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.
Combat
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”. During the Imperial era, matches advertised as sine missione (usually understood to mean “without reprieve” for the defeated) suggest that missio (the sparing of a defeated gladiator’s life) had become common practice. A gladiator could acknowledge defeat by raising a finger (ad digitum), in appeal to the referee to stop the combat and refer to the editor, whose decision would usually rest lanista on the crowd’s response. Similar representations (musicians, gladiators and bestiari) are found on a tomb relief in Pompeii.
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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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.
- 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.
- The gladiator as a specialist fighter, and the ethos and organization of the gladiator schools, would inform the development of the Roman military as the most effective force of its time.
- Once a band of five retiarii in tunics, matched against the same number of secutores, yielded without a struggle; but when their death was ordered, one of them caught up his trident and slew all the victors.
- Later games were held by an editor, either identical with the munerator or an official employed by him.
- Gladiatorial games offered their sponsors extravagantly expensive but effective opportunities for self-promotion, and gave their clients and potential voters exciting entertainment at little or no cost to themselves.
- Devotio (willingness to sacrifice one’s life to the greater good) was central to the Roman military ideal, and was the core of the Roman military oath.
In Roman art and culture
Many gladiator epitaphs claim Nemesis, fate, deception or treachery as the instrument of their death, never the superior skills of the flesh-and-blood adversary who defeated and killed them. Rather, she seems to have represented a kind of “Imperial Fortuna” who dispensed Imperial retribution on the one hand, and Imperially subsidised gifts on the other—including the munera. Modern scholarship offers little support for the once-prevalent notion that gladiators, venatores and bestiarii were personally or professionally dedicated to the cult of the Graeco-Roman goddess Nemesis. Ordinary citizens, slaves and freedmen were usually buried beyond the town or city limits, to avoid the ritual and physical pollution of the living; professional gladiators had their own, separate cemeteries. Modern pathological examination confirms the probably fatal use of a mallet on some, but not all the gladiator skulls found in a gladiators’ cemetery.
Role in Roman life
- So the gladiator, no matter how faint-hearted he has been throughout the fight, offers his throat to his opponent and directs the wavering blade to the vital spot.
- Official munera of the early Imperial era seem to have followed a standard form (munus legitimum).
- 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”.
- A career as a volunteer gladiator may have seemed an attractive option for some.
- From the early days of the Republic, ten years of military service were a citizen’s duty and a prerequisite for election to public office.
- Rome’s military success produced a supply of soldier-prisoners who were redistributed for use in State mines or amphitheatres and for sale on the open market.
So the gladiator, no matter how faint-hearted he has been throughout the fight, offers his throat to his opponent and directs the wavering blade to the vital spot. For death, when it stands near us, gives even to inexperienced men the courage not to seek to avoid the inevitable. Once a band of five retiarii in tunics, matched against the same number of secutores, yielded without a struggle; but when their death was ordered, one of them caught up his trident and slew all the victors. By common custom, the spectators decided whether or not a losing gladiator should be spared, and chose the winner in the rare event of a standing tie. Martial describes a match between Priscus and Verus, who fought so evenly and bravely for so long that when both acknowledged defeat at the same instant, Titus awarded victory and a rudis to each.
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These were the highlight of the day, and were as inventive, varied and novel as the editor could afford. The editor, his representative or an honoured guest would check the weapons (probatio armorum) for the scheduled matches. A crude Pompeian graffito suggests a burlesque of musicians, dressed as animals named Ursus tibicen (flute-playing bear) and Pullus cornicen (horn-blowing chicken), perhaps as accompaniment to clowning by paegniarii during a “mock” contest of the ludi meridiani.
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.
Later games were held by an editor, either identical with the munerator or an official employed by him. In the next century, Augustine of Hippo deplored the youthful fascination of his friend (and later fellow-convert and bishop) Alypius of Thagaste, with the munera spectacle as inimical to a Christian life and salvation. His revision of sumptuary law capped private and public expenditure on munera, claiming to save the Roman elite from the bankruptcies they would otherwise suffer, and restricting gladiator munera to the festivals of Saturnalia and Quinquatria. In the closing years of the politically and socially unstable Late Republic, any aristocratic owner of gladiators had political muscle at his disposal. The climax of the show which was big for the time was that in three days seventy four gladiators fought.
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.
