By Wray Vamplew/The Conversation In the trailer for Ridley Scott’s hotly anticipated sequel to Gladiator (2000), a new gladiator (played by Paul Mescal) goes to battle in “the greatest temple Rome ever built – the Colosseum”. He comes up against naval warfare, a cutthroat promoter (Denzel Washington) and a stampeding rhino. But how much of this really took place in Roman times? As always with films based in the past, pedantic historians will jump in to assess the degree of cinematic license and historical misinterpretation. So it is with the forthcoming Gladiator II. Did gladiators fight rhinos? One thing that certainly did not happen was a warrior mounted on a rhinoceros (even a non-computer-generated one) charging at a group of gladiators. However, there is a record of a rhino at the inauguration of the Colosseum in 80 BC. It didn’t fight men, but a bull, bear, buffalo, bison, lion and two steers. The other rare mentions of rhinos in Rome are of those in menageries, to be admired as exotic creatures. Read moreSection: NewsHistory & ArchaeologyHistoryImportant EventsRead Later