Gladiator Analysis Essay

The author of Gladiator uses sequence to organize his ideas and tells about events in the order they happened, which helps readers understand what brought about the beginning and end of the gladiator tradition in Rome. Usually, history is best written with events in the order they occurred. Imagine reading about a handful of events with dates ranging from 264 b.c. to a.d. 404 out of order.

In this excerpt, the author includes a myriad of dates and events. These dates and events are put in order based on when they happened in the past. It is necessary for them to be this way. For example, the text states in the first paragraph that the “first known gladiatorial combat in Rome took place at the funeral of a nobleman named Junius Brutus in 264 b.c.” The next event mentioned was in 216 b.c. Instead of jumping back in time to, possibly, 269 b.c., the author continued the text in sequential order. If I were in the author’s shoes, I would not want to go back and forth, researching events, since this is a non-fiction text. Also, the transition between events is smoother when they are in order. Words and phrases, such as “by

A student reading this book could become confused after reading about one event after another out of sequence. Therefore, sequential text structure helps the audience understand the cause of the rise and fall of gladiator duels. Telling about events is like presenting instructions. Order matters because audiences are learning in both ways, so the correct information should be stated. Now, picture this. The author states that Honorius abolished gladiator fights before mentioning that a “Christian monk named Telemachus jumped into an arena in Rome” to bring a gladiator fight to a halt. This sequence is not true to history and facts. The monk was torn “limb from limb” in the arena, which then caused Honorius to ban the