Gladiator: What Happened To Lucilla In Real Life
In Ridley Scott’s Gladiator, the character Lucilla (Connie Nielson) played a large part in the plot to overthrow Commodus, but what happened to her in real life is a bit different from the film's events. While the film was based on historical events, Scott took many artistic liberties; for instance, the main character Maximus was not a real person. However, many other main characters had a historical counterpart, with Lucilla being one of them. Despite being based on a real person, the Lucilla in Gladiator and the Lucilla in real life have some significant differences.
In the Best Picture-winning film, Maximus became enslaved and trained as a gladiator in ancient Rome. In the meantime, Commodus made incestuous advances toward Lucilla, who tolerated this to protect her son. Here, Maximus reunited with Lucilla, whom he had a romantic relationship with when they were younger. Lucilla was already scheming to overthrow her power-hungry brother, and Lucilla and Maximus, also called The Spaniard, began to formulate a plan to topple Commodus’s rule. Lucilla’s son accidentally revealed the plan to Commodus, which led him to capture Maximus and challenge him to a duel. During the duel, the two killed each other. Lucilla encouraged the crowd to view Maximus as a hero and to honor him over her brother.
Related: Why Gladiator Killed Off Maximus At The End (& What The Original Plan Was)
Though the film took some artistic liberties, much of what was shown rang true to history, though the real Lucilla’s story was much more tragic than her counterpart in Gladiator. Lucilla was an incredibly powerful woman in Roman history, maintaining a close relationship with three different rulers; her father, Marcus Aurelius, her husband, and her
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