Factual error: At several points in the movie you will see speeches to a large crowd. These take place at the Piazza San Pietro. This square however is late Renaissance. Connected with this is the columns you see in these scenes. They were designed by the Italian artist Bernini, and the film crew didn't even remove the statues of all the popes.
Continuity mistake: Maximus is about to be executed in the forest in Germania. Maximus kneels on the floor. The swordsman steps behind him and lifts the sword above his head to drive it down into the back of the neck of Maximus. When Maximus stands up and head-butts the swordsman the swordsman's arms are now by his side and the sword gone. The next shot shows the arms back in the air, with the sword, and Maximus grabbing the sword. (00:38:35)
Revealing mistake: As the last man is killed during the Battle of Carthage, you can see that he actually doesn't get stabbed. The sword hits the ground beside him. Furthermore, he doesn't bleed at all. (01:24:35)
Continuity mistake: During the fight with the gladiators in the chariots, Maximus jumps on a horse and chops off a gladiator's head. Now you can clearly see the blood on the blade. But when the fight is over before he salutes the crowd, you can see the blade is clean. (01:24:20)
Revealing mistake: When Maximus quickly kills all his opponents, the third to last man he kills of the group of men, when he stabs him in the stomach, you can clearly see him "stab" to the side of his stomach. Even more visible when you slow it down. (01:04:20)
Continuity mistake: When Maximus slices the head off of his opponent, and delivers his line "Are you not entertained?" his sword begins in his left hand then it cuts to a wide shot, and it's in his right, then they cut back to a closer shot and it's back in his left hand again. (01:04:50)
Continuity mistake: In the fight scene where Maximus fights alone in Morocco, watch where he punches a gladiator, slices open his belly then spins around and stabs him. Watch once he has spun around; there is no cut on the man's belly. (01:04:15)
Factual error: Architectural elements were from several centuries later. Note the balustrades, bell towers and domes in the Rome skyline shot and, more than anything else, Maximus' house, a typical 15th century Chianti villa. Also the columns are not painted, which they were in ancient Rome. (00:43:10)
Revealing mistake: After the first battle in the Colosseum (The Battle of Carthage), Commodus decides to meet "The Spaniard" in the arena. When Quintus (the head of the Praetorian Guard) is telling the slaves to drop their weapons, we can see one of the spectators hiding a plastic bottle of water (right upper corner of the screen). (01:25:58)
Revealing mistake: As Tigris lays injured on the floor of the Colosseum, there are several close-ups of Maximus holding the axe above his head, with light streaming in around him. There are two things wrong with this; First of all, the camera angle is nowhere near steep enough to see the top of the Colesseum, therefore no light rays. Secondly, the top of the set can actually be seen between the light rays, as the canvas shades are too short and wide to be those seen in the CG wide-shots. Use the DVD "Making Of" as reference. (01:43:20)
Revealing mistake: Near the end of the movie, when Commodus and Maximus are in close, struggling for the knife, take a good look at the knife. Both of the actors' hands are gripping it and it's clearly rubber because it's bent at a serious angle. (02:16:30)
Continuity mistake: When Maximus stabs the last gladiator during his solo match, as he stabs him with his last sword you see him using his left arm while holding his right arm behind him. When it cuts he is suddenly holding the sword with his right arm instead. (01:04:35)
Continuity mistake: Commodus and Maximus are on their way up from underneath the Colosseum, the ground is covered with red rose petals. Once the guards have formed a square for the fight, there are no roses within the square. (02:14:10)
Revealing mistake: After Maximus is dead, if you look at his neck, you can see his pulse. (02:19:15)
Revealing mistake: In the scene where the Praetorians attacks the gladiator's quarters and the gladiators are forced to fight in order to hide Maximus' escape, Hagen is shot full of arrows. Note the blocky silhouette of his torso area? What kind of padding is he wearing under that canvas jerkin? (02:07:10)
Factual error: When the Romans fight in Germania, the forest is made up largely of European black pines (Pinus nigra). However the woods there and then should have been mostly beeches (Fagus sylvatica). (00:02:30)
Revealing mistake: When Maximus charges his cavalry against the Germanians in the first battle, he decapitates a Germanian standing in front of a tree. In the side-on shot of this, the Germanian is obviously a mannequin, as when the head comes off, so does the wig on top of it. (00:09:40)
Visible crew/equipment: In the first battle in the Colosseum, right before the female gladiator gets chopped in half by the chariot, you can see someone in a black outfit wearing what looks like safety or hiking boots driving the chariot. (01:22:50)
Continuity mistake: At the end of the first battle in the Colosseum, Maximus puts his sword up to the crowd. There is blood at the tip of the sword, but in the following shot, it has vanished. (01:24:40)
Deliberate mistake: The historically inaccurate portrayal of stirrups in the film was actually due to the stuntmen enacting the cavalry charge in the initial battle scene. Apparently the stuntmen refused to ride the horses over the forest terrain at full gallop without stirrups because it was far too dangerous for both horse and rider. (Galloping a horse through forest or any uneven terrain is incredibly dangerous.) Stirrups were granted as a concession to the stuntmen on the grounds of saftey. Since they were included in this scene, the film makers decided to allow them in all other scenes where necessary. (Only seven stuntmen were used in the filming of these scenes - all the other riders are just CGI copies.)
Chosen answer: Because they would be the ranking soldiers, and accustomed to being given orders. Being disciplined, they would obey Quintus without question. The legions would necessarily have soldiers assigned to following orders at different times, similar to how a captain would give an order to a full room, and the first mate would be the one to carry out the order.
rswarrior