[Maximus looks at images of his wife and son]
Juba: Can they hear you?
Maximus: Who?
Juba: Your family. In the afterlife.
Maximus: Oh yes.
Juba: What do you say to them?
Maximus: To my son - I tell him I will see him again soon. To keep his heels down while riding his horse. To my wife... that is not your business.
Gracchus: I don't pretend to be a man of the people. But I do try to be a man for the people.
Commodus: You wrote to me once, listing the four chief virtues. Wisdom, Justice, Fortitude and Temperance. As I read the list I knew I had none of them. But i have other virtues, father. Ambition, that can be a virtue when it drives us to excel. Resourcefulness. Courage. Perhaps not on the battlefield but there are many forms of courage. Devotion, to my family, to you. But none of my virtues were on your list. Even then, it was as if you didn't want me for your son.
Marcus Aurelius: Oh Commodus, you go too far.
Commodus: I searched the faces of the gods for ways to please you, to make you proud. One kind word, one full hug while you pressed me to your chest and held me tight, would've been like the sun on my heart for a thousand years. What is in me that you hate so much?
Marcus Aurelius: Shh, Commodus.
Commodus: All I've ever wanted was to live up to you. Ceasar. Father.
Maximus: Do you find it difficult to do your duty?
Cicero: Sometimes I do what I want to do. The rest of the time, I do what I have to.
Commodus: Your Emperor asks for your loyalty, Maximus. Take my hand, I only offer it once.
Gracchus: He enters Rome like a conquering hero. But what has he conquered?
Falco: Give him time, Gracchus. He's young, he may do very well.
Gracchus: For Rome, Falco? Or for you?
Lucilla: Today I saw a slave become more powerful than the Emperor of Rome.
[to his dead friend]
Juba: I will see you again... but not yet. Not yet!
Commodus: The general who became a slave. The slave who became a gladiator. The gladiator who defied an emperor. Striking story! But now, the people want to know how the story ends. Only a famous death will do. And what could be more glorious than to challenge the Emperor himself in the great arena?
Maximus: You would fight me?
Commodus: Why not? Do you think I am afraid?
Maximus: I think you've been afraid all your life.
Lucilla: I want to help you.
Maximus: Yes, you can help me... Forget you ever knew me, and never come back here again.
Maximus: I knew a man once who said, "Death smiles at us all. All a man can do is smile back."
Commodus: I wonder, did your friend smile at his own death?
Maximus: You must know. He was your father.
Commodus: You loved my father, I know. But so did I. That makes us brothers, doesn't it? Smile for me now, brother.
[stabs him]
Maximus: At my signal, unleash hell.
[Watching Lucius sleep]
Commodus: He sleeps so well because he is loved.
Maximus: What we do in life echoes in eternity.
Maximus: I am required to kill, so I kill. That is enough.
Proximo: That's enough for the provinces, but not enough for Rome.
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