How does the film Gladiator depict the Roman army?

Answer 1

Poorly, but still could be worse.

The film Gladiator (2000) spent huge amount of money for making huge scale for the battle between Roman Empire and the Germanic barbarians. Less amount of money was spent for hiring good historians to make every detail to be right. Or then the advisors had no impact over Ridley Scotts "artistic vision".

The movie takes place from year 180 AD (the death of Marcus Aurelius) onwards.

What is good that the Roman army looks good. When looked from far, it looks pretty accurate, the legionaries and the auxiliary bowmen alike. But nearer examination reveals that they have used some artistic licence in the equipment.

Helmets of the legionaries should be of Imperial Gallic or Imperial Italic type (Google them for pictures), instead they are of nonexistent type, made for the movie. Looks like a Roman helmet for general viewer, but are just similar to the real thing.

Armour of the legionaries is made cheaper, since it only has front pieces, it does not cover the sides and back of a soldier, like the real segmented armour did. That's why legionaries in "Gladiator" are all wearing capes, which ordinary soldiers didn't really wear at battle. The real armour is called Lorica Segmentata.

Swords should be of Gladius Pompeii type, not Gladius Mainz, which' blade broadens towards the tip (Scott apparently thought that type of sword looks cooler).

Shields look accurate. Bigger flaw is that the legionaries drop their shields too easily, scutum was the most important piece of equipment of a roman legionary, and they should never drop it in a battle or they would easily be killed.

Javelins are completely missing. Roman battle tactic was to throw a pilum and then move to sword combat with gladius. "Gladiator" doesn't have pila at all, for budget reasons I assume.

Bracers. Romans didn't really wear bracers. People have just seen them in every Hollywood epic that they instantly think of ancient times when they see bracers, so they are still used in every Roman movie.

Maximus' equipment is all wrong. The helmet is similar to real ones, but has several artistic changes in it. His armour is also similar to real ones, but it has completely wrong shoulder guards, those Lorica segmentata shoulder pieces were never wore with Lorica musculata. After the movie Gladiator they appeared also in the game Rome Total war as well as later Roman movies. The pteryges (hanging strips of leather at the waist and shoulders) were in reality fastened to a subarmalis(padded cloth under the armour) and not to the armour itself, like they are in every single movie.

Then there is several movie clichés which are really annoying.

Roman battle tactics are all wrong. In fact there are no Roman battle tactics. First the Romans shoot fire arrows and pots of fire with catapults (they should brobably use ballistas instead of catapults, and Roman onager catapults had a sling in their throwing arm, not just a basket right on the arm, like in the movie).

Firing first is okay, but then the legionaries should use their pila, throwing spears at the enemy while runnign towards them and at the moment the javelins hit their target the legionaries were already at sword striking distance. Then they should punch the enemy with a shield first and then thrust the gladius into their stomach. In Gladiator the legionaries don't do this, instead they tend to lose their shields very easily and then they fight like swashbucklers of old Hollywood films. So wrong that can't be wronger. In ancient times swordsmen had shields to deflect the enemy's weapon blow and then thrust his own sword into the enemy. They never clashed blade against blade, since that was useless and not good for the weapons. This is a cliché and a mistake which occurs in every film set in ancient times. Other film cliché is that Maximus and all the important people don't wear helmets. Maximus has a helmet at first, but then he drops it in battle and fight without it (and without a shield) to the end. Hollywood just thinks that the audience supposedly won't recognize the main character and other important people from the average soldier if they wear helmets. That is stupid since Roman helmets are quite open so you can see the face of it's wearer, and the helmets of the commanders are different than soldiers' and they have big crests on them. This leads to the viewers to know that if a soldier doesn't have a helmet, he can't die in the battle, which is topsy-turvy.

Summa summarum, "Gladiator" has decent looking equipment for the Roman legionaries and the auxiliaries (for average viewer), Maximus' costume is fantasized version of the real thing, and the Romans doesn't have their tactics at all. But impressive number they have, and the army at whole looks good.

About the Germans, they are dressed like barbarians from the stone age, they should wear clothes, armours, helmets and better weaponry, now they just wear fur and some axes and clubs.

And the worst part is the gladiators in the arenas. They are complete fantasy. They wear armament from Greek, Roman, Arabic and Viking cultures over thousands of years of time period, and many gladiators have completely fantasy equipment, like Maximus' spiked helmet. Not a single one gladiator wears their real armament, if someone has a real helmet, he has a wrong weapon et cetera.

Ridley Scott School of History's principle is: "I invented it, but you can't prove that it didn't exist!"

Post scriptum: Although "Gladiator" has a big amount of historical inaccuracies, there is many movies, made before and after it, which are far worse in depicting the Roman army. Movies like "Centurion", "The Last Legion" and "The Eagle" are newer ones, and they didn't even have a budget to make a legion look like a legion. Gladiator has that, and it gives a good feeling of dirty soldiers in a war campaign and a grandeur scale of battle involving the Roman army.