Gladiator movies are not telling the real story about Rome

Modern-day moviegoers celebrate the gladiator as a symbol of masculinity. In ancient Rome, bravery is shallow without discipline.

- Melanie Racette-Campbell

For a modern audience, it's tempting to valorize the Roman gladiator – strong, brave, fierce – as a masculine ideal. Indeed, Ancient Rome has become for many young men an exemplar of a "lost" masculinity, as evidenced by the social media accounts and TikTok posts celebrating Roman culture.

For that crowd, Gladiator II, the blockbuster movie that arrived on Nov 22 in the US, with its arena battles and bloody clashes between sword-wielding warriors (and occasional live sharks), will be a welcome moment to celebrate a Roman notion of manly individualism. There's just one catch: To ancient Romans, gladiators were not ideals of masculinity, or of heroism.

In ancient Rome, gladiators served as entertainers, albeit on stages with very high stakes. They performed a spectacle of masculine bravery and were praised for their fighting; spectators were often watching as much for the expertise on display as for the blood. Bravery and skill in combat were certainly a significant part of the Roman conception of masculinity. But they weren't the only parts, or even the most important ones.

According to the historians, philosophers and poets whose writings we can study today, elite Roman men were supposed to exhibit a wide variety of virtues: courage in warfare, leadership in the military and political realm, harmony in their family life, and sociability in their wide networks of friends and clients. They were to contribute generously to their communities' well-being and responsibly manage their properties. They were, in short, meant to be well-rounded citizens: brave but disciplined; strong but dutiful; and always aware of their responsibilities to others and to society.