# Gladiator story? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 7, 2000, 8:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gladiator-story/18816 "2000-05-07T08:59:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![chief](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/df788c/32.png) [@chief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chief)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2000, 8:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gladiator-story/18816/1 "2000-05-07T08:59:45Z")
was there any truth to the story of the movie? i dont think there is but, its possible ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2000, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gladiator-story/18816/2 "2000-05-07T10:00:26Z")
Not really, no. Clearly you didn’t stay and read the credits. At the end it says something like: > [@](#): > > Although this film contains historical characters and certain incidents are based on actual events, the story itself is fictional. Gave me kind of a laugh. Like there are any known descendants of Commodus who are gonna sue for libel… ---
**Author:** ![JBENZ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b77776/32.png) [@JBENZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JBENZ)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2000, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gladiator-story/18816/3 "2000-05-08T02:46:51Z")
It’s a remake of “The Fall of the Roman Empire”, more or less. See: [http://us.imdb.com/Details?0058085](http://us.imdb.com/Details?0058085) There is some historical truth to the history (Marcus Aurelius and Commodus) but the story itself is fictional. It also owes some debt to “Spartacus”. See: [http://us.imdb.com/Details?0054331](http://us.imdb.com/Details?0054331) Although the real Spartacus episode happened a good deal earlier.