Continuity mistake: After Lucius kills the wild monkey, he's got blood all over his mouth, beard, chin, and neck. When he stands up, he's spotless.
Continuity mistake: After the Virgil quote scene and the fight that follows, Lucius takes a bath. There's a close-up of him saying something about dying in the arena, and his hair is suddenly better brushed and drier. Then it goes back to the previous wet hairstyle.
Continuity mistake: When Ravi is healing Lucius, there is no blood visible on the right side of his face (screen left). However, as they walk toward the "What we do in life" inscription, Lucius's face is suddenly covered in blood. (01:29:15)
Continuity mistake: When Lucius enters the arena for the final fight, his armour features a carved angel on the left side and a carving of a woman and boy on the right. The following shot is flipped; the carvings have switched sides.
Continuity mistake: When Maximus dies, his head falls to the left, with his chin resting against the armour. In the following shot, as the others approach to lift him, his head is suddenly upright and facing straight ahead.
Continuity mistake: A gladiator arrives on a rhino and salutes the crowd. Before the fight, he raises his left arm in salute. A shot later, from a different angle, his left hand is holding the reins, and he is now saluting with his right hand.
Continuity mistake: The arrow that kills Arishat is initially embedded roughly a palm's breadth below her breasts. When Maximus reaches her moments later, the arrow has shifted several centimetres upward, now positioned between her breasts.
Continuity mistake: Before the first battle in the Colosseum begins, the warrior Glyceo salutes the emperors and they applaud him. Emperor Geta wears golden wrist guards in one shot. In the previous shot, when he is drinking wine, and also in the next, they are gone. (00:56:28)
Continuity mistake: Macrinus walks over to where Lucius is bathing and places two coins, one slightly overlapping the other. A shot later, they're stacked.
Continuity mistake: When Lucius addresses both armies at the city entry, he throws his sword on the floor ahead of him. He walks around, and from the opposite front angle, one can see the sword behind him. From the immediate opposite angle of his back, the sword is gone.
Continuity mistake: When Lucius steps in the water to see his wife's corpse, his hairstyle around the forehead changes between shots before he is splashed by water.
Continuity mistake: During the riots night in Rome, Macrinus and Caracalla talk to Geta, his monkey on his shoulder. The position of the monkey is inconsistent in every single shot.
Continuity mistake: When Macrinus is poisoning Caracalla's mind, telling him about supposed plans of his brother to use him as a scapegoat, Caracalla shouts, "That's a LIE, he's... he always LIES." The cup suddenly switched hands.
Continuity mistake: When Acacius arrives in Rome and meets with the Emperors, there is a man with a monkey on his shoulder, his face surrounded by bright light. An instant cut later, his face is in the shadows.
Continuity mistake: When Lucila reads two tablets, her right hand suddenly holds a stylus between instant cuts.
Continuity mistake: Glyceo grabs the sword on the arena floor and extends his right arm. An instant cut later, his arm is lowered, then it cuts back to the previous angle of his arm extended.
Continuity mistake: When Lucius asks the doctor to give him the prison keys and send a message to the soldiers at Ostia, Lucius' arm is bent around the prison bars, except for a brief shot where it's suddenly straight; then the shot changes and it's bent again.
Continuity mistake: After Lucius quotes Virgil, he kills a man who collapses on a chair. When he lies dead, there's a leg or armrest on the floor parallel to his body. A shot later, it's perpendicular.
