Even though it may be tempting
to summarize the virtues of ancient Rome as “might makes right” because of the
emphasis, which is even in the Latin language, on fighting armies and
repressing rebel populations, the virtues did not reduce to those of war. In
fact, such virtues, as Nietzsche suggests in his texts, can serve as a
refresher for our species as it has “progressed” through the centuries since
the Roman Empire existed. Even though the film Gladiator (2000) contains
much mortal combat albeit contained in coliseums rather than unrestrained on
battle fields, at least three clusters of virtues can be gleamed and
articulated as alternative “schools” of virtue ethics. This is not to say that
all three are equally valid, however. The virtues cherished by the Emperor
Commodus, for instance, are arguably inferior ethically to those of his father,
Marcus Aurelius, and even those of the gladiators.
In the film, Commodus suffocates
Marcus Aurelius just after the father has informed the son that Maximus, a renown
general, will become the next emperor. As Marcus Aurelius has explained to
Maximus, Commodus “is not a moral man” and therefore “should never hold power.”
How true that is, and yet even in modern democracies very unethical people have
succeeded in gaining immense power of public office. Marcus Aurelius should
have made his announcement to the entire camp, which includes two visiting
senators from the Roman Senate, before confiding in his malicious son,
Commodus. It is in that very conversation that the father and son discuss different
virtues, and thus present the film viewers with the notion that “virtue” is not
a homogeneous category; people can hold different virtues, and even be deemed
as immortal because the same virtue can be emphasized and left out by different
people.
After being told that he would
not be emperor when his father dies, Commodus admits that he has failed in the four
virtues that Marcus Aurelius esteems: wisdom, justice, fortitude, and
temperance. Later in the film, the failure of Commodus to be just is clear when
he secretly stabs Maximus, who is tied up after being captured by Emperor
Commodus’s guards, so to have an unfair advantage in fighting Maximus in the Colosseum,
and yet, fittingly, Maximus wins the match even though he quickly dies from the
stab-wound. Back when Commodus is talking to Marcus Aurelius about succession,
the latter says, “You go too far” in speech; in other words, even in a
conversation involving virtues, Commodus demonstrates a lack of temperance.
But there are other virtues,
Commodus tells his father. Ambition can be a virtue because with it a person
can strive for excellence. Aristotle’s notion of virtue is closely associated with
doing something well. Marcus Aurelius has lamented to Maximus that only four
years of twenty as emperor have been in peace; ambition for territory (and
plunder) can be inferred as another, less boast-worthy, virtue esteemed by
Marcus. As for the virtues of Commodus, he lists loyalty to Rome and filial
piety towards his father, Marcus, although the son shows a lack of sonly duty
to his father in murdering him. Commodus adds bravery, but with an important—to
Romans—caveat. Bravery does not necessarily have to be demonstrated on a battle
field. This would be a hard sell to a Roman.
In fact, the virtues cherished
by the gladiators are strength and honor, especially in physical combat.
Physical strength, and being willing to constrain it to be exercised within the
confines of honor, are not valued by Commodus, as demonstrated in his unfair
fight with Maximus, and even Marcus Aurelius is not a showcase in physical
strength, though he is quite old by the time he is planning for his successor.
To be sure, virtues can be combined out of the three clusters. Honor, wisdom, and justice go well together, as do fortitude, ambition and loyalty (to Rome). “There was a dream that was Rome,” Lucilla, the daughter of Marcus Aurelius, says in the Coliseum as she cries over the body of Maximus. Ambition can indeed serve good ends, but throughout the film the substance of that dream eludes the Romans. What does “Rome” stand for? Which virtues? If only ambition, is that in itself really a virtue if it is by military conquest? This is a pitfall with virtue ethics. Leaving the content open can invite the sort of defense that someone as ethically sordid as Commodus can use—namely, that there are different virtues. It is not a matter for relativism that Maximus is ethically superior to Commodus; that they have different virtues does not equate the two men ethically.
When the film ends, we can expect that Senator Gracchus, whom Maximus has just set free from the imprisonment by Commodus, will do as Lucilla asks; Rome will again be a republic headed by the Senate and presumably two consuls. That Gracchus values the virtue of honor as a constraint on ambition is clear when he asks those gathered around Maximus’s dead body, “Who will help me carry him?” In utter contrast, Maximus has remarked to Commodus, "The time for honoring yourself will soon be at an end." The difference between people who value honor and those who do not is huge, and this can be seen in what other people say about a person. At the end of the film, no one wants to carry the dead, defeated body of the cheater-emperor, Commodus, whereas Maximus is already a hero because he fought for Rome as wanted by Marcus Aurelius, who directed Maximus to assume the reins of power in order to return Rome to the rule of the Senate.
To be sustained again as a republic, Rome as an ideal to look up to and be proud of will depend on there being enough men of honor among the political and military elite. As nice as this sounds, the actual history of the Roman Republic and the ensuing Roman Empire demonstrate just how weak a reliance on a virtue can be in the face of raw ambition sans virtue, meaning ambition for its own sake, more territory for its own sake, and more power for its own sake. Choosing between alternative clusters of virtues may be akin to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic; as our species has evolved, we seem ill-equipped to give virtue its due when acting virtuously is no longer convenient.
