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Political lawfare is ancient. Julius Caesar had to seize power to retain his immunity and stay out of jail.
Here’s a true story from a don at Cambridge. He once interviewed a girl for a place to study classics and – this is typical – she had nothing to say. Desperate for an insight into her mind, he asked: “is there anything about the Roman world that interests you?” Pause. “Gladiator,” she said. He thought: I can work with that. “And what interested you about Gladiator?” The politics? the culture? The games? “Russell Crowe,” she replied, and another application bit the dust.
I took mum to see Gladiator II last week at the Imax in London, the screen so big, I almost disappeared up Paul Mescal’s nose. Russell is much missed, but Ridley Scott still has things to say. Critics note that the sequel is more nihilistic than the original, released in the year 2000. The first movie suggested the Rome of Marcus Aurelius, the philosopher-emperor, was a fine idea gone wrong under his son Commodus – and could be redeemed by good men in skirts (Crowe likened his costume to a netball uniform).
For Rome, read America, pre-9/11 – so full of promise. Two decades later, the tagline of Gladiator II has become “Rome Must Fall”, because it was rotten from conception and gagging for a sacking. The villains are twin emperors who fight endless wars against blended barbarians and distract the deplorable plebs with violent sports. Their faces are painted to disguise syphilis the way Trump’s is to hide old age, and the scene where one appoints his monkey a consul touches a nerve. “Arise Matteus Gaetus…”
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