Roman Civilization

• History and Interpretation of Gladiatorial Games
• The Romans believed that they inherited the practice of gladiatorial games from the Etruscans who used them as part of a funeral ritual (servants would duel to the death for the right to provide companionship to their owners in eternity). We don't have any evidence, however, that the Etruscans, in fact, did any such thing. Conversely, we do have evidence of gladiators in Campanian society, perhaps of Samnite origin. The early Christians interpreted the gladiatorial games as a type of human sacrifice. While it is true that gladiatorial games involved the attempted killing of one person by another, and that the Romans associated them with funeral rituals, in fact, the analogy by the Christians seems to have been more a brilliant rhetorical move in the service of a larger anti-pagan polemic than a fair description of how Romans themselves understood the games.
• The first gladiatorial games were offered in Rome in 264 BCE by sons of Junius Brutus Pera in their father's honor after he had died. Gladiatorial combat became a very popular form of public spectacle very quickly in Rome. Those who offered games began to compete in terms of the numbers of matches offered. Whereas the sons of Brutus Pera offered three matches, a century later, Titus Flamininus offered 74 pairs in games in honor of his father that lasted over three days. Julius Caesar promised 320 matches in funeral games for his daughter, Julia, but the Senate passed legislation limiting the amount of money that could be spent on gladiatorial games to stop him. Thus, during the Republic, gladiatorial combat was associated in Rome with a) a death and b) elite competition. Such displays provided members of the elite with a vehicle by which to advertise the newest generation in a family which sought to rule Romans.
• The funeral association is as important for our analysis as the association with competition within the elite. Not merely were the games linked to a specific person's death, but they were also very much about death (during the Republic they were only held around the time of the winter equinox; Augustus later permitted gladiatorial games at the spring equinox as well). Gladiators entered the arena with the intent to kill each other. Roman spectators thus observed men facing death, and attempting to overcome it. In a metaphorical sense as well, gladiators were socially dead - they were infamis under Roman law (typically slaves, prisoners of war and convicted criminals who had a much more restricted set of rights under Roman law than ordinary citizens). If they fought well enough, however, they might, with the crowd's support, win both their lives (crowds could and did urge the editores, the sponsors of the games, to spare a defeated gladiator before the kill) and their social identities (crowds urged emperors to free gladiators who were popular). Thus, gladiators, from a Roman's point of view (if not a Christian's) offered at least the opportunity to observe death defeated and transcended.
• What gladiators did (indeed what they were trained to do) was kill and die well. These were tasks of extraordinary urgency for Romans. On the one hand, Romans (as most premodern societies and impoverished modern societies) faced daunting mortality rates. They did not have the opportunity to "grow into their deaths" as a matter of course (as moderns in materially successful societies do). A Roman at the age of 20 knew he would probably die before he was 30, and he wanted to meet death with honor and dignity. He could observe gladiators do it in the arena. Conversely, as members of a relentlessly militaristic culture, Romans valued the art of killing in a way we simply don't understand. Roman soldiers, moreover, enjoyed a much greater autonomy in their line of battle than Greeks did. In fact, the success of the Roman battle line often depended on the courage of individual soldiers in hand to hand combat. Thus the ability of an ordinary citizen to kill single handedly was a skill that the entire empire depended on to survive.
• Gladiatorial games proved immediately and immensely popular within the Roman empire. There are reports, for example, of people in towns where prominent citizens died virtually extorting promises of gladiatorial games from the survivors. Eventually, the emperors had to regulate how much could be spent on gladiatorial performances to prevent members of the elite from bankrupting themselves. As Rome expanded, so did the performance of the games. We have evidence of gladiatorial performances in virtually every part of the Roman empire. The games themselves became a vehicle for the Romanization of the empire. On the one hand, Roman soldiers liked to observe gladidatorial matches. Thus, lanistae (owner/managers of gladiatorial troops) would follow the troops to new quarters and offer matches for entertainment. This could be a highly profitable enterprise and it was not unusual for members of the elite to invest in gladiatorial troupes. Cicero's friend, Atticus, for example, made back his investment in a troupe after two performances. The games themselves provided ways for Rome to demonstrate the power of their empire. The sheer cost of the producing games was stunning. Contests involving animals from distant provinces demonstrated in a material way how far Rome's dominance reached. Inhabitants of towns in lands conquered by the Romans built amphitheaters and sponsored competitions as a way of demonstrating their Romanness. Historians traditionally had a great deal of difficulty accepting that the Greeks, for example, enthusiastically embraced the games (cf. Japanese enthusiasm for baseball), but, in fact, the Greeks loved gladiators. The Greeks were not alone. Mosaics and wall paintings from North Africa and other parts of the empire routinely use depictions of gladiatorial combat for their themes.
• There are a number of reasons why gladiatorial combat proved so enthralling for Romans. The arena was a liminal site where fundamental human conflicts were symbolically fought. The gladiator as outlaw confronted the forces of civilization and law. Contestants who specialized in the fighting of animals fought in the guise of bears, leopards and lions - wild and, to folks living then, daunting forces of nature. Finally, at issue in every gladiatorial contest, was the most basic question of life and death.
• Format of gladiatorial games
• The Romans, throughout the history of the Republic, drew a sharp distinction between gladiatorial contests and other forms of spectacular entertainment. Games that the state sponsored were called ludi, were held quite frequently, never involved armed single combat, were associated with the worship of a god and were paid for (at least in part) by the public treasury. Gladiatorial shows, which the Romans called munera, in contrast, were sponsored by private individuals, were held very infrequently, were associated with funeral rituals, and were paid for privately. The change in Roman government initiated by Augustus blurred some of these distinctions (e.g. funding). Augustus, in fact, was quick to take control of the infrastructure of the gladiatorial entertainment business (the Roman state, for example, owned the schools where gladiators trained).
• In addition to the armed individual gladiatorial contests, other spectacles became associated with gladiatorial games. Venationes were usually held in the morning of game days (but could be offered on their own). Bestiarii, or combatants trained to fight animals, were pitted against wild animals from all over the empire (bullfights and rodeos are the modern heirs and/or equivalents). The slaughter of wildlife in these contests was astonishing. Hundreds of deaths in a day were routine. At the games held by Trajan when he became Emperor, 9,000 were killed. Today we are appalled by scale of wanton destruction. But to folks living 2,000 years ago, wild animals were as much enemies as marauding Germanic tribes. While there are occasional reports of audience sympathy for the plight of animals (elephants in particular seemed to have been troubling), Romans overwhelming sided with the human combatants. The venationes symbolized the ability of human society to protect itself from hostile forces of nature and remained popular throughout the history of the empire. The Christians, for example, never attempted to outlaw venationes while they worked strenuously to end gladiatorial combat.
• After the venationes, a typical spectacle would include a lunch interlude during which humiliores (Romans of non-elite status - execution by sword was a privilege reserved for the elite) who had been convicted of capital crimes were executed. Typically, the convicted were killed by burning at the stake or crucifixtion (forms of capital punishment that the Romans appeared to have adopted from the Carthaginians) or ad bestias (in which the convict would be left alone in the arena with one or more wild - and hungry - animals). Romans had a somewhat contradictory attitude towards these executions. On the one hand, like the venationes, the executions were welcome examples of the power of society, law and order, to restrain and suppress forces that threatened it. Public executions were popular. On the other hand, writers of elite status, seem to suggest that gentlemen and women didn't indulge themselves too much in this spectacle. The decent thing to do was go get lunch. Some writers, for example, criticized the Emperor Claudius because he routinely stayed in the stadium and observed the executions. To ordinary Romans, however, Claudius' presence indicated that the Emperor took his responsibility for preserving law and order seriously. The people executed were, by definition, wicked and dangerous. Their deaths were something to rejoice in. During the Principate they become something to revel in. Under Nero, the practice arose of writing plays adapted from myths in which people died and assigning the role of a character who would die to a condemned man. The audience would watch the play, and the actual killing of the condemned man in character's role (an ancient variant on a snuff film).
• It was at these lunch time spectacles that Romans executed Christians when local or national officials were in a persecuting mode. Public response to these executions could vary dramatically. On the one hand, Christians who refused to sacrifice to the Roman gods, flagrantly rejected the norms of the society in which they lived. There are plenty of examples of communities demanding that their leaders send Christians to the arena for public execution (cf. accounts of Jews demanding that Pilate order the execution of Jesus). On the other hand, the "crime" of Christianity was quite different than the crimes of others executed in the arena (murder, temple theft, etc.). Christian sources, at least, report that the dignity of Christians in facing a spectacle intended to degrade and humiliate them, often inspired respect among the crowds in the stadium.

• After lunch, the gladiatorial contest were held. Originally, gladiators were identified with ethnic names (e.g., Thracian or Samnite) which indicated the kind of weaponry they used, not the actual ethnic identity. In fact, the evidence suggests gladiators fought hard to resist the pseudo-ethnic labeling (there's a famous example of a gladiator of Samnite origin who fought as a "Thracian") and took care on their tombstones to indicate their true ethnic identities.
• Samnites (later called secutores) carried oblong shields and short swords and wore plumed helmets with visors. Thracians carried small round shields and curved daggers. Gladiators called retiarii ("net men") carried nets to trip and hold their opponents and tridents which they used to finish off a captured victim. A Retariius typically fought a "Gallic" gladiator (also called a murmillo) who wore a rectangular shield and a visored helmet decorated with a fish (murmillo) or a Samnite. The vary names and distinctive weaponry of the gladiators displayed a history of the peoples Rome had defeated as her empire expanded. Interestingly enough, as the empire expanded and gladiatorial combat grew popular in the provinces, Romans began to drop the ethnic identification of gladiators for terms that described their costume or style of fighting (e.g. Samnites became secutores).
• Gladiatorial Demography
• Romans "recruited" gladiators from a number of population sources over the course of their history. Captured soldiers were a popular source, particularly in the years of Rome's imperial expansions. Even when the geographical limits of the empire had been established, soldiers of rebellious provinces remained a fruitful source of gladiators. Titus and Vespasian were able to eliminate extraordinary numbers of rebellious Jews by organizing gladiatorial games after they "pacified" Judea. Roman courts could sentence individuals convicted of serious criminal offenses to gladiatorial schools. Similarly owners of recalcitrant and/or fugitive slaves could sell these slaves ad ludos (or condemn them to death in public executions). Under the empire, however, laws were passed requiring owners to establish some basis (e.g., criminal behavior) for such treatment of a slave.
• Despite the fact (perhaps because of the fact) that gladiatorial combat was so marked by "outlaw" and servile combatants, free citizens could and did become gladiators. To do so, they had to take an oath in which they agreed that they would submit to a) being branded; b) being chained; c) being killed by an iron weapon; d) to pay for the food and drink they received with their blood; and d) to suffer things even if they did not wish to. To agree, voluntarily, to such conditions was a renunciation of all the social benefits of citizenship in the Roman world (libertas, the sanctity of the citizen's body, etc.). Thus, the free citizens who chose to enter the arena were viewed with grave suspicion by members of the Roman elite. However, there is evidence that a substantial proportion of the gladiatorial forces (perhaps as many as half) were originally of citizen status (who voluntarily entered the gladiatorial schools) by the end of the Republic.
• The choice for some citizens can be explained by economic factors. Gladiators got three square meals a day, decent medical care, and if they were good, survived to freedom. They also had the opportunity to win purses that editores would frequently offer as bonus in competitions. If they survived they would win their freedom. And although they could never be citizens, their children could. For citizens of higher social status who had fallen on hard times (scholars always posit the example of a Roman who lost his fortune in the a lawsuit) or economically marginal citizens without a trade, career options were limited to the army (with a strict disciplinary system), teaching (for the literate who were willing to fight for fees) and the gladiatorial schools.
• Another category of gladiator that should interest us is women. Women fought as gladiators. The author of an inscription from Pompeii boasts that he was the first editor in his town to bring women into the arena. The practice appears to have been widespread and did not end until specifically outlawed by the Emperor Septimius Severus in the early 3rd century, C.E. The female gladiator is perhaps the most marginal symbol available and there was no doubt some purient interest aroused by these spectacles. The presence of women in the arena, however, suggests that Romans looked upon the particular virtus [skill in killing and dying well] gladiators symbolized as something that existed almost before gender.
• There were also citizens, particularly during the Principate, who fought as gladiators as a political statement. Under the Republic, the marginal social status of the gladiator reinforced Roman belief in the superior status of citizens. As Rome suffered civil war and then virtual monarchy, members of the elite would sometimes choose to fight in the arena as a way of demonstrating that the Augustan ideology of the "Republic Restored" was so much bunk. All citizens, they suggested, now were no better than slaves. Conversely, some Emperors, themselves became obsessed with arena. Caligula forced free born citizens to fight as gladiators. The Emperor Commodus is said to have fought as a gladiator in 1000 contests. These "bad" Emperors, who were themselves liminal figures, marking the line between divine and mortal, used the arena to demonstrate their authority and diminish that of the elite. Emperors who appeared as gladiators did what no citizen should dare to do. Emperors who compelled citizens to appear as gladiators demonstated that mere citizen status meant nothing when compared with imperial status.
• Romans accepted and supported the Principate, however, because emperors implicitly promised to maintain the integrity of Rome's complex hierarchy of social status. "Good" emperors were sensitive to the complexity of their power relations with Romans across the penumbra of statuses within Roman society. A "good" emperor appeared at the games, and attended to the populace's expression of their will. A "good" Emperor supported the spectacles as a way of demonstrating the ability of Rome to protect its citizenry from internal threats to its law and order, and the historic ability of Rome to spread this protection across the Mediterranean basin and beyond. A "good" Emperor, thus enjoyed the games, but not too much.
• How were they trained?
• While the prospect of taking the gladiator's oath no doubt horrifies us, relative to the life Romans at the economic margin enjoyed, conditions in gladiatorial schools were not that bad. It is true that the conditions in the school where Spartacus trained were bad enough to spark the worst slave revolt in Roman history. However, this school was an anomaly. Owners and trainers conceived of gladiators as an investment. Skimping on the schools simply didn't make sense. Gladiators received a reasonable diet (a high protein/fat diet in training) and good (for the day) medical care. They formed enduring relationships with women that resulted in children, and if they survived to freedom, legally recognized marriages and families. Within the community of gladiators they, like all Romans, formed collegia and shared a cult worship of the god Hercules. In fact, in a bizarre way, the gladiatorial schools seem to have provided their inhabitants with a vital, united and committed community (admittedly predicated on the possibility that one might have to kill another). Gladiators were trained not merely how to fight well, but how to make an efficient killing blow and, if defeated, how to offer one's body for the most effective coup de grace. In cases where gladiators or bestarii were mortally wounded in the arena, the accepted practice seems to have been to remove them from public view before executing the killing blow. Typically gladiators fought a handful of matches a year, and would, if they survived, win there freedom after a number (which varied widely depending on time and place) their freedom. Even gladiators who lost a match could survive if the audience pleaded their case to the editor.
• Despite their servile and "outlaw" legal and social status, gladiators often enjoyed great social prestige. Young Roman boys liked to hang out at gladiator schools and even take lessons there [parents hated this]. Roman matrons particularly enjoyed having affairs with gladiators [or at least Roman men often worried that they did]. The 'pop' celebrity of gladiators, like the 'pop' celebrity of athletes today, indicates the extraordinary importance of the battles they fought in the arena to the construction and maintaince of Romanitas.

Copyright Leo Curran.
For more images from Pompeii, see Maecenas: Images of Ancient Greece and Rome on CTCWeb.

• A Thracian - wore ocrea on both legs, carried a small square shield, wore either a full visored helmet or an open faced helmet with a wide brim, and carried a curved Thracian sword with an angled bend in the blade;
• A Secutor - took his name from the term for "pursuer" and fought virtually naked and bald, carrying a large oval or rectangular shield and a sword or dagger, wearing an ocrea on the left leg, leather bands at the elbow and wrists (manicae), and a round or high-visored helmet;
• A Retiarius - symbolized the fisherman and wore only a loin cloth (subligaculum) and a metal shoulder-piece (galerus) on the left arm, and carried a net (iaculum), a dagger, and a trident or tunny-fish harpoon (fascina). One variation on the Retiarius was the Laquearii who carried a lasso instead of a net.

For a further discussion of the public perception of Roman gladiators, see Prof. Roger Dunkle's "The Cultural Meaning of Gladiatorial Combat."

For a further discussion of the Venatio, see Prof. Roger Dunkle's The Cultural Meaning of the Venatio: Part 1 and Part 2.

Festus, a second century AD scholar, suggests that gladiatorial combat was a substitution for an original sacrifice of prisoners on the tombs of great warriors. There is an interesting parallel for this in the Iliad. Achilles sacrificed twelve Trojan boys on Patroclus’ tomb (23.175-76).¹ This practice is perhaps based on the idea that blood could restore life to the dead. One thinks of the ghosts in the Odyssey who come up out of the depths, attracted by the animal blood of animals slaughtered by Odysseus (12.95-96). Tertullian, a second century AD Christian writer, claimed that gladiatorial combat was a human sacrifice to the manes or spirits of the dead (De Spect. 12.2-3). Ville supports this view of gladiatorial combat as a substitute for a human sacrifice that nourishes the honored dead with blood. He calls gladiatorial contests an amelioration of human sacrifice that permits at least the winner to survive the ritual (and sometimes even the loser).²

1. Human sacrifice at the funeral of a great man is a phenomenon seen in other ancient cultures such as Ur and China. This practice also was witnessed by Europeans in the West African kingdom of Dahomey from the fifteenth through the nineteenth centuries. See A. Futrell, Blood in the Arena: The Spectacle of Roman Power (Austin 1997) 177-82. This view of the origins of gladiatorial contests, however, is not universally accepted. See D. Kyle, Spectacles of Death in Ancient Rome (London, 1998), 36-40 and D.S. Potter, in D.S. Potter and J.D. Mattingly, eds., Life, Death, and Entertainment in the Roman Empire (Ann Arbor 1999), 305-6. Back to text.

2. G. Ville, "La guerre et le Munus," J.-P. Brisson (ed.), Problèmes de la guerre à Rome (Paris, 1969) 186. Back to text.

Gladiators¹ were usually recruited from criminals, slaves (especially captured fugitives), and prisoners of war. Criminals, having lost their citizen rights and slaves and prisoners of war having none, had no choice about becoming a gladiator, if they had the physical and emotional make-up necessary for the profession. Some free-born men, however, although they had not lost their citizen rights, voluntarily chose the profession and bound themselves body and soul to the owner of a gladiatorial troupe (lanista) by swearing an oath "to endure branding, chains, flogging or death by the sword" and to do whatever the master ordered (Petronius Sat. 117.5). It has been estimated that by the end of the Republic, about half of the gladiators were volunteers (auctorati), who took on the status of a slave for an agreed-upon period of time.

But why would a free man want to become a gladiator? When he took the gladiator’s oath, he agreed to be treated as a slave and suffered the ultimate social disgrace (infamia). Seneca describes the oath as "most shameful" (Ep. 37.1-2). As unattractive as this may sound to us, there were advantages. The candidate's life took on new meaning. He became a member of a cohesive group that was known for its courage, good morale, and absolute fidelity to its master to the point of death. His life became a model of military discipline and through courageous behavior he was also now capable of achieving honor similar to that enjoyed by Roman soldiers on the battlefield. There were other advantages. For example, an aristocrat who had suffered a great financial setback in a lawsuit or who had squandered his inheritance would find it extremely difficult to make a living. After all, he had spent his life living on inherited wealth and was not used to working for a living. He could enter the army or become a school teacher, or take up a life of crime as a bandit. In comparison with these occupations, a career as a gladiator might seem more attractive. He would not fight more than 2 or 3 times a year and would have a chance at fame and wealth (with which they could buy their freedom), employing those military skills that were appropriate to the citizen-soldier. In the arena, the volunteer gladiator could indulge his fantasy of military glory and fame before an admiring crowd. As a gladiator, he could achieve the kind of public adulation that modern athletes enjoy today.

The living conditions of gladiators were harsh but, as profitable investments, they perhaps lived better than many commoners in terms of food, housing, and medical attention. New or undisciplined men were shackled and unattended only in the bathroom, but trained gladiators were not always bound, imprisoned, or even confined to barracks.²

Crescens the nocturnal netter (retiarius) of young girls.

Gladiators were owned by a person called a lanista and were trained in the lanista’s school (ludus). Gladiatorial combat was as much a science as modern boxing (Sen. Ep. 22.1). Training involved the learning of a series of figures, which were broken down into various phases. Sometimes fans complained that a gladiator fought too mechanically, according to the numbers. In the early Empire there were four major gladiatorial schools, but by this time, the training of gladiators had been taken over by the state. No doubt it was thought too dangerous to allow private citizens to own and train gladiators, who could be easily turned into a private army for revolutionary purposes. Therefore, with very few exceptions, gladiators were under the control and ownership of the emperor, although the lantista continued to train and own gladiators outside of Rome. The lanista made a profit by renting or selling the troupe. This was a very lucrative business, but on the other hand, he was viewed as among the lowest of the low on the social scale. The objection was that these men derived their whole income from treating human beings like animals. Auguet writes:

In the eyes of the Romans he was regarded as both a butcher and a pimp. He played the role of scapegoat; it was upon him that society cast all the scorn and contempt aroused by an institution which reduced men to the status of merchandise or cattle.³

1. The word gladiator means 'one who wields a sword (gladius)'. Back to text.

2. Spectacles of Death in Ancient Rome (London and New York. 1998), 84. Back to text.

3. R. Auguet, Cruelty and Civilization (London and New York, 1994), 31. Back to text.

This is a famous painting (1872) called "Pollice Verso" ("Turned Thumb" by Jean-Léon Gérôme from a phrase in Juvenal) that represents a victorious gladiator facing spectators, who are demanding the death of his defeated opponent (see "The Experience" for discussion of the meaning of pollice verso). Gérôme had done research into gladiatorial apparatus. The defeated fighter, a retiarius ("net-man") is depicted accurately; he has no helmet or shield and his weapons are a net and a trident (on the ground nearby - clearly visible only in the large image). The depiction of the victor, however, is problematic. Each item of armor by itself is accurately represented, but the combination is erroneous. The standard opponent of the retiarius is a secutor ("pursuer"),¹ who carried an curved oblong shield, but the victor in the painting carries a round shield (hardly visible even in the larger image) typical of the hoplomachus ('heavily-armed gladiator'). Moreover, his helmet with its high crest is that of a murmillo.

To the right, we see a secutor (with his curved oblong shield) moving in on aretsec.jpg

retsec.jpgretiarius, who has lost his net and his trident (lying on the ground). He still holds his dagger, but he has been badly wounded in the calf and is on the point of giving up. The retiarius is easy to identify because he is the only gladiator with no helmet or shield. Another identifying factor is the high metal shoulder guard (galerus), which is unique to the retiarius. Finally, the protective sleeve called a manica (heavy linen quilting held on by straps) protects his left arm, while the secutor (and all other categories of gladiator) wears the sleeve his right arm.

secuthlm.jpg

secuthlm.jpgThe retiarius was also special because his gear was not inspired by the military. In essence, he was a fisherman, as his net and trident imply. Marcus Junkelmann has argued that the secutor's smooth-surfaced helmet with no brim, small eye-holes and a low, thin crest (as in image to the left) suggested a fish and thus made the retiarius his appropriate opponent.² The purpose of the small eye-holes was to prevent the narrow prongs of the retiarius' trident from penetrating to the eyes.

Another gladiatorial type was the murmillo, whose name was derived from a Greek word for a kind of fish, probably because the high crest of the murmillo'smurhelm.jpg

murhelm.jpghelmet resembled a fish (see right). In fact, the secutor was likely an off-shoot of the murmillo. Both the murmillo and the secutor had a curved, oblong shield and the helmet of the latter just made the suggestion of a fish more obvious. The murmillo normally fought the hoplomachus. This pair can be seen in the image to the lower left. The murmillo has let his curved, oblong shield fall to the ground and points the forefinger of his left hoplmurm.jpg

hoplmurm.jpghand up in the air, both signals of submission (note the stream of blood coming from his shoulder). The murmillo is indicating his desire to submit to a referee (wearing a tunic). The victorious hoplomachus, recognizable because of his round shield, is on the far left. Both gladiators wear the standard equipment of heavily-armed fighters: the manica (protective sleeve), loin cloth with subligaculum (belt), and greaves (metal leg-protectors).

The murmillo sometimes fought a thraex ('Thracian').³ These fighters were quitethrxmrm1.jpg

thrxmrm1.jpgsimilar in appearance but can be differentiated by their shields. The thraex has a smallish rectangular shield in comparison with the typical oblong shield of the murmillo (see right). There were, however, two gladiatorial categories of gladiators that only fought opponents of the same type: the eques ('horseman') and the provocator ('challenger'). On the left are two equites. Both have lost their shields, but one has equites1.jpg

equites1.jpgemerged victorious. The referee is holding the right hand of the victor and both seem to be awaiting the recommendation of the crowd and the final decision of the editor. Their apparel makes them easy to identify: brimless helmet with visor and twoimages/gladcmbt.jpg

images/gladcmbt.jpgfeathers, and a tunic to mid-thigh (in comparison with the naked torso of most gladiators). These gladiators were called horsemen probably because they began their fight (or just entered the arena) on horseback . They, however, finished their fight on foot. The provocatores are distinguishable by a helmet without crest, a curved rectangular shield, and a sword with a straight blade. In addition, the provocator was the only gladiator to have effective protection for the upper body: a rectangular breastplate (as can be seen on the figure on the far right in the middle panel of this relief). The provocator thus lacked what was a badge of honor for other heavily-armed gladiators: a naked torso. Junkelmann explains:⁴

1. The retiarius was introduced in the early empire and the secutor became his standard opponent around the middle of the first century AD. With a few exceptions such as the eques and the provocator, gladiators of one type regularly fought opponents of another type. Back to text.

2. Familia Gladiatoria: "The Heroes of the Amphitheatre" in The Power of Spectacle in Ancient Rome: Gladiators and Caesars, ed. by Eckart Köhne and Cornelia Ewigleben (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 2000), 61. Back to text.

3. "Thracian," along with "Gaul" and "Samnite," originally referred to prisoners of war from Thrace, Gaul, and Samnium (in southern Italy), who in the republican period were forced to fight as gladiators and naturally used the weapons and equipment characteristic of their people. In time these terms ceased to indicate the actual ethnicity of the fighter, but simply designated a particular type of gladiator using particular armor and fighting equipment. "Thracian" remained as category until late antiquity, while "Gaul" and "Samnite" disappeared, but the latter may have been the model for the later secutor and murmillo. Back to text.

4. 47. Back to text.

Let Memphis be silent about the barbarian splendor of the pyramids,

And let Assyrian labor not boast of Babylon;

Let the effeminate Ionians not be praised because of the temple of Diana,

Let the altar crowded with horns allow Delos to exist in obscurity;

Let the Carians not glorify Mausolus’ tomb hanging in empty air.

Let all work yield to Caesar’s amphitheater,

Fame will speak of one work in preference to all of the above. Martial, Spect. 1

Up until the late first century BC gladiatorial combats were held in the Forum, the Circus Maximus, and at other sites. When the games were held in the Forum, temporary wooden stands were put up. In 53 BC, the politician Curio (or one of his architects) had an interesting idea. Curio had two semi-circular wooden stands built on a pivot. When these stands were back-to-back, the spectators in each were treated in the morning to a different theatrical presentation, but in the afternoon the two sets of stands were swiveled about so that they together formed an oval. Thus the amphitheater was born. The first permanent stone amphitheater in Rome was built by Statilius Taurus in 29 BC.

Of course, everyone is familiar with the greatest Roman amphitheater, the Colosseum, which has remained a tourist attraction from the first century AD to the present day (see exterior on left). The exterior of the Colosseum consists three tiers of arches and an attic story (most of the third tier and attic story have not survived). Note the underground area (hypogeum; see interior below) that the destruction of the arena floor has revealed. This area was used for storage of equipment and to house wild animals. Elevators raised animals in cages from this underground level so that they could enter the arena through trap doors.

The name"Colosseum" came from a colossal statue (120 ft. high) of Nero that was located in the area near this amphitheater,¹ which, however, was not called the "Colosseum" until the Middle Ages. Since it was built by the members of the Flavian dynasty (Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian), its name in ancient times was the "Flavian Amphitheater." It was dedicated in 80 AD by the emperor Titus and estimates of its capacity range from 40,000 to about 60,000 (see an ancient depiction of a crowded Colosseum on a coin). There were amphitheaters throughout the rest of Italy and all over the Roman world in Spain, Gaul, northern Africa, and the Greek east. Many amphitheaters in southern France are very well preserved and still in use as venues for bullfights, such as the one in Arles.

The amphitheater was a microcosm of Roman society. The seating arrangements reflected the stratification of Roman society. On a large podium the emperor had a special box and senators sat on marble seating divided into fourteen sections. Next came the members of the equestrian order, who sat in the lowest tier (ima cavea) of the amphitheater, consisting of twelve rows of marble seating divided into sixteen sections. Roman citizens affluent enough to afford to wear a toga occupied nineteen rows of marble seats in sixteen sections in middle of the seating area (media cavea). Above them in the summa cavea sat poorer citizens clad in dark garments (the pullati), slaves, freedmen, and foreigners residing in Rome. Women from these groups probably also sat among the men. This tier consisted of seven rows of limestone seating divided into sixteen sections. Finally, at the very top of the amphitheater was an gallery with wooden seats (summum maenianum in ligneis) on which sat wives of senators and equestrians protected from sun² and rain by a colonnade.³ The podium, ima cavea and media cavea thus consisted of reserved seating,⁴ in which subdivisions of each group sat together. The status of a senator determined in what section he sat on the podium, as did that of an equestrian in the ima cavea. For example, in ima cavea there was a section reserved for those equestrians who had been assigned the honor of "with public horse," and who served on special jury panels. There even seems to have been a section reserved for bankrupt equestrians. In the media cavea soldiers were separated from civilians, married men from bachelors; boys and their tutors sat together, etc. In these three tiers the status of an individual in Roman society and within his own class would have been clear at a glance.⁵

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2. The rest of the spectators were screened from the sun by awnings suspended from poles that were installed around the rim of the Flavian amphitheater on the attic story (see image at top of page). An indication that these awnings were not always used everywhere is the fact that they were mentioned very specifically in advertising (CIL 4.1190 and 4.3884). The Latin word for these awnings was vela, which also means 'sails'. In fact, a company of sailors were in charge of the awnings of the Flavian Amphitheater. Back to text.

3. "Although in the past custom permitted [upper-class] women to view gladiatorial combat while sitting scattered throughout the amphitheater, Augustus allowed them to do so only from the higher part of the auditorium" (Suet. Aug. 44). Back to text.

4. The summa cavea probably consisted of unreserved seating. Coin-like tickets called tesserae, probably distributed through the patron-client network, were required for admission. Back to text.

5 Information in this paragraph is derived from David Bomgardner's The Story of the Roman Amphitheatre (London & New York 2000) 11-14. Back to text.

Gladiatorial shows also had a political significance. In the Republic, gladiatorial contests brought great popularity to the giver of the games, which paid off in votes at election time. In fact, as Keith Hopkins points out,¹ political competition among aristocrats was an important factor in the spectacular growth of gladiatorial contests. There was great pressure to make your munus more impressive than the last. Julius Caesar in 65 BC, the year of his aedileship, planned to give a gladiatorial exhibition consisting of 320 pairs of fighters. Although this exhibition was a munus in memory of his father, Caesar no doubt was also seeking to win political favor for his candidacy for the praetorship. The munus was given, but with a somewhat reduced number of gladiators and perhaps, less political favor for Caesar. Caesar's political enemies had passed legislation restricting the number of gladiators that could be kept in Rome, a measure that could be justified by appealing to public safety,² but probably was also motivated by jealousy and political self-interest. (Suetonius, Julius Caesar 10).

Just consider this: we will enjoy an excellent gladiatorial show in three days on a festival day; the gladiatorial troop is not owned by a lanista, but consists of very many freedmen³ and our Titus is generous and headstrong: no matter what kind of show it will be, it certainly will be something! For I am a friend of his; he will pull out all stops. He will give a wonderful gladiatorial show, to the death,⁴ a regular slaughter house in the middle of the arena, for the spectators to see. And he has the financial means: when his father died, left him thirty million sesterces. Even if he spends 400,000 sesterces on the show, his patrimony won’t even feel it, and he will be remembered forever. The show will include dwarves(?)⁵ and a female chariot fighter and the slave steward of Glyco, who was caught screwing his mistress. In the crowd you will observe a brawl between the jealous types [who would side with the husband Glyco] and the lovers [who would side with the steward]. Glyco, moreover, a penny-pinching man, has handed over his steward to be killed by the beasts.⁶ Glyco is just making himself look ridiculous. What wrong has a slave committed, who was forced [by his mistress]? That chamber-pot of a wife deserves to be tossed around by a bull. But Glyco is taking out his anger at his wife on his steward…I suspect that Mammea will give a gift of two denarii to me and people like me. If he does, he will steal Norbanus’ popular support. You can bet that Mammea will easily win the election. And truth be told, what good did Norbanus ever do for us? He presented worthless gladiators, already infirm, who would have collapsed if you had blown on them. I have seen better beast fighters. Norbanus caused the death of mounted gladiators, who were the size of those that serve as a lamp decoration; they were so small that you would have thought that they were roosters! One was a skinny runt, another was club-footed, the third might as well have been dead: he had torn tendons. There was a Thracian gladiator of some quality, but he fought mechanically, by the numbers. Eventually all these were all flogged ;⁷ the crowd had shouted: "whip them," but these were not real contests. "Nevertheless," Norbanus said, "I have given you a gladiator show." And I applaud you, but if you think about it, I gave more to you than I received.

Under the Empire, when magistrates at Rome were no longer chosen by popular elections, the political incentive disappeared and even more important, the emperor did not want prominent citizens giving entertainments that might win too much popular favor to the detriment of his own support. Thus the emperor became the regular sponsor of gladiatorial games in Rome and normally attended the gladiatorial contests he sponsored. In this way, these games took on new political meaning. Although the common people had lost the ability to vote, the amphitheater provided them with an opportunity to communicate their feelings and desires directly to their ruler. Moreover, since there was safety in numbers, it was not necessary for the them to repress their true feelings in the emperor's presence. They could loudly complain of the price of wheat, or call for the death of an unpopular official, or even criticize the emperor himself. As Alison Futrell writes⁸:

Public demonstrations in the amphitheater on one occasion indirectly led to the assassination of an emperor. Caligula’s refusal to listen to the crowd and his attempt to have soldiers execute vociferous members of the crowd inflamed the crowd and emboldened conspirators to kill him (Josephus, De Bello Judiaco 19.24-7). On the other hand, a wise emperor could profit politically from his appearance in amphitheater by showing that he had the same interests as his people. Again, Alison Futrell⁹:

The following are derived from the most important principles of political science: that he [Trajan] as emperor has given his attention even to actors and the other artists of the theater, or circus [chariot-racing], or arena [gladiatorial combat] because he knew that the Roman people are concerned especially with two things, the grain supply and spectacles¹⁰; [he also realizes] that his rule has won approval as much because of games as because of serious things and also that serious things are neglected with greater loss, but games, with greater resentment; that the human drives that lead men to demand the grain dole are less powerful than those which lead them to desire spectacles; that only the people eligible for the grain dole are won over by handouts of grain, and at that individually, whereas the whole people are won over by spectacles.

1. Death and Renewal (Cambridge 1983), 5. Back to text.

2. Gladiators could be a threat to the state as the famous revolt of Spartacus (73-71 BC) proved. Back to text.

3. A lanista, a manager of a gladiatorial troop, would have owned the gladiators as slaves. Echion suggests that freedmen, who fight voluntarily (as a business venture), would provide a better show. Back to text

4. Fights to the death were unusual because one of the gladiators was certain to die, never to fight again and earn money for themselves and/or their manager. Back to text

5. 'Dwarves' is a conjecture because there is no satisfactory translation of the actual reading of manuscript. The conjecture does make sense because the Romans loved exotic variations on gladiatorial combat. Note the female chariot fighter and later, the mounted gladiators. Back to text

6. As at Rome, part of the gladiatorial show would be the execution of criminals or prisoners of war by exposing them to dangerous wild animals without arms or with inadequate ones. Back to text

7. i.e., for their inadequate performance. Back to text

8. Blood in the Arena: The Spectacle of Roman Power (Austin, 1997), 46. Back to text.

9. ibid. 46. Back to text.

10. "The grain supply and spectacles" recalls the famous phrase of Juvenal: panem et circenses ("bread and circuses," 10.82). Back to text.

Culture 1

Now let’s look at Roman gladiatorial combat in its ancient context. We should keep in mind Keith Hopkins' warning: "we are dealing here, not with individual sadistic psychopathology, but with a deep cultural difference."¹ Attending gladiatorial contests in the amphitheater was an essential part of being a Roman. Rome was a warrior state that had achieved its large empire by military violence. War was a high-stakes proposition, both for the Romans and their opponents. Thousands of Roman soldiers died in Italy and abroad in countless battles. Roman treatment of the enemy could be very harsh, sometimes even involving the slaughter of non-combatants. In Spain, during the second Punic War, Scipio Africanus the Elder attacked the city of Iliturgi, which had gone over to the enemy, and his soldiers killed all armed and unarmed citizens alike, including women and infants (Livy 28.20.6). In Rome, prisoners of war were often executed in public. In order to ensure military discipline, Roman soldiers could be very harsh on their own kind, as is evident in the practice of decimation, in which one soldier out of every ten guilty of cowardice or dereliction of duty was chosen by lot to be bludgeoned to death by his fellow soldiers.

In such a cultural climate it is not surprising that gladiatorial games were immensely popular and a characteristic symbol of Roman culture for almost seven centuries. It may be no accident that the most dramatic increase in the popularity of gladiatorial games occurred during the first two centuries AD, when the Augustan peace throughout the empire provided little opportunity for citizens to participate in real warfare. If there were not enough real warfare to satisfy Roman tastes, then counterfeit warfare would have to do. Hopkins calls the amphitheater "artificial battlefields" where the Romans "created battlefield conditions for public amusement...War had been converted into a game, a drama repeatedly replayed, of cruelty, violence, blood and death..."² The crowd in the amphitheater not only a passive witness of this drama, but at its end became an active participant, when it was time to decide whether the loser should die or live. Like any other form of ritual, these contests were implicitly understood by the Romans to express a message important to their social order and that message involved violence, death, and power.

Early in its history the gladiatorial contest developed into a symbolic re-enactment of Roman military success. Different types of gladiators such as the Thracian, the Gaul, and the Samnite, used arms and techniques of foreign armies conquered by the Romans. Roland Auguet calls these contests "the fossilized image of Roman conquests."³ For example, in 310 BC the Campanians, after defeating the Samnites with the help of the Romans, staged games in which the gladiators had to use the arms of the defeated enemy that were left on the battlefield. Livy tells us that the purpose of this display was to express contempt and hatred for the Samnites (9.40.17). When gladiatorial contests were first exported to Rome, the ethnic designations for various types of gladiators (like 'the Samnite') carried a similar message, regularly reassuring the Romans of their military domination and throughout the empire reminding provincials not to challenge the rule of the Romans who watched bloody violence for fun.

A classic example of this Christian objection is Augustine's description of the first time his friend Alypius witnessed gladiatorial combat in an amphitheater (Conf. 6.8).⁴ Note the powerful effect that events in the arena had on this innocent and naïve young man:

Even among Christian apologists there was less concern about the killing⁵ that went on in the munus than would be the case today. The primary objection of both Tertullian and Augustine was the moral harm done to the spectator. Perhaps one important reason for this is that those who were killed in the munus were mostly from the dregs of society, e.g., slaves and criminals and therefore not worthy of consideration.

1. Death and Renewal (Cambridge, 1983) 29. Back to text.

2. ibid. 2, 29. Back to text.

3. R. Auguet, Cruelty and Civilization (London and New York, 1994) 195. Back to text.

4. This point of view has much in common with Seneca's criticism above. Back to text.

5. Nevertheless, the fifth commandment, "Thou shalt not kill," is still an important consideration for Tertullian (De Spect. 2.9; 3.2) and other Christian writers. Back to text.

Measures were taken to protect spectators in the amphitheater from dangerous wild animals. In the Colosseum, these beasts were kept in cages underneath the arena, which were raised by ropes and pulleys to gaited openings in the podium. The animals were then released into the arena. Rollers at the top of the arena wall covered with polished marble prevented animals from climbing up into the crowd. Nets were also employed to keep animals away from the walls as an extra protection and also to make sure that they were visible from all parts of the auditorium. Along the arena wall were a number of small balconies holding archers as a last defense.¹

The trained hunter was called a venator, who was a level below the gladiator on the ladder of public esteem. Down at the bottom was the bestiarius ('beast-fighter').² Although bestiarii were recruited from the same source as gladiators (prisoners of war, criminals, etc.), they were despised, probably because they had little or no training. Seneca tells a story of a German prisoner of war who went to extreme lengths to avoid participating in one of these hunts (Ep. 70.20):

1. See D.L. Bomgardner, The Story of the Roman Amphitheatre (London and New York 2000) 21. Back to text.

2. Marcus Junkelmann (The Power of Spectacle in Ancient Rome: Gladiators and Caesars, Köhne and Ewigleben, edd., Berkeley and Los Angeles, 2000, 71) says that the word bestiarii is also applied to assistants who took care of animals and goaded them into fighting. Kyle (Spectacles of Death in Ancient Rome, London and New York, 1998, 78-79) points out that the word bestiarius is sometimes used of condemned victims (noxii = 'guilty') who were thrown to the beasts for punishment. Bestiarius eventually became a synonym for venator ('hunter'), i.e., a trained fighter of animals. Back to text.

Culture 2

As distasteful as the venatio is to modern American sensibility, one must look at this practice in the context of Roman culture. First, it has been noted earlier that the death of gladiators who fought with the arms of a people conquered by the Romans reaffirmed to the spectators the power of Rome and its right to use force on its own behalf. Moreover, when the gladiatorial combat took place in the provinces it served as vivid reminder to the provincials of Roman military might. In the same way, wild animals, which had been brought to Rome from various parts of the empire, were killed both as a symbol of Roman domination over its empire and also as a demonstration of man's civilized domination over wild nature. Even the domesticated bull, a frequent participant in the venatio, was a familiar symbol of savagery in the Mediterranean world.

1. Although hunting is not considered an aristocratic activity in America, there is still one form of hunting that is solely associated with the upper classes: the fox hunt, in which hunters on horseback, dressed in red coats and white britches, along with a pack of dogs pursues a fox until the dogs catch it and tear it apart. There was a recent commercial on television that made fun of how "civilized" the fox hunt is.

Capital punishment was often carried out in the amphitheater as part of the morning venatio by requiring criminals to face wild animals without the benefit of weapons and armor and at noon when condemned criminals, unprotected by any kind of armor, fought each other with swords to the death. The former punishment was called ad bestias¹ (= "to the beasts") and was ranked alongside crucifixion as the most disgraceful of all penalties. Because of its shamefulness, it was deemed appropriate for slaves and lower class citizens (convicted upper class citizens were usually beheaded). Christians were singled out for condemnation ad bestias because their refusal to acknowledge the gods of the state put them completely outside the pale of society.

In the next picture, a man with a whip forces a condemned man to face the charge of a lion and another animal (unidentifiable because of damage).²

1. The executions of criminals in this manner normally took place at noon (Sen. Ep. 7.2.5). Back to text.