“Gladiator” came out 24 years ago so it might be time to refresh before the sequel drops. Director Ridley Scott’s first foray into the Roman Empire was an immediate success. The story starred Russell ...

In the days of the Roman Empire, plebeians and patricians alike entertained themselves by watching men fight to the death. Some two millennia later, we’re much more civilized; we entertain ourselves ...

You know him as Maximus from Gladiator — a fallen general turned slave who fought for justice. But the real Marcus Nonius Macrinus? He never fell. He rose high in the Roman Empire, died rich, and was ...

In the spectacularly violent, 200 AD Roman epic “Gladiator II,” limbs get lopped and heads get chopped, but the majority of casualties die from being talked to death. There’s no slack to the yak in ...

Topics include enslavement, the economics and politics of slavery, slaves' sex and family lives, manumission and ex-slaves, everyday resistance, gladiators and the great slave revolts, and the decline ...