As Gladiator 2 – or II to be more accurate – hits big screens around the country, the spectacle on display will be dropping a few jaws and also sending people rushing to the history books to check how accurate some of the details are. Except, no-one rushes to history books anymore, so instead we can give you all the information you need right here. Is it a thumbs up or thumbs down for the historical accuracy of this little lot? One of the most discussed scenes from the new film comes when the Colosseum in Rome is flooded with water for a kind of gladiatorial version of a pool party.
Very true, apparently: Emperor Titus, who ruled from 79 to 81 AD ( Gladiator 2 is set in 211 AD), oversaw the construction of the Colosseum and, according to the historian Suetonius, its opening featured the arena basin being submerged in order to stage a recreation of a Naval battle. Julius Caeser was the first emperor to stage mock maritime fights in Rome, which were called naumachita, and the Colosseum had the capabilities to do this. They would use special flat-bottomed ships to allow for the shallow water and have islands in the middle for sailors to go hand-to-hand.
And while they may have been mock recreations of old victories, the fighting and deaths were very real. Roman historian Cassius Dio recorded that animals were involved in all this madness: “Titus suddenly filled this same theatre with water and brought in horses and bulls and some other domesticated animals that had been ta.