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argh, this is such a bad faith argument. The enemy of better is best.

We can't know the whole truth but we have enough quality data about ancient rome from multiple angles to know "gladiator" probably shouldn't be our first lead on the matter.

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Yes, I acknowledged that in a reply to a sibling comment, however, I would take any movie/tv show dialogue that suggests motivations to be speculation unless provided with heavy evidence. A lot of times, this type of stuff can paint someone as good/bad, and it is either completely made up or misrepresented for the purposes of drama and selling the media.

It would behoove everyone to never take movie representations of history as fact, even if the broad strokes are supported by evidence.

I do get the somewhat discomfort with novels and movies dealing with historical events and people. While often enjoying his work, I definitely had this feeling with much of James Michener's work. You're reading this massive tome and it's often unclear (though he did sometimes provide some notes) what is actual historical fact, what is speculative, and what is made up out of whole cloth.

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