Gladiator A.D. (New Trailer)

[fmc83]

steven787 said:

WereKitten said:

steven787 said:
Now that is a trailer...

@WereKitten... I really doubt that anyone cares about realism enough at this point. However, those "Hollywood" battles with tigers and such did happen.

The animal battles continued for about 100 years after the Roman Emperor Honorius outlawed Gladiatorial combat because so many men died.

Most Gladiators didn't live past ten battles. So while it's true, that not all battles ended in death, almost all gladiators died in the coliseums.

It was an answer to this:

.jayderyu said:
"Looks better, but it still looks like a 1 on 1 fighter, not a Gladitorial Roman empire game."

And about 1 every ten fights ended with a death, yes. That's still very different from the usual hollywood image. As for the battles with animals, the venationes were usually opening acts, followed by the death sentences (again exotic animals could be a part of it) and then by the proper gladiator fights.

But the "throw anything at the group of gladiators" surprise battles, including amazons and tigers? That's hollywood fluff. But again, who cares really :)

I am perfectly aware of to what you were commenting on. I am saying you are wrong. They did fight people of varying origins and exotic animals (including tigers... actually, when people fought animals they weren't called gladiators, they were called bestiarius) from all around the Roman Empire. They also went beyond one on one combat, they recreated battles on land and on sea. Some of the events that actually happened in the Coliseum (and other ampitheatres) were more outlandish than anything Hollywood would dare put on screen. As for chariots, there were chariots involved in Coliseum battles and some minor races but most of the better chariot races happened at the Circus Maximus.

Edit: If you are interested in learning more about Gladiators and other battles at the Coliseum, I highly recommend reading, Liber Spectaculorum or The Book of Spectacle by M. Valerii Martialis.

 

Both of you are right.

 

Gladiators (with only few exceptions) just fought one on ones. Sometimes there where 10 or more pairs of gladiators fighting at the same time with very strict rules (as werekitten said with special type of gladiators fighting each other).

 

The large combats where a speciality within the time of the emperors and didn't involve gladiators, but war prisoners. The bestiarii where mainly convicted non-Romans. Martials "liber spectaculorum" is still disputed in science, because historians can't simply figure out, how they actually flood the colosseum, but the mass land combats have been proven as a historical fact.