- In a strange montage, the camera switches back and forth between a Maximus that appears to be floating (he's being carried), and images of the sun rising and setting.
- Maximus experiences the same reverie we've seen before—walking in a field of tall grass.
- This time, however, he approaches a walled fortress of sorts. Could this be the entrance to the afterlife?
- The scene looks similar to his estate back in Spain, so perhaps this is an afterlife where he will live where he's always wanted to be: at home.
- A man is standing over Maximus as he starts to come to consciousness. His wound is festering, and we can see maggots in it.
- Eww.
- We see a succession of strange images: a camel, a vision of his wife and son, a strange masked figure.
- Maximus fully awakes, and starts to touch his wound. The black man says somebody will clean it, and to wait and see.
- Soon we get a glimpse of a desert landscape. It looks like Maximus has ended up somewhere in Africa, on the fringes of the Roman Empire, along with a bunch of others.
- The camera pans over a huge landscape, and there are snowy mountains in the distance.
- The man tells Maximus not to die, or else they (we don't know who "they" is yet) will feed him to the lions (again: Africa).
- Lions, he says, are worth more than they (he and Maximus) are, a sign that they're now slaves.
- We get another glimpse of Maximus' wound, and it looks like it's scabbed over. It's been cleaned.
- As the caravan enters a town or village, writing appears on the screen telling us they're in the Roman province of Zucchabar.
- This sounds cool and all, except for the fact that there was no such province in the Roman Empire named Zucchabar.
- There was in fact a city called Zucchabar (modern day Miliana), in what is now Algeria, but the actual name of the province was Mauretania Caesariensis.
- It's a mouthful, we know.