Gladiator: Dignitas, Auctoritas, and All-that-other-tas

In the movie Gladiator, we follow the story of Maximus Decimus Meridius and how he works his way back up from being a slave to avenging his family who was killed by Commodus, son of Marcus Aurelius and brother of Maximus.
The movie starts off with Maximus returning to Rome defeating Germanic tribes near Vindobona with the Roman army. He comes back and his father Marcus Aurelius talks to him about making Maximus the successor of the Roman empire since he felt that Commodus wasn’t fit to do so. Upon hearing this, Commodus kills his father as an act of retaliation and seizes the throne for himself. He then asks Maximus for his support and loyalty, but when Maximus refuses, Commodus arranges for Maximus to be arrested and for his family to be killed. After escaping his arrest, he heads back home only to see his wife and child crucified and collapses shortly after.
When he wakes up, he finds that he has been captured by slavers and was then sold to a gladiator trainer named Proximo. Slowly recognizing that there is only 1 way to get out of this and to enact revenge, he reluctantly takes part in local tournaments where he easily wins and starts to earn recognition over time. This leads into the 150 days of games event by Commodus that was started to commemorate his father’s death, where Maximus finds his way into a reenactment of the Battle of Zama as a “Carthaginian”, where he actually leads his army to victory. After this, he reveals to the people in the colosseum and Commodus who he really was and declares an act of vengeance on Commodus. After fighting some more on his way to the top, he eventually faces Commodus in a duel, but was severely injured beforehand to put Commodus at an advantage. Even with that, Commodus dies, only for Maximus to succumb to his injury soon after.
All in all, the main themes I got from watching the movie was the difference between dignitas and auctoritas, with examples being Commodus and Maximus. Throughout the movie, Commodus was given a large amount of auctoritas, which gave him power, but severely lacked in dignitas due to his poor character and his actions throughout the movie. On the other hand, Maximus had a lot of dignitas but lost most of his auctoritas after Commodus arrested him, and this showed in the movie when Maximus had to earn his way up to challenge Commodus to a duel, but along the way gained more dignitas, earning the name Maximus the Merciful after sparing one of the strongest and undefeated gladiators in Tigris of Gaul. The 2 of them were opposites of each other through their actions throughout the movie.