Strength and honor

Rating: 9/10 (22 May 2000)

When one boils down all the elements of "Gladiator", this is the one phrase in the entire film that stands out the most to me. These are ultimately the words Maximus (played by a stunning, rawly powerful Russell Crowe) lives by and dies by. To most of us at the other end of the two millenia mark, the idea is corny, a punchline for a bad joke (indeed, I felt that this have been the point of the little satirical presentation outside the Collusium). For soldiers, men who put their lives on the line every day, it's a way of life. It's what kept Maximus going, even after everything he ever loved or fought for (the ideal of Rome, the emperor that he fought under for so many years, his family) were no more. There's no honor in going to your grave with business unfinished. To finish it, therefore, you need strength. As the Romans were always hailed as a practical people, the motto makes perfect sense to me.
But "Strength and honor" go beyond even that simple definition in the film's context. Not only does Maximus use his strength to survive another brutal day in the arena against five heavily armed and armored opponents, but he lends his strength to his comrades-in-arm in a fixed reenactment, turning a certain slaughter into a triumph. Not only does Maximus' sense of honor stop him from hailing an emperor who has none of his respect, but also makes him spare the life of a fallen opponent the entire Collusium wants him to end...until the moment he doesn't.
Harlan Ellison has written that it is never the common man who changes things, but the uncommon man. If Ridley Scott's sheer visual epic is anything, it is a celebration of that man, a man who still believes in "Strength and honor".