The Gladiator is one of my all-time favorite movies. Yes it’s a very violent, bloody film, and yes the special fx can’t match up to today’s latest and greatest. But the grandeur of the story, the solid acting, the brilliant Hans Zimmer score, and what I appreciate more and more with each re-watch: that the movie fits in quite a few powerful lessons about leadership, values, and friendship.
So here are 4 of those lessons, with accompanying screenshots. There are some spoilers, but it’s been 2 decades since the movie was released. There should be a statute of spoiler limitations :)
1. To inspire great behavior, we can appeal to even greater forces
In the movie’s beginning fight scene, Maximus says the following to his cavalry before their critical charge:
If you find yourself alone, riding in green fields with the sun on your face, do not be troubled…for you are in Elysium, and you are already dead!
Later, he adds:
Brothers…What we do in life echoes in eternity
It reminds me of a quote from Eric Hoffer’s seminal book on how leaders create mass movements:
In their battle orders army leaders invariably remind their soldiers that the eyes of the world are on them, that their ancestors are watching them and that posterity shall hear of them. The great general knows how to conjure an audience out of the sands of the desert and the waves of the ocean. – Eric Hoffer, Mass Movements
2. At the top, it’s all about gestures and symbols
At the end of that beginning battle, two critical things happen: the Emperor Marcus Aurelius refuses his son Commodus’s hand, but then he allows Maximus to support him onto his horse. The Emperor then leans in and whispers, “So much for the glory of Rome.” He recognizes what a poor picture he paints to the assembled soldiers, as his frail dying body can barely mount the horse without the aide of a ladder and Maximus’s help.
Later in the film, after Aurelius dies, Commodus offers his hand to Maximus, demanding his loyalty. Which Maximus rejects to his peril.
3. A leader (and a civilization) should have clear values, and they should be shared and repeated
“Strength and honor” are the first values. In the movie, it’s a phrase repeated often among the Roman army as a sort of call-and-response. I was reminded of how militaries and organized religions share this in common: short, simple, powerful phrases, repeated often, and usually in the call-and-response format.
The second moment is when Commodus says the following before he “hugs” his father Marcus:
You wrote to me once, listing the 4 chief 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 which drives us to excel…
Hearing the word “ambition” used this way, I was immediately reminded of Silicon Valley, Wall Street, Ivy League schools, and the like. I do believe that for many people that run in those circles, ambition matters above all. Sure, lip service is given to other values like integrity and respect, but what seems to matter most is growth, or the size of your bonus, or the rank of your school.
Finally, Commodus, as the movie nears its end and the walls close in, comes to a painful realization when he discovers that Maximus is actually not dead, and his lieutenants had misled him:
If they lied to me, they don’t respect me. If they don’t respect me, how can they ever love me?
4. As the Garth Brooks song goes, “I’ve got friends in low places”
One of the film’s most consistently beautiful moments is the unexpectedly strong friendship between Maximus and Juba the Namibian. It is no accident that the movie’s final scene features Juba burying two small clay idols that represent Maximus’s wife and child.
Thanks for reading this rather long essay! I hope the pictures made it worthwhile :)
Ok, ok, just one last, relevant quote from the real, historical Marcus Aurelius:
The art of life is more like the wrestler’s art than the dancer’s, in respect of this, that it should stand ready and firm to meet onsets which are sudden and unexpected
If you want to see more essays like this, email or tweet me and let me know! My time lately has been spent studying and writing about religion, but at a deeper level I’m interested in life wisdom in all its wonderful formats.