How Is Gladiator Historically Accurate

Gladiator is a historical dramatic film set in Ancient Rome. It depicts the storyline of a general betrayed by the emperor’s son, of which he then ascends the gladiatorial battlefield to challenge him once again. The movie was made in the year 2000, and was shot in three separate locations spanning from England, Malta and Morocco. The characters in the play were depicted by actors such as Russell Crowe as Maximus the betrayed general, Joaquin Phoenix as Commodus the emperor’s son and Connie Nielsen as Lucilla Commodus’ sister. Gladiator in my opinion, is a moderately accurate historical representation of the events that took place in the latter half of 2nd century AD.
The historical setting starts in the winter of 180AD with the initial battle according to the opening text in the movie. The movie focuses on the events considering Marcus Aurelius and his son Commodus. It vaguely focuses on facts but interprets them in different ways than they actually took place, for example where and how Marcus met his death. The movie
The movie’s plotline still loosely follows the series of events that actually took place but has changed quite a lot of the facts. Gladiator warps the facts here because Marcus Aurelius supposedly was murdered by Commodus on the eve of this victory but Aurelius in fact passed away before going out to claim another land. Marcus did conquer many tribes and lands as emperor but did not in fact have a legendary general named “Maximus Decimus Meridius”. The events that actually took place in our historical timeline involve Marcus Aurelius passing away but not at the hand of his son Commodus. The official story states that Aurelius died from plague but some suspect that he was in fact murdered by Commodus. According to historical sources, Commodus was in fact a man of ill worth but Aurelius did give Commodus succession to the