The Cicero biography "Cicero: The Life and Times of Rome's Greatest Politician" and Gregory Hays's translation of Marcus Aurelius's "Meditations" received large spikes in sales after the release of the film. The film also began a revival of the historical epic genre with films such as "The Last Samurai", "Troy", "The Alamo", "King Arthur", "Alexander", "300" and its sequel ', "Kingdom of Heaven", and "Robin Hood" (the last two were also directed by Scott). The gladiator arena set piece from the 2002 film ', which entered production shortly after the release of "Gladiator", has been compared to the arena setting in the Scott film.