The Arena (2001)

The character of Timarchus features as the villain of the piece in both movies, but with some substantial changes. In the later movie, as mentioned above, he is the governor of the new settlement of Durostrum, an embittered figure banished from the civilised Roman world, who is determined to crush the native population and build a true Roman city; he declares before the first gladiatorial contest in the new city, "Now we will show them what real gladiators are all about." When the fight is quickly over, however, he turns into a manic figure, who brutally beats the gladiator trainer, Septimus, screaming obsessively, "It wasn’t a fight! You humiliated not only me but Rome!". Later he spares one of the gladiatrices, Livia of Messania, because she is Roman. This portrayal of Timarchus as a man whose overwhelming faith is his belief in Roman superiority reflects on the audience’s attitude towards all Romans. Timarchus himself may be crazy but he is the loyal servant of Rome, who therefore are bloodthirsty vultures, whom nothing can stop, and who are blind to any sensitivities other than their own.

This is reflected in Timarchus’ attitude towards the local population, which also serves to villify him. He is portrayed as ignoring local customs and beliefs, scheduling his gladiatorial fights on holidays. When the local chief begs him, "Please….Don’t schedule your fights on a sacred holiday… It is forbidden to spill blood on the sun turned day. If you do, our land will be cursed for ever", his reply is a mocking,"Superstitious… superstitious. You don’t believe in my gods, why should I concern myself with yours?".

More than anything else, however, Timarchus is a brutal male, who lashes out with physical violence and is unmoved, and even titillated, by female suffering. He hits Boadica, for example, when she flings a plate of berries at a Roman who manhandles her and then sits by calmly as she is raped, ignoring her appeals. Later, he himself rapes her in his private quarters.

It should not be thought that this behaviour is meant to be typical of men at the time; Timarchus’ particular sadism is his own, and based upon power. There is clearly a sexual element to this sadism. It is his idea to have the slave girls fight as gladiators, an idea that is abhorrent to the other characters as shown by Lusinia’s desperate, "What kind of man puts women into the arena?" So eager is he to witness them fighting, that he wakes them at night for a private showing, in order to reassure himself that they really will fight to the death. His sadism is also revealed by his cheating Septimus, who tries to buy the freedom of Lusinia, the slave-girl he loves. Timarchus pretends that he has not paid the full amount, so that she has to fight. When she does so and is defeated, he refuses to spare her and insists on Jesemina killing her, despite the fact that she is pregnant with Septimus’ child. Finally, in what is one of his most disturbing acts of cruelty, after Lusinia’s death, Timarchus, suspecting that Septimus would attempt to kill him, places the body of Lusinia in his own bed, so that Septimus mutilates it rather than killing him when he attacks.

Timarchus is portrayed even in the eyes of the other characters as unbalanced, as evidenced by his mad, gloating celebrations after the night time contest in which Lusinia is killed (the celebrations consist of the Romans holding hands and performing a strange jumping ritual as they chant "Ho! Ho! HO!"). Similarly, in his final actions in which he himself fights the two heroines in the arena, he seems out of control. Yet he is clearly more than a madman; there is another agenda here, verbalised by Jessemina: "Timarchus is a crazy man but he’s a loyal servant of Rome… They are bloodthirsty vultures, and nothing - NOTHING - can stop them"