Great Story but Far From Historical

Rating: Null/10 (13 June 2001)

Firstly, Romans never referred to the Colloseum as the "Colloseum". It was called the Flavian Amphitheatre.
Commodus was an actual emperor who ruled from A.D. 180 to 192. He did indeed fight in the Colloseum against gladiators, and was quite good at it because he never lost (Maybe he cheated like in the movie).
His sister, Lucilla, did conspire with his wife Crispina to have him killed. They were caught and banished to an island and later killed.
His mistress Marcia tried to drug him to death but failed, so they had some athlete strangle him to death. He died on New Year's Eve A.D. 192.
He was a nut case, and was quite murderous, but that's about the only things real about the movie.
Other than the historical problems, the story was great. I liked Maximus and really hated Commodus. It was your basic struggle between good and evil.