Gladiatori

Speranza

By courtesy of Giovanni Milani-Santarpia.

My thanks to G. Milani-Santarpia for his entertaining notes on gladiatorial history and studies.

Roman gladiator history

 

 

 

 

 

The origins of the gladiators go back to the early days of Rome which inherited the tradition from the Etruscans.

 

Captive men, usually captives of war, would be made to fight to the death as part of the burial ceremonies and celebrations of important Etruscan and Roman leaders.

 

The burial ceremony, called "munus", offering, involved burning the body of the deceased on a huge funeral pyre which in Rome was situated where the Montecitorio building now stands, by the Column of Antoninus in Piazza Colonna.

Whilst the corpse burnt, the valour of the deceased was commemorated through real combats to death.

This was developed further by wealthy private citizens who organised fights in front of the tombs of their deceased in order to placate the Grim Reaper's thirst for blood and hence ward off further deaths in the family.




The first shows with gladiators trained specifically for the job were organised by M. and D. Brutus to celebrate the death of their father in 245BC, during the Consulship of Appius Claudius (builder of the first aqueduct and consular road, both named after him).

Ausonio tells us that the event organised by the Bruto bro's included three pairs of fighters only.

We would guess that giving the six gladiators half an hour a fight would have made the gladiatorial show no longer than half a day at the most -- including breaks.






The Ancient Romans found such a delight in these fights that by 264BC they developed them into a more regular event not necessarily linked to specific burial ceremony.

These early organised shows were held in the Foro or Circo Massimo.

The gladiatorial combats were such a success that even the priesthood organised events which Suetonio and Plinio called "Ludi Pontificales" or "Ludi Sacerdotales", reflecting the original religious significance of the fights.

The very presence of the king-cum-religious leader and of the sacred vestal v irgins gave the bloody events a further religious character.

The Gladiator shows

As conquests brought increasing number of slaves and captives into Rome,  it stood to reason to use a number of these to celebrate what came to be known as the Gladiator shows or Gladiatorial offerings, the "munus gladiatorum".

The "Munera Gladiatora" were generally known as "ludi" meaning "games" or "munera" meaning "offerings".

Giulio Cesare, following religious tradition, dedicates the  gladiatorial games of his triumph against Pompeo to persons such as his deceased father and sister.

His sister had actually been married to the defeated Pompeo.

The origin of Gladiatorial combat was religious and as such it embodied a number of notions which were dear to Roman culture.

The "amfiteatro" was the place where the leader-Emperor, who was also the head of religion as Pontifice Massimo together with the Vestal Virgins and the people of Rome would come together as a united community and keep their minds off other problems.

Eating and drinking was forbidden and everyone had to be properly dressed.







Beyond the bloody result, which was certainly extremely well appreciated, the spectators were assisting or expecting to assist to those qualities which had made Rome great and that supposedly would allow them to achieve future greatness.

Emperors used this as a political tool to keep people's minds occupied and to stem criticism.

This was exemplified by Giovenales famous phrase in his Satires: "

Panem et Circenses" -- bread and circuses" -

alluding to the basic needs required to keep the masses happy and quiet.

It should be noted that Giovenale himself was quite a fan of the circuses.

This attitude was interwoven with the general ceremonies of the shows.





To commence, the busts and statues of past emperors would be paraded around the arena in a religious display entering and exiting through specific gates.

Following this, there might be animal shows in honour of the goddess Diana.

After lunch, the gladiators would parade for all to see.

Having paraded they would lay their weapons on display and saluting the Emperor with raised fists they would shout

AVE CAESAR MORITURI TE SALUTANT

Suetonio.

The fighting would follow.

The dead would be carried out and the victors exalted.

Slaves and criminals were often employed in gladiatorial bouts.

In some cases this was used as a form of capital punishment.

To these we should add a good number of voluntary gladiators largely made up of prisoners of war.

There were also free citizens who were trying to pay off debts or indeed even reckless upper-class men in search of a buzz and popular fame, particularly with women.

These free men were called "auctorati" and they had no need to be under the supervision of the trainer-jailer "Lanista".









A champion gladiator could understandably become quite a heartthrob and be known as "decus puellarum" or "suspirium puellarum", the sigh of the girls.

It would be quite common for these victorious gladiator-playboys to freshen up at the nearby fountain called the "Meta Sudans", where they could meet and exchange words with their lady fans.

The satirist Giovenale goes as far as suggesting that hitherto respectable women literally turned into the crazed fans of the ugliest gladiator and his sword in favour of their husbands and children.

You could even buy clay figurines of the gladiators.








The more normal circumstance was that of the prisoner of war who had been given the choice between slavery or a fixed term contract as a gladiator.





Although dangerous, the gladiatorial option gave the captive an opportunity to become free at the end of his contract and in the mean time to earn himself a discrete sum of money.

A famous but not so successful example of this was Spartaco.

Sparataco led the gladiators and the slaves who joined them in a massive revolt, defeating various legions only to be betrayed by pirates in southern Italy.

Stranded in southern Italy, Spartaco and his forces were eventually beaten and crucified.

Training of the gladiators was possibly as rigid and thorough as any military training in Rome.

The gladiators were trained by a lanista in one of four specific establishments of which the largest and most important was called the ludus magnus, attached to the Colosseo.

The others were the "Ludus Gallicus" (for Gaul prisoners), "Ludus Dacicus" (for Dacian prisoners, or east Europeans. The fourth, the "Ludus Matutinus" was for animal fights called "Venationes" which the very name allows us to deduce were generally held in the mornings.

The Ludus Magnus, only 60 metres away from the Colosseum even had its own mini amphitheatre for practising in of which some remains are still visible.

There was a tunnel leading from the Ludus Magnus to the vaults of the Colosseum so that the Gladiators could make their own private entrance to the games.


Gladiatorial games and fights had to follow a strict procedure and ceremony.

The gladiators arrived at the colosseo from the ludus magnus through an underground tunnel.

From here they could access the arena through a pair of gates reserved to them only.

Entering the arena they would parade around in a solemn manner by marching or even riding around in chariots and eventually stand in front of the Imperial podium and salute with a display of arms.

Suetonio tells us they shouted

Ave Caesar morituri te Salutant

Suetonio records that emperor Claudio once retorted in jest rather than solemnity and that, in a fit of professional dignity, the offended gladiators threatened not to fight.

This gives us a sense of the honour and pride the gladiators took in their jobs.

For many Romans, the gladiatorial games were more than just games.

Especially for those who were putting their own lives on display.

A prelude to the proper fight involves some relatively harmless sparring so that the individuals could warm up.

This might involve wooden or blunt weapons and could also include more amusing combatants such as women amazons or even dwarfs.

A sounding of trumpets, "tubae", announced an end to the jesting and a start for the proper violence.

The gladiators would be matched into pairs of more or less equal capability and strength.

In some cases the pairs of fighters might be chained together or as an added diversion they could be forced to fight in groups.

At the extreme whole battle scenes could be staged.

During the fights the crowd would be shouting things like "habet" or "hoc habet"! Now you've got him!

The excited lanistas and their helpers who wielded poles or even hot rods would be shouting instructions to the fighters such as "Kill!"

Iugula! Or

Ure! "Burn him!".

The lanista also acted as referee and was assisted by trumpeters could bring the joust to a halt when one of the combatants was severely wounded, the equivalent to a knock out.

By throwing his shield aside and with a sign of the finger of the left hand, the fallen gladiator could ask the organiser of the games called the "editor" seated in the box of honour, to have his life spared.

The editor would seek for public response and the appropriate ending would be carried out.

In some cases it was the fallen man's own opponent who would choose whether to kill or spare his life and it was not unknown for a gladiator who had been spared to later kill the gladiator who had spared him in the past.

The end of Gladiatorial fights also followed a procedure.

There is debate as to what the actual sign used for signalling a sparing or ending of life.

Various authors refer to "premere pollicem", press the thumb, and "vertere pollicem", invert the thumb.

These are generally accepted to mean an upturned or down-turned thumb but this is very probably an incorrect interpretation.

It is likely that "vertere pollicem" actually meant an upturned thumb for death.

These could be accompanied by shouts of

Mitte
Free him

or

Iugula
Kill him


The death of the losing gladiator was ensured by an assistant masked as Apollo (or Mercurio or Plutone) or as the Etruscan god of the underworld Charon, who would hit the corpse a blow on the forehead with a symbolic hammer in order to make sure he was not alive.

The dead would then be grasped by a hook and pulled out of the Amphitheatre through the

Porta Libitina

or Libitinaria gate, so named in honour of the Roman goddess of death and corpses.

As well as public cheering and wearing a crown, the victor would often receive a monetary prize possibly presented on a silver dish and in rarer cases be awarded the "Pileus" or "Rudis".

These tokens were equivalent to a granting of a degree of freedom in accordance with the fighter's status and allow him to hang up his weapons for good.

In these rare cases, weapons were usually hung as a votive gift in the temple to Ercole, the patron of gladiators.

After the shows, lists of all the gladiators who had fought were compiled together with the three results: "Killed", "Victor", or "Freed".

There were a small number of classes of Gladiator according to their level of skill, type and time in which they exhibited as well as the source of their upkeep.

These included

-- the gladiatores Ordinarii were the most "basic" kind.

These were presented and fought in the ordinary manner.

Gladiatores Meridiani were those which fought in the afternoon.

Gladiatores Fiscales were maintained by the private treasury of the emperor

Gladiatores Postulatitii, were Gladiators of great skill, maintained by state treasury

Gladiatores Catervarii, who fought in groups rather than in pairs







Gladiators could take on various types of armour and weaponry of which the principal ones were the 'gladius', sword and shield used by the common soldier, or knives or a net and trident of the "retiario".

There were some 20 different types of role and relevant kit that a Gladiator could take.

Amongst the principal types of Gladiator we have the

Retiario
secutore,
myrmillo
hoplomaco
crupellarii,
Thracians
Samnites
Gauls
Britons
Pinnirapi
Essedarii and the
Andabatae.

Of these the Samnites, the Thracians, the Myrmillo (or Secutor) and the Retiarius were the four most common.







Unfortunately, different Roman authors used more than one name to refer to the same type of gladiator so that it is not always easy to understand whether we are talking of the same type or a distinct one.

Suetonio, for example, refers to the "Hoplomachi" although possibly this was intended to mean the Samnites or Myrmillones because both of these wore armour.

Based on archaeological findings, the most common type of gladiator was probably the Samnite warrior who was heavily armed and recalled the memory of the fearsome Italic tribe the Romans had overcome during the days of the Republic.

The Samnite Gladiator wore an imposing helmet with crest and visor, they had a short Gladius sword or a spear and a rectangular shield called "scutum" similar to those of Roman legionaries but possibly tapered towards the bottom to render it more agile.

Besides the helmet, the Samnite Gladiator also wore armoured protection over his right arm and left leg.







The Samnite Gladiator was often pitched against the Pinnirato, so called because he would lift the Samnite helmet's "pinnae" (flaps or flippers) in victory, rather like a bullfighter waves the bull's ears.













We often see pictures of a gladiator called a Retiario- a net wielder - armed with a trident called a "Fuscina" and a net.

They wore little by way of armour which was little more than a short coat of leather and a hat tied under the chin.

These characters were often pitched against the ")pro-)Secutore" - the pursuer otherwise known as Murmillo - "the fisherman" because of the fish on his helmet.

The name "Secutore" derives from the fact that if the Retiario didn't manage to immobilise the Secutore with a cast of their net, he had little option but to run for his life until he could gather the net for a fresh throw.

The Secutore was armed with a scimitar called "Falx Supina" and wore a helmet with a symbolic image of a fish on it.

The concept of fish and nets was not new given that similar symbolism was used in the early days of Rome for funerary ceremonies with the fish symbolising the souls of the living.

The Gauls had a wide bladed sword, the Britons a small horse-drawn chariot called Essedum which might have caused them to be called "Essedari" Gladiators.

The Andabatae rode on horses.







The Thracians had a curved sword called the "Sica" and small round shield called a "Parma".

In fact the Thracians were amongst the most loved given their nation's fame for fierceness.

At one point the number of the upper-class cavalry participating as gladiators in order to make quick money and fame reached such a degree as to be limited by law.

Suetonio tells us that Augusto decreed that none of the Senatorial or Equestrian order were to fight as Gladiators although successive emperors didn't observe the rule.

Possibly exaggerating,  Suetonio goes on to tell us that Nerone, less than 50 years after Augusto's decree, presented 400 Senators and 600 Equestrians to fight.

Commodo called himself the "The Roman Hercules", as was stamped on some of his coinage.

He is said to have stepped into the arena 735 times as a Gladiator to fight with mock weapons and took an exorbitant pay out of the tax payer's money for the privilege he was supposedly granting.

His favourite role was that of the Secutore.

Coincidentally, Commodo died in his bath, strangled by a wrestler.

Having established the traditional backbone of the Gladiators shows it should be noted how great men such as Giulio Cesare were quick to realise the political value of the games which he made an effort to attend, even if not overly interested.

 Both Giulio Cesare and Marc'Aurelio are remembered for having presided the games and taken the salute whilst reading over state papers.

This is interesting because the very same Giulio Cesare in his early career had almost driven himself to financial ruin when he was Aedile.

Having recognised the great political value of the popular shows he ensured he organised the best of the best at his own expense.

Giulio Cesare's triumph as conqueror of Gaul also involved innumerable numbers of wild animals and fighters.

In his Triumph of 65BC the Senate ordered Giulio Cesare to reduce their number but in 46BC when he effectively became sole ruler of the Roman Empire he presented innumerable animals as well as a thousand gladiators "gladiatores ordinarii" and almost a hundred mounted gladiators, probably "gladiatores postulatitii".

Even great learned men such as Cicerone regarded this as the best occasion to render homage to the noble disdain for death.

This doesn't justify the huge number of deaths that occurred as part of this sport but it does give an insight into the different cultural view the ancient Romans had of the world and the moral qualities required at the time.

In this vein, Cicerone had spoken of the "holy and ancient games".

But the purely exhibitionist qualities were clearly what attracted the masses.

The throwing of convicts to the wild beasts was little more than a gory reality show and it seems appropriate to quote Cicerone's words albeit in a different context: "Salus Populi, Suprema Lex" - the greatest law is the health of the people. (De Legibus).

Throughout the empire the Gladiatorial games tended to be viewed by the intelligentsia with a mixture of feelings.

Giovenale loved the gladiatorial games, whilst Tacito could only justify it on the basis that the blood spilt was of a vile nature.

Like Cicerone, Plinio justified the gladiatorial games for the values it relied on, which had made Rome great.

Seneca, the millionaire, the Stoic philisopher and indeed tutor to Nerone was the only one to truly condemn the shows for the null value they placed on human life.

Hhere men are killed for sport and pleasure.

 

As for the martyrdom of Christians, it has to be remembered that history is often written by the victors and that the persecution of Christians was limited to a number of particular periods and circumstances.

Clearly this doesn't mean that atrociously gory persecutions and martyrdoms didn't happen.

They did, but in the midst of a huge number of other gory executions.

The Jews were also persecuted for example, in fact for a long time the Christians were simply regarded as a Jewish sect.

We simply have to consider some of the antics displayed in the Colosseum to imagine the variety of attractions which were dreamt up to keep the plebs distracted whilst at the same time minimising anti-Imperial sentiments amongst the wider population.

Although historically Christian martyrdom has been closely associated with the Amphitheatre the execution of Christians was more likely to be held in the Circus of chariot races.

It was usual for the executions to take on other forms such as crucifixion, for example rather than Gladiatorial fight or "damnatio ad bestia" (thrown to the wild beasts).

The Catholic church of the Middle Ages and Renaissance maintained and strengthened this view of the Colosseum.

Various crosses in the middle of the arena and the twelve stages of the Crucifixion were regularly used for religious displays and processions.

The Colosseum became closely associated with Christian martyrdom, providing a useful counterpoise and memorial to the Christian religion's belief in life.

The first Christian martyred in the Coliseum is said to have been St Ignatius who was thrown to the lions and (aparently) exclaimed,

I am as the grain of the field and must be ground by the teeth of the lions, that I may become fit for His table.

Although some Christians certainly died in the Colosseum there seems to be little reference to the supposed rivers of Christian blood which were supposed to have flowed out of that building in particular during Domitian's notorious Second Persecution.

Nevertheless, we do know that 115 Christians were executed with arrows, shortly after Ignatius.

At the beginning of the third century a family of Christians, who also happened to be Roman Patricians, were reputedly roasted in a bull and that four Christians called Sempronius, Olympius, Theodolus and Exuperia were burned alive in front of Nerone's colossal statue, which had been stood by the Colosseum.

Jews and Christians were often given a last chance of respite by paying their respects to the Emperor-Divinity's image, which of course monotheism doesn't allow.

This refusal to join in any of the state's religious practices was the really irreconcilable  problem.

On one occasion, during the reign of the benevolent Emperor Marcus Aurelius the Christians gave rise to a new wave of hate against them as they refused to participate in the religious rites aimed at checking an epidemic of plague which was decimating the population.

The Emperor had little choice but to persecute thousands of them to a hideous death in the Amphitheatre and for as much as he hated the gladiator shows he attended out of a sense of duty.

As for Nerone's persecution of the Christians, this could not have had any episodes in the Colosseum, given that the Flavian Amphitheatre as it was then known, was not yet constructed.

This of course doesn't mean that Nerone didn't persecute the Christians.

He did. Quite awful things too, like dousing them with oil and setting them alight for example or dressing them up in animal skins and setting dogs onto them.

All this sounds like an excuse for the various Christian persecutions which certainly did happen and often they were quite forceful and brutal, especially since the Christians were increasingly viewed as subversive traitors by both the authorities and the non Christian population.

Truth of the matter is they were subversive traitors who were trying to change the system and, true to its nature, the system reacted against them in a brutal way.

At this point we to digress and ramble about some odd coincidences which we are sure must have been studied by others.

Christian persecutions are also closely associated with the catacombs. '

Underground labyrinths used as both burial complexes as well as hiding places.

The catacombs grew in use during the persecutions of the second to fourth centuries by which time Christianity became a tolerated religion and they fell into disuse.

In them, it is not unusual to find symbols of the fish carved into the wall or a piece of marble.






Early Christian symbolism used the fish possibly because of its Greek name: "ichthus" which was a mnemonic meaning for "Jesus Christ God's Son (and) Saviour" - something like Iesu Christos Theou Uios Soter.

The Jews may have also had a special meaning for the fish.

Christ's miracle of the feeding of the five thousand (with fish) is also brought to mind.

At about the time of Christ the Spring equinox had the sun moving from Aries into Pisces and the keen eye for astrology is sure to have given rise to the concept that a new age was about to dawn.

Earlier on we mentioned the Myrmillo gladiator - the fisherman - so called because of the symbolic fish on his gladiator helmet and his sparring partner the Retiarius.

We also mentioned the ancient religious undertones of the gladiator fight as a sacrifice to quench the blood/soul thirst of the grim reaper.

There were also ancient Roman festivities which involved the sacrifice of fish instead of human souls.

Perhaps this is a coincidence worth further investigation.

Ancient Roman and Christian religion seems to curiously abound with Fish.

 

We do know that the likes of St. Peter were martyred by Nerone and that this was supposed to have occurred "inter duem metam".

Given that the "metae" were the pyramidal posts at the two ends of the Circo track there are several interpretations as to where the Saint was actually crucified (apart from being upside down).






Possibly between the two metae in the Circus Maximus or possibly on the Vatican Hill which seems to have been a frequent site for crucifixion, or indeed between two Pyramids which were in Rome at the time.

Crucifixion was a death generally reserved for slaves and persons not of Roman Citizenship.

Caligula's circus, sometimes known as Nero's circus was on the Vatican and it is said that St. Peter's church is built over the site of the martyr's crucifixion.









A Roman citizen, such as Saint Paul for example, would have been beheaded in a degree of privacy.

All this points to the notion that although Christian persecution and execution did indeed occur they were by no means exclusive to the Amphitheatre, the Colosseum and its shows.

Referring back to the proposed reason behind the games, what did bring Christians into the Amphitheatre was their borderline situation with respect to the rest of their countrymen.

The games were violent displays using non-Romans and anything anti-Roman to celebrate them as a counterpoise to "Romanity".

The Christians in their unambiguous following for one Lord, Jesus Christ, were consequently incapable of following the true Roman citizen's reverence to the Emperor-Divinity and as such could be considered as anti-Roman Roman citizens, ie traitors.

Certainly the Christians and their new view of morality actively and publicly contrasted the games at the Colosseum.

In one such event a monk broke into the arena to proclaim his disgust and was duly stoned to death by the crowd.

It is possible that events such as these forced the end of the games around the fifth century (404AD) during the reign of Emperor Onorio although games with beasts went on for a further century.

During the Middle Ages, the Christians converted the Colosseum to a sort of martyrdom memorial even though now there is doubt over the actual existence of a number of the Christians who were supposedly martyred there and subsequently raised to saintly status.

Quite recently a number of these were actually eliminated from the official Roman Catholic Church listings of Saints.

The Colosseum was increasingly used as a stage for a number of religious displays which with the passing of time were supplemented with increasingly profane exhibitions.

All shows were eventually abolished during the Renaissance.

The cross which still stands in the Colosseum dates back to the 18^th century.



The first shows are remembered as being started in 264BC and the last were 600 years later, in 404AD during the reign of Emperor Honorius (395-423AD).

Their end was possibly triggered by the stoning to death of a Christian monk called Telemaco who dared stand against them.

At this time there were more than 170 Amphitheatres scattered throughout the former empire's dominions.

After the fall of the last Roman emperor of the West (Romulus Augustulus), Rome was controlled by Romanised barbarians.

One such ruler was Theodoric the Goth whose Latin secretary Cassiodoro recounts in 523AD the shows he attended at the Colosseum.

These shows included wrestling matches and bloody fights with beasts - the ancient Venationes - which could well result in the death of the scantily armed human fighter, the "venator" or "bestiarius".

By the end of that century the Colosseum was already covered in vegetation.

By the late middle ages we have fresh accounts of the Colosseum being used for other purposes.

First as fortress of a local barony, then as a stage for religious ceremonies and processions until eventually theatrical shows of little religious content were held and finally abolished by the Pope.

Similar fates attended the other amphitheatres.

It can therefore be said that the beginning and end of the Gladiatorial shows went hand in hand with the rise and fall of the Roman Empire.