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Renan Duarte

‘Total Hollywood BS’: Gladiator 2 Is Historically Inaccurate, Historian Says

Hollywood Paramount Pictures Lucius Ridley Scott Colosseum Martial Napoleon Rome

Gladiator II hasn’t been released yet, but its trailer is already giving historians much to talk about. Dr. Shadi Bartsch, a classics professor who has written several books on ancient Rome, bluntly described the Ridley Scott-directed film as “total Hollywood bullsh*t.”

The sequel to the Oscar-winning epic is set two decades after the first film and stars Paul Mescal as Lucius, the grandson of Rome’s former emperor Marcus Aurelius and the son of Lucilla and Maximus.

Lucius is forced to fight as a gladiator after Roman soldiers led by General Marcus Acacius (Pedro Pascal) invade Numidia. The former heir to the Roman Empire receives help from Macrinus (Denzel Washington), a former slave who mentors Lucius and keeps a stable of gladiators.

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