Dressed in leather armor, masked by lustrous helmets and heroically wielding swords, members of the UCSD Men’s Fencing Team took to Library Walk, striking various poses and performing mock gladiator swordplay, fighting over girls who walked by. With their conspicuous costumes and dueling stances, it wasn’t difficult to catch the attention of a sizable population on Library Walk. The event, a publicity stunt by Men’s Fencing and Allied Publicity, was designed to attract attention to promote “Pompeii,” Sony Pictures’ newest film, which will be released in theaters Feb. 21.

“[The film is] about a slave-turned-gladiator who falls in love with the princess of Pompeii,” Brittany Lombardi, the coordinator of the publicity event, said. “In the background, Mount Vesuvius is starting to erupt. It’s very dramatic, it’s very exciting, and [there is] a little bit of Valentine’s action in there with the love story.”

The movie details the adventure of Milo (Kit Harington, “Game of Thrones”), a gladiator who fights his way through an arena of challengers to rescue his love interest, Cassia (Emily Browning, “Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events”), from being engaged to Roman senator Corvis (Kiefer Sutherland, “24”), all while battling time to escape the crumbling city.

“We wanted to get people talking about the movie, looking at the movie,” Lombardi said. “We’d love for them to use #pompeiimovie or #pompeiiucsd. We just want to generate some buzz about the movie around UCSD and around San Diego in general.”