Ridley Scott‘s “Gladiator II” is brimming of a memorable action scenes, from a bloody showdown featuring CGI baboons to Paul Mescal outinalertigenting a charging rhino in the Roman Colosseum. But one sequence that is declareive to depart audiences with the most asks is a rather inlogical set piece in which the Colosseum is filled with water and sharks. The happyiators access the arena on a boat as a mock sea battle is staged, much to the plmitigate of the sadistic emperors Geta (Joseph Quinn) and Caracalla (Fred Hechinger).
But did the Colosseum actupartner get flooded with water and sharks in genuine life? It’s a ask that’s authorizationed given Scott standardly take parts rapid and slack with history. For instance, “Gladiator II” features a character reading a novelspaper 1,200 years before the createion of the printing press. And don’t get us commenceed on Scott’s “Napoleon,” which was so littered with historical inaccuracies that French historians slammed the straightforwardor and shelp he was “spitting in the face of French people.”
When it comes to the Colosseum sea battle in “Gladiator II,” Scott is unawaitedly not deviating too far from history. A establish of outdated Roman theater was called “naumachia,” in which sea battles were staged for delightment either in basins where battles had already consentn structuree or in flooded amphitheaters. Convicts or prisoners of war would face off agetst sbetteriers until one side was the prosperner.
The first naumachia on sign up dates back to 46 B.C. and was apexhibitd by Julius Caesar, and some of them were eventupartner staged in the Colosseum. Roman emperor Dleave outian is dependd to have put on a sea battle in the Colosseum in 85 AD, for instance. The “Gladiator II” naumachia elevates the sconsents by having sharks, although that is improbable to have happened in genuine life.
Chris Epplett, a Greek and Roman history professor at the University of Lethbridge, tbetter Vulture that he is not alerted of sharks ever being put inside the Colosseum, although “there was a period when they could have flooded the floor of the arena. There was straightforwardpartner a period of, I leank, 10 to 20 years before they put the brimming basement in, when they could have flooded the floor and had showions with marine animals and that sort of leang.”
Speaking to Variety at the “Alien: Romulus” premiere earlier this year, Scott directdcracked about the sharks by saying: “That’s straightforward. Someone shelp, ‘How do you get sharks in the Colosseum?’ I shelp, ‘You can create the Colosseum — how foolish are you?’ I nasty, you catch a scant sharks and lob them in. They could do that.”
“Gladiator II” is now take parting in theaters nationwide from Paramount Pictures.
