Gladiator Trivia
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69 free gladiator trivia questions with answers. This gladiator trivia quiz comes in two halves. The first covers Ridley Scott's Gladiator (2000): the casting, the Malta and Morocco shoots, Oliver Reed's death mid-production, the Zimmer and Gerrard score, the five Oscars, the box office and the historical liberties taken with Commodus and his father. It also dips into Gladiator II and the abandoned sequel scripts. The second half is the real thing: where the games came from, the retiarius, secutor, murmillo and thraex, the Spartacus revolt, the Colosseum and its awning crews, the Ludus Magnus, what gladiators ate, female fighters, the thumb signal, and the emperors who finally banned it all. It suits film fans, history buffs and anyone who has ever shouted 'Are you not entertained?' at a party. Questions start easy and get genuinely hard, and every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries and primary-source summaries before publishing.
30 of 69 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who directed the 2000 film Gladiator?
Ridley Scott
Ridley Scott. He signed on after producers showed him a single 19th-century painting of the arena, telling them he did not care that he knew nothing about the story yet.
Q 02What is the full name of Russell Crowe's character in Gladiator?
Maximus Decimus Meridius
Maximus Decimus Meridius. He says it only when Commodus orders the masked gladiator to show his face, then vows vengeance for his murdered wife and son.
Q 03Which actor played the emperor Commodus in Gladiator?
Joaquin Phoenix
Joaquin Phoenix. His sneering emperor earned an Oscar nomination, and Jack Gleeson later said he modelled Game of Thrones' Joffrey on the performance.
Q 04In Gladiator, Connie Nielsen played which character, the sister of Commodus?
Lucilla
Lucilla. The real Lucilla joined a plot to assassinate her brother in AD 182; it failed, and he had her banished to Capri and then executed.
Q 05How did Gladiator finish Oliver Reed's scenes after his death?
A body double with his face digitally attached
A body double with his face digitally attached. Reed's trainer had been meant to survive, so the script was rewritten to give him a death scene, and the film is dedicated to Reed.
Q 06Which character did Oliver Reed play in Gladiator?
Proximo
Proximo. The gruff trainer was once a gladiator himself, released by the old emperor, and he teaches Maximus that the best fighter is the one the crowd loves.
Q 07Richard Harris played which role in Gladiator?
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius. Harris's dying emperor asks Maximus, not his own son, to succeed him and hand power back to the Senate, and Commodus murders him for it.
Q 08Who played Juba, the gladiator who becomes Maximus's closest friend in Gladiator?
Djimon Hounsou
Djimon Hounsou. His Juba gets the last scene, returning to the Colosseum at night to bury the figurines of Maximus's wife and son at the spot where his friend died.
Q 09David Franzoni got the idea for Gladiator from which 1958 book about the Roman games?
Those About to Die
Those About to Die. Franzoni came across Daniel Mannix's book in Baghdad during a 1972 motorcycle trip, some 25 years before he finally wrote the script.
Q 10Gladiator's opening battle in Germania was actually filmed in a forest in which country?
England
England. The battle was shot in Bourne Wood, Surrey, where the Forestry Commission wanted a stretch of woodland cleared, so the director offered to burn it down on camera.
Q 11Gladiator's Colosseum set was built inside a fortress on which Mediterranean island?
Malta
Malta. The set stood inside Fort Ricasoli, a harbour fortress that was rebuilt as Troy for the 2004 film, and Oliver Reed died on the island before the shoot was over.
Q 12In Gladiator, what nickname does Maximus fight under before Rome learns his real name?
The Spaniard
The Spaniard. His farm is in Spain, though the family scenes there were actually picked up in Italy while the director was scouting his next film, Hannibal.
Q 13Hans Zimmer shared credit for the Gladiator score with which singer-composer?
Lisa Gerrard
Lisa Gerrard. She and Zimmer shared the Golden Globe for the score, yet the Oscar nomination for the very same music named Zimmer alone.
Q 21Mel Gibson says he turned down the role of Maximus in Gladiator because he was busy making which film?
The Patriot
The Patriot. Gibson says he was tied to the Revolutionary War epic, so the part went to Russell Crowe and the two films ended up as rival blockbusters of the same summer.
Q 22In Gladiator II, Lucius faces a champion who charges into the Colosseum riding which animal?
Rhinoceros
Rhinoceros. The director had wanted one in the first film, but a computer-generated rhino cost too much in 1999, and it became a running joke that any sequel would get it.
Q 23Which line does Commodus scream at his sister after threatening her son's life in Gladiator?
"Am I not merciful?"
Q 14Gladiator's battle music drew a 2006 lawsuit alleging it copied 'Mars, the Bringer of War' by which composer?
Gustav Holst
Gustav Holst. The foundation that guards his music and his publisher sued Hans Zimmer over the echoes of 'Mars', though Zimmer had himself said the score spoke the same musical language as The Planets.
Q 15Russell Crowe's Best Actor win for Gladiator came at the expense of which fellow nominee?
Tom Hanks
Tom Hanks. He was nominated for Cast Away; Gladiator won five Oscars that night, Best Picture included, yet none went to its director or its writers.
Q 16Which actor plays Senator Gracchus in both Gladiator and its 2024 sequel?
Derek Jacobi
Derek Jacobi. His Gracchus is arrested for plotting to smuggle Maximus out of Rome, and the dying Maximus uses his last orders to have the senator reinstated.
Q 17Who beat Gladiator's director to the Best Director Oscar in 2001?
Steven Soderbergh
Steven Soderbergh. He was nominated twice that year, for Erin Brockovich and Traffic, so in winning for Traffic he beat himself as well as Gladiator's director.
Q 18According to Maximus in Gladiator, what we do in life echoes in what?
Eternity
Eternity. He says it to his cavalry before the opening battle, right after joking that any man who finds himself riding alone in green fields is in Elysium and already dead.
Q 19Gladiator finished 2000 as the second-highest-grossing film worldwide behind which title?
Mission: Impossible 2
Mission: Impossible 2. Tom Cruise's sequel took about $546 million worldwide, but it was the runner-up, Gladiator, that went on to win Best Picture.
Q 20Which director approved the pitch for Gladiator after asking its writer just three questions?
Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg. He asked whether it was about ancient Roman gladiators, set in the Colosseum, fighting to the death; three yeses later he told David Franzoni to go and write it.
"Am I not merciful?" He has just uncovered her part in the plot against him, and his idea of mercy is to let her and her son live so long as she gives him an heir.
Q 24Russell Crowe adapted Gladiator's 'Strength and Honour' from the Latin motto of what?
His high school
His high school. Wanting a soldierly farewell, Crowe tried the old motto, 'Veritate et Virtute', on the director in Latin, glossed it as 'Strength and Honor' and was told: say that.
Q 25How does Commodus rig his final duel with Maximus in Gladiator?
Stabs him before the fight
Stabs him before the fight. He has the wound hidden under Maximus's armour, yet Maximus still disarms and kills him before dying of the injury himself.
Q 26Which 1872 painting of an arena crowd turning its thumbs persuaded Gladiator's director to sign on?
Pollice Verso
Pollice Verso. One look at Gérôme's arena scene was enough: the director said it showed the Roman Empire 'in all its glory and wickedness' and he was hooked.
Q 27Which line does Maximus shout in a provincial arena before he ever reaches Rome?
"Are you not entertained?"
"Are you not entertained?" After winning a fight at Zucchabar, he hurls his weapon away and spits on the ground, asking the crowd if this is not why they came.
Q 28How did the real Commodus die, unlike in Gladiator?
Strangled by a wrestler
Strangled by a wrestler. The plotters first tried poison on New Year's Eve, but he vomited it up, so they sent the athlete in to finish the job, in his bath by one account.
Q 29One ancient account says the emperor murdered by Commodus in Gladiator really died at Vindobona, now which modern city?
Vienna
Vienna. The film has him smothered in a tent on the German front; Aurelius Victor puts his death at Vindobona on the Danube, while Tertullian says Sirmium, in modern Serbia.
Q 30What did the real Commodus rename after his own twelve names and titles?
The months of the year
The months of the year. They became Lucius, Aelius, Aurelius, Commodus and so on through Amazonius and Invictus, and he ordered that Rome itself be called Commodiana.