Gladiator Only to Hold You Again

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Commodus: Ascension. Rise.

[Maximus stands upwardly, clenching an arrow head in his correct manus]

Commodus: Your fame is well deserved, Spaniard. I don't think there's ever been a gladiator to match you lot. As for this fellow, he insists y'all are Hector reborn. Or was it Hercules? Why doesn't the hero reveal himself and tell us all your real proper name? Yous do accept a name.

Maximus: My name is Gladiator.

[turns abroad from Commodus]

Commodus: How dare you lot show your back to me! Slave, you volition remove your helmet and tell me your proper noun.

Maximus: [removes helmet and turns around to face Commodus] My proper noun is Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the Armies of the Northward, General of the Felix Legions and loyal servant to the TRUE emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Begetter to a murdered son, married man to a murdered wife. And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the adjacent.

[Commodus trembles in disbelief]

Quintus: Arms!

[Praetorians betoken their spears at the gladiators while the Colosseum crowd chants for them to live. Commodus shakes his head and motions the crowd for silence. He and then raises his fist and reluctantly gives the thumbs-upward signal]

Commodus: The full general who became a slave. The slave who became a gladiator. The gladiator who defied an emperor. Striking story! Just now, the people desire to know how the story ends. Only a famous expiry will do. And what could be more than glorious than to challenge the Emperor himself in the great loonshit?

Maximus: Yous would fight me?

Commodus: Why non? Do you think I am afraid?

Maximus: I think you lot've been agape all your life.

Maximus: [afterward swiftly dispatching another gladiator] Are yous not entertained? Are you not entertained? Is this not why you are hither?

Crowd: Spaniard, Spaniard, Spaniard...

Maximus: At my signal, unleash hell.

[addressing his troops]

Maximus: Fratres!

[Cavalry addresses Maximus]

Maximus: Three weeks from now, I will be harvesting my crops. Imagine where you volition be, and it will exist and then. Hold the line! Stay with me! If you find yourself alone, riding in the green fields with the lord's day on your confront, exercise not be troubled. For you are in Elysium, and you're already dead!

[Cavalry laughs]

Maximus: Brothers, what we exercise in life... echoes in eternity.

Maximus: I knew a man one time who said, "Death smiles at us all. All a man can do is grinning back."

Commodus: I wonder, did your friend smile at his own decease?

Maximus: You lot must know. He was your father.

Commodus: Y'all loved my father, I know. Only so did I. That makes us brothers, doesn't it? Smile for me now, brother.

[stabs him]

Lucilla: Today I saw a slave go more than powerful than the Emperor of Rome.

Marcus Aurelius: Are you set to do your duty for Rome?

Commodus: Yes, father.

Marcus Aurelius: You volition not be emperor.

Commodus: Which wiser, older human being is to take my place?

Marcus Aurelius: My powers will pass to Maximus, to hold in trust until the Senate is ready to rule one time more. Rome is to be a republic once more.

Commodus: Maximus?

Marcus Aurelius: Yes.

[Marcus Aurelius tries to comfort Commodus past reaching out his hand to affect him on the face up just Commodus pulls his head away from Marcus Aurelius' hand in disgust]

Marcus Aurelius: My determination disappoints you?

Commodus: You wrote to me in one case, list the four primary virtues: Wisdom, justice, fortitude and temperance. As I read the list, I knew I had none of them. But I have other virtues, father. Ambition. That can be a virtue when it drives united states to excel. Resourcefulness, backbone, perhaps not on the battlefield, but... in that location are many forms of courage. Devotion, to my family and to you. Just none of my virtues were on your list. Fifty-fifty then it was as if yous didn't want me for your son.

Marcus Aurelius: Oh, Commodus. You lot get too far.

Commodus: I search the faces of the gods... for means to delight you, to make you proud. One kind word, i full hug... where you lot pressed me to your breast and held me tight. Would accept been like the sun on my heart for a thousand years. What is information technology in me that you hate so much?

Marcus Aurelius: Shh, Commodus.

Commodus: All I've ever wanted was to live up to you, Caesar. Father.

Marcus Aurelius: [Marcus Aurelius gets down on his knees] Commodus. Your faults every bit a son is my failure as a male parent.

[Marcus opens upwards his artillery to Commodus and gives him a hug]

Commodus: [Commodus hugs Marcus and cries] Father. I would have butcher the whole world... if you lot would only dear me!

[Commodus begins to asphyxiate Marcus while they hug, Marcus grunts]

Quintus: People should know when they are conquered.

Maximus: Would you, Quintus? Would I?

Maximus: Nothing happens to anyone that he is not fitted by nature to behave

[final lines]

Juba: And at present we are Free. I will run into you again... but not withal... Not withal!

Maximus: You don't find information technology hard to practice your duty?

Cicero: Sometimes I exercise what I desire to do. The residual of the time, I exercise what I accept to.

Commodus: Accept I missed it? Take I missed the battle?

Marcus Aurelius: Yous have missed the war.

Commodus: Father, congratulations. I shall sacrifice a hundred bulls to honor your triumph.

Marcus Aurelius: Relieve the bulls. Accolade Maximus. He won the battle.

Maximus: Five thousand of my men are out there in the freezing mud. Three thousand of them are bloodied and cleaved. Two thousand will never exit this identify. I volition not believe that they fought and died for zip.

Marcus Aurelius: And what would yous believe?

Maximus: They fought for you and for Rome.

Marcus Aurelius: And what is Rome, Maximus?

Maximus: I've seen much of the rest of the globe. It is fell and fell and nighttime, Rome is the light.

Marcus Aurelius: Yet y'all have never been at that place. You have not seen what it has become. I am dying, Maximus. When a man sees his terminate... he wants to know there was some purpose to his life. How will the world speak my name in years to come up? Volition I be known as the philosopher? The warrior? The tyrant...? Or will I be the emperor who gave Rome back her true cocky? There was once a dream that was Rome. You could only whisper it. Anything more than a whisper and it would vanish... it was so fragile. And I fear that information technology volition non survive the winter.

Commodus: If y'all're very good, tomorrow dark I'll tell you the story of emperor Claudius who was betrayed by those closest to him, past his own blood. They whispered in dark corners and went out late at night and conspired and conspired but the emperor Claudius knew they were up to something. He knew they were busy little bees. And one night he sat downwardly with 1 of them and he looked at her and he said, "Tell me what you've been doing decorated little bee or I shall strike downwardly those dearest to you. Yous shall watch equally I bathe in their claret." And the emperor was heartbroken. The little bee had wounded him more deeply than anyone else could ever have done. And what practise y'all recall happened then, Lucius?

Lucius Verus: I don't know, uncle.

Commodus: The petty bee told him everything.

Proximo: Those giraffes you sold me, they won't mate. They only walk effectually, eating, and not mating. Y'all sold me... queer giraffes. I want my money dorsum.

Gracchus: Fear and wonder, a powerful combination.

Falco: You really remember people are going to exist seduced past that?

Gracchus: I think he knows what Rome is. Rome is the mob. Conjure magic for them and they'll be distracted. Have away their liberty and nevertheless they'll roar. The beating centre of Rome is not the marble of the senate, it's the sand of the coliseum. He'll bring them death - and they will dearest him for it.

[as an executioner tries to draw his sword just can't]

Maximus: The frost, it sometimes makes the bract stick.

[kills the executioner]

Marcus Aurelius: When was the last time you were domicile?

Maximus: Two years, two hundred and lx-four days and this morning time.

Maximus: Ancestors, I ask you for your guidance. Blessed mother, come to me with the Gods' desire for my future. Blessed begetter, sentinel over my wife and son with a ready sword. Whisper to them that I live only to hold them again, for all else is dust and air. Ancestors, I laurels yous and volition try to alive with the dignity that you have taught me.

[after the concluding duel]

Maximus: Quintus! Release my men. Senator Gracchus is to be reinstated. There was a dream that was Rome. Information technology shall exist realized. These are the wishes of Marcus Aurelius.

Commodus: [to Falco] Lucius will stay with me now. And if his mother and then much as looks at me in a manner that displeases me, he will die. If she decides to be noble and takes her own life, he will die.

[to Lucilla]

Commodus: And every bit for you, you will love me equally I loved yous. You lot volition provide me with an heir of pure blood, so that Commodus and his progeny will rule for a yard years. Am I not merciful?

[Lucilla turns her head]

Commodus: AM I Not MERCIFUL!

[just before he is stabbed past the guards]

Proximo: Shadows and dust.

[Maximus looks at images of his wife and son]

Juba: Can they hear you?

Maximus: Who?

Juba: Your family unit. In the afterlife.

Maximus: Oh yes.

Juba: What do y'all say to them?

Maximus: To my son - I tell him I will run across him once again soon. To proceed his heels downwards while riding his horse. To my married woman... that is not your business.

[His only line]

Tigris: We who are well-nigh to die, salute you lot!

Marcus Aurelius: Permit us pretend that yous are a loving daughter, and I am a good father.

Lucilla: This is a pleasant fiction, is it not?

Commodus: What am I going to practice with you lot? Yous just won't... die. Are nosotros so dissimilar, you and I? You have life when yous have to... as I do.

Maximus: I have simply i more than life to take. And then it is done.

Commodus: And so take it now.

[Maximus pauses, so turns around and walks away]

Commodus: They tell me your son...

[Maximus stops]

Commodus: ...squealed like a girl when they nailed him to the cross. And your wife... moaned like a whore when they ravaged her again and once more... and again.

Maximus: The time for honoring yourself will shortly be at an end.

[Bows head]

Maximus: Highness.

[Watching Lucius sleep]

Commodus: He sleeps and so well because he is loved.

Proximo: Listen to me. Larn from me. I was not the best because I killed quickly. I was the best considering the crowd loved me. Win the crowd and you will win your liberty.

Maximus: Are you in danger of condign a adept man, Proximo?

Proximo: Ha!

Commodus: I retrieve I understand my own people.

Gracchus: Then perhaps Caesar will exist so good as to teach us, out of his ain extensive feel?

Commodus: I call it love, Gracchus. The people are my children, I am their father. I shall concord them to my bosom and comprehend them tightly...

Gracchus: Have you ever embraced someone dying of plague, sire?

Commodus: No, but if you interrupt me once more, I clinch you that you volition.

Marcus Aurelius: [to his girl Lucilla] If but you had been born a homo, what a Caesar y'all would accept made.

On Screen Text: [first lines, the text that appears on screen] At the height of its power the Roman Empire was vast, stretching from the deserts of Africa to the borders of Northern England.

On Screen Text: Over one quarter of the Earth'due south population lived and died nether the rule of the Caesars.

On Screen Text: In the winter of 180 A.D., Emperor Marcus Aurelius' twelve-year entrada against the Barbaric Tribes in Germania was cartoon to an terminate.

On Screen Text: But ane final stronghold stands in the way of Roman victory and the promise of peace throughout the Empire.

Proximo: He knows likewise well how to manipulate the mob.

Maximus: Marcus Aurelius had a dream that was Rome, Proximo. That is not it. That is not information technology!

Proximo: Marcus Aurelius is dead, Maximus. We mortals are but shadows and dust. Shadows and dust, Maximus!

Juba: You have a great proper name. He must kill your name earlier he kills you.

Proximo: Ultimately, we're all dead men. Sadly, nosotros cannot choose how but, what we can decide is how we meet that end, in social club that nosotros are remembered, equally men.

Lucilla: What did my father want with you?

Maximus: To wish me well earlier I leave for home.

Lucilla: You're lying, I could e'er tell when you lot were lying because you lot were never any skillful at it.

Maximus: I never acquired your comfort with it.

Lucilla: True, but then y'all never had to, life is more unproblematic for a soldier. Or practise you recollect me heartless?

Maximus: I think you have a talent for survival.

Gracchus: And after your glorious coup, what then? You have your v thousand and... leave?

Maximus: Yes, I will exit. The soldiers will stay here for your protection, under the guidance of the Senate.

Gracchus: So, after Rome'south all yours, you lot just give information technology back to the people. Tell me why.

Maximus: Because that was a dying human being'due south concluding wish. I volition kill Commodus. The fate of Rome, I exit to you.

Gracchus: Marcus Aurelius trusted you. His daughter trusts you. I will trust you. Give me two days, and I volition buy your freedom. And you, stay live, or I'll exist dead.

Gracchus: I don't pretend to be a man of the people. But I do try to be a man for the people.

Proximo: Congratulations, you lot have very persuasive friends.

Lucilla: My brother's had Gracchus arrested. We daren't expect any longer. We must leave tonight. Proximo volition be here t midnight and take you to the gate. Your servant, Cicero will be waiting there with horses.

[Maximus nods]

Maximus: Yous have done all this?

Lucilla: Yep.

Maximus: [sighs] You risk too much.

Lucilla: I have much to pay for.

[Maximus shakes his head]

Maximus: You have nothing to pay for. You love your son, you are strong for him.

Lucilla: I am tired of being strong.(sighs) My brother hates all the world and you most of all.

Maximus: Considering your father chose me.

Lucilla: No because my father loved you... and because I loved you.

Maximus: A long fourth dimension ago.

[kisses her hand]

Lucilla: [smiles] Was I very dissimilar and then?

Maximus: (shakes his caput, touches her face with his finger) You laughed more than.

Lucilla: I have felt alone all my life, except with you. I must go.

Maximus: Yes.

[kisses Lucilla ane last time]

Gracchus: The beating heart of Rome is not the marble of the Senate, it's the sand of the Colosseum. He'll bring them death and they will honey him for it.

Lucilla: Is Rome worth one skilful man'southward life? We believed information technology once. Make us believe it once more. He was a soldier of Rome. Honor him.

Gracchus: Who will help me bear him?

[Gladiators surround Maximus to behave him out of the arena]

[during the fight with Maximus, Commodus loses his sword]

Commodus: Quintus, sword!

[Quintus does nada]

Commodus: Give me your sword!

[Quintus does nil]

Commodus: [to his guards] Sword, give me a sword!

[the guards unsheathe their swords]

Quintus: Sheathe your swords! Sheathe your swords!

[the guards sheathe their swords]

Proximo: [addressing his new recruits] I am Proximo! I shall be closer to yous for the next few days, which volition exist the final of your miserable lives, than that bitch of a mother who start brought you screaming into this globe! I did not pay good money for your company. I paid it and so that I might profit from your death. And just as your mother was at that place at your start, I shall be in that location at your finish. And when you lot die - and die you shall - your transition will be to the sound of...

[claps his hands]

Proximo: Gladiators... I salute you.

[Looking at some slaves]

Proximo: Can whatsoever of them fight? I've got a friction match coming up.

Slave Trader: Some are adept for fighting, others for dying. You need both, I think.

Maximus: Quintus, expect at me. Expect at me! Promise me that you'll wait subsequently my family unit.

Quintus: Your family will meet you in the afterlife.

[Lucilla tries to convince Maximus to conspire with Senator Gracchus]

Lucilla: This man wants what you lot want.

Maximus: Then have *him* kill Commodus!

Maximus: [laughing] You knew Marcus Aurelius?

Proximo: [very quickly and defensively] I didn't say I knew him, I said he touched me on the shoulder once!

Cassius: On this twenty-four hours, we achieve dorsum to hallowed antiquity, to bring you lot a recreation of the second fall of the mighty Carthage!... On the arid manifestly of Zama, in that location stood the invincible armies of the barbarian Hannibal. Ferocious mercenaires and warriors from all brute nations, aptitude on merciless destruction, conquest. Your emperor is pleased to requite y'all the barbarian horde!

[Oversupply cheers]

Maximus: [while Cassius continues his introduction] Anyone here been in the army?

[an unknown gladiator responds yes and tells Maximus he served under his command at Vindobona]

Maximus: You lot can help me. Any comes out of these gates, nosotros've got a better chance of survival if we work together. Practice you sympathize? If we stay together nosotros survive.

Cassius: I'1000 pleased to bring to you the Legionnaires of Scipio Africanus!

[Inspecting the gladiators through the bars, Lucius notices Maximus and motions him closer. Amused, Maximus complies]

Lucius Verus: Gladiator, are you the 1 they telephone call the Spaniard?

Maximus: Yeah.

Lucius Verus: They said you lot were a giant. They said yous could crush a man's skull with one hand.

Maximus: [looks at his palm] A human being'south? No. A boy's...

[Lucius smiles, and points to the art on Maximus' armor]

Lucius Verus: They have good horses in Spain?

Maximus: Some of the best.

[points]

Maximus: This is Argento, and this is Scarto. They were my horses. They were taken from me.

Lucius Verus: I like you Spaniard, and I shall cheer for you.

Maximus: They allow you lookout the games?

Lucius Verus: My uncle says it makes me strong.

Maximus: And what does your father say?

Lucius Verus: My father'south dead.

Lucius' Attendant: Master Lucius, it is time.

Lucius Verus: I have to go.

Maximus: Thy name is Lucius?

Lucius Verus: Lucius Verus, after my father.

Commodus: And at present they love Maximus for his mercy. Then I tin't just kill him, or it makes me even more unmerciful! The whole thing's similar some crazed nightmare.

Falco: He is defying you lot. His every victory is an deed of disobedience. The mob sees this, and and so does the senate. Every day he lives, they grow bolder. Kill him.

Commodus: No. I volition not brand a martyr of him.

[Commodus walks around]

Falco: I accept been told of a certain sea snake which has a very unusual method of attracting its casualty. Information technology will lie at the lesser of the ocean as if wounded. Then its enemies will arroyo, and yet it will lie quite still. And so its enemies will take little bites of it, and yet information technology remains still.

Commodus: And then, we volition lie however, and allow our enemies come to us and nibble. Have every senator followed.

Commodus: It vexes me. I'm terribly vexed.

Gracchus: He enters Rome like a acquisition hero. But what has he conquered?

Falco: Give him time, Gracchus. He's young, he may exercise very well.

Gracchus: For Rome? Or for you?

Maximus: [the negotiator is riding headless towards the army] They say, "No."

Lucilla: I want to assistance you.

Maximus: Yes, you can help me... Forget you ever knew me, and never come up back hither again.

Maximus: V chiliad of my men are out in that location in the freezing mud. Iii thousand of them are bloodied and cleaved. Two thousand will never leave this place. I volition not believe they fought and died for nada.

Maximus: I may die hither in this jail cell or in the arena tomorrow. What possible difference can I make?

Proximo: So Spaniard, nosotros shall go to Rome together and have bloody adventures. And the smashing whore will suckle u.s. until we are fat and happy and tin suckle no more. And then, when enough men have died, perhaps you volition have your freedom.

Commodus: Your Emperor asks for your loyalty, Maximus. Have my hand, I simply offer it once.

Maximus: I am required to kill, so I kill. That is enough.

Proximo: That's enough for the provinces, but not enough for Rome.

Lucilla: Please exist quiet, brother! Your constant scheming gives me even more than of a headache!

Maximus: [to Proximo] He killed the man who set you free.

[concluding lines]

Maximus: Lucius is rubber.

Proximo: Some of you are thinking that you won't fight. Others, that yous can't fight. They all say that, until they're out there

Proximo: [holding upwards a sword] Thrust this into another man's mankind, and they will applaud and honey you lot for that. You lot may even begin to honey them

[thrusts]

Proximo: for that.

Quintus: Maximus, please exist careful, that wasn't prudent.

Maximus: Prudent? The Emperor has been slain.

[Maximus is nigh to ride out with the cavalry to fight the barbarians]

Quintus: Soldier! I told yous to move those catapults forward. They're out of range.

Maximus: Range is good.

Quintus: The danger to the cavalry...

Maximus: Is acceptable. Agreed?

Maximus: Practice yous remember what it was to take trust, Proximo?

Proximo: [unfamiliarly] Trust?

Commodus: Information technology'southward a dream, a frightful dream... life is...

[Upon seeing the Coliseum for the first time]

Juba: I didn't know men could build such things.

Gracchus: But the Senate IS the people, sire. Chosen from Amid the people. To speak FOR the people.

Commodus: I doubt if any of the people consume so well as you, Gracchus. Or have such splendid mistresses, Gaius.

Proximo: You're good, Spaniard, but you're not that skillful. You could be magnificent.

Proximo: What exercise you want? Hmm? Girl? Boy?

Maximus: You sent for me?

Proximo: Yeah, I did. You're good, Spaniard, but you're non that good. You could be magnificent.

Maximus: I'm required to impale, then I kill. That is enough.

Proximo: That's plenty for the provinces, only not for Rome. The immature emperor has bundled a series of glasses to commemorate his father, Marcus Aurelius. I observe that amusing since it Marcus Aurelius, the wise, the all-knowing Marcus Aurelius, that closed u.s. down. And then, finally after five years of scratching a living in flea-infested villages, we're finally going back to where we vest. The coliseum. Oh, you lot should see the coliseum, Spaniard. Fifty-thousand Romans. Watching every movement of your sword. Willing you to brand that killer blow. The silence earlier you strike. And the noise afterwards. Information technology rises. It rises up like - like the - similar a tempest. Equally if you were the Thundergod himself.

Maximus: Yous were a gladiator?

Proximo: Aye, I was.

Maximus: And you won your liberty?

Proximo: A long time ago, the emperor presented me with a rudis. It's merely a... a wooden sword. A symbol of your freedom. He touched me on the shoulder and I was free.

Maximus: [laughing] Yous knew Marcus Aurelius?

Proximo: [Angry] I did not say I knew him! I said he touched me on the shoulder one time!

Maximus: You asked me what I want. I too want to stand in front of the emperor. Every bit you lot did.

Proximo: And so listen to me. Learn from me. I wasn't the best because I killed quickly. I was the best because the crowd loved me. Win the oversupply and yous'll win your liberty.

Maximus: I will win the oversupply. I will give them something they've never seen before.

Proximo: [laughs] Then, Spaniard. We shall become to Rome together and have encarmine adventures. And a corking whore will suckle us until we are fatty and happy and can suckle no more. And then, when enough men accept died, perhaps you lot will have your liberty. Here, use this.

[tosses a breastplate to Maximus]

Proximo: I know that you lot are a human being of your discussion, General. I know that you would die for accolade, for Rome, for the memory of your ancestors. Only as for me? I'grand an entertainer.

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