After watching the movie Spartacus (1960) and doing some research I found the movie to be both historical accurate and inaccurate. But I'm not going to nitpick the hole movie instead I would like to talk about some of the major details that are fairly well known; like how the Roman army fought in battle. The Roman army was know for its discipline, organization, and innovation in both weapons and tactics.…
He could see the future scars crawling across his body. Entering the large building the group turned to a row of cell type rooms no bigger than 32 square-foot. He and a fellow slave were given a room by the arch to the outside. The following day a rude awakening at dawn was followed by an evaluation, where they all lined up and were given armour. A battle pursued a line of weapons were handed to him, facing off with the kind man who gave him the answer to his question previously. Aelius had a trident while his opponent had a net. They fought for hours neither coming out on top as the victor. When the next group was up the two collapsed into a pile. Covered in cuts they nursed their wounds with sour expressions. The next ferocious battle began and they retired to their cramped rooms. The battles continued and Aelius became stronger and was able to run faster. After a month Aelius trained hard and long from sun up to sundown and was ready to fight a true gladiator. As a result of the tough training Aelius finally had his chance to…
Ridley Scott’s Gladiator (2000), was the first film set in the ancient world produced since the 1960s. Since then, there have been many more films made set in the ancient world. The question is, why was Gladiator able to revive the ancient world genre? After seeing films like Ben-Hur and Spartacus, two of the greatest films ever made set in the ancient world. it is hard not to see the cinematic cues that Gladiator takes from these films. Ben-Hur follows the story of Judah Ben-Hur after he was betrayed by his childhood friend and seeks revenge against the man who wronged. In Gladiator, we have Maximus go on a quest for vengeance after the new emperor has ordered him executed and kills his family. From Ben-Hur we know that this kind of story is not one likely to go our of fashion. Even modern movies that are not set in the ancient world have a story like this.…
When reading about the Roman gladiator games as well as the chariot races and theater events, it can be quite difficult to truly envision what it was like for the participants and the spectators of such events. The participants in such activities were overall viewed as low-class citizens. Gladiators, charioteers and actors in the theater all “had little more status than slaves.” The participants of the games were meant to entertain the spectators, and nothing else. Besides the fact that the participants were seen as low class, they also faced very brutal conditions in the games. The gladiators and charioteers were susceptible to violent, gory deaths. For gladiators, often times their throats were cut and the knives eventually made their way to the gladiator’s hearts. Another possible outcome for gladiators, was being ripped to pieces by various animals. Whether their death came by combat with another gladiator or by animal, it was nothing short of gruesome. This gruesomeness though, was enjoyed by many. Chariot…
A gladiator was a trained warrior who fought bloody battles to entertain the ancient romans. According to tradition, gladiators were introduced to Rome in 264 B.C., when Decimus Junius Brutus had three pairs of gladiators fight during his father's funeral. The games soon became very popular soon after. The gladiatorial games could be compared to that of a present day circus. Gladiators were usually prisoners of wars, prisoners who committed serious crimes, or slaves. The Romans built many structures and amphitheaters such as the Colosseum. The Colosseum could seat up to fifty thousand to eighty thousand, but usually had an average audience of approximately fifty thousand. The amphitheater had the most updated technology of the time. For…
Gladiator [glad-ee-ey-ter]: a person, often a slave or captive, who was armed with a sword or other weapon and compelled to fight to the death in a public arena against another person or a wild animal, for the entertainment of the spectators. Now consider the description of a football player [fo͝otbôl plāər]; a person, often a male, who is armed with large muscles as weapons and compelled to fight brutally until victorious in a public arena against another team, for the entertainment of the spectators. Football is essentially a modern form of gladiator sportsmanship, pinning two teams against each other without constraints or restrictions about contact and injury for the mere entertainment of the audience. The effects of this game are both physical and mental, impacting the lives of the men who have bravely sacrificed their longevity for their fans.…
The Roman Gladiators were a unique example of competition in Roman Empire. During the period of the Roman Republic the newly recruited Gladiators were at first conscripted to the gladiator schools from slaves, criminals and prisoners of war. They had no choice, they were forced to take the role as a gladiator. The life a gladiator was strict and harsh.…
Circus performers are people of great courage. They have to make a living out of entertaining people that pay good money to watch them and want to get their money's worth. They have a lot of pressure from that, as well as peer pressure from their fellow performers. Not only do they have pressure from that, they have to worry about the very acts being preformed from playing with swords and fire to hanging from a wire hundreds of feet in the air. If their not focused on what they are doing, they can be killed in a instant.…
According to Kathleen Coleman, in paragraph 4, this discovery gave us a vivid impression of what it was like to live and train as a gladiator. This discovery showed us a lot more about how gladiators lived and trained in their daily lives. In these buildings their were heated floors for winter training, plumbing, hospitals, and also graveyards near by as stated in paragraph 7. In the training school at least 80 gladiators lived and trained at the school year round as stated in paragraph 8. Also, one or two people slept in a 32- square-foot-cell and their was a wing that was separate from the cell that their trainers slept as stated in paragraph 8.…
The practice of armed men fighting to the death originated in Etruria, in central Italy, probably as a funeral sacrifice. The first gladiatorial exhibition in Rome was in 264BC, when three pairs of gladiators fought as part of a funeral celebration. By 174BC, at a 3-day spectacle, 37 pairs participated. Julius Caesar's large-scale exhibitions (300 pairs on one occasion) prompted the Roman Senate to limit the number of contestants. The largest contest of gladiators was given by the emperor Trajan as part of a victory celebration in AD107 and included 5000 pairs of fighters. The emperor Domitian in AD90 presented combats between women and between dwarfs. Mostly males, gladiators were slaves, condemned criminals, prisoners of war, and sometimes Christians. Forced to become swordsmen, they were trained in schools called ludi, and special measures were taken to discipline them and prevent them from committing suicide. One gladiator, Spartacus, avenged his captivity by escaping and leading an insurrection that terrorized southern Italy from 73 to 71BC. A successful gladiator received great acclaim; he was praised by poets, his portrait appeared on gems and vases, and patrician ladies pampered him. A gladiator who survived many combats might be relieved from further obligation. Occasionally, freedmen and Roman citizens entered the arena, as did the insane Emperor…
Gladiator is a historical dramatic film set in Ancient Rome. It depicts the storyline of a general betrayed by the emperor’s son, of which he then ascends the gladiatorial battlefield to challenge him once again. The movie was made in the year 2000, and was shot in three separate locations spanning from England, Malta and Morocco. The characters in the play were depicted by actors such as Russell Crowe as Maximus the betrayed general, Joaquin Phoenix as Commodus the emperor’s son and Connie Nielsen as Lucilla Commodus’ sister. Gladiator in my opinion, is a moderately accurate historical representation of the events that took place in the latter half of 2nd century AD.…
Rome started in 753 B.C. and ended in 476 A.D. Rome is most likely the reason why the United States is like today. Trade was vital to Rome and the city of Rome itself has tremendous environmental advantages. They had Gladiators, horse racing and theater. Rome’s government was the most helpful.…
Football is an inherently flawed sport. It calls upon men to sacrifice their bodies and minds by using their heads as battering rams over and over again. In his Offensive Play, a 2009 article in the New Yorker, Malcolm Gladwell explains “much of the attention in the football world, in the past few years, has been on concussions—on diagnosing, managing, and preventing them—and on figuring out how many concussions a player can have before he should call it quits. But a football player’s real issue isn’t simply with repetitive concussive trauma. It is, as the concussion specialist Robert Cantu argues, with repetitive subconcussive trauma. It’s not just the handful of big hits that matter. It’s lots of little hits, too (Gladwell).” There is no extricating the thousands of little hits from football.…
Imagine being in the ancient Roman era. Life then was a lot like American life. The Roman era was tainted with bloody battles, bibulous gatherings, and women; alike the modern day wrestling, NASCAR, and prostitutes in which can easily be accessed. Entertainment, during the Roman era, included gladiators fighting to the finish. While thousands crowded around to watch, the intensity builds up. Like the Romans, Americans now sit in front of a television set and watch shows that contain random people fighting, because someone "cheated" on them. One factor that relates the Roman and American way of entertainment are people being used to entertain the public. The morality of people from the Roman era relates to the morals Americans stand by today. Many people shown on these television shows seem poor and in need of counseling. By stereotypically placing “trashy” people on shows like "Jerry Springer", people are dehumanized and placed on television only for the sheer enjoyment, like the Romans did with gladiators.…
Gladiators were put up against each other to fights to the death. The winning gladiator waited for a sign from the crowd on whether to kill or not to kill the other gladiator; if the gladiator put up a good fight then his life just might be spared (“Gladiators, Chariots, and the Roman Games”.) All Gladiators swore a solemn oath, “I will endure to be burned, to be bound, to be beaten, and to be killed by the sword” (McManus, “Gladiator Games”.)…