Roman Empire

In the year 180 the Roman Empire controls all the known world to date. Maximus, played by the well-known Russell Crowe, is a very important Roman General for the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, since only he has achieved victory after victory, standing out for his courage, dedication and loyalty to the Empire. Comfortable, the son of Marco Aurelio, is jealous of the prestige of Maximus and of the love that his father professes him, so when he assumes the power in an unexpected way, he orders the arrest and execution of the general. Maximus manages to escape from his oppressors, but he cannot stop them from murdering his family. Subsequently, he is captured by a slave merchant and becomes a gladiator, preparing for his revenge

In this film we are not offered the sources on which it has been based, and if we are warned in the credits with a "although many of the characters that appear in this film are real, the story itself is fictitious". This already indicates that Gladiator seeks emotion and intensity and his script would not be a work of history, but a historical novel (pseudo-historical character). However, despite this lack of rigor in the events, the Scott film presents aspects of society, urbanism, art or traditions of the Roman Empire with a significant dose of credibility.

The figure of Comfortable, so negatively characterized, is not so far from that offered by Roman historiography, which practically calls it crazy. Of his policy the most outstanding is the disinterest in continuing to expand the limes (limit) of the Empire as his father wanted, which leads him to leave the wars, showing his reasons in an interesting conversation in which he asks his sister the reasons for that the town loved its father by wars that did not see and that did not contribute, before the answer of this one that the town cares the image of greatness of Rome, Comfortable answers that it will give another spectacular image, thinking to dismantle the Senate . The constant presence of Comfortable in the arena may surprise us enormously, but this is based on a certain historical foundation, since the sources tell us that the emperor. The figure of benevolent savior of Rome by the weapons embodied by Maximus has its parallels in the Roman tradition, especially in the famous story of the Republican dictator Cincinnatus (c.519-430) BC), which the Senate of Rome drew from its quiet retirement in the countryside to rid the city of a great crisis, which it achieved triumphantly, then giving up all honors and retiring back to its farm with its family. The respected Cato the Elder (234-149 BC) considered Cincinnatus as a model of the ancient Roman values of peasant temperance and dedication to the homeland without any personal ambition; the same values embodied in the film Maximus, Senator Crassus and the Emperor Marco Aurelio himself. Maximus, born in Emerita Augusta according to the film, is nevertheless a totally fictitious character, although he embodies very repeated values in the Roman tradition.

Another aspect very well characterized in the film is the Roman army, which shows