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Gladiators (Latin gladiatōrēs, "swordsmen" or "one who uses a sword", from gladius "sword") were professional fighters in ancient Rome who fought against each other, wild animals, and condemned criminals, sometimes to the death, for the entertainment of spectators. These fights took place in arenas in many cities during the Roman republic and the Roman Empire.
The word comes from gladius, the Latin word for a short sword used by legionaries and some gladiators.
History
Origins
The gladiatorial games were originally established by the Etruscans, but were later adopted by the Romans as a means of entertainment. The Etruscans believed that when an important man died, his spirit needed a blood sacrifice to survive in the afterlife (Nardo, Games of 21).
The first recorded gladiatorial combats took place in Rome in 264 BC, at the start of the First Punic War against Carthage. Decimus Junius Brutus Scaeva staged it in honour of his dead father. It was held between three pairs of slaves, and held in the Forum Boarium. The ceremony was called a munus or “duty paid to a dead ancestor by his descendants, with the intention of keeping alive his memory” (Baker, Gladiator 10). These were held for notable people and were repeated every one to five years after the person’s death.
Conspicuously, the Forum Boarium dates unambiguously to the earliest, Etruscan layers of Roman architecture. That is, the resurgence of Etruscan gladiatorial combats in 264 BCE occurred in an ancient Etruscan building.
Golden age
Public spectacles (Latin munera or ludi) took place in amphitheatres (like the Colosseum), during the latter half of the day after the fights against animals (venationes) and public executions of criminals (noxii). Initially rich private individuals organized these, often to gain political favour with the public. The person who organized the show was called the editor, munerator, or dominus and he was honoured with the official signs of a magistrate. Later the emperors would exert a near complete monopoly on staging public entertainment which included chariot racing in the circus (ludi circenses), hunts of wild animals, public executions, theatrical performances (ludi scaenici) and gladiator fights. There was usually musical accompaniment.
Emperor Trajan organized as many as 5,000 gladiator fighting pairs. Gladiator contests could take months to complete.
Gladiators could be also the property of a wealthy individual who would hire lanistae to train them in specialized training schools (also called ludi). Several senators and emperors had their own favourites.
Banned
Gladiator fights were first outlawed by Constantine I in AD 325, but they kept going for many years. According to the Christian writer Theodoret, such contests were finally stopped in AD 404, supposedly as a result of the daring of Saint Telemachus. After he rushed into the arena to try to separate two gladiators, the spectators stoned him to death. Afterward the Emperor Honorius issued an edict suppressing such exhibitions. It is worth noting that Theodoret alone, of all historians, attests to the occurrence of such an event.
Life as a gladiator
Training
Gladiators were trained in special gladiator schools (ludus). One of the largest schools was in Ravenna. There were four schools in Rome itself, the largest of which was called the Ludus Magnus. It was connected to the Colosseum by an underground tunnel. Some archaeologists found that in the bodies of dead gladiators, that the diet of the gladiators was vegetarian, though this has not been fully confirmed.
Gladiators often belonged to a troupe (familia) that traveled from town to town. A trainer of gladiators or the manager of a troupe was called a lanista, and the gladiators often had to swear an oath to him. The troupe's owner rented gladiators to whoever wanted to stage games. A gladiator typically fought no more than three times per year.
Gladiators were such an investment for their owner that the training-school would include the best medical care. The Greek physician Galen worked for a while as a gladiator's physician in Pergamon, where he learned much about battlefield medicine without getting in harm's way.
Gladiators were typically picked from prisoners of war, slaves, and sentenced criminals, but occasionally were volunteers. Criminals were expected to die within a year (ad gladium) or might earn their release after three years (ad ludum) if they survived.
Typical combat
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Gladiators usually fought in pairs (Ordinarii), that is, one gladiator against another. They were usually of differing types. However, sponsor or audience could request other combinations like several gladiators fighting together (Catervarii) or specific gladiators against each other even from outside the established troupe (Postulaticii). Sometimes a lanista had to rely on substitutes (supposititii) if the requested gladiator was already dead or incapacitated. The Emperor could have his own gladiators (Fiscales).
Fights were generally not to the death during the Republic, but gladiators were still killed or maimed accidentally. At the end of a fight, one gladiator acknowledged defeat by raising a finger, and the audience could decide whether he should live or die.
It is known that the audience (or sponsor or emperor) pointed their thumbs a certain way if they wanted the loser to be killed (pollice verso, literally "with turned thumb"), but it is not clear which way they pointed. The clear "thumbs up" and "thumbs down" image is not a product of historical sources, but of Hollywood and epic films such as Quo Vadis. They may have pointed their thumbs up if they wanted the loser to live, and down to die; or, the opposite. Or, they may have raised their fist with thumb inside it (pollice compresso, literally "compressed thumbs") if they wanted the loser to live, and pointed down to signify death. One popular belief is that the "thumbs down" meant lower your weapon, and let the loser live. The thumbs up sign pointed towards the throat, signalling the gladiator to stab him there. An imitation of the downward thrust of a sword, without the sword in the hand, naturally has the thumb in a downward position and also compressed into the first finger. One of the few sources to allude to the use of the "thumbs up" and "thumbs down" gestures in the Roman arena comes from Satire III of Juvenal (3.34-37) and seems to indicate that, contrary to modern meaning, the thumbs down signified that the losing gladiator was to be spared and that the thumbs up meant he was to be killed:
The one-time horn players, traveling to municipal arenas, their puffed-out cheeks known in all the little towns, are now putting on their own munera, and when the crowd gives the order with upturned thumb, they kill just as the people want.
A gladiator did not have to die after every match – if the audience felt both men fought admirably, they would likely want both to live and fight for their amusement in the future. But equally, a patron of the games who killed too few gladiators would be seen as stingy. A gladiator who won several fights was allowed to retire, often to train other fighters. Gladiators who managed to win their freedom – often by request of the audience or sponsor – were given a rudis, a symbolic wooden sword, as a memento.
Recent research suggests that gladiators adhered to a code of discipline, and were not as savage as once thought — they did not resort to violence and mutilation which could occur on the battlefields of the day. And, if ordered to kill the opponent – which was very rare as gladiators were expensive – they may have pretended to kill him while in reality he was dragged backstage to be executed "humanely" with a hammer on the forehead.
Slave revolts
Rome had to fight three Servile Wars, the last being against one of the most famous gladiators - Spartacus who became the leader of a group of escaped gladiators and slaves. His revolt, which began in 73 BC, was crushed by Marcus Crassus two years later. After this, gladiators were deported from Rome and other cities during times of social disturbances, for fear that they might organize and rebel again.
Roman attitudes towards gladiators
The Romans' attitude towards the gladiators was ambiguous: on the one hand they were considered as low as slaves, but on the other hand, some successful gladiators rose to celebrity status and even those of senatorial and equites families seemed to join up as gladiators (the Larinum decree under Tiberius banned those of such status from becoming gladiators, which implies that must have been happening). There was even a belief that nine eaten gladiator livers were a cure for epilepsy.
Gladiators often developed large followings of women, who apparently saw them as sexual objects. This may be one reason that many types of gladiators fought bare-chested. It was socially unacceptable for citizen women to have sexual contact with a gladiator. Faustina the Younger, the mother of the emperor Commodus, was said to have conceived Commodus with a gladiator, but Commodus likely invented this story himself. Despite or because of the prohibition many rich women sought intimate contact with gladiators. The ancient celebrity and the festivity before the fights gave the women an opportunity to meet them.
Despite the extreme dangers and hardships of the profession, some gladiators were volunteers (called auctorati) who fought for money; effectively this career was a sort of last chance for people who had gotten into financial troubles. Indeed, their combat skills were such that, when he had no alternative, Gaius Marius had gladiators train the legionaries in single combat.
Their oath (which Seneca describes as particularly shameful) implied their acceptance of slave status and of the worst public consideration (infamia). More famous is their phrase to the emperor or sponsor before the fight: Nos morituri te salutamus ("We who are about to die salute you") (though, as not all gladiators would die at once, this greeting has sometimes been re-assigned to those condemned to execution at the same shows).
Roman people were extremely supportive on the whole of the horrors that occurred in the arena. Many people saw gladiators as lesser people than free Roman citizens.
Female gladiators
Main article: Female gladiatorFemale gladiators also existed - the Emperor Domitian liked to stage torchlit fights between dwarves and women, according to Suetonius in "The Twelve Caesars". As with male gladiators, it seems they fought bare-chested, or with one breast exposed.
A female Roman skeleton unearthed in Southwark, London in 2001 was identified as a female gladiator, but this was solely on the basis that she was an important burial but outside the main cemetery, and had pottery lamps of Anumbis (ie Mercury ie the master of ceremonies) and most experts now believe it to be erroneous. She is now on display at the end of the Roman London section of the Museum of London. This gladiator was the subject of a programme on the UK's Channel 4.
Dwarf gladiators
As mentioned above in Female gladiators, there were dwarf gladiators, which were not always paired with women, rather usually two or more dwarfs working as a team fighting one or more regular gladiators.
Emperors as gladiators
Some emperors are said to have entered the arena as gladiators. However, these may be stories made up after their deaths to blacken their names (e.g. Caligula and Commodus). These fights, if they actually occurred, may have been rigged, or carried out in private as part of an exercise regime (e.g. Hadrian, Titus). Certainly they would have earned ignominy if they had really fought in public, unless they were making some ideological point which has been lost in the sources.
Gladiators in modern popular culture
Novels
Gladiators of the Empire was released. The first book in the series, Sand of the Arena by James Duffy (McBooks Press, 2005; hardcover, ISBN 1590131118; paperback ISBN 159013124X) presents a detailed, historically-accurate look at life in a training ludus and the visceral struggles of the arena, all through the eyes of a young Roman who volunteers as a gladiator. The training and use of venatores (arena animal hunters, sometimes called bestiarii) is also shown in great detail through an Ethiopian character named Lindani. The book was well received by historical fiction readers and literary critics. Book 2 in the series, Fight For Rome by James Duffy (McBooks Press, 2007; hardcover, ISBN 1590131126) follows the gladiator troupe as they are conscripted into the Roman legions during the civil war of 69 AD, the Year of the Four Emperors. Gladiators fighting as mercenaries alongside the legions, or used by their owners to bolster their political gangs (eg Clodius and Milo), was recorded in a number of historic battles and instances.
Films and television
Naturally, gladiators feature frequently in many epic films and television series set in this period. These include obvious ones such as Spartacus (1960), Gladiator (2000) starring Russell Crowe and Demetrius and the Gladiators in 1954, as well as Quo Vadis, the television series A.D. (1985) (which features a female gladiator), and Rome.
Video Games
Known video games to explore several aspects of Rome and its gladiatorial games include KOEI's Colosseum: Road to Freedom, CAPCOM's Shadow of Rome, Acclaim's Gladiator: Sword of Vengeance and SEGA's Spartan: Total Warrior.
While developers try to portray the settings as realistic as possible, some elements might be intentionally misplaced or interpreted to allow room for gameplay elements. Developers strive to deliver a product as historically accurate as possible so as to increase their appeal.
Science fiction and fantasy
Gladiators are sometimes mentioned in science fiction, being depicted in the film The Running Man; as well as the games Battletech, Quake, and Unreal.
In many fictional universes, gladiatorial games have the same reputation as the ones portrayed by Hollywood; violent exercises of brutality to appease and entertain a crowd, with little to no hope of survival for the gladiators.
Reality entertainment
For obvious human rights and liability reasons, it has been impossible to revive gladiator fights in the Ancient Roman sense (where the fight concludes with serious bodily injury or death).
In the U.S. during the 1990s, there was a game show called American Gladiators, and around the same time, World Wrestling Entertainment popularized a rather wild style of wrestling which some compared to gladiator combat. However, the competitors on American Gladiators never directly attacked each other but did face the established stadium gladiators, and the WWE fights are openly acknowledged to be staged performances, as opposed to actual competition.
In California, Corcoran State Prison became infamous in 1997 when it was discovered that the guards were staging informal "gladiator" fights with the prisoners (some of which were videotaped). Such fights differ from true gladiator fights in that they were not state-sponsored or approved.
Gladiatorial imagery is also associated with the Ultimate Fighting Championship, whose opening credits in their broadcasts feature a gladiator preparing for battle.
See also
References and further reading
- Gladiator: Film and History, edited by Martin M. Winkler. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2004 (hardcover, ISBN 1-4051-1043-0; paperback, ISBN 1-4051-1042-2).
- James Grout: Gladiators, part of the Encyclopædia Romana
- Violence and the Romans: The Arena Spectacles
- The Revolt of Spartacus A narrative essay.
- Daniel P Mannix: Those About To Die, Ballantine Books, New York 1958
- Michael Grant: Gladiators, Penguin Books, London 1967, reprinted 2000, ISBN 0-14-029934-3
- Roland Auguet: Cruelty and Civilization: The Roman Games, Paris 1970; English reprint Routledge 1994
- IMDB- movie titles containg 'Gladiator' etc.; click also on keywords
- Thomas Wiedemann: Emperors and Gladiators, Routledge 1992
Notes
- http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf203.toc.html Hist. Eccl., V.26.
- http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/juvenal/3.shtml
- "Head injuries of Roman gladiators", Forensic Science International, Volume 160, Issue 2-3, Pages 207-216 F. Kanz, K. Grossschmidt
- http://www.personal.kent.edu/~bkharvey/roman/texts/sclaurin.htm
- http://www.channel4.com/community/showcards/G/Gladiator_Girl.html