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Ask a Roman-History Professor: Were There Ever Sharks in the Colosseum?
Gladiator II director Ridley Scott famously does not care about historical accuracy in his films but we had to ask.
I mean, there are certain emperors, like Nero and Elagabalus, whom I mentioned earlier, who were infamous for that type of extravagant behavior that offended the sensibilities of more traditionally minded Romans, or however you want to put it. Like Marcus Aurelius [ played by Richard Harris in the first Gladiator], for example, who’s often held up as a paragon of virtue, he would never be caught dead openly fondling or otherwise favoring his lover in public. But basically, early on in the empire, the rule became that in order to secure your throne, you had to keep the Praetorian Guard happy, and if you failed to do so, either through policy or through not paying them the wages or donatives they felt they deserved, then they would commonly turn on you.
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