Did ships really battle in the Colosseum? The bizarre true stories that inspired Gladiator II

Ridley Scott’s epic sequel starring Paul Mescal and Denzel Washington has been widely criticized for historical inaccuracies. The BBC is calling on Roman history experts to separate fact from fiction.

Some might joke that thanks to his work on Gladiator II, Alexander Mariotti had one of the most difficult jobs in film. He was the film’s historical script consultant, meant to advise director Sir Ridley Scott when the script deviated from the record.

This article contains spoilers for Gladiator II.

However, Scott has made it clear that he doesn’t mind if his film is historically inaccurate, even if it is based on real people or events. In 2023, after television historian Dan Snow pointed out several inaccuracies in Scott’s film, napoleonScott said that Snow should do this.get life“But Mariotti, who also works as a historian and is a leading expert on gladiators, combat, and weapons, knew what he was getting himself into.“From the beginning, I knew what they were getting into. I said, “Look, we’re not here to make a documentary.” We’re here to make a movie and entertain. I always knew that,” Mariotti told the BBC.

But that didn’t stop experts from pointing out inaccuracies. When the first trailer for Gladiator II was released in July; historian Jumped in to explain why that architecture was wrong and the Romans didn’t have it. newspaper It was to read a book, and we didn’t meet at a cafe.

The plot of Gladiator II centers on Lucius (Paul Mescal), the son of Lucilla (Connie Nielsen) and Maximus (Russell Crowe), who is forced to leave Rome at an early age. Twenty years after Lucius’ father’s death, Roman soldiers invaded Lucius’s hometown of Numidia, killed his wife, and enslaved him. Lucius is bought by Macrinus (Denzel Washington) and becomes a gladiator. But while Lucius struggles to survive inside the Colosseum, battling animals, ships, and other gladiators, Macrinus strives to become the ruler of Rome with young emperors Caracalla (Fred Hechinger) and Geta (Joseph Quinn). He was planning to overthrow the.

Mariotti points out that if the movie were strictly accurate, the word Colosseum wouldn’t even have been uttered. The original name was Flavian Amphitheatrenamed after the dynasty that was ruling when the building was constructed. It wasn’t until several centuries later, around 1000 AD, that people started calling it the Colosseum. The main reason Mariotti isn’t too worried about these mistakes is because of the impact movies like Gladiator II have on viewers and tourists. “There’s a very snobbish attitude towards film in academia,” says Mariotti. “I’m really perplexed because ‘Gladiator’ has been such an influence over the last 20 years. Before the movie came out, you could get into the Colosseum for free. The next year, people were coming in droves. I visited.

Gladiator II has many historical inaccuracies, but at least some of them are based on truth. Immediately after being captured, Lucius must survive a swarm of baboons. Arriving at the Colosseum, he and his fellow gladiators come face to face with a charging rhinoceros. However, it is believed that baboons and rhinoceroses were taken to the Colosseum to be shown off to the Romans, but they would not have fought the gladiators. Instead, gladiators would have had to fight lions, leopards, and elephants. It is believed that it was a rhinoceros. the current The opening of the Colosseum in 80 AD featured battles with bulls, bears, buffalo, lions, and bison. “They’re going to bring in strange animals from all over the empire to fight,” says Paul Veronic, professor of science fiction at the University of California School of Law and author of “Constraint, Conflict, and the Collapse of the Roman Republic.” . However, there is no record of Roman soldiers riding rhinos and riding them like horsemen.

When Emperor Titus held the 100 Day Games to commemorate the opening of the Colosseum, Veronic estimates that around 10,000 animals were killed in just a few days. “They were killed in all kinds of creative ways as well. People threw spears at them or caught them with nets. Archers were very popular. It’s like watching a sniper . They were running around with little deer. The archers were standing in the archers. “If you aim at a certain spot and take it down, the people will cheer. ” At times, attendees were upset by the death of a particular animal. The Roman historian Dio wrote that a herd of elephants was killed and the crowd was very sad. he noticed When the creatures “became wounded and stopped fighting, and walked around with their noses held high toward the heavens, people felt pity.”

Perhaps Gladiator II’s biggest action sequence is also its most egregious departure from history. When Lucius and several other gladiators are assigned to participate in a mock naval battle, Scott seems to enjoy making the set pieces as flashy as possible.

In fact, if an emperor wanted to surpass his predecessor, he would hold mock naval battles, as they were then known. Naumachia. During these events, water is poured into the amphitheater, ships are brought in, and fighter jets reenact historical events. “They typically reenact naval battles between Greeks and Persians,” said David Potter, Francis W. Kelsey Professor of Greco-Roman History at the University of Michigan. “The crew of the ship must have been sentenced to death.”

In Gladiator II, the ship is moving at full speed, making it appear as though the water is deep enough to contain sharks, but the Roman amphitheater is simply filled with people. small amount of liquid. the ship could not gain enough speed crash The flat bottom makes it easy to move. Additionally, the final Naumachia is believed to have taken place at the Colosseum in 89 AD, over 100 years before the events of the film. The lack of water also means that the Colosseum has never had sharks swimming around waiting for people to drop. Some historians believe that crocodiles were part of animal hunting, but it is unclear whether crocodiles were included in the battle at sea.

Although there are enough records of simulated naval battles that historians believe took place in Rome, there is still considerable uncertainty about where and how they were fought. Veronique suggests that they most likely took place at the Circus Maximus, much lower than the Colosseum and closer to the Tiber River. “It would have flooded more easily. And if you look at the shape of it, it’s bowl-shaped. There are all these underground tunnels in the Colosseum. I don’t know how they sealed it. But some people think that. The central part of the building was flooded, not the entire area. ”

Mariotti suggests that flooding may have been possible because the Colosseum was built on the site of a man-made lake. “They built an incredible drainage system to take water out of the river and drain it away.”

The depiction of gladiator battles in the sequel is also mostly incorrect. Potter insists that the execution, which unfolded the afternoon after the execution, was not as brutal as the movie Gladiator and other Roman epics would have us believe. To begin with, not all of them were slaves or prisoners of war. “Forty percent of the gladiators were probably freemen who became gladiators to make money,” Potter says. Veronic likens these contests to watching WWE or the UFC rather than a fight to the death. “Most of the time it’s the moment of first blood or surrender. It used to be calculated that nine times out of 10 no one would die.” There were also referees who intervened to separate people.

That doesn’t stop citizens from betting on gladiators, Potter added, and Romans will bet on anything. When someone was injured, a famous doctor would come out and treat them. Garenthe most famous physician of the ancient world, also started out as a gladiator physician. Ultimately, the goal of gladiatorial contests was to see different styles of combat pitted against each other. “A man with a net and a triton will fight a man with a shield and a sword,” Potter said. “Those in heavy armor versus those in light armor.”

Similar to the approach to the Colosseum games, some of the characters involved in Gladiator II are based on real people, but what happens to them in the film is fictional. In 211 AD, the islands of Caracalla and Geta merged. ruler of Rome. Carasera at that time I believed Murdering Geta. Geta are even thought He died in his mother’s arms. Emperor Caracalla became a very unpopular emperor, with Potter describing him as “an evil and wicked man”. Caracalla left the city in 216 AD to wage war against the Parthian Empire; killed by one of his own soldiers in 217 AD.

Macrinus reportedly Recruited soldiers to become murderers. He became Roman Emperor on April 11, 217, three days after Caracalla’s death. “He was the first person to become emperor who was not a member of the Roman Senate,” Potter said. Macrinus himself was executed in June 218, just over a year after Caracella’s aunt led a rebellion to install her grandson Elagabalus, who was only 14 years old, as the new emperor. “Being emperor is the most dangerous job ever.” It could have been,” Potter said, but all the men who reigned over the next 100 years only reigned for short periods of time.

Since the work is already finished, I started In the script for Gladiator III, viewers can once again expect Scott to use these true stories as inspiration before eschewing historical accuracy for entertainment purposes. Mariotti sees no problem with this. Because, in his view, this is just a reflection of what artists have done throughout history. “What Ridley does is no different from Shakespeare or Michelangelo. Even painting. Police Verso Jean-Leon Gérôme’s work inspired Ridley to make his first film, but it’s all historically inaccurate. But it’s about using history to tell stories and teach us lessons. That’s why we are drawn to them. They are basically stories about us. ”

More than that, Mariotti believes movies like Gladiator II connect viewers with their ancestors. The Colosseum scene in particular, because Romans attended Colosseum events for the same reason they watched movies. “It was their movie theater. It was where they escaped from life. There, for a few hours, they were transformed into brave hunters and gladiators and shown parts of the world they had never seen before. . That’s what happens when people watch “Gladiator II.” They’re doing the exact same thing that the Colosseum was built for. ”

“Gladiator II” opens in U.S. theaters on November 22nd.