Big Screen Rome - Amazon Web Services

Plate 14 Gladiator. Lucilla (Connie Nielsen) and Maximus (Russell Crowe) exchange
tense words in the imperial camp at Vindobona. Courtesy of DreamWorks/
Universal/The Kobal Collection.
death, in anger and suspicion he refuses to give his loyalty to Commodus.
On his way to find the senators, Maximus is arrested by his former ally,
Quintus, now captain of the Praetorian Guard, who orders his men to
take the prisoner out and execute him. Maximus implores Quintus to
protect his family, but the captain replies they are marked for death. In
the forest, Maximus uses his courage and expert fighting skills to overcome
his captors, and escapes with a shoulder wound. Then he rides
without stopping through empty landscapes to save his wife and son.
When Maximus arrives at his family farm in Spain, the smoke curling
up from the fields tells him the soldiers of Commodus have already been
there. Among the burnt ruins of crops and buildings, Maximus finds the
charred bodies of his murdered wife and son hanging near the house.
After he buries them, Maximus collapses on the newly turned dirt of their
graves. An unconscious Maximus is discovered by slave traders and taken
to the Roman desert province of Zucchabar. There the traders sell Maximus
and his fellow slave, the Numidian Juba, to the lanista, Proximo, who
notices the sign of the legions on Maximus’ arm that identifies him as a
deserter. At the gladiatorial school, Proximo addresses his new stock and
GLADIATOR (2000) 209