Aelius, Aurelius, Commodus, Augustus, Herculeus, Romanus, Exsuperatorius, Amazonius, Invictus, Felix, and Pius. The Senate was renamed the Commodian Fortunate Senate, and the Roman people were given the name Commodianus.

           Historian Aelius Lampridius tells us that "Commodus lived, rioting in the palace amid banquets and in baths along with 300 concubines, gathered together for their beauty and chosen from both matrons and harlots... By his orders concubines were debauched before his own eyes, and he was not free from the disgrace of intimacy with young men, defiling every part of his body in dealings with persons of either sex."

Commodus went so far as to declare himself the new founder of Rome, a "new Romulus". In attempting to boast a new "Golden Age" of Rome, he was clearly emulating his father. But the effect was to make him the laughing stock of the aristocratic class.

Yes!

In this case, the truth is even stranger than the fiction. Commodus claimed to be descended from the God Hercules, and even began to dress like him, wearing lion skins and carrying a club.

The historian Herodian wrote that "in his gladiatorial combats, he defeated his opponents with ease, and he did no more than wound them, since they all submitted to him, but only because they knew he was the emperor, not because he was truly a gladiator."

He also fought wild beasts. Dio Cassius wrote that Commodus killed five hippopotami at one time. He also killed two elephants, several rhinoceroses, and a giraffe "with the greatest of ease".

Herodian tells us further that Commodus had a special platform constructed which encircled the arena, from which he would display his skills as a hunter. He is recorded to have killed one hundred leopards with one hundred javelins. As a theatrical treat, he would slice the heads off of ostriches with crescent-headed arrows, which would then run around the amphitheater headless.

Dio Cassius reveals that Senators were made to attend these spectacles, and that on one occasion Commodus killed an ostrich and displayed the severed head in one hand, his sword dripping with blood in the other, thus implying that he could treat them the same way. 

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