A HISTORIAN has called foul play after the release of the trailer for the epic action movie Gladiator sequel due to be released later this year.
Scenes including a gladiator riding a rhino and the Colosseum being flooded and filled with sharks for navel reenactments have prompted a history expert to speak out.
While blockbuster movies often fail to stick to historic accuracy, the introduction of a fighter onboard his trusty rhino steed has raised the most eyebrows after the trailer was released recently.
Tristan Hughes, the enthusiastic host of ‘The Ancients’ podcast and big fan of Ridley Scott’s first film in the series wasn’t too impressed with the introduction of the rhino.
“Ah, okay. Um, right. Yes.” were his first words delivered with a wry smile.
“Sadly, we do not have any records for the rhino riding gladiator, because I’m afraid they did not exist.
“I read that apparently Ridley Scott wanted that in the original too. To see a gladiator emerging into the Colosseum riding a rhino [there is] no historical evidence for this.
“Absolutely would never have happened because the mixing of great beasts with gladiators, that we also see in the first movie with the tigers when Maximus is fighting the retired Gaul, didn’t happen.
“They were very much different events. We do know that rhinos were in the Colosseum. The Romans did know of rhinos and we do know that they imported [them], that they ferried across what they considered exotic animals like tigers, elephants, rhinos to be put on show in the Colosseum for the other big event alongside gladiators which were the beast hunts which occurred usually in the morning of a great event at the Colosseum.
“The sight of a gladiator being specially trained to ride a rhino, I’m afraid that is a bit too far.”
As far as flooding the Colosseum and putting sharks in there, Hughes once again was slightly flabbergasted.
“This is really interesting. So it is showing the Colosseum being filled with water and a naval reenactment taking place. So the history behind that is there were ancient spectacles in Rome where venues were filled with water, great basins filled up with water, and naval reenactments did happen.
“There is historical basis in for naval battles being shown in the greater public arena in Rome. And there are a couple of cases early on of this event happening in the Colosseum. The issue here, if I want to be a little bit nitpicky, It is still great, it looks amazing [and] I can’t wait to see it on screen. [This is] the first time I think I’ve ever seen a Naumachia [a mock sea battle] on screen. [But] by the time that this is set, in the early 3rd century AD, Naumachia weren’t taking place in the Colosseum anymore.
“The examples that we have come from the first century, those naval reenactments were with smaller ships because of the size of the Colosseum. They did happen later on, but in a different venue nearer the Tiber [the third-longest river in Italy].
“I don’t think that the ancient Roman Naumachia had these marine beasts in the water when they were fighting so that if you fell overboard, you’d be eaten by sharks. But once again, that’s just kind of going a bit over the top. That’s Hollywood. That’s the epic movie vibe.”
Hughes was clear though that these events, at the height of the Roman power would have been incredibly impressive.
“The purpose of Naumachia, historically, I think it really was just to show the power and the might of Rome, to show that they could do something like that, that they had the ability, they had the engineering to create such a spectacle.
“It really emphasises how much of a spectacle these would’ve been for the tens of thousands of people who went to a venue like the Colosseum and watched something like this.”
It all sounds pretty epic to us even without making stuff up.
