Ben-Hur (continued...)

As we continued to watch Ben-Hur at the part where the battle on the sea starts. The battle is against some pirates. Ben-Hur has been on a galley as his sentence for three years so far, rowing the boats for the Romans as a slave when he used to be a descendent of a nobleman.
During the battle, both sides use these type of catapults to throw balls of fire onto the opponents ships. Catapults are kind of the ancient day's cannons. These ideas of inventions came from the Greeks. So did the gears and the levers idea to catapult the flaming balls over a long range and height.
When Ben-Hur escapes from his position and everyone is trying to escape, he killed a man that was trying to kill Arrius (the general of the ship who was testing Ben-Hur earlier with the rowing speed) using a spear. When I watched this, I had some sort of flash back to the beginning of the movie where Messala and Ben-Hur play with the javelins and Ben-Hur is good.

An example of how a slave is rewarded is when Ben-Hur saves the life of Arrius when their ship sinks. When they are pulled out of the water by another Roman ship, they are told that they won the battle. Arrius is pretty happy that he lived to learn of victory and is happy with Ben-Hur, even if he is a slave. He gives Ben-Hur water and later tells about him to Caesar. He is even allowed to ride with Arrius on a chariot.

During a party of the adoption of Ben-Hur, we can see how wealthy Romans entertain themselves. There were dance acts and throughout the night a live music performance. Large numbers of people gather to acknowledge Ben-Hur because now he was part of the elite.

We can see the power of Caesar, the Emperor of Rome. When he was going to speak, he could just raise one hand or gesture and the whole city would be quiet. Everyone practically worships Caesar but they fear him as well.

We can see social classes at work. When Messala receives a gift from the son of Arrius, and finds out it is Ben-Hur, he can't do anything about it because Ben-Hur is more important and well-known than Messala.