In the trailer for Ridley Scott’s hotly anticipated sequel to Gladiator (2000), a new gladiator (played by Paul Mescal) goes to battle in “the greatest temple Rome ever built – the Colosseum”.
He comes up against naval warfare, a cutthroat promoter (Denzel Washington) and a stampeding rhino. But how much of this really took place in Roman times? As always with films based in the past, pedantic historians will jump in to assess the degree of cinematic licence and historical misinterpretation. So it is with the forthcoming Gladiator II.
