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Minimalist wrote:but the Italian Newspaper Il Messagero has announced the find of the tomb of the gladiator who inspired the movie: Gladiator.
Hopefully there will be a translation available soon.
They named the ancient patrician as Marcus Nonius Macrinus, a proconsul who achieved major victories for Marcus Aurelius, emperor from 161 AD to his death in 180 AD.
Macrinus, a favourite of the emperor, is thought to have prompted the writers of the Ridley Scott film to imagine their ''general who became a slave, slave who became a gladiator, gladiator who defied an emperor,'' as the tag line to the 2000 epic said.
was not a classical scholar but had been inspired by Daniel P. Mannix’s 1958 novel Those About to Die and decided to choose Commodus as his historical focus after reading the Augustan History.
Another marketing exercise by the archaeo-heritage industry?The character of Maximus is fictional, although he is similar in some respects to the historical figures of Narcissus (the character's name in the first draft of the screenplay and the real killer of Commodus),[19] Spartacus (who led a significant slave revolt), Cincinnatus (the savior of Rome who wished nothing more than to return to his farm),[20][21] and Marcus Nonius Macrinus (a trusted general and friend of Marcus Aurelius).[22]