The Two Gladiators By The Director Caiano - 960 Words

The film The Two Gladiators by the director Caiano has elements that are in alignment as well as contradictions with class materials and the book The Antonines: the Roman Empire which has the call number 937.07 G767a. The shortcomings of the films are contributed from the nature of dramatization, short budget, poor script and perhaps mediocre research effort. Despite so, there were five prominently consistent events portrayed in the film with the materials in class. The first was the succession of Commodus to his father’s throne of emperorship. In class, it was taught that the structure of the Roman Republic had evolved to that of an empire. Therefore instead of having a consul, an emperor existed in place. Although the principle of automatic inheritance was not the case as an emperor had to be deemed fit to rule and have the approval of the army and the bureaucracy. The second consistency found between the film and the teaching materials is the importance of the principle of duty or â€Å"officia† in the Roman Empire. When Commodus’ behavior was getting increasingly erratic, the senator, Tarruntius, started looking for Commodus’ twin, Lucius Crassus. Though the latter was caught off guard by his newly revealed identity, he tried to assume it as Tarruntius kept enforcing that it was his duty or rather a duty that a good emperor rule Rome. During class, the Romans were always said to have a sense of duty whether it be to repay someone or aid someone through the clientela