Caroline Vout

Jeffrey RichardsContinuum   227pp   £25 ISBN 978 1847 250070‘The very last thing Gladiator was about was actual Roman history’, writes Jeffrey Richards in his book about Hollywood’s renewed interest in the ancient world. And he is right; like all big-budget cinema, Ridley Scott’s film is principally entertainment, not education, driven by the need for profit rather than the quest for truth. Its inspiration is the gladiator movies of the 1960s as much as any ancient author; its Rome-scape, spectacular set-pieces with their roots in Victorian painting.