Maybe as a result of to think about such a situation would take Gladiator II even additional away from historical past. Which is saying one thing for the reason that movie is already outright fantasy by this level. Admittedly it’s an thrilling fantasy. Besides, it missed the possibility to dig into the actual historical past of Rome on the flip of the third century A.D. and to additional faucet into the trendy anxieties Scott informed Den of Geek he hoped Gladiator II would discover. In an interview with our journal final month, the filmmaker posited “there’s no distinction” between then and now. “It’s the identical, besides I believe now it’s a lot worse.”
If that’s so, the reign of the actual Caracalla, which didn’t embody primate consuls and (so far as we all know) was not marred by syphilis, is a missed alternative for Scott to carry up a mirror to immediately. In spite of everything, this was the emperor who answered for good and all what it meant to be a Roman citizen when he sweepingly made all non-enslaved males all through the empire residents, altering the definition of what it means to be Roman after centuries of debate… and nonetheless getting assassinated by a person named Macrinus shortly thereafter.
The Actual Caracalla and Geta
To get it out of the best way, Caracalla was neither a twin to his brother Geta, nor the junior. His actual identify wasn’t even Caracalla, although trendy historians use that nickname from his lifetime to distinguish him from his varied namesakes (his actual identify when he assumed the throne was Marcus Aurelius Antoninus). Nonetheless, “Caracalla” and Geta did briefly rule collectively because the heirs of their father and the primary of their dynasty, Emperor Septimius Severus.
So from the bounce, you possibly can guess what seems in Gladiator II is extremely fictionalized. In 200 A.D., their father was nonetheless alive, and no monkey turned consul—that amusing sequence appears rooted in appropriating the a lot debated declare about Caligula, an emperor who supposedly deliberate to make his horse a consul earlier than his personal assassination in in 41 A.D. In reality, virtually every part we see about Caracalla and Geta’s reigns in Gladiator II is an invention for the movie, starting with the truth that they didn’t assume energy between themselves till 211, 11 years after Gladiator II is about. Previous to that they dominated as co-emperors with their father, starting in 198 for Caracalla and in 209 for his youthful brother.
What’s true within the movie, although, is that Caracalla did witness the homicide of his brother. In reality, he had it carried out, with Caracalla ordering the Praetorian Guard to assassinate Geta, which allegedly was executed because the nonetheless younger man cried of their mom’s arms. This was not achieved as a result of Caracalla was easy of thoughts, however ruthless and hungry of energy. Very like the parable of Romulus and Remus, these co-emperors arguably represented the worst of their tradition, or a minimum of of politics within the imperial age.
After Geta’s assassination, Caracalla didn’t have a normal named Marcus Acacius (who by no means existed) conquer Numidia, however that’s as a result of Numidia was conquered by the Romans about 150 years earlier than Gladiator II is about. However Caracalla did dream of being an incredible ruler of conquest. He went as far as to assemble his personal armies and try to overcome the Parthian Empire (roughly modern-day Iran) whereas having his forces emulate the now antiquated combating kinds of Alexander the Nice. Caracalla is depicted by his contemporaries, who outlived his grim homicide, as a tyrant who dreamed of replicating Alexander’s achievements.
