Gladiator Introduction Paragraph - Morgan Stevenson

In “Gladiator”, Ridley Scott is trying to show us that the Roman Empire was designed to “kill, steal, and destroy” and by doing so, it gave them power and control over a population of many but destroy them in the end, like karma.  Maximus, a solider that became the best Gladiator ever due to enslavement and a will to survive, led the Romans in a victory in a battle against their enemy.  His heroic acts and devotion to the Roman Empire led Marcus Aurelius, the dying emperor of the Roman Empire, to appointing him to the position of Emperor of Rome but Marcus’ son wanted to be emperor so he killed his father before anyone found out that Marcus wanted Maximus to be emperor.  Soon there after, Maximus was forced into slavery and became a Gladiator, a man trained to fight with weapons against other men or wild animals in an arena for the entertainment of the ruler and citizens.  Throughout this movie, the Roman Empire is portrayed as a government of manipulation that controls its citizens by putting the fear in them through death, barbaric acts or other forms of torture, which is shown primarily through the cinematography.  According to this film, the Roman Empire was strong in a sense but yet weak because of the inhuman ways it operated and even though it was seemingly structured, it had no foundation and that’s the reason why it collapsed and only the Roman Catholic Church survived the fall of the empire.