70 Fun Facts About Gladiator

Who directed the 2000 film Gladiator?

He agreed to direct after producers showed him a single 19th-century painting of the arena, reportedly saying he did not care that he knew nothing about the story yet.

What is the full name of Russell Crowe's character in Gladiator?

The character is fictional, though he loosely resembles a real general who was a friend of the emperor, and Spartacus.

Which actor played the emperor Commodus in Gladiator?

He used a clipped British accent to signal aristocratic Roman status, and later earned an Oscar nomination for the role.

Connie Nielsen played which character, the sister of Commodus?

The real Lucilla was implicated in a plot to assassinate her brother in AD 182 and was exiled to Capri, then executed.

Oliver Reed died before finishing his scenes in Gladiator. How were his remaining shots completed?

His character was originally meant to survive; after his death the script was changed so that the trainer dies fighting the Praetorians, and the film is dedicated to Reed.

Which character did Oliver Reed play in Gladiator?

The role earned Reed a posthumous BAFTA nomination for Best Supporting Actor, his first and last recognition from the academy.

Richard Harris played which role in Gladiator?

Harris went on to play Albus Dumbledore in the first two Harry Potter films before his death in 2002.

Who played Juba, the gladiator who becomes Maximus's closest friend?

Juba's friendship with Maximus and the afterlife theme were expanded by William Nicholson, the third writer brought onto the script.

David Franzoni's original screenplay was inspired by which 1958 novel?

Franzoni read the book during a 1972 motorcycle trip through Eastern Europe and the Middle East, decades before pitching the film to Steven Spielberg.

The opening battle in Germania was filmed at Bourne Wood in which English county?

The Forestry Commission was already planning to clear that section of woodland, so the director got permission to burn it down on camera.

The scenes set in Rome, including the arena replica, were shot in which country?

The set was built inside Fort Ricasoli, a 17th-century fortress that later doubled as Troy, Alexandria and Toulon for other films.

Roughly what fraction of the Colosseum did the crew build as a physical set?

The set rose to 52 feet; the rest of the amphitheatre and its upper tiers were added digitally.

The gladiator training school and desert scenes were shot near which Moroccan town?

The town sits beside the Atlas Mountains and has hosted everything from Lawrence of Arabia to Game of Thrones.

Hans Zimmer shared credit for the Gladiator score with which singer-composer?

Zimmer later said she did not write the main theme but her presence was so influential that he insisted on giving her co-credit.

In 2006 Zimmer was sued over the Gladiator score by the foundation of which composer?

The complaint centred on similarities to The Planets, and the case was settled out of court.

How many Academy Awards did Gladiator win?

It led the field with twelve nominations, and its wins included Best Picture, Best Actor, Costume Design, Sound and Visual Effects.

Gladiator was the first Best Picture winner without a directing or screenplay Oscar since which 1949 film?

Best Director that night went to the maker of Traffic, who was nominated twice in the same year.

Who beat Gladiator's director to the Best Director Oscar in 2001?

He was nominated twice that year, for Erin Brockovich and Traffic, and won for the latter.

Approximately how much did Gladiator gross worldwide?

Its $34.8 million opening was then the third-biggest ever for an R-rated film, and it stayed in cinemas for over a year.

Gladiator finished 2000 as the second-highest-grossing film worldwide behind which title?

The Tom Cruise sequel took $546 million; ironically Cruise had been among the actors considered for Maximus.

What was Gladiator's production budget?

DreamWorks handled North America while Universal took international distribution under a deal struck in November 1998.

Mel Gibson turned down the role of Maximus because he was committed to which other 2000 film?

Antonio Banderas and Tom Cruise were also considered before the producers went with Crowe, whose L.A. Confidential turn had put him top of their list.

Which actor auditioned to play Commodus but lost the part?

The winning candidate reportedly clinched it with a 'knockout' audition tape rather than an in-person reading.

Which line spoken by Commodus was ad-libbed by the actor on set?

The script was so unfinished that Crowe later claimed shooting began with only about 32 pages.

Crowe adapted the phrase 'Strength and Honour' from the Latin motto of what?

The original motto, 'Veritate et Virtute', translates as 'Truth and Virtue'.

Describing Maximus's farm to the emperor, Crowe was actually describing his own home in which country?

The farm scenes themselves were shot in Val d'Orcia, Tuscany, rather than in Spain where the character supposedly lived.

Which 1872 painting persuaded the director to sign on after producers showed him a copy?

Jean-Léon Gérôme's canvas of Vestal Virgins condemning a fallen fighter now hangs in the Phoenix Art Museum in Arizona.

The extended cut of Gladiator adds how many minutes of footage?

The theatrical version runs 155 minutes; the longer cut has appeared on VHS, DVD and Blu-ray.

How did the real Commodus die, unlike his arena death in the film?

A poisoning attempt earlier that day failed when he vomited, so the conspirators sent in his wrestling partner Narcissus.

The emperor Commodus murders in the film actually died at Vindobona, now which modern city?

The Antonine Plague, thought to be smallpox or measles, swept the empire during his reign and finally claimed him in AD 180.

The film compresses Commodus's rule into a short span; roughly how long did he actually reign?

He shared power with his father for three years from AD 177 and then ruled alone until AD 192.

Franzoni's first draft centred on which historical figure as its protagonist?

The idea came from reading the Historia Augusta; the fictional Maximus replaced him in later drafts.

Who plays the grown-up Lucius in Gladiator II (2024)?

Spencer Treat Clark had played the boy in the original; the sequel reveals Lucius to be the son of Maximus.

What is the name of Denzel Washington's scheming character in Gladiator II?

The character is loosely inspired by the real Marcus Opellius Macrinus, and the role earned Washington a Golden Globe nomination.

Who composed the score for Gladiator II, taking over from Zimmer and Gerrard?

He wrote around 100 minutes of new music but wove in cues from the original score.

Musician Nick Cave once wrote a rejected Gladiator sequel script under what working title?

His draft resurrected Maximus for a war among the gods, one of several abandoned ideas before David Scarpa's script was filmed.

Historians objected to which animals appearing in Gladiator II's flooded-arena naval battle?

The film also stages a Roman trireme siege of a Numidian city and has gladiators fighting baboons in Ostia.

Gladiator II held its world premiere in which city?

It reached UK cinemas on 15 November 2024 and the US a week later, taking $462 million worldwide.

The word 'gladiator' comes from the Latin gladius, meaning what?

The games lasted almost a thousand years, peaking between the 1st century BC and the 2nd century AD.

According to Livy, the first gladiator games in Rome in 264 BC were held in which venue?

Three pairs fought to the death to honour the dead father of Decimus Junius Brutus Scaeva, a funeral gift Livy calls a munus.

Livy credited which people with the first gladiator fights, in 310 BC, to celebrate a victory over the Samnites?

Other ancient writers preferred an Etruscan origin, and 4th-century BC tomb frescoes from Paestum show paired fighters at funeral rites.

A retiarius fought with a weighted net, a dagger and which main weapon?

He wore no helmet and was widely regarded as the lowliest gladiator type, yet also one of the most popular attractions.

Which heavily armoured gladiator, with a smooth rounded helmet, was trained specifically to fight the retiarius?

The rounded helmet stopped the net snagging, but its poor airflow meant he had to win quickly or risk fainting.

The name of the murmillo gladiator type derives from a Greek word for what?

The type replaced the earlier 'Gaul' gladiator once Gauls in Italy were too integrated to be cast as enemies.

The Thraex, or Thracian gladiator, fought with a small shield and a short curved blade called what?

The curve was designed to reach around a shield and maim an opponent's unarmoured back.

Spartacus and about 70 other gladiators escaped in 73 BC from a training school near which city?

The school belonged to Lentulus Batiatus, and the fear of similar revolts later drove tighter state control of gladiator schools.

Early in the revolt, Spartacus's followers took up a defensive position on which mountain?

A Roman force under the praetor Glaber besieged them there, hoping starvation would force a surrender.

Which Roman commander was given the task of crushing the Spartacus revolt?

Reputedly the richest man in Rome and the only volunteer, he revived decimation, executing one soldier in ten to instil discipline.

After the revolt, 6,000 captured rebels were crucified along which Roman road?

The crosses lined the road out of Rome for a stretch of more than 100 miles.

The Colosseum was inaugurated in AD 80 by which emperor?

Cassius Dio says more than 9,000 wild animals were killed during the inaugural games.

Officially the Flavian Amphitheatre, the Colosseum probably got its popular name from what?

The bronze colossus, modelled on the Colossus of Rhodes, was later moved beside the arena by Hadrian.

Who operated the velarium, the huge retractable awning that shaded Colosseum spectators?

They were drafted from the fleet headquarters at Misenum and housed in their own barracks nearby.

Which emperor added the hypogeum, the network of tunnels beneath the Colosseum's arena floor?

The tunnels ended the practice of flooding the arena for mock sea battles early in the building's life.

Rome's largest gladiator school, linked to the Colosseum by an underground passage, was called what?

It held up to about 2,000 gladiators and its own mini-arena, which drew crowds to watch training sessions.

Gladiators were nicknamed hordearii, meaning eaters of what?

Their high-energy, largely vegetarian diet was rounded out with beans, oatmeal, dried fruit and even ash.

The physician Galen did part of his training at a gladiator school in which city?

He later criticised the training regime, diet and long-term health prospects of the fighters he treated there.

The first archaeological evidence of a gladiator graveyard was found in 2007 in which ancient city?

The remains confirmed that the fatal blow to a defeated fighter was usually delivered to the neck.

Which emperor banned female gladiators from AD 200?

His attempt at a dignified show of female athletics had been jeered by the crowd, and the ban followed soon after.

A marble relief from Halicarnassus shows two female gladiators named Amazon and what?

Their stage names evoke the mythical warrior-women and a feminine Achilles; the match ended in a draw.

Which emperor legally ended gladiator games in the West in 399 and again in 404?

Legend blames the monk Telemachus, said to have been martyred by spectators when he tried to stop a fight.

In 325 Constantine stopped condemned criminals becoming gladiators, sending them where instead?

He nonetheless granted the town of Hispellum the right to hold gladiator games in the last year of his life.

A gladiator granted his freedom received a wooden training weapon or staff known as what?

The poet Martial records the emperor giving one to each of two fighters, Priscus and Verus, after they conceded at the same instant.

Trajan celebrated his Dacian victories with games using some 10,000 gladiators over how many days?

The same games reportedly used 11,000 animals, and their cost helped push later emperors to cap spending on shows.

How many gladiator pairs did Caesar's games of 65 BC use, prompting a Senate cap?

He justified the show as a memorial to his father, dead for twenty years, and staged it despite enormous personal debt.

Fans from which town rioted with Pompeians in AD 59, prompting Nero's ten-year gladiator ban?

Pompeian graffiti and wall paintings gleefully commemorate the 'victory' over the visitors.

According to Anthony Corbeill, which crowd gesture actually signalled a defeated gladiator should die?

The Latin sources say only 'with a turned thumb', and the modern thumbs-down image owes more to a 19th-century painting than to Roman evidence.

Commodus once decapitated which running bird in the arena and waved its head at the senators?

He also claimed to have killed 100 lions in a day, shooting from a raised platform around the arena's edge.

Commodus's inscription on Nero's colossus boasted he was the only what kind of fighter to conquer 12,000 men?

He also gave the statue his own face, a club and a bronze lion so it resembled Hercules.

The Colosseum was begun in AD 72 under which emperor?

It was built on the site of Nero's private lake, a populist gesture returning the land to the people.

In Gladiator, Commodus pits Maximus against which undefeated gladiator alongside a set of tigers?

Maximus spares his defeated opponent in defiance of the emperor, and the crowd starts chanting 'Maximus the Merciful'.