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David Bell
Mrs. Petty
ENG 101
19 October 2014

MAXIMUS DECIMUS MERIDIUS

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Maximus Decimus Meridius

Joseph Campbells Hero with a Thousand Faces: Adventure of a Hero explains all myths
through his monomyth outline. The monomyth explains a lot of modern myths in movies, such
as Gladiator. Monomyth is made up of three different stages: Departure, Initiation, and the
Return. The departure is the stage in which the hero is called to be a hero and must leave his or
her normal life to fulfill their destiny in an unknown world. The initiation phase is when the hero
is when the hero first crosses the threshold of becoming a hero and learns important information
for his journey. The return stage is when the hero returns to his normal life and must balance his
life as a hero and his life as it was before his heroic journey. Maximus in Gladiator follows
Joseph Campbells monomyth of the hero by separation from his family, initiation in becoming a
Gladiator to exact revenge on his families murder, and finally returning to his family in the
afterlife.
The departure in Gladiator starts with Maximus call to adventure when Proximo finds
Maximus nearly dead body. Proximo is a former gladiator that won his freedom, and now he
trains gladiators to make money off the Roman coliseum. However, when Maximus is healed, he
refuses to take part in the gladiator training. Maximus refusal gets him beat by the man who is
training the gladiators, Hagen. Soon after Maximus is tired of being beat, he decides to fight as a
gladiator, and he becomes friends with Hagen, and a tribal man named Juba. Hagen and Juba are
seen as supernatural aids to Maximus. The supernatural aid plays the role of the protective
figure for the hero (Campbell 63). Next, Maximus finally faces his first challenge or the first
threshold. Maximus faces his first fight as a gladiator, but no one knows that he knows how to
fight from being a general in the Roman legion. In Maximus first fight he embarrasses his
opposition and is not even hit. The crowd after the fight is silent, and Maximus, still somewhat

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refusing the call yells to the crowd are you not entertained? (Gladiator). The crowd loves him,
and Proximo decides to talk to Maximus privately. In this private meeting Proximo tells
Maximus that he can be a famous gladiator, and earn his freedom from bondage via fighting as a
gladiator in the coliseum. Proximo also tells Maximus that he will earn his freedom from the
emperor, and Maximus finally sees that being a gladiator can help him get revenge on Emperor
Commodus.
The initiation of the hero begins with the road of trials (Campbell 89). Maximus road of
trials consists of numerous gladiatorial fights in the Roman coliseum. None of the fights that take
place during this course of events were fair, and Maximus was always the underdog. His
amazing ability to fight made him gain a lot of fame and respect from the Roman citizens in
attendance at his fights. Maximus builds this fame to help overthrow the Emperor, and whenever
he gets the chance he would deny the authority of the Emperor in front of all of the citizens. One
example is when Commodus tells Maximus to kill the Lion Champion, but Maximus instead lets
him live, and the Roman citizens start to yell Maximus the Merciful (Gladiator). Next, Lucilla,
the sister of the Emperor, meets with Maximus to find a way to overthrow the Emperor.
Maximus denies Lucillas invitation the first time she offers to meet with her secret contact, but
over time Maximus sees that he needs to meet with the contact because overthrowing Commodus
is a necessity in his journey. The meeting with Lucilla plays two parts in the monomyth, the
meeting with the goddess and the woman as the temptress respectively. The next step for
Maximus is the atonement with the father (Campbell 116). Maximus seeks aid from Proximo
to help him overthrow the Emperor. Proximo grants Maximus the aid to escape from Rome in
the near future. The precursor last part of the initiation stage is the apotheosis, and serves as
the calm before the storm. In the apotheosis of Gladiator, Emperor Commodus slyly threatens to

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kill Lucilla and her son Lucius so that Lucilla will tell him of her plans to overthrow the empire.
The ultimate boon is the stage following the apotheosis and in this stage the praetorian guards
arrest Senator Gracchus, ambush Cicero, and capture Maximus. The praetorians would not have
done this if not for Lucilla telling Commodus about the anarchist plans.
Lastly, the return of the hero begins to conclude the heroic journey. At first the hero
refuses to return to his ordinary life. Maximus refuses to let Commodus knowing about the plans
to overthrow the empire stop him. However, Maximus did not suspect that Commodus would
send a small praetorian unit to attack Proximos compound. The other gladiators in the
compound agree to help Maximus escape by setting up a distraction. Maximus escape represents
Campbells magic flight (Campbell 182). Maximus manages to escape Proximos compound
but is eventually ambushed and captured. However, instead of Maximus being executed for
treason, he is so called rescued from without by Emperor Commodus. Commodus allows
Maximus to live, and fight against him in the coliseum so that all of the citizens do not lose
respect for Commodus by him just assassinating Maximus. Little did the citizens know,
Commodus stabbed Maximus in the ribs prior to the fight so he was weakened. The return
threshold is when the hero crosses back into his ordinary life by completing some sort of task, or
just by simply deciding to give up the old life (Campbell 201). The crossing of the return
threshold in Gladiator is when Maximus kills Commodus in the coliseum, and restores the
Senate. This is the return threshold because Maximus is able to finally grant Emperor Marcus
Aurelius his dying wish of restoring the Senate. However, Maximus is dying from the fatal
wound he received prior to the fight. Maximus begins to see visions of the afterlife, but he still
needs to give Quintus the word that the Senate is to be restored. Maximus tells Quintus that the
restoration of the senate were the last words of a dying man (Gladiator). Lastly, as Maximus is

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laying on the ground dying, he speaks to Lucilla about how they were able to save her son, and
the Roman Empire. Lucilla thanks Maximus for everything he has done, and assures him that he
will now be able to see his family in the afterlife. Maximus obtains the freedom to live in the
afterlife with his family.
All in all, the monomyth greatly captivates Gladiator, but the monomyth is also seen in
peoples everyday lives. In this day in age, all people go through a separation from their normal
lives, are initiated into a different part of their lives, and in the end they return to their normal
lives with the information they obtained from the new part of their life. The return into normal
lives is a balancing act of the life before and after the journey, but the trials along the way make
a person stronger, and more knowledgeable.

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Works Cited

Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1972. Print.
Gladiator. Dreamworks L.L.C. and Universal Studios, 2000. DVD.
Klapp, Orrin E. The Creation of Popular Heroes. 2nd ed. Vol. 54. Chicago: U of Chicago, 1948.
JSTOR. Web. 18 Oct. 2014.