...as much about the historical inaccuracies in this as much as they do about Braveheart?
Braveheart is my foat, and Gladiator is easily top 10, but all I hear about Braveheart is how inaccurate it is.
Gladiator botches much of the history as well!
i have often wondered how maximus was transported to north africa from europe.
when he rides off on the horse to find his family dead, he then rides some more and falls out and the caravan picks him up. next thing he is in north africa and prximo is making him fight in the games. there was no indication of crossing water to get there. so i guess it could be implied, but my little logic mechanism inthe back of my mind always flags this detail and wonders how they got there. then, when they later return to rome, again no crossing of water. maybe it is to be assumed?
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I see your problem. Would Maximus even stay unconscious for that long? For that I have no answer. Let's look at the distance in stead.
Maximus's farm is near Roman Turgalium, present day Trujillo in Central Spain*. The shortest possible straight arrow distance from Turgalium to Africa is about 600 kilometres.
The distance from Turgalium to the Strait of Gibraltar is about 585 kilometres or 363 miles. Just across from Gibraltar is Morocco, or then Roman Province of Mauretania. The sea journey would be short, as the shortest distance is 13 kilometres (8.1 miles; 7.0 nautical miles) across from Europe to Africa. With a well-built merchant ship in Roman times the speed would be about 6 knots per hour, or 11 kilometres, 6.9 miles.** The trip across the sea could take as little as just over an hour.
Now the trip across land. The average horse manages 16 to 27 km/h, 10 to 17 mph. The faster gallop can be twice as fast, if the slave traders are in a hurry, but then you need freash horses every now and then to keep up the pace. Crossing 585 kilometres by horse would take 36 hours at 16 km/h, 21 hours at 27 km/h and 11.7 hours at 50 km/h.
So, it would take anywhere from half a day on fast horses to a day and a half on slower ones to reach Gibraltar from Turgalium, and then a couple of hours with docking included to land at the Northernmost tip of Africa.
Maybe it could be done before he woke up, but seems a bit of a stretch that he wouldn't notice that. Maybe he was close to death and woke up days later? Then, as he is seen awake, it would be days to reach Proximo at Zucchabar in the Roman province of Mauretania Caesariensis.
*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trujillo,_C%C3%A1ceres
*https://tjsailing.co.uk/how-fast-were-old-sailing-ships/
Really doesn’t matter. Braveheart is a top 5 movie of all time. Gladiator wouldn’t exist without Braveheart. Nor would about a dozen other epic battle movies that followed it.
shareThey pick on Braveheart and not this one because Mel Gibson directed Braveheart. And he had a character throwing a gaylord out of a tower, which makes them even angrier.
shareThe Roman gladiator games were actually quite controversial...even at the time...but that's the only inaccuracy I really noticed. Maybe I missed some other stuff.
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