Gladiator II hasn’t been released yet, but its trailer is already giving historians much to talk about. Dr. Shadi Bartsch, a classics professor who has written several books on ancient Rome, bluntly described the Ridley Scott-directed film as “ total Hollywood bullsh*t .” The sequel to the Oscar-winning epic is set two decades after the first film and stars Paul Mescal as Lucius, the grandson of Rome’s former emperor Marcus Aurelius and the son of Lucilla and Maximus. Highlights A historian