During the battle scenes there were a series of quick takes used to compress hours sometimes days of intense fighting into minutes. These battles quite often took hours even days before the battles came to an end. "By using flash cuts" (Boggs & Petrie p. 202) the loading of the armaments was done in seconds rather than the minutes in real time took to pick up the projectile, load the projectile and catapult the projectile towards the enemy.
When the chariots turned to attack the gladiators who were standing behind their shields the technique "called slow motion was used (Boggs & Petrie p. 210) so that the viewer could essentially see the blades of the chariots striking against the shields. Another example of a long take used in the movie Gladiator was the scene where the fighter was cut in half; the motioned is slowed down in order to focus the viewer on the body being actual cut in half.
While threatening her son the brother was making sexual advances towards his sister. The director showed the sister with what appear to be bruises on her face with tears running down her eyes to have viewer feel empathy or sympathy for the poor sister.
The most dramatic visual sounds occurred during the battle scene, when Maximus threw the sword and the swishing sound the sword made while flying through the air towards the enemy, the sound the sword made when from the impact when it reach the target had a lasting effect. Another
References: Boggs, Joseph M & Petrie Dennis W. (2008). The Art of Watching Film. The McCraw Hill Companies.