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TAS LIVE: Gladiator 2 Review - TAS 297
0 Playsin 28 minutes
This week, we share the live recording of TAS from the 10th anniversary celebration back in December. We deep dive the Gladiator movies and talk about what they got right and wrong in the movies about who gladiators were. We also look at how accurately (or not!) some of the real historical figures were portrayed in the movies.
Transcripts
- For rough transcripts head over to https://archpodnet.com/archaeology/297
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- Chris Webster chris@archaeologypodcastnetwork.com
- Rachel Roden rachel@unraveleddesigns.com RachelUnraveled (Instagram)
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Transcript
Introduction and Episode Overview
00:00:01
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network. You're listening to The Archaeology Show. TAS goes behind the headlines to bring you the real stories about archaeology and the history around us. Welcome to the podcast.
00:00:16
Speaker
Hello and welcome to The Archaeology Show, episode 297. On today's show, we share the live episode recorded for the 10 year anniversary of the APN back in December.
Gladiator Movies Discussion
00:00:26
Speaker
Let's dig a little deeper Into the APN I don't know Gladiator Movies Let's talk about movies Sorry
00:00:39
Speaker
Okay, so on this episode, like we said, it's going to be just a little bit different because we did record it live and we were sitting in the backyard of my sister-in-law's house. So we did not have a live audience physically, but we did have one digitally. Yeah, I think we took some questions from the Discord peoples and it was a review of the Gladiator 2 movie that we had just seen and we kind of talked about the movie, which we did cover that on this episode.
00:01:05
Speaker
We did cover that on the show, too, back then. But this is just a more in-depth look at the characters, the people who they were based on. And, like, you know, just a full-on review. And then we do some APN stuff at the end, too. So it's kind of fun.
00:01:16
Speaker
And we are currently traveling. so we hope you all forgive us for not having brand new content. But... Yeah, also, keep this is episode 297. I don't want to make too many big promises for episode 300, but we're trying to maybe do some cool stuff for episode 300. We're not sure. We're just the traveling. We're sitting in a hotel in Stockholm, Sweden right now. Yes, we
Hosts' Travels and Location Highlights
00:01:41
Speaker
are. And I don't know if every hotel in Stockholm, Sweden has a sauna, but this one does. in our room that's pretty sweet so yeah we're gonna be doing the sauna and doing a couple yeah not rerun episodes but like bonus episodes for the next couple weeks while we're traveling and then we'll hopefully have some cool content from the places that we're visiting and you know after that that's right yeah Yeah. So that would be episode 297.
00:02:06
Speaker
298 will be ah a bonus episode that we're going to put on our feed that you haven't heard unless you're a member of the APN or podnet.com forward slash members. Yes. And then also we will have... we have one news episode ready to go too. So we'll we'll we'll get some news in there too. and yeah Exactly. We've got that ready to go. So we'll drop that. And then hopefully if we can get our crap together. 300 will be super cool. Yeah. If not, it'll be us doing news again.
00:02:29
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. You know, no promises. yeah But we've got some cool stuff that we're definitely going to talk about because we're doing the Ice Hotel this week. If you've never heard of the Ice Hotel, go check it out. It's not historical at all. It's not at all. This is the incarnation of it. It's like the opposite of historical because it it like melts every year. So it doesn't stay. It's literally not historical, but they've been doing it for 35 years, which is also not historical because this is I Still Tell 35. And I guess if you want to look at like an igloo or something like that in, you know, using traditional techniques or whatever, yeah this is that on steroids. Right. So anyway, and then we're going to London. We're doing the British Museum. We're doing all kinds of stuff in Southern England. Stonehenge is certainly on the list.
Gladiators in Media and Historical Accuracy
00:03:12
Speaker
Stonehenge is on the list. If anybody from English Heritage is listening, please contact me. I've emailed you.
00:03:17
Speaker
Yeah. Chris at Archaeology Podcast Network dot com. We're not looking for any behind the scenes special treatment, but we would like to talk to somebody, maybe. Yeah. Love to an interview. Yeah. So, you know, let let us know. So anyway, with that, we will play our really good episode, I think. Yeah, it was fun. It was really fun. I listened through the whole thing to get this ready and yeah and it's fun. Yeah. This was again recorded on December 1st of 2024. And we did a full eight hour day.
00:03:43
Speaker
think it was eight hours. Might have been longer of all the shows on the APN doing a live presentation for our 10 year anniversary the Archaeology Podcast Network. Right. Here it is. Well, we've got a couple things planned. um Please, this is interactive. So we're just going to kind of do our normal show for a little bit here. um yeah Sort of, actually. Not really, though. Well, kind of. Because, like, you know, for those that listen to us pretty consistently, you know that we do news stories, right? So we like to find... And by the way, I'm getting over a cold. So if I start coughing randomly, you just ignore me. I'll be fine in a second.
00:04:17
Speaker
yeah have water. I'll be good. Yeah. And if my voice sounds scratchy, that's why. But um anyway, so we, you know, we cover new stories. We like to look at archaeology in the news, what how it's covered by journalists and also how it's reported in papers, who's doing a good job, who's doing a bad job, that kind of stuff. So for anybody who doesn't listen to our show um regularly, that's what we like to cover. And bre we were setting up our episode.
00:04:40
Speaker
And one article that popped into our feed was all about gladiators and what the movie got right, what it got wrong about gladiators in general.
00:04:52
Speaker
And we were like, Oh, this is our wheelhouse. Isn't it? So we decided to go see the second Gladiator movie last night. We did. Which was great. It was a little bit impromptu. Like, all of a sudden yesterday, we were like, why don't we just, like, talk about Gladiators and Rome and their portrayal in the movies as are as our show today? So there you go. That's what we're going to talk about.
00:05:16
Speaker
We'll try to keep spoilers to a minimum, but I think that the movie and, like, the big plot lines of it are kind of well known to most people, hopefully. So, yeah. Yeah. All right, so if you, first off, we were confused on this. If you haven't seen the first Gladiator with Russell Crowe, I recommend going to see Man of Recaps on YouTube. Oh, we should link to him. He's the link to him. Every time we want to see a recap on something, he does most of the good stuff out there, but he is just fantastic on his recaps. Yeah, totally. Very entertaining, but I mean, honestly, see the movie if you want to see it, but if you don't or you don't remember it,
00:05:50
Speaker
it's It's a really quick synopsis because you could probably see this one without seeing the other one. There's obviously one big plot element that you'd be missing out on. Yeah, well, you so there are connections between the people and the characters in this movie to the first one. And there's even one character who carries over from the first one into the second movie.
00:06:10
Speaker
So it is helpful to know that, but I will be totally honest. I was like... I think and I don't think I've ever I had ever seen the first gladiator um and I did not see it before we went to see two last night.
00:06:23
Speaker
but i recap I did watch man recaps and he does such a good job. of till He's like what I know. He's so good. Seriously. And I know the fact that I haven't seen the movie is ridiculous. Look, it came out in 2000. I was in high school. i was doing different things with my life than going to see historical period movies.
00:06:40
Speaker
That's just the way it was back then. says You call yourself an archaeologist. I know it's terrible. I know. It historical fiction. it It is. It is. Well, we'll get into it, though. Yeah. Because ah we actually have some information. Because ah that article that we're linking to ah for this episode, and and actually we're going to discuss this article in brief on our next episode as well. Yeah. On our full episode that's out on the Archaeology Show on Monday. Yeah, we normally cover articles in like, you know, 12 to 15.
00:07:06
Speaker
all to minutes or whatever so we'll do that brief cover but we really wanted to like dig in a little bit more to our review of the movie and like all that kind of stuff on this yeah but for sure for sure so All right. Well, let's talk about it. And because we also have another article I want to talk about a little bit later and then we'll end. We'll end and, you know, stick around. We'll end with a little bit of a ah APN tenure anniversary celebration.
00:07:31
Speaker
and Incidentally, he hasn't mentioned it anywhere. Not that I expected him to, but Kristen co-founded this with me. If you saw the the thing that he did earlier for Modern Myths.
00:07:42
Speaker
you he talks about starting this network and him starting his first podcast, but you know, he's a whiskey fan. Like I'm a whiskey fan and he likes Lagavulin, which is a Scotch ah whiskey.
00:07:54
Speaker
And I sent him one of the Nick Offerman edition Lagavulin bottles. And, uh, I haven't even tried it. I really want to try the Nick Offerman one. The barrel-aged Nick Offerman one. It's a 16, I think it was a 16-year-old Lagavulin. Oh my gosh. Yeah, it was it was pretty good. So we've got our own little celebration we're going to do. yeah Unfortunately, we don't have Nick Offerman Lagavulin. You know, not my thing, so like I'm kind of okay with it, but you know.
00:08:21
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. You do, you. So anyway, let's talk about this. These these gladiators and stuff. And because what what is hollywood good Hollywood get right? What are some myths that people think about gladiators and what's the truth behind them? And you had found one article, I think, that came from National Geographic. Let me look at my note here. It's actually pretty good. Yeah. And then I actually found a second one that was from Smithsonian. So I think we got our two favorite ones.
00:08:46
Speaker
like places that publish articles in this. And um we just sort of went through it to see, you know, what the movies did right, what they did wrong. And because both movies, both one and two were directed by, I think, Ridley Scott, so the same person, they really do have the same feel and the same flow with them. right The costuming was all beautiful, you know, yeah in both of them. Oh, by the way, I watched one today, so I've caught up.
00:09:09
Speaker
and I can be called an archaeologist now. yes I've seen the first one, so I'm good. i mean But yeah, so the the movies flow really well. They've got this nice costume. It's really beautiful.
00:09:20
Speaker
The acting is fantastic. And I felt like that was true for the second one as well as the first one. so um But, you know, these are movies about figures, historical figures in history, but it's more like a group of people rather than an actual person.
00:09:35
Speaker
so this is what these articles that we found were about is like, what did they get right about this sort of amorphous group of people in history? Yeah. And so the first one is, well, just quickly, what who gladiators
Gladiator Myths and Realities
00:09:50
Speaker
are. They are seen as strong warriors. They are often armed with exotic weapons while fighting one-on-one.
00:09:55
Speaker
And they fight in various settings in any story involving Imperial Rome and highlight and contrast the brute strength of the fighters and the pampered decadence of the elite. Yeah. And like that's like who they were. that's what they were doing, right? Yeah.
00:10:09
Speaker
Yeah, so so the first myth that the ah that the article goes over is, did they have nicknames? Yeah. Because I didn't actually remember this, and maybe you saw this watching Gladiator. I did, just watching the first one, yeah. Apparently, Maximus, from the first one, his nickname was The Spaniard. Yeah. And again, I didn't really remember that.
00:10:25
Speaker
But it's true. ah you yeah You might think that nicknames and things like that, and this sort of gladiatorial combat comes from, ah they even mentioned this in the article, like, you know, WWF or WWE, whatever your flavor is these days.
00:10:37
Speaker
But... it's ah It's not true. It goes all the way back to ancient Roman times. And it makes sense, right? Because it's a very theatrical thing. It's theatrical now, wrestling is, right? And it was theatrical back then, even with Coliseum as your stage. So, yeah.
00:10:53
Speaker
Tilly, what would your gladiatorial nickname be? I think I'm just going to go with Webby. ah I'm the knitter. Watch out. The knitter? i have I fight with sharp ah sharp objects. She will tie you into knots.
00:11:05
Speaker
She will tie you into knots.
00:11:08
Speaker
Oh God. Nerds. Okay. All right. um Yeah. So they they were known by these personas and they had fans. They had followings. They were famous. And it does present this like weird dichotomy between these people who will get into a little bit more like who they were and what their backgrounds were. But like it's this dichotomy of these people who are kind of pressed into this service as gladiators in a lot of cases.
00:11:34
Speaker
And they were seen as not like... I don't know. They were looked down on by Roman society, but they were also revered as see these fighters. So it's really this like dichotomy and this bipolar like view of of yeah what they were and who they were. So it's interesting.
00:11:51
Speaker
And also history, just studying archaeology and and following the Archaeology Podcast Network will teach you that nothing's ever new. We just rehash old things over and over and over again because these guys even had signature moves and equipment sometimes, which like Mortal Kombat, if you were a child of the 80s and early 90s, you played Mortal Kombat, you played Street Fighter. All those fighting type games, even like Mike Tyson's Punch-Out on freaking Super Nintendo. Was it Super Nintendo or regular Nintendo? don't remember. I didn't play any of those games. Somebody But it's those things, they all have like signature moves. Yeah. And that's not a new thing. Ancient Romans did it first. Yep.
00:12:31
Speaker
Totally. Totally. so yeahp There was a real superstar back then. Henei's name was Celidus the Thracian. love that. I know. It's so it's so great. Yeah. Apparently there's graffiti in Pompeii that celebrates his victories and his p popularity with, and it specifically says the girls in parentheses. I was going to say the ladies. Well, what I was reading is that they... they are fangirls.
00:12:52
Speaker
is like one of the first instances of like actual fangirls, like similar to what you think of today. And these these women, young girls were just obsessed with these gladiators. So and I guess it's not much different than it is now, right? Mike Tyson's punch out was original NES.
00:13:09
Speaker
Oh, okay. All right. Well, that was that predated me a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Did they always fight to the death? Yeah, i love that one because they do make it seem like they're always fighting to do the death in the movies.
00:13:21
Speaker
Like, even when one gives up, like, there's a couple times in both the first movie and the second movie where ah gladiator gives up in a battle and then the the Caesars, whoever they were at the time, you know, give the order to kill the one that didn't, that they decide is supposed to have died, right?
00:13:39
Speaker
Well, that kind of complete fiction made up by this movie because they needed the brutality and the emotional... Made all bloody movies. Yeah, know all movies, but they wanted that emotional situation where somebody is dying, right?
00:13:52
Speaker
um the The reason that they didn't often die is because... You know, they were, even if they were criminals or prisoners of war or slaves or somebody who was forced to be a gladiator, and many were, also many were people that volunteered to do it that from the lower classes, but they were put into basically gladiator school.
00:14:11
Speaker
yeah And so much money, so much time, so much effort was going into making them these super fit, strong fighters that their owners, essentially sponsors, whatever you want to call them, and was not about to let these guys die if they could help it.
00:14:26
Speaker
Yes, they did die sometimes. It did happen. But and it would often end in a draw. Because, you know, preserve yourself for your next battle, right? And again, a modern equivalent, the United States military.
00:14:37
Speaker
I don't know how other militaries do it, but you often hear of people saying, oh, it was either jail or the Marines, ah which is not, it's not wrong. People actually do that. They're saying, hey, you go into military service and we will, you know, forgive whatever thing you did. like like really ah There was at least two people that I knew in my squadron um that were not, there and weren't Marines, they were Navy, I was in the Navy, that were facing um jail time if they didn't go into the Navy. They didn't ok well yeah they were minor offenses, it's not like they killed anybody, yeah yeah but they were just like you know kids who were just not down a right path, and they said, you join the military and we'll yeah forgive all this stuff, right? but Yeah.
00:15:17
Speaker
That's the thing is this was i feel like this should be the the slogan of the military because this was in the article. It says it was a career, not a punishment. Gladiators was um because, you know, there were, like she said, criminals and POWs sometimes pressed into gladiatorial service, if you will. But um yeah, for the most part, these people wanted to be there.
00:15:35
Speaker
i yes Yes and no. The article that I found said out that there was a good mixture of both. yeah But even somebody who was pressed into service as a gladiator because they were a slave or a prisoner of war kind of ended up going with it because it it just would end up making a better life for them in their position as a slave.
00:15:52
Speaker
In the movies, it indicates that they could like maybe buy their freedom somehow. And I didn't find that that was necessarily true. stuff that I read, but I honestly didn't like deep dive that one.
00:16:02
Speaker
So maybe it did happen sometimes, but it seems like it wasn't necessarily like a thing. they just They just lived better. They just lived better essentially by, you know, fighting the way that their masters or their owners wanted them to.
00:16:19
Speaker
Stephanie from Pass Macabre saying she has a pic of um his tomb that she can't find right now. I'd love to see the photo roll on your photo. Oh my God, you have, your pictures are the best. On your phone, Stephanie. um Yeah. It's just like tombs and all that stuff. Yeah. Anyway.
00:16:33
Speaker
All the cool places that we need to go to. An archaeologist's photo roll. um Alright. Did we mention they survived their bouts 9 out of 10 times? um We didn't, but that was the yeah statistic. And I saw another one that said 5% of the gladiators over time would have died in combat.
00:16:49
Speaker
Or because of combat. Less death than you would think. Now, in Gladiator 2, we're not really giving much away here, but... Little spoilery, but I think it's probably in the preview, right? they do ah They do a decent job of doing a mock naval battle in the Coliseum where they fill it with water. Yeah.
00:17:06
Speaker
Which they did do. That is real, and we'll talk about that a little bit more, but yeah. In Gladiator 2, I believe I even whispered to you or something, I was thinking of it, but there were massive sharks world.
00:17:17
Speaker
at least three of them that I saw, maybe four, in the Coliseum that like when somebody got chucked over the board um on one of these boats, they got, you know, eaten by a shark immediately.
00:17:28
Speaker
And I'm like, but my my first thought was just like, I'm like project. think we were just like laughing. I'm like a project manager. ah First off, I'm thinking, okay, the water's one thing. how do the They must like divert some aqueducts to get in there. I can buy the water. I found the research on that. We'll get there. yeah I can buy the water. yeah I do not buy ancient Romans transporting 15-foot-long sharks to the Coliseum. I don't care how close the water was at that time. Keeping them alive. yeah keeping them you know i mean, i guess they would want you would want them to be hungry. but Yes, stuff so so so there were zero sharks. Yeah. Yeah. And I think in that article that you found, the director was quoted as saying, who says they could have gotten sharks there? Prove it. And I'm like, well, okay, fine. You're not wrong. We can't prove it. But it does seem highly unlikely. Yeah. However, it did make for a really great scene in the movie because they flooded the Coliseum. And we know that that is true. We'll talk a little bit more about how they did that and when they did that in a second.
00:18:26
Speaker
And then they staged this like mock naval battle between two ships and it was really dramatic and it was super cool. And honestly, I think that scene alone is worth seeing it in the theater because it's just so dynamic.
00:18:38
Speaker
And I don't know if we said this yet, but we did both really like the movie. And that scene in part was one reason why i liked it because I thought it was just... I do agree with Vitrivious here. He says if the Romans wanted to have sharks, they could.
00:18:49
Speaker
The Romans could do anything, obviously. yes But apart from sharks, mock naval battles, and gladiators, yes what else have the Romans done for us? What have they done for us? Well, they do aqueducts?
00:19:01
Speaker
They did aqueducts. They did aqueducts. So the reason the aqueducts are important... You know, I was setting you up to do that quote later in the episode. Okay, well, great.
00:19:14
Speaker
So, okay. All right. There's no record of them breaking sharks, but that's fine. um They did do these mock naval battles, though, and they did flood the Colosseum. And we know that they did that. They were doing stuff like this even before the Colosseum was built in other places. Yeah.
00:19:27
Speaker
Even as early as Julius Caesar's reign from, you know, before the Colosseum. So, like, this was definitely happening. Happening. But, okay, so this is a really cool dude named Cassius Dio, and he was a Roman historian who was writing all kinds of historical texts about Romans about 100 years after this happened.
00:19:44
Speaker
So, it's later than it, but he at least would have been within touching distance of the people who who lived in this time period. So, you know, it's a pretty good, like... resource And he wrote that Titus, the emperor of Rome, staged a sea fight impersonating the Corsarian and Corinthians in a naval battle from 434 BCE at the opening of the Colosseum. And the Colosseum opened in 80 CE.
00:20:10
Speaker
So it kind of seems like this is a little bit what they were mimicking with the movie is this naval battle or one similar to this. And so they did a pretty good job of that because that definitely did happen. And it really was like trying to, you know, show two ships fighting. So, um and then as far as flooding the Colosseum itself, this is so cool.
00:20:28
Speaker
Somebody has done a hydraulic study on the Colosseum and they concluded that with the Agua Claudia, which is the aqueduct that would have applied water to the Colosseum and the surrounding area at that time,
00:20:42
Speaker
They could have flooded the entire Coliseum deep enough to hold boats and also to like just have a a like wet area to just do whatever they were doing. You know, yeah they could do that in 34 to 76 minutes, depending on how much water they wanted to put in there. That's quick. 34 to 76 minutes.
00:21:01
Speaker
That's like intermission. Right. And then they're full of water. So, yes, it definitely could be done. And it was done. Stephanie actually said that Julius Caesar started the mock naval battles because it was a recreation of his victory over Egypt ah at Alexandria. She says her.
00:21:16
Speaker
I knew she studies Egypt, but her study, her site in Egypt is in the Roman era. She's yeah yeah yeah she's like, I might get annoying. ah No, I love it. I love it because like we do the research, you know, but like we're only two people and we only have so much time. So like we can't go down every single rabbit hole, you know, she even says it was the wrong kind of sharks.
00:21:34
Speaker
i love that' perfect I was kind thinking that I was like, weren't those like great white sharks? Those are in the Pacific ocean, right? Like not even accessible to the Mediterranean probably. So right anyway.
00:21:47
Speaker
All right. Next thing. So another kind of myth was, ah well, another thing people were kind of wondering about, I guess, was the diversity of ancient Rome because I mean, let's be honest, Denzel Washington in the second one, a black man, yes um you know, ends up,
00:22:03
Speaker
Becoming kind of a de facto ruler yeah of ancient Rome. Plus, there's a whole bunch of other people. You've got this doctor character who is, um what is he like? Probably Arabic of sort. Probably Arabic, yeah. yeah um And you've just got people from all over. So how how true is that? Well, we've both been to Pompeii. We know how diverse...
00:22:21
Speaker
the Roman Empire was, I guess. Yeah. Just being in Pompeii and looking at some of that. but Yeah. But it was really diverse. Yeah. Diverse. And they got they kind of got that right in Gladiator 2. They did. And there was probably a lot...
00:22:34
Speaker
There was probably like biracial rulers and stuff and like things that aren't necessarily least specifically written in the histories because it was just sort of common to kind of have mixed heritage in Rome because of the way they were conquering the surrounding areas, Northern Africa, um the Middle East, and bringing the peoples into the empire.
00:22:53
Speaker
And it just kind of like naturally created a bit more of a melting pot than you had in other places. So yeah. And so Denzel Washington's character, which we're gonna talk about him a little bit more because i I did more research on him. I was interested in that character, um was actually from Algeria. What is today Algeria. So he was from North Africa. So yeah, it makes sense that he would have been black or Arabic or something like that. Yeah. Okay.
00:23:20
Speaker
So something that's kind of the end of the article, they they only covered like four myths about gladiators, something like that. But we wanted to dive in a little bit because I i mean, I left i'm i'm I'm not a Roman scholar, unlike some of the people in the chat here, Steph.
00:23:32
Speaker
ah But and well, at least an ancient Egyptian Roman scholar. Very cool place to be. But I was curious about the brothers, the Emperor brothers. yeah I had no doubt that there was some sort of Emperor brother thing happening in Rome. They've been around for a long time. But how true was that to the story? What was going on there? So we deep dive we he dove, yeah dived deep deep divin. We jumped straight into Gaeta and the two brothers that were the emperors during this um during gladiator during gladiator 2 yeah yeah because they are portrayed as little crazy a little delulu yeah like they are they are special and they even indicate at one point that one of the brothers has like i think they're going for syphilis right like they indicated that his disease that affects your loins is affecting your brain or whatever like one of those kind of comments so like that's syphilis i think is what they were trying to indicate right So we're like, okay, are these guys real?
00:24:29
Speaker
Did these things really happen to them? Like, who were they? Yeah. And it was um the the research I found. what First off. Oh, their names. Yes. We haven't even said that. Well, Gaeta and Carcalla, we said that. Oh, did you say that? Okay. um We usually edit this stuff out. Welcome the live show. Hello. Hello.
00:24:46
Speaker
but Anyway, interestingly, i didn't actually write down his full name because i didn't really care that much because he has like 18 names. But Caracalla is a his nickname, basically. i didn't really say where that came from. But his first name that's part of his full name was Lucius.
00:25:00
Speaker
Yeah. Which was the name of the main character, basically, in Gladiator 2, who was the carryover from Gladiator 1. Yes. So I thought that was an interesting... It is interesting. I'll explain the connection to you as we go because I... I did not find that. I went a little bit further with the people. I got really interested in the people yeah in the movie. And you know why? I think it's because... i think something that modern movies that are like historical period pieces, they like to pluck out big names, big characters, real people, and use them.
00:25:32
Speaker
And then... but like more as background and then have their main people, their main characters be completely fictional. So they can do whatever they want with them. They can kill them.
00:25:43
Speaker
You know, they can marry them off to whoever they want, have them, whatever happened. But these other guys, these rulers, those kinds people are real, but they are still like tweaking who they were and what happened to them. So Gaeta and Caracalla were two that definitely like personal a little bit. So, yeah. Yeah.
00:26:01
Speaker
Well, they did both. ah Well, the movie, first off, takes place between, well, their rule together. Their rule. Their actual rule. 209 to 211 CE. Yeah. ah That's what they ruled together.
00:26:14
Speaker
Yes. And the movie does take place during about that time. So that part is accurate. Yeah. And Caracalla is interesting because he is the older brother and he was actually emperor from 198 to 217.
00:26:28
Speaker
And then his brother Gaeta was named co-ruler in 209. So he kind of joined him in 209. Yeah. But Caracalla was not super interested in like sharing the role with his brother. and I guess they just didn't get along very well in general.
00:26:44
Speaker
yeah. They didn't, and that's what I thought was an interesting departure from the movie, because the movie depicted them as, I don't know... Sort of supporting each other? Yeah, both crazy, and both liking and hating the same things, and both being crazy together. yeah And ah that doesn't seem to be the case. In fact, in one of the things I read...
00:27:02
Speaker
their servants weren't even allowed in different parts of the palace together. Yeah. Like, they were just like... Because they didn't trust each other. No, they didn't trust each other. Yeah. So... Yeah. um Eventually, it was only about three years into old Gaeta's rule, but... Yeah....Karakela basically had him killed by the Praetorian Guard. Yeah.
00:27:19
Speaker
And...
Historical Figures vs Film Portrayals
00:27:20
Speaker
And then Caracalla, his downfall happened in 217. And it wasn't a good death either. he was... Steph said they also killed all of his servants too. Oh, I'm sure they did. Of course, right? You have to.
00:27:36
Speaker
Caracalla was stabbed to death while urinating on the side of the road. And supposedly acting... Supposedly by a legionary that was acting on the orders of Machinus.
00:27:49
Speaker
And now... Okay, great. He was murdered too. Sounds like these guys were terrible rulers and they eventually got what was coming to them probably. So, and that is sort of true of how they were depicted in the movie too.
00:28:02
Speaker
But, but Macroness, you might, if you've seen the movie or you're going to see the movie, you might recognize that name because Macroness is the character in the movie as well. And he is portrayed by the scheming gladiator trainer as they described him, who was played by Denzel Washington that we talked about earlier. Yeah. And Denzel Washington, and this is a little bit of a spoiler alert, but his character, Macronus, is his like ultimate goal basically is to topple the entire Roman Empire, which is like, like a really big goal for like one human too to have. But I guess he was treated poorly by Marcus Aurelius in the past. He might have been a slave. He's basically mad at all the Romans. So yeah he wanted to take them down. he had an agenda. Yeah, he did. and
00:28:48
Speaker
but he's got his real history of the real person is super fascinating. So he was born in modern day Algeria, like I said earlier, and he was a member of what is called the equestrian social class.
00:28:59
Speaker
And that would have been directly below the senatorial class. So pretty high up there, right? And he rose to prominence as a lawyer and a bureaucrat before he eventually assumed control of the Praetorian Guard, who were, like you were saying, the personal protectors of the empire, yeah ah of the emperor.
00:29:17
Speaker
And yeah, so he got pretty high up there, and but he wasn't technically a member, you know, a senator or a member of the senatorial class. But he did run the this guard, this Praetorian Guard, and so he had the loyalty of the soldiers, of the men on his side, and he used those men to assassinate Caracalla.
00:29:38
Speaker
And by doing so, he got the throne for himself, essentially. Yeah, I mean, in the movie, he maintained rule for about six, seven minutes, maybe. yeah um Yeah, it wasn't very long. yeah It wasn't long, and it it almost didn't seem like he was trying to be the ruler. He was trying to escape Rome, it seemed, like where he got kind of caught between the yeah two armies who were coming at each other at the end the movie. Yeah, he seemed like he may have been headed out, but... Yeah, yeah. yeah so He reigned for 14 months. i don't know if you said that not. No, I haven't said that yet.
00:30:10
Speaker
Yeah, go ahead. ah Yeah, he was inclined to use diplomacy rather than force, so he was probably seen as better than the other guys. Yeah, and so, like, way different from the movie character, who was scheming in the background, but, you know, the real guy kind of just wanted to, like, make peace with everybody, sounds like. Yeah, but then he pulled a bad political move and cut new recruit wages and lost the army support. Yep. Yeah, so they basically executed and moved on to the next ruler. A lesson I think we could all take from politics, really. Yeah.
00:30:39
Speaker
yeah You need the army support on your side, especially in ancient Rome. If you don't have your their their support, you know, you're not going to get too far. And he lost their support. It seems like a pretty petty thing to lose their support over.
00:30:50
Speaker
So I'm guessing it wasn't like the the best, the best support to begin with, probably. But anyway, that's what happened to him. It seems like it would have been the good start of a reign if he had been able to go anywhere with it.
00:31:03
Speaker
It turns out Lucilla was a real person. She was a holdover from the G1. Yes, and doing research on her like made me love her more than any other characters. Even though, mean, she's like a little bit annoying.
00:31:17
Speaker
chi She's a little whiny in the movie. They could have made her a little more powerful. They could have made her like a little bit more badass, but yeah that's alright. We'll figure forgive them for that. um But she was a real person, and she's pretty cool. So she was the actual daughter of Marcus Aurelius.
00:31:31
Speaker
yeah And the sister of Comedas. Commodus. Commodus. Commodus. Who are the characters from the first movie. If you'll remember, Commodus is the one who was played by Joaquin Phoenix and he was, you know, the major bad guy in the first movie.
00:31:47
Speaker
and You know, Commodus wasn't the first person named Commodus there. He was the Commodus 64s. Oh, God. Why are you like this? like Why do I have to live like this? Am I the only one that was hearing that?
00:32:01
Speaker
Did he say Commodus? Yes. You are alone, sir. this is my life. yeah Anyway. Okay. So Lucilla.
00:32:12
Speaker
Okay. So here's where you were talking about the Lucius connection. Yeah. So Lucilla did have an actual son named Lucius Varys. And he died young and he couldn't have been the secret child of a general turned gladiator because, well, obviously Maximus, you know, is fictional from the first movie.
00:32:32
Speaker
And I don't remember if we kind of talked, we didn't want to like give away the whole plot of the movie, but it is sort of an important thing. Lucius, the boy from the first movie who was the... son of Lucilla is our gladiator in the second movie. He's been sent away to in hiding after Commodus dies and they're dealing with the aftermath of that. So you saw the first one, you kind of assume that. Yeah. first Yeah. You know, there's gonna be a connection. And so Lucilla is the same character from the first movie as well, and she's in it.
00:33:00
Speaker
And anyway, she just is super interesting. She was a real person. She had this real son. He died young, and they just kind of took that name and turned him into a character that they could use for the movie. I don't know. I'm not mad about it. It's fine. yeah It's fun and entertaining. Yeah, Commodus, played by Joaquin Phoenix. Wait, hold on. We have to talk about how Lucilla died, because this is pretty important. how she died, yes You checked off my note without actually looking at it. Oh,
00:33:26
Speaker
More stuff we usually edit out. Hashtag editing. So Lucilla was, Lucilla's plotline and her life story is completely altered for these movies because she could not have been, ah she was not alive during the reign of Gato and, Gato.
00:33:43
Speaker
Gato and what's his name? Caracalla. Yeah, Caracalla. ah She was not alive. She was executed in 182 CE for conspiring to overthrow Commodus, her brother.
00:33:53
Speaker
So she was executed by him for, you know, trying to be better than he was because he was a terrible ruler, apparently. yeah Now we'll tell you why he was terrible.
00:34:04
Speaker
Which actually is a kind of a brilliant piece of writing in the movies because that never happened because Maximus, the fictional character, killed Commodus. Yeah, I know. It's like an alternate history of Rome or something like that. And and she was able to... Let's just say that they were going that. She was able to live another decade and a half. Yeah.
00:34:20
Speaker
Yeah. Rather than just like messing with real history. don't know. It's kind of frustrating sometimes though because these people have such interesting real stories and there's so much there that they could have used to make the story. Yeah.
00:34:32
Speaker
But because they were trying to make connections between people that were high born senators Caesars whatever and gladiators they had to create these fictional connections because otherwise they're just Oh the gladiators would never have even crossed paths with the These higher born people except in the arena when they were watching them as spectators So that's what the movie had to do and i'm truly not mad about it because it just created the plot what it is and it was fun Yeah, yeah, I think it's great Indeed. Yeah.
00:35:02
Speaker
All right, so let's talk about Commodus because he's he's pretty good. Yes, Commodus. Well, his plot line is obviously great. And who he was in the movies is very similar to who he was in real life. Yeah.
00:35:16
Speaker
He was described by Roman historian Cassius Dio as a bloodthirsty emperor who devoted most of his life to ease and to horses to combats of wild beasts and of men. That's a hell of a description right there.
00:35:29
Speaker
know. That's one of my tombstones, no matter what I do. wait Wait, which one of those specifically? To horses? A life of ease. didn't know you liked horses that much. To ease and to podcasts.
00:35:43
Speaker
Okay. And to... All right, sounds good. All of them. Yeah, all of them. Yeah. Yeah. And so we're we're thinking that description is probably talking about combats that were held in the Coliseum, obviously, yeah because this is in that he was in the heyday of the Coliseum. Yeah.
00:35:58
Speaker
yeah Most accounts of Commodus indicate that he was a terrible ruler. He insulted his senators. He played favorites and was generally scandalous. And basically everybody hated him from the high born to the low born and everybody in between. So, yeah.
00:36:14
Speaker
I mean, if you're not doing it right, not enough people hate you then. Yeah. don't know what to tell you Well, you know what happens if a lot of people hate you. I know. In Rome, you better make some friends. Yeah. Well, on December 31st, 192 CE, was strangled in his bath by a wrestler named Narcissus.
00:36:31
Speaker
I mean, that seems appropriate. A life of ease and he's strangled taking a bath? I mean, didn't the Romans like spend a lot of time in bath? There's worse ways to go in Rome. um which I'm just going to say. Yeah.
00:36:41
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And so the reason that Narcissus strangled him is because... Basically there's a small group of conspirators. It consisted of his, of Commodus, his mistress, Marsha, the Praetorian prefect, Amelia's latest and his Chamberlain eclectus.
00:37:00
Speaker
They found themselves on a, basically a hit list and they're like, no, no, no, we are not going to let this guy murder us. So they took care of the murdering first.
00:37:11
Speaker
took care of the murder They got that done first by hiring you know wrestler to strangle him. feel like they could have fit another way, but you know what? It got the job done. So, yeah. yeah Anyway, that was the movie. I mean, we really liked it. It definitely takes some liberties with history and with who gladiators were, but it does some really cool things too, like showing how they flooded the Colosseum, which I don't know that a lot of people know that the Colosseum truly was flooded. So I like that part.
00:37:38
Speaker
Oh, one other thing we didn't mention is that gladiators were very specialized. And so in the movies, they always show like men and beasts coming together. In the new movie, there's like a big rhinoceros scene.
00:37:49
Speaker
In the old movie, i think there was like a lion or And in reality, that almost never happened because the gladiators were so specialized. There's like a whole special class of like hunter gladiators who would actually hunt the animal in the arena and kill it.
00:38:04
Speaker
And then the meat would be given out to the spectators. So it was ah a hunting spectacle, not a fighting spectacle in that case. So, you know, they sort of like lumped all the things that would happen in the Coliseum together these movies, which, you know, artistic license and all that, I guess we can kind of okay with it. Yeah. Yeah.
00:38:23
Speaker
I mean I'm still fine with it I thought it was a good movie so okay but enough on gladiators yeah I guess so all right oh and like everybody is super hot this is just for the girls just for my ladies just well don't be don't be gender but don't be gender biased oh yeah obviously just for like cool whatever your preference is lots of abs sure lots and lots of abs lot of a lot of hotness in the movie All right, i'm gonna I'm gonna share my screen here because we're gonna talk about one other really quick article here because we need your help.
00:38:59
Speaker
Oh my God, this is so silly. We need your help. So it turns out- don't help. It turns out in Scotland, um there is ah in Aberdeenshire, which I know that Tilly knows about and I know Tristan knows about. um There's a visitor center.
00:39:16
Speaker
It's a prehistoric visitor center. I think it said Neolithic in here somewhere, but it was basically built. uh opened in 1997 by time team uh and black outer star tony robinson dedicated to ancient history and culture of northeast scotland okay um and it is archaeolink yes tilly um and conan's saying the most boring right so i know i love that was in the title right that's just like sad and uh The thing is here, they put they spent $4 million dollars creating this thing. The
Archaeolink and APN Future Plans
00:39:50
Speaker
town council or whatever, Scottish National Heritage and Aberdeenshire Council and this Grampian Enterprise thing put in ah more money, $2.5 million dollars later on, just to revitalize the whole thing and still nobody went.
00:40:03
Speaker
And I'm like, now it's ยฃ150,000. And I'm like, you can't get a house for that. We can do this, guys. Like, we'll just put up some tents. I'll get my um RV there. let's just Let's just get an APN crowdfund that. That's what I'm talking about.
00:40:18
Speaker
We need somebody to set up a GoFundMe because I feel like if we set it up ourselves, it's not really it's not really right. my gosh. So we'll set up a GoFundMe. We'll buy this in the name of the APN and then we'll just have campouts there. and We'll just have like APN live shows there. That'll be the background of all APN events. Tilly says they were terrible at marketing. Experimental Archaeology Center stuff, that's an excellent idea. Yeah, totally. It sounds like a couple of you guys went there and it was cool.
00:40:42
Speaker
what happened? Tilly said she went there as a kid, but then it got so shut down. I got to tell you, i i'm I'm just looking at the pictures here, of course. And i notoriously, you'll hear me say this on a number of podcasts if you listen to pretty much any show I've ever done.
00:40:57
Speaker
I hate museums. And I only hate museums because they're done poorly. You just hate like the progression of artifacts. i hate like Almost without context half the time. it like like One of the worst museums I've ever been in is actually um ah that one in Naples, that archaeology museum, which is supposed to be... They've got so many cool things in it, and they just did it so poorly. It's like, yeah look at all of our fantastic stuff.
00:41:20
Speaker
It's just like statues and busts. And you just parade through these halls of statues and busts. And one of the best one of the best museums, it's not even a museum, it's a visitor center. One of the best visit but view visitor centers at our national parks in this country, if you've never been, are like museums in some cases. They do have artifacts. They have displays. They have you know things that are yeah from that park, really. And again, my kind of standard for all this is the one at Cahokia.
00:41:46
Speaker
Oh, yeah, that place was really cool. They just had this huge interior area that was that was like a full-size diorama of life at Cahokia. They like built this village with people and all these things. And it was just like you could really see artifacts being used. You could see see how people lived. yeah it was It was beyond just the thing and like how it was used and who used it and why and all that.
00:42:11
Speaker
just gave more life to these things. but And that's what I'm getting out of this one, this Archaeolink one, right? It's it's just, i'm I'm seeing these things that you can actually go in and see and and look at. And, oh, coolest tech gadgets of 2024. Wait a minute. Oh, anyway. um And I just, it looks like they did some, like, you know, recreations there. And and just they they did all these kinds of cool things. And um I'm just like, why?
00:42:35
Speaker
but didn't this Why didn't this get more play? Tilly, what's up? Why don't you tell anybody about it? Yeah, she said it was a management issue, she thinks. um Yeah. I suppose open air museums in Scotland, too. Like, bring a raincoat, right? so Yeah. um Anyway, I think that's... a Okay, well, goals for 2025, I guess, is to buy a visitor center in Scotland?
00:43:00
Speaker
Sure. Yes. Yes. All right, well, Rachel's going to keep entertaining you about why we are going to buy a visitor center in Scotland, and I'll be back in one minute. He's got something special that ah kind of knew about. He's trying to keep it a secret for me, but this is the 10 year anniversary. So don't hear me going to get it right now.
00:43:21
Speaker
But yeah, I can't imagine having a APN visitor center that's on a different continent than the one that we currently live on. But hey, maybe we'll just come over and visit more often. Right.
00:43:37
Speaker
here he comes.
00:43:41
Speaker
Alright, well, we're gonna close the show out. We're not the last ones to go today. Pseudo-archaeology is, but... ah we I mean, I'm not a huge champagne drinker, but Rachel is.
00:43:52
Speaker
I love the little champs. No, I went to buy just for... the camera's up here. I went to buy just for Effect a bottle of Dom, to be honest with you. Dom Pernier. But this snooty bastard at Total Wine here actually shamed me into buying this other one. That was like $30 cheaper. um i didn't even really care about that. I was like, going to buy the nice one. But he's like, this one's way better. Everybody gets Dom because it's Dom. I'm like, shut up, snooty bastard. So...
00:44:22
Speaker
This is anyway called Noble. Let's see. Let's get it out of this fancy box here. got a Noble 2004. two thousand and four You should have gotten one that started the same year. That's hard to find. Although Dom was pretty close. It was 2012. Yeah.
00:44:42
Speaker
So. I know. Snooty bastards. Alright. So what is... Let's hear some comments from the from the chat over here.
Listener Feedback and Team Acknowledgements
00:44:51
Speaker
um what If we were to change anything about the Archaeology Show, if you guys are listeners, um what would you do? Oh, God, are we asking for feedback right now? Are you opening really expensive champagne? I want feedback. Do you need some help here? and think' got this. This is not really your thing. I'm the one who opens the wine in our house. the champagne, damn it.
00:45:12
Speaker
Incidentally, this is how our show goes. You just don't get most of it. Conan likes the variety of the contact. Tilly says yeah pay for the hosts. I see it. yeah Thanks, Tilly. yep I don't know why we can't afford pay. I don't know, Tilly, why we can't afford pay for the hosts.
00:45:26
Speaker
I'm not really sure where the money is going. He is so annoying. Listen, you want to know what? I'm not sure I like him like a the time. You want to know what? I actually did something for the company that I work for. i keep looking down here.
00:45:39
Speaker
I did something for the company that I work for, and it was it's in in Australia, and they're super cool people. You've got to work for a company like this. because they i did this last-minute deal. It was a three-hour training for one of their big clients, and it was late at night my time. It was like 8 to 11 p.m. or 7 to 10 p.m. or something like that.
00:45:59
Speaker
They told me about it that morning and the person who was going to do it couldn't do it. And this client is like, we're going to walk if you don't do this. And so I did it And they sent me this gift card that you could basically convert into any other gift card. was like this online thing. I can't believe didn't buy fancy whiskey with it. was going to buy fancy whiskey, but I figured I'd celebrate the APN instead. not really a whiskey drinker. I know. but I know. So most of this cost actually came from that gift card, to be honest. Great. Well, popping it.
00:46:28
Speaker
Oh, you didn't even pop it. I didn't want to pop it. Okay. All right. Well, 10 years. right well ten years
00:46:37
Speaker
the APN I've really only been part of it for like four but you've been part of it for ten oh I've lived with it for ten you've lived if it pretend like it or not yeah you've been we've been with me when I was editing it 1230 at night i have and this is also to celebrate Rachel a little bit too she has because of the the work I'm doing and and just you know to help us out because obviously we live together and I needed somebody to really take a bigger load on the editing and and Rachel really did that. you know she She learned some of the editing, she was she was doing a little bit of it here and there, but then we just kind of made the conscious decision, ah it's more cost effective for me to do this other work that actually pays me more and for her to do the APN editing because ah here's the secret sauce here, nobody gets paid to do the APN editing.
00:47:27
Speaker
so And it's probably 15 to 20 hours a week on heavy weeks. And we just added four new shows, two of which were today's. Stephanie, thank you. um But it was just a little bit of a thank you, not that it's enough.
00:47:39
Speaker
you. I do love a nice fancy champagne, so I'll take it as my thanks. You've just set a precedent, though. ah I can't tell the difference. This could be $40. Are you kidding me? This is the most delicious thing I've ever drank. Oh, my God. We need to go share it with my sister. I need to go find somebody who actually knows it.
00:47:56
Speaker
Champagne's usually a little bitey for me, but this is super smooth. So anyway, ah thanks everybody for, you know, hanging out. Those of you that are here, Paul, we need to start up the ArcheoTech podcast again.
00:48:08
Speaker
Don't use this moment to shame Paul. I'm going to be on shame Paul right now. He hasn't commented at all. I don't know what he's doing. Anyway. No, thanks. Not just thanks to me, though. Thanks to everybody for creating the amazing content that you guys create.
00:48:21
Speaker
So much work into it. And I'm editing the episode, so I hear almost every single thing that is going out on the APN. And it's just all so wonderful. It's amazing. And you guys are all so smart and you're doing the coolest things. And I just, I love being part of this community.
00:48:36
Speaker
I complain about editing at 10 o'clock at night. so and And don't forget, don't forget before she logs off and and literally falls asleep because it's super late there and she has kids.
00:48:47
Speaker
ah This wouldn't have happened today if I weren't for Tilly. Yes. Tilly, you are amazing. I don't know what we would without you. The APN was just like bumping along, doing its thing, but ever since you joined it, you were putting so much content out. You were putting so much content out, but Tilly has helped the world know about this content, and so we appreciate her so much for that. really has.
00:49:07
Speaker
Yeah, she's really doing it. And now Ash, who's Tilly's co-host on Am I Trowel, is our executive producer now, and and she's really... We've been struggling to figure out what that term even means, and she's just taken it and run with it. She's just done amazing. she's keeping our She's keeping our new shows on track. She's keeping some of our existing shows on track. And it's just good to have somebody else in your corner saying, hey, I understand I'm here too, and I can help you out with scheduling and making sure you've got content coming up. Just somebody kind of keeping an eye on it. Yeah, definitely.
00:49:40
Speaker
yeah definitely and But yeah, thanks to everybody. Yep, indeed. Cheers. All right, well cheers to that. And cheers Thanks everybody. Don't go anywhere. The pseudo-archaeology podcast apparently, without Frederick maybe, if if I heard correctly, is coming up at the top of the hour, which should be in just about 15 minutes. So we are going to sign off. Thanks everybody for your good questions.
00:50:04
Speaker
And yeah we'll see you guys and we can see you guys next time. Thanks a lot.
00:50:16
Speaker
Thanks for listening to the Archaeology Show. Feel free to comment in and view the show notes on the website at www.archpodnet.com. Find us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at ArchPodNet.
00:50:27
Speaker
Music for this show is called I Wish You Would Look from the band Sea Hero. Again, thanks for listening and have an awesome day.
00:50:40
Speaker
The Archaeology Podcast Network is 10 years old this year. Our executive producer is Ashley Airy. Our social media coordinator is Matilda Sebrecht. And our chief editor is Rachel Roden. The Archaeology Podcast Network was co-founded by Chris Webster and Tristan Boyle in 2014 and is part of Cultural Media and DigTech LLC. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network.
00:51:01
Speaker
Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chris at archaeologypodcastnetwork.com.