Walls in the 2nd century BC «Agora of the Italians» at Delos were decorated with paintings of gladiators. Images of gladiators were found throughout the Republic and Empire, among all classes. For he, following the example of no previous general, with teachers summoned from the gladiatorial training school of C.
- Roman writing as a whole demonstrates a deep ambivalence towards the gladiatoria munera.
- When a freedman of Nero was giving a gladiatorial show at Antium, the public porticoes were covered with paintings, so we are told, containing life-like portraits of all the gladiators and assistants.
- In Roman law, anyone condemned to the arena or the gladiator schools (damnati ad ludum) was a servus poenae (slave of the penalty), and was considered to be under sentence of death unless manumitted.
- Commodus was a fanatical participant at the ludi, and compelled Rome’s elite to attend his performances as gladiator, bestiarius or venator.
- In the later Imperial era, Servius Maurus Honoratus uses the same disparaging term as Cicero—bustuarius—for gladiators.
- Walls in the 2nd century BC «Agora of the Italians» at Delos were decorated with paintings of gladiators.
By the 1st century BC, noxii were being condemned to the beasts (damnati ad bestias) in the arena, with almost no chance of survival, or were made to kill each other. Modern customs and institutions offer few useful parallels to the legal and social context of the gladiatoria munera. Remains of a Pompeian ludus site attest to developments in supply, demand and discipline; in its earliest phase, the building could accommodate 15–20 gladiators. As most ordinarii at games were from the same school, this kept potential opponents separate and safe from each other until the lawful munus. Novices (novicii) trained under teachers of particular fighting styles, probably retired gladiators. The city of Rome itself had four; the Ludus Magnus (the largest and most important, housing up to about 2,000 gladiators), Ludus Dacicus, Ludus Gallicus, and the Ludus Matutinus, which trained bestiarii.
The event may also have been used to drum up more publicity for the imminent game. These were probably both family and public events which included even the noxii, sentenced to die in the arena the following day; and the damnati, who would have at least a slender chance of survival. As reward for these services, he drew a gigantic stipend from the public purse.
- Few gladiators survived more than 10 contests, though one survived an extraordinary 150 bouts; and another died at 90 years of age, presumably long after retirement.
- Under Augustus’ rule, the demand for gladiators began to exceed supply, and matches sine missione were officially banned; an economical, pragmatic development that happened to match popular notions of «natural justice».
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- In the same century, an epigraph praises one of Ostia’s local elite as the first to «arm women» in the history of its games.
- These groups usually focus on portraying mock gladiatorial combat in as accurate a manner as possible.
- Some of the best preserved gladiator graffiti are from Pompeii and Herculaneum, in public areas including Pompeii’s Forum and amphitheater, and in the private residences of the upper, middle and lower classes.
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The enthusiastic adoption of munera gladiatoria by Rome’s Iberian allies shows how easily, and how early, the culture of the gladiator munus permeated places far from Rome itself. In 216 BC, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, late consul and augur, was honoured by his sons with three days of munera gladiatoria in the Forum Romanum, using twenty-two pairs of gladiators. Tomb frescoes from the Campanian city of Paestum (4th century BC) show paired fighters, with helmets, spears and shields, in a propitiatory funeral blood-rite that anticipates early Roman gladiator games. For some modern scholars, reappraisal of pictorial evidence supports a Campanian origin, or at least a borrowing, for the games and gladiators. Early literary sources seldom agree on the origins of gladiators and the gladiator games.
The Christian author Tertullian, commenting on ludi meridiani in Roman Carthage during the peak era of the games, describes a more humiliating method of removal. The body of a gladiator who had died well was placed on a couch of Libitina and removed with dignity to the arena morgue, where the corpse was stripped of armour, and probably had its throat cut as confirmation of death. Even more rarely, perhaps uniquely, one stalemate ended in the killing of one gladiator by the lanista editor himself.
A match was won by the gladiator who overcame his opponent, or killed him outright. Suetonius describes an exceptional munus by Nero, in which no-one was killed, «not even noxii (enemies of the state).» At the opposite level of the profession, a gladiator reluctant to confront his opponent might be whipped, or goaded with hot irons, until he engaged through sheer desperation.
The munus thus represented an essentially military, self-sacrificial ideal, taken to extreme fulfillment in the gladiator’s oath. Nero banned gladiator munera (though not the games) at Pompeii for ten years as punishment. Those judged less harshly might be condemned ad ludum venatorium or ad gladiatorium—combat with animals or gladiators—and armed as thought appropriate. In Roman law, anyone condemned to the arena or the gladiator schools (damnati ad ludum) was a servus poenae (slave of the penalty), and was considered to be under sentence of death unless manumitted. Part of Galen’s medical training was at a gladiator school in Pergamum where he saw (and would later criticise) the training, diet, and long-term health prospects of the gladiators. All prospective gladiators, whether volunteer or condemned, were bound to service by a sacred oath (sacramentum).
It was inaugurated by Titus in 80 AD as the personal gift of the Emperor to the people of Rome, paid for by the imperial share of booty after the Jewish Revolt. Martial wrote that «Hermes a gladiator who always drew the crowds means riches for the ticket scalpers». Even after the adoption of Christianity as Rome’s official religion, legislation forbade the involvement of Rome’s upper social classes in the games, though not the games themselves. Augustus, who enjoyed watching the games, forbade the participation of senators, equestrians and their descendants as fighters or arenarii, but in 11 AD he bent his own rules and allowed equestrians to volunteer because «the prohibition was no use». Caesar’s munus of 46 BC included at least one equestrian, son of a Praetor, and two volunteers of possible senatorial rank. When a gladiator earned their freedom or retirement, they were given a wooden rudis sword to signify proof of their freedom from slavery.
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Few gladiators survived more than 10 contests, though one survived an extraordinary 150 bouts; and another died at 90 years of age, presumably long after retirement. A gladiator might expect to fight in two or three munera annually, and an unknown number would have died in their first match. Having no personal responsibility for his own defeat and death, the losing gladiator remains the better man, worth avenging.
For enthusiasts and gamblers, a more detailed program (libellus) was distributed on the day of the munus, showing the names, types and match records of gladiator pairs, and their order of appearance. Most of his performances as a gladiator were bloodless affairs, fought with wooden swords; he invariably won. Commodus was a fanatical participant at the ludi, and compelled Rome’s elite to attend his performances as gladiator, bestiarius or venator. Some regarded female gladiators of any type or class as a symptom of corrupted Roman appetites, morals and womanhood. Cassius Dio takes pains to point out that when the much admired emperor Titus used female gladiators, they were of acceptably low class. Roman morality required that all gladiators be of the lowest social classes, and emperors who failed to respect this distinction earned the scorn of posterity.
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Those condemned ad ludum were probably branded or marked with a tattoo (stigma, plural stigmata) on the face, legs and/or hands. By Domitian’s time, many had been more or less absorbed by the State, including those at Pergamum, Alexandria, Praeneste and Capua. The Spartacus revolt had originated in a gladiator school privately owned by Lentulus Batiatus, and had been suppressed only after a protracted series of costly, sometimes disastrous campaigns by regular Roman troops. Hopkins and Beard tentatively estimate a total of 400 arenas throughout the Roman Empire at its greatest extent, with a combined total of 8,000 deaths per annum from executions, combats and accidents. Marcus Junkelmann disputes Ville’s calculation for average age at death; the majority would have received no headstone, and would have died early in their careers, at 18–25 years of age. A natural death following retirement is also likely for three individuals who died at 38, 45, and 48 years respectively.
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The magistrate editor entered among a retinue who carried the arms and armour to be used; the gladiators presumably came in last. A procession (pompa) entered the arena, led by lictors who bore the fasces that signified the magistrate-editor’s power over life and death. The night before the munus, the gladiators were given a banquet and opportunity to order their personal and private affairs; Futrell notes its similarity to a ritualistic or sacramental «last meal». Female gladiators probably submitted to the same regulations and training as their male counterparts. Other novelties introduced around this time included gladiators who fought from chariots or carts, or from horseback. In the mid-republican munus, each type seems to have fought against a similar or identical type.
Their training as gladiators gave them the opportunity to redeem their honour in the munus. Yet, in the last year of his life, Constantine wrote a letter to the citizens of Hispellum, granting its people the right to celebrate his rule with gladiatorial games. Throughout the empire, the greatest and most celebrated games would now be identified with the state-sponsored imperial cult, which furthered public recognition, respect and approval for the emperor’s divine numen, his laws, and his agents. Following Caesar’s assassination and the Roman Civil War, Augustus assumed imperial authority over the games, including munera, and formalised their provision as a civic and religious duty. Thereafter, the gladiator contests formerly restricted to private munera were often included in the state games (ludi) that accompanied the major religious festivals.
Courage, dignity, altruism and loyalty were morally redemptive; Lucian idealised this principle in his story of Sisinnes, who voluntarily fought as a gladiator, earned 10,000 drachmas and used it to buy freedom for his friend, Toxaris. Having «neither hope nor illusions», the gladiator could transcend his own debased nature, and disempower death itself by meeting it face to face. Yet, Cicero could also refer to his popularist opponent Clodius, publicly and scathingly, as a bustuarius—literally, a «funeral-man», implying that Clodius has shown the moral temperament of the lowest sort of gladiator.