Gladiator 2 history consultant hits back at inaccuracy claims

Gladiator II director Ridley Scott will not suffer fools, and he especially won't sit idly by as historians criticise his movies for being inaccurate. Alexander Mariotti, the film's history consultant, feels much the same way, as he tells Yahoo UK why it's wrong to look at the blockbuster with this mindset.

"Ridley Scott is an artist, he's not a historian," Mariotti says. "I teach people about Homer, the Iliad is not historically accurate — nobody goes to Homer and think we are reading about something historical. We don't read Shakespeare and say, 'ohh, that's accurate', Shakespeare is historically inaccurate."

"In fact, many of the tropes and stereotypes that we associate with the death of Julius Caesar are caused by Shakespeare because he's so popular. But it's these people that got us interested in in history, the point of a film is the same point as Shakespeare's plays, the same point as the Iliad, it is to use the past to teach a lesson."

Gladiator II is set more than a decade after the original film. It follows Lucius (Paul Mescal) — the illegitimate son of Maximus (Russell Crowe) and Lucilla (Connie Nielsen) — as he is captured by the Roman army, sold into slavery and made into a gladiator. He fights his way to the top in order to tear down the corrupt leaders in power to try and finally bring his grandfather's vision of Rome to life.

"The story of Gladiator and Gladiator 2 is a universal lesson," the historian adds. "Those at the top who are corrupt by power, they're weak, they govern terribly, they're every excess of human nature that we shouldn't be like. And then you've got the noble warrior who is willing to do what's right, which inspires us. That's the point of the film, it's not to give us a history lesson at the end of the day."

Mariotti first began working with Scott on his 2021 true crime film House of Gucci, and he was brought in for Gladiator II because he could see that the filmmaker was interested in making a movie and not a documentary — and so historical accuracy was not at the top of the agenda.

The historian shared that for him his role was about "putting as much history into it" without detracting from the story Scott wanted to tell. Which is what helped him secure the position of history consultant in the first place, though he reveals that Scott's clashing with historians over the accuracy of Napoleon meant that his role was "immensely limited" compared to what he might usually do for a film or TV show.

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For Mariotti, his role was to share his thoughts on the script, where he would rewrite certain parts of the script that he felt were "not realistic" and share why that was the case. This in large part involved the types of words the characters would use, surprisingly, rather than things that have been singled out by other historians publicly — like sharks in the Colosseum, or gladiators riding rhinos.

"We know [Pedro Pascal's character] Acacius as the general," Mariotti explains. "General is an old English word that comes from French, so the proper term would be Legatus. So you rewrite the script as if it was historically accurate and then it's given to the the writers and the director and they decide: 'I don't really care about that. Yes, that sounds good, I'll keep that.'"

Debunking historical inaccuracy claims

As mentioned, one thing that has driven historians wild is the notion of sharks being put into the Colosseum for a mock naval battle, which is one of the shows put on in the course of the movie. Paul Mescal's Lucius and his fellow gladiators must fight an enemy group as if they are recreating a battle between the Trojans and Greeks.

Scott has hit out at criticism to say that it was perfectly possible for sharks to have been brought to the Colosseum. Mariotti has a different explanation: "The Romans went to the Colosseum because they wanted to see parts of the world that they never saw.

"They flooded it, they had these naval battles, they had alligators — how exciting. Because when would you, as a normal person, see a ship? You heard about it, you read about it, but how do you know? We're visual people, we want to see it.

"How did you see it? The Emperor creates it for you so you can see it. 'What do the jungles of India look like? What does the Black Forest of Germany look like? We'll never get there, it's four months of arduous travel so why would I go there? Why don't I walk in the arch of the Colosseum?' Trees pop out of the ground, and trap doors full and animals run out and they get to physically see a panther, a tiger, a lion.

"Going to the cinema is the same thing. Who doesn't want to see a mock naval battle in the Colosseum? I want to see that, and Ridley Scott gives us that."

He adds: "The Romans' encounters with sharks will be vastly limited, but they brought wild animals so that's the basis of it. Wild animals were brought to the Colosseum... if they could have brought sharks they would have, it's just the catching shark and then bringing it somehow alive from the sea to Rome was impossible."

It is also mentioned in the scene that the naval battle has been put on in honour of Poseidon, the Greek god of the sea, rather than Rome's equivalent: Neptune. This, Mariotti explains, is similar to the reasoning behind the use of words like Colosseum and general — it's because they're more familiar to the audience.

"It should be Neptune, and that was one of the suggestions I made for them to change. They also made a mistake with who's fighting, because the Battle of Salamis is between the Greeks and the Persians. But the thing is we know the Greek gods more than we know the Roman gods.

"It brings people out the story and so they do it so the the story is smooth, you're not focusing on the little details. If you called somebody Legatus or Imperator every time it'd be the same, general works because we're used to that word. So that's why the choice is made, it's not because somebody says 'screw history, I'm going to make it historically inaccurate.'"

Another part of the story that has drawn criticism is Scott's decision to have Lucius go up against a rhino-riding gladiator in the colosseum. This was an idea of the directors long before the sequel was made, Mariotti shares: "Originally Maximus was supposed to fight a rhino in the Colosseum, the guys at Jumanji did some test footage and it just didn't look realistic so they scrapped it.

"The rhino was something Ridley has been dreaming of for 20 years because he thought, 'how cool would it be to have someone fight a rhino?' Brilliant."

Art versus history

The film takes inspiration from historical fact too, for example Rome really was ruled by brothers Geta and Caracalla — both of whom appear in the film played by Joseph Quinn and Fred Hechinger. Mariotti shares that the brothers' rule is an "awful, tragic story" that fit perfectly with Scott's vision for his sequel.

So while some aspects of the narrative have been nitpicked by historians, there's ways in which it adapts historical fact for entertainment. This is what Mariotti commends Scott for most, giving the audience a way to understand and appreciate the Ancient World in a way history isn't always able to.

"There's such a snobbery in the historical world towards film, film is our version of art and literature today. It's how people encounter the Ancient World," the historian attests.

"I've worked 24 years giving talks and lectures and I'll tell you something everybody knows Gladiator. They know the movie. If you ask them, have they read Suetonius? No. Do they know the poem by Marshall? No. Most people don't, our encounter with the ancient is cinema.

"That's why it's even more important to have a foot in the door there and say 'look, my suggestion is this', maybe the director takes it, maybe he doesn't, but if they do, great. It is important that we bring these worlds together, the historical world and the entertainment world, because that's how people encounter history."

Mariotti adds: "Ridley Scott is the last vestige of the old way of filmmaking, the old way of storytelling, I think that's what's exciting for me on a personal level. When I saw the first Gladiator, it was a masterpiece because it was the old way of filmmaking.

"This, for me, is one of the last great masterpieces of old cinema before we go forward into whatever new medium of our people invent... we should really enjoy it because I don't think we'll be seeing anything like it for a long, long time. He's the Homer of our time."

Gladiator II is out now in cinemas.