Marcus Tullius Cicero used gladiators’ physiques not to celebrate the republic’s valiant heroes, but to deride their bloated muscles as the embodiment of amoral tyranny.
Neither “Gladiator” nor its cinematic sequel is particularly concerned with historical fact. For one thing, the emperor Marcus Aurelius had no intention of restoring the republic. Gladiatorial contests were abhorrent displays of cruelty, but they didn’t always end in death. And the Romans didn’t sculpt bone-white statues; they painted them using an array of colors.
