In the rainy afternoon of November
24th, 2000, a seemingly minor incident rocked my life and the
consequences of the resulting chain reaction still echo in it
-- and hopefully will go on echoing for the rest of my days.
Everything started when I landed at a then modest website that
hosted an in the writing historical novel titled Maximus'
Story, the Gladiator Prequel. I
opened the first chapter with a mix of wariness and intrigue
but halfway into it I knew I was lost. Next thing I remember
I was downloading the fifty five existing chapters, printing
them then hurrying to my couch. By 2 a.m. I had already finished
reading all that was to read and craved for more. Most of all,
I had already decided I simply had to translate that novel into
Spanish.
The following day, Susan Spicer and I were excitedly discussing
the advantages of making the story available for the vast Spanish
speaking market -- her novel was already being translated into
Japanese and French --, the oddities of living on reversed seasons
and the never ending wonders of a modern, fully connected world.
Seven months later, Susan had already completed Maximus' Story
and launched her second novel - Glaucus'
Story, the Gladiator Sequel - and
I had done the same with the translation while in the meantime
becoming eventual guest writer, resident historical researcher
and penned my first fiction ever, Julia's Journal, Part 1.
What was more, we were cruising New Mexico and Arizona on an
unforgettable road trip like real life versions of Thelma &
Louise, Grand Canyon included.
Needless to say that we didn't jump over the ridge.
Following Maximus' Story
and Glaucus' Story's concept, Julia's Journal is
as faithful to Gladiator and the historical facts as possible. Real
life characters and events, descriptions of still standing places,
surviving literary fragments and even real Roman cooking recipes
helped recreate the most historically accurate possible picture
of Julia and Maximus' time and lives and footnotes
have been added to help the reader better understand the facts.
Nevertheless, as it usually happens when it comes to historical
novels, some liberties had to be taken, mostly because they were
taken beforehand by director Ridley Scott and his screenwriting
team for narrative purposes.
Lucius Aelius Aurelius Commodus - renamed at his ascension to the throne as
Marcus Aurelius Commodus Antoninus, indeed outraged Rome
appearing at the arena and fighting beasts and men like a common
gladiator. What is more, his contenders -- both animal and human
-- were previously drugged or maimed to guarantee his victory.
Commodus even died at the hands of a gladiator -- Narcissus
-- but not at the Colosseum. Instead, he was strangled
in his bath as the consequence of a Palatine conspiracy
that involved his wife. But it didn't happen before he had reigned
for twelve years, managed to ruin the empire, renamed the city
of Rome as "Colonia Commodiana" ("Commodus'
Colony") decimated the Senate and had his sister Lucilla
and her son exiled and put to death.
There is no historical evidence
that emperor Marcus Aurelius planned to restore the Roman
Republic (by the way, Rome was not founded as a republic
as Senator Gaius says in Gladiator, but as a reign
that became a republic and finally turned into an empire)
and neither that he considered his only surviving son unsuited
for the throne. But he is rightly considered as the most democratic
of all Roman emperors and restored many attributions to the Senate
that had been cancelled by his predecessors while encouraging
senators to take a more active role when it came to improving
the lower classes' life. Considered the most accomplished philosopher
of his days and one of the most important of the Antiquity, he
is the last representative of stoicism, a Greek originated,
philosophical school that encouraged temperance, austerity and
compassion. There is no doubt that, if there had been a real
life Maximus and he had known him, Marcus Aurelius
would had loved him as a son because our favorite hero fulfills
the stoic ideal. The emperor's extraordinary philosophical writings
known as Meditations were written
around 167 A.D. and published after his death and are still considered
one of the highlights of human thought.
As for his relationship with
his younger son, Marcus Aurelius appointed Commodus
as his heir when he was a teenager and he took an active role
during the last years of his father's reign. At his death - in
Vindobona, in the night of March 18th, 180 A.D. - Commodus
inherited the throne without resistance or opposition. As
for the cause of Marcus Aurelius' death, it was officially
attributed to a fever but there were insistent rumours about
a conspiracy to murder him involving Commodus and his
appointed praetorian commander.
Regarding the widowed Lady
Lucilla (who, like Commodus, had had a twin who died in early
infancy), she was forcefully remarried by her brother after his
ascension to the throne to a man of humble origin who had raised
from the ranks of the legions to a commanding post and was in
the new emperor's good graces. While Commodus was lazy,
disfunctional and politically inept, the real Lucilla
seems indeed to have inherited her father's political talent
and intellect and commanded the loyalty of a good part of the
Senate. In 182 A.D. she led a conspiracy against Commodus
supported by her son -- who was not eight years old but eighteen
-- but was betrayed by her husband, exiled to Capri and then
executed along with young Lucius Verus.
Needless to say that the dating
system known as A.D. ("anno domini" or
"year of the Lord") didn't exist in Maximus'
days but was adopted centuries later. Romans counted the years
"ad urbe condita" ("from the founding
of the city") but I followed the modern system to make it
easier for the readers to identify the historical context of
the events.
In the same way, I kept on calling
the Colosseum by this name. Truth is Romans never
called it that way but Anfitheatrum Flavius (Flavian Amphitheatre)
for it was built on the orders of emperor Titus Flavius Vespasianus
(Vespasian) and completed and inaugurated under the reign of
his elder son, emperor Titus. The name Colosseum was used
in the Middle Ages and is related to the colossal bronze statue
("colossus") of emperor Nero represented as the god
Jupiter that stood beside the artificial lake that, when dried
during the methodical dismantling of his scandalously luxurious
palace and gardens, left a crater then used for the foundations
of the Flavian Amphitheatre. As for the statue, it survived
many centuries, the head regularly replaced by that of the reigning
emperor till it was taken down and melted to manufacture cannons
along with all the bronze statues that adorned the nearby forums
but that of Marcus Aurelius. A foot of the colossal statue
can be briefly seen during a street scene of Gladiator.
Contrary to what movies have
showed for decades, Roman men and women didn't mix at the tiers
of the Colosseum or the theatre. Men occupied the lower
-- and better -- places distributed according to rank while women
sat by themselves at the upper and less comfortable ones. Not
even the empress and other female members of the imperial family
sat with the males at the pulvinar but separately
and with the Vestal Virgins, who enjoyed a place of great
honor immediately beside the emperor and the Senate's boxes.
Hebe Blanco |
