2. The film tells the story of a Roman general forced to prove his mettle as a gladiator after the emperor Marcus Aurelius's scheming son sells him into slavery.

3. Back then, being a gladiator was not the fun that it is now. Combatants were not called "Wolf" but "Maximus" and Ulrika Jonsson was just a glint in a very distant ancestor's eye.

4. For a fighter in the Roman era it was either kill or be killed. Or, in the words of their oath: "I will endure to be burned, to be bound, to be beaten, and to be killed by the sword."

5. The first recorded contest was when six men fought to the death during a funeral in 264BC. From then on gladiators were plucked from the ranks of criminals, slaves and prisoners of war and most had no choice about their profession.

6. But there were those that did: a disgraced aristocrat who had squandered his fortune could enjoy public glory and female adoration for just three fights a year, and Emperor Commodos (the scheming son in Ridley Scott's fictional film) famously shocked Rome's citizens by taking to the floor himself.

7. He also collected all the dwarfs, cripples, and freaks he could find in Rome and had them brought to the Colosseum where they were ordered to fight each other to the death with meat cleavers. Commodus was widely reckoned to be mentally unstable.

8. It goes without saying that the spectacle was one of the least politically correct the world has ever seen. When man was not killing man religious minorities were literally thrown to the lions.

9. The most famous fighter was Spartacus, a Thracian who led 90,000 slaves in a Gladatorial war against Rome between 73-71BC and who was, of course, later the subject of a film epic.

10. The games were criticised by Roman satirist Juvenal as the fun part of the "bread and circuses" used to distract the masses from the power of the state. Absolutely nothing like Hollywood, then.