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The times
Colosseum 'centurion' faces jail over sword
March 9th, 2002
Il Messaggero, the Rome daily newspaper, which reported the arrest on its front page, said that Signor Magni, known as “Franchino”, deserved praise rather than censure for giving tourists a taste of the real ancient Rome. La Repubblica said that authenticity at the Colosseum was a laudable aim since “sword and sandals epics such as Gladiator go to great lengths to get the details right, even if they still sometimes get them wrong”.
A spokesman for the fake centurions, who gave his name only as Massimo — the Italian for Maximus, the name of the hero of Gladiator, played by Russell Crowe — said that his men could normally expect to earn about 30 (£20) a day from tips. “For us every tourist is a piece of bread,” he said. His own sword was made of plastic, “but Franchino is passionate about weapons, a collector”.
Massimo said that altercations with the police were “a fact of life. Quite often tourists don’t realise we expect to be paid and that sometimes leads to incidents in which the police get involved”.
The original news from Il Messaggero (in italian)
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