A question about "Gladiator"

Sarevok · Post by **Sarevok** » 2003-11-18 07:02am

Gladiator was excellent film. However there was one thing that I have yet to understand about the movie. Commodus was mentioned to be Lucillas brother. But Commodus tried to seduce her and even talked her providing him with his heir. Is not this illogical and strange ? Or was it a Roman practice to allow this kind of relationship between siblings ?

InnerBrat · Post by **InnerBrat** » 2003-11-18 07:05am

The second one.

Those Romans were sick

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2003-11-18 07:18am

Think Caligula.

Post by **Vympel** » 2003-11-18 07:25am

Gaius? Forget Gauis, Nero was the sick fuck.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2003-11-18 07:33am

Hmm, you're right. Overall, Nero was someone that everyone could agree was a total bastard. Godfathers of the Mob would be unable to stomach what he did.

Strate_Egg · Post by **Strate_Egg** » 2003-11-18 09:53am

Roman practices were largely from the Greeks. They were both strange.

Stofsk · Post by **Stofsk** » 2003-11-18 10:49am

Strate_Egg wrote:Roman practices were largely from the Greeks. They were both strange.

So? Virtually all Royal Families at some point practice insest, particularly during the decadent eras; it was a way of keeping the blood "pure" so to speak. We don't want any commoners sitting on the throne y'know...

While it is true that it was a Roman and Greek practice, it is not exclusive to either one.

evilcat4000: remember that in the context of the film, Commodus's sister (who's name escapes me at the moment) wasn't too keen with getting it on with her brother. He wasn't exactly nice guy, which would probably be the cause of her reluctance.

Bertie Wooster · Post by **Bertie Wooster** » 2003-11-18 11:05am

evilcat4000 wrote:Gladiator was excellent film. However there was one thing that I have yet to understand about the movie. Commodus was mentioned to be Lucillas brother. But Commodus tried to seduce her and even talked her providing him with his heir. Is not this illogical and strange ? Or was it a Roman practice to allow this kind of relationship between siblings ?

Ha. If you thought THAT was bad, you should see Caligula by Bob Guccione with Malcolm Macdowell as Caligula as Teresa Anne Savoy as his sister Drusilla.

Decadence was a way of life with the some of the Emperors, and sleeping with their sisters was relatively harmless compared to some of the other things they did.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2003-11-18 11:25am

The exploits of Caligula have over time been severely overblown and exagurated.

Considering that, he was still indeed very screwed up...

zombie84 · Post by **zombie84** » 2003-11-18 03:16pm

I dont know if any film produced by Penthouse is reliable for historical information...

sick film though. Malcolm MacDowell is fucking cool.

Worlds Spanner · Post by **Worlds Spanner** » 2003-11-18 04:11pm

I think that the idea is that Commodus is sick.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2003-11-18 10:37pm

Strate_Egg wrote:Roman practices were largely from the Greeks. They were both strange.

That depends on which period of Roman History you mean. Republican Rome and Early Imperial Rome were fairly straight laced and in fact a lot closer to present day christian morals.

It wasn't until you get into the Later stages of the Empire that you get the Hellenization of Roman morality.

And that doesn't get into the difference between religious practices.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2003-11-18 10:40pm

evilcat4000 wrote:Gladiator was excellent film. However there was one thing that I have yet to understand about the movie. Commodus was mentioned to be Lucillas brother. But Commodus tried to seduce her and even talked her providing him with his heir. Is not this illogical and strange ? Or was it a Roman practice to allow this kind of relationship between siblings ?

It was not general Roman practice in any age and in fact they were very fastidious about incest and inbreeding. But in the later Empire the upper class general disregarded morality and sanity so things like that happened.

Post by **weemadando** » 2003-11-19 06:03pm

Vympel wrote:Gaius? Forget Gauis, Nero was the sick fuck.

Forget Nero, look at the later years of Tiberius, or for truly sick fucked-ness Vitellius... That man was just damn creepy (and thats coming from someone who studied Ancient Civs at uni).

Singular Quartet · Post by **Singular Quartet** » 2003-11-19 06:30pm

Pheh, this would be cnsidered downright average for a group, like, say, the Pharohs(sp) of Egypt. It wasn't uncommon for brothers to marry sisters in that bunch...

Post by **weemadando** » 2003-11-19 06:44pm

Singular Quartet wrote:Pheh, this would be cnsidered downright average for a group, like, say, the Pharohs(sp) of Egypt. It wasn't uncommon for brothers to marry sisters in that bunch...

Ahh, but did they have parties where as a "game" guests were forced to eat live parrots, and were flayed alive as entertainment for other guests if they refused...

Singular Quartet · Post by **Singular Quartet** » 2003-11-19 07:25pm

weemadando wrote:
Singular Quartet wrote:Pheh, this would be cnsidered downright average for a group, like, say, the Pharohs(sp) of Egypt. It wasn't uncommon for brothers to marry sisters in that bunch...
Ahh, but did they have parties where as a "game" guests were forced to eat live parrots, and were flayed alive as entertainment for other guests if they refused...

Well... no... but incest was a regular thing in all of Egyption Pharohs. I was more refering to the thread starter that any of Nero, Caligula, or any of the other's various... err... 'exploits'

Post by **weemadando** » 2003-11-19 07:28pm

Singular Quartet wrote: Well... no... but incest was a regular thing in all of Egyption Pharohs. I was more refering to the thread starter that any of Nero, Caligula, or any of the other's various... err... 'exploits'

Yeah, but they all also did the incest thing regularly, to preserve the Roman aristocracy.

Trytostaydead · Post by **Trytostaydead** » 2003-11-19 08:06pm

Look at the Egyptian Pharoahs.. inbred lot they are.

Publius · Post by **Publius** » 2003-11-19 10:45pm

Roman patricii ("patricians") often intermarried amongst themselves and with plebeian nobiles ("nobles") in order to preserve their families' distinguished pedigrees; even so, incest was considered socially and morally unacceptable (upper class Romans even frowned on marriages between first cousins as being too consanguinous). Generally speaking, the incest of Pontic and Ptolemaic royal families (amongst others) was viewed in much the same light as Hellenic homosexuality; the Romans tended to view such things as uncivilised and intolerably foreign.

Gladiator is not a very accurate depiction of the life and times of Imperator Caesar Lucius Aelius Aurelius Commodus Augustus Pius Felix Sarmaticus Germanicus Maximus Britannicus Invictus (his full name at the time of his death). The idea that Marcus Aurelius was disappointed in his son and desired to pass over him for succession is fatuous, in light of the fact that his father had raised him to rank of Caesar at age five (166), Germanicus at age ten (171), Imperator at age fifteen (176), Augustus and Pater Patriae -- i.e., joint ruler -- and consul in 177. Commodus was not summoned to the frontline before his father's death; he had already been there for two years (Commodus fought with his father on the Danube from 178 to his father's death in 180).

Furthermore, Commodus -- who had a beard, and was not clean-shaven -- did not immediately plunge Rome into a megalomaniacal reign of terror. He had been Emperor for thirteen years before he assumed an active rôle in Rome's government (after he had his de facto premier, his chamberlain Cleander, summarily executed during a severe grain shortage in 190). In fact, he had quickly removed himself from public life after an attempt on his life in 182, the result of which was the execution of the plotters, viz., his sister Lucilla and her son Claudius Pompeianus Quintianus. Commodus certainly never schemed to sire a child by his sister, and she even more certainly did not outlive him, as he had had her executed fully ten years before his own death.

It is also worth pointing out that Commodus was not killed in the Colosseum, he was killed in the Villa Victilia, near the Colosseum. Nor was he stabbed; he had been poisoned by his favourite concubine Marcia but vomited the poison up, and was subsequently strangled to death by a gladiator named Narcissus, certainly not a disgraced dux turned gladiator. The fact that "Maximus Decimus Meridas" isn't even a properly formed Roman name -- it ought to be "Decimus Meridas Maximus" at the very least-- will go unmentioned.

PUBLIUS

baelfire1945 · Post by **baelfire1945** » 2003-11-20 01:20am

Wow, nice rundown, Publius. I had a few of those points to make, but since you beat me to it, I would just like to tip my hat to you. That was fairly impressive.

Tsyroc · Post by **Tsyroc** » 2003-11-20 11:00am

The main thing I always remember about Commodus is that he supposedly liked to dress up as Hercules. Naked except for a lion skin.

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2003-11-20 05:08pm

Everytime I watch that movie I think the legionaries are really going to throw their javelins this time.

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