For subscribers
Gladiator movies are not telling the real story about Rome
Modern-day movie goers celebrate the gladiator as a symbol of masculinity. In ancient Rome, bravery is shallow without discipline.
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
For Romans, bravery, even on the battlefield, was generally a virtue only if it was guided by discipline, based in self-control.
PHOTO: AIDAN MONAGHAN
Melanie Racette-Campbell
Follow topic:
For a modern audience, it’s tempting to valourise the Roman gladiator – strong, brave, fierce – as a masculine ideal. Indeed, Ancient Rome has become for many young men an exemplar of a “lost” masculinity, as evidenced by the social media accounts and TikTok posts celebrating Roman culture.
For that crowd, Gladiator II, the blockbuster movie that arrived on Nov 22 in the US, with its arena battles and bloody clashes between sword-wielding warriors (and occasional live sharks), will be a welcome moment to celebrate a Roman notion of manly individualism. There’s just one catch: To ancient Romans, gladiators were not ideals of masculinity, or of heroism.
