Gladiators Read online

  casemate Short history

  glaDiators

  Fighting to the Death

  in anCient roMe

  M. c. Bishop

  Oxford & Philadelphia

  Published in Great Britain and

  the United States of America in 2017 by

  CASemAte PUBliSherS

  The Old Music Hall, 106–108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JE, UK

  1950 Lawrence Road, Havertown, PA 19083, USA

  © Casemate Publishers 2017

  Paperback Edition: ISBN 978-1-61200-513-3

  Digital Edition: ISBN 978-1-61200-514-0 (epub)

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  Contents

  Timeline

  4

  Technical glossary

  6

  1. Introduction

  9

  2. Origins

  14

  3. Rise of the gladiators

  28

  4. At the peak

  41

  5. Hardware and venues

  66

  6. Life as a gladiator

  111

  7. The end of the gladiators

  147

  Sources 155

  Note on translations

  157

  Index

  158

  275 BC

  Manius Curius Dentatus fi rst displays elephants

  in a triumph in Rome (Italy)

  264 BC

  First recorded public gladiatorial combat in the

  Forum Boarium

  216 BC

  First gladiatorial combat staged in the Forum

  tiMeline

  Romanum

  206 BC

  Scipio Africanus holds games for his father and

  uncle at New Carthage (Spain)

  186 BC

  Marcus Fulvius Nobilior stages fi rst wild beast

  hunt in Rome

  167 BC

  Elephants fi rst used to trample Roman army

  deserters

  105 BC Publius Rutilius Rufus turns to gladiatorial

  instructors to train Roman legionaries

  80 BC

  Stone amphitheatre built at Pompeii (Italy)

  73–71 BC Revolt of Spartacus

  52 BC

  First timber amphitheatre recorded

  46 BC

  Caesar holds games which include a naumachia

  (sham naval battle) on the Campus Martius

  29 BC

  First stone amphitheatre built in Rome

  2 BC

  Augustus stages a naumachia across the Tiber

  AD 21

  Revolt of Florus and Sacrovir in Gaul

  AD 52

  Claudius stages a naumachia on the Fucine Lake

  AD 57

  Nero holds games including a naumachia in his

  new wooden amphitheatre

  AD 59

  Riot at Pompeii; games in the amphitheatre there

  banned for ten years

  AD 62

  Earthquake at Pompeii and the ban on games is

  lifted

  AD 70

  (approximately) Timber amphitheatre built at

  London (UK)

  4 | GLADIATORS

  AD 72

  Flavian Amphitheatre (Colosseum) inaugurated

  AD 75

  Stone amphitheatre built at the legionary fortress

  of Caerleon (UK)

  AD 79

  Amphitheatre at Pompeii buried by the eruption

  of Vesuvius

  AD 158

  Galen starts work on gladiators

  AD 177

  Limit on expenditure on gladiatorial games

  AD 200

  Septimius Severus bans female gladiators

  AD 248

  Philip the Arab’s Secular Games

  AD 404

  Gladiatorial games supposedly banned in Rome

  by Honorius

  AD 1823 Amphitheatre at Pompeii rediscovered

  AD 1864 Gladiatorial barracks at Pompeii excavated

  AD 1872

  Pollice Verso painted by Jean-Léon Gérôme

  AD 1933 James Leslie Mitchell (alias Lewis Grassic

  Gibbon) publishes his Spartacus novel

  AD 1951 Howard Fast publishes his Spartacus novel

  AD 1960 Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus released

  AD 2000 Ridley Scott’s movie Gladiator released

  TIMeLIne | 5

  teChniCal glossary

  There are a number of Latin words that occur repeatedly

  in the following. Rather than try to find English equivalents, it

  seems much easier to retain the original terms.

  aedile ( aedilis)

  magistrate responsible for organising

  munera

  amphitheatrum amphitheatre

  armatura

  weapons drill; type of gladiator or

  style of fighting

  auctoratus

  a free man who fights as a gladiator

  balteus

  broad metal belt worn by gladiators

  bestiarius

  animal fighter

  bustuarii

  early nickname for gladiators

  (‘cremation-pit boys’)

  caesim

  cutting or chopping with a sword

  cena libera

  public meal for gladiators the

  evening before a fight

  censor

  magistrate responsible for the census

  and public morality

  dictata

  ‘the rules’, a formulaic series of

  offensive and defensive moves

  doctor trainer

  6 | GLADIATORS

  editor

  overall organiser of a munus

  gladius

  sword (generally used of the short

  sword)

  lanista

  owner or manager of a ludus

  libellus

  booklet with details of the gladiator

  pairings

  ludus

  gladiatorial school

  ludi

  gladiatorial games

  missio

  dismissal alive after a combat

  munus

  gladiatorial games

  naumachia

  mock naval battle

  noxii

  condemned men and prisoners of

  war sentenced to the arena

  palus stake

  (as high as a person) against which a

  gladiator trained

  parmularii

  small-shield fighters (and their

  followers)

  pollice verso

  gesture with the thumb to indicate

  death or survival

  pompa

  procession before games begin

  prolusio

  prolo
gue to gladiatorial combat

  fought with dummy weapons

  primus palus

  top-ranking gladiator in a ludus

  probatio armorum

  inspection of weaponry before

  combat

  pugio dagger

  punctim

  stabbing with a sword (or dagger)

  rudis

  double-weight wooden sword

  used for training, awarded upon

  retirement

  sacramentum gladiatorum oath taken by gladiators

  scutarii

  big-shield fighters (and their

  followers)

  scutum shield

  spectacula

  gladiatorial show; old name for

  amphitheatre

  TechnIcAL GLOSSARy | 7

  subligaculum

  loin cloth or breech cloth worn by

  gladiators

  summa rudis umpire

  tiro

  recruit, greenhorn

  velaria

  awning made up of many vela (see

  velum)

  velum

  one panel of the velaria; plural vela

  venator hunter

  veteranus

  experienced gladiator

  vomitoria

  exits from an amphitheatre

  8 | GLADIATORS

  CHApTeR 1

  INTRODUCTION

  History does not permit peoples to be judged

  by a simple good or bad mark.

  Michael Grant, Gladiators

  Who was a gladiator?

  After all, what has Norbanus ever done for us? He produced some

  decayed twopenny-halfpenny gladiators, who would have fallen fl at

  if you breathed on them; I have seen better ruffi ans turned in to fi ght

  the wild beasts. He shed the blood of some mounted infantry that

  might have come off a lamp; dunghill cocks you would have called

  them: one a spavined mule, the other bandylegged, and the holder

  of the bye, just one corpse instead of another, and hamstrung. One

  man, a Th racian, had some stuffi ng, but he too fought according to

  the rule of the schools. In short, they were all fl ogged afterwards.

  How the great crowd roared at them, ‘Lay it on!’ Th ey were mere

  runaways, to be sure. ‘Still,’ says Norbanus, ‘I did give you a treat.’

  Yes, and I clap my hands at you. Reckon it up, and I give you more

  than I got. One good turn deserves another.

  –Petronius, Satyricon 45

  Reading this passage, from one of the fi rst prose novels in the

  western world, is one way to judge the distance between us and

  CHApTeR 1: InTRODuCTIOn | 9

  the people of Rome. The familiarity of the speaker with what he is

  describing – entertainment provided by men fighting for their lives

  – helps render what he is describing everyday and unsurprising. His

  tone is that of the football pundit on the couch, which is the thing

  that strikes an uncomfortable familiarity for us too, because on one

  level, we can understand this: the team was mostly useless, although

  the Thracian showed some gumption, and the crowd were not

  impressed either; the gladiators did not really earn their applause.

  The Latin word gladiator originally meant ‘sword-fighter’, deriving

  from gladius, which meant any sort of sword. Over time, the word

  gladius was often associated with the classic short sword wielded by

  Roman legionaries, often known as the gladius Hispaniensis (‘Spanish

  sword’) and this is indeed what we find many early gladiators using.

  However, the label gladiator was extended to cover a range of types

  of performance artists who competed in the life-and-death struggles

  of the arena, many of them never even using swords. One of the

  most famous types of gladiator – not least because one was played by

  Woody Strode in Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus – was the retiarius or

  ‘net-man’. Armed with his weighted net and trident (both possibly

  modelled on the equipment of fishermen), he would attempt to

  trip or engulf his opponent with his net, whilst keeping him at a

  distance (and finally dealing a deadly blow) with his trident. There

  were variants on the type – one who used a lasso instead of a net and

  one who stood on a platform and threw stones – but there was little

  doubt in the minds of the Romans that a retiarius, despite his lack

  of a sword, was a gladiator.

  Men who fought each other were not the only type of gladiator.

  Those who fought wild animals ( bestiarii) or participated in hunts

  in the arena ( venatores) were also included, to judge from the fact

  that they had their own training school. There are even sculpted

  reliefs showing men equipped as gladiators locked in combat with

  big cats, so there is no doubt that this was seen as ‘gladiatorial’

  by the Romans themselves. It is sometimes difficult for us to

  distinguish between bestiarii and venatores and it is by no means

  clear that the Romans were either certain or consistent in making

  that distinction.

  10 | GLADIATORS

  There were also men who fought against each other who were

  not gladiators. Usually condemned criminals or prisoners of war,

  they were given none of the training or privileges of gladiators, but

  instead were expected to fight enthusiastically, usually in recreations

  of great battles from the past (although normally not major Roman

  defeats like the Battles of Caudine Forks, Cannae, or Trasimene, for

  fairly obvious reasons). These might be land battles, complete with

  scenery, or even (from the time of Julius Caesar onwards) naval

  engagements known as naumachia. Alongside those condemned

  to play a part in a gruesome piece of historical re-enactment, there

  were also those sentenced to be killed ad bestias. Being torn apart by

  wild animals was yet another form of entertainment provided for

  the crowd, rendered all too familiar by tales of Christian martyrs

  forced to die in this way. All of these unfortunates had just one

  thing in common: nobody was looking for the skill or finesse of the

  gladiator, they were just there to be slaughtered.

  Finally there were gladiators who provided light relief, rather

  than gory scenes of death, and these included the paegnarii (who

  fought each other with sticks) or the andabatae, who duelled (or,

  rather, attempted to do so) in helmets with no eye holes.

  All of these categories of more-or-less deadly entertainment

  were to be found in what we call the ‘games’ but Romans

  referred to as munera. A munus was another word whose

  meaning evolved over time. It started out as an obligation or

  duty, usually on the part of a politician, to provide a service.

  This developed from providing funeral games in honour of a

  notable deceased figure into putting on entertainment for the

  masses. Finally, munera became synonymous with the games and

  interchangeable with the word ludi (a ludus was a gladiatorial

  training school, but ludi in the plural were always games). They

  became staggeringly expensive to stage, could last for weeks and

  often imposed a logistical strain on the entire Roman Empire

  just to provide entertainment in the capital. However, the

  games were an integral and pervasive aspect of
Roman life that

  inevitably impinges on our perception of the people and their

  time: who can think of Rome without thinking of gladiators?

  CHApTeR 1: InTRODuCTIOn | 11

  The fascination of gladiators

  What is it about gladiators that fascinates us still? The Romans

  experienced a perplexing ambivalence towards them, at once once

  fascinated and revolted by gladiators. The fact that some free men

  (and even women) chose to sign up for the life demonstrates just

  how powerful the pull of the arena could be for some. In the most

  extreme cases, an emperor might choose to join in. However, whilst

  it was not thought acceptable for an emperor to fight as a gladiator,

  there seemed to be no objection to training in one of the particular

  variants of gladiatorial combat. As we shall see, it was thought to

  be a clear benefit that Roman soldiers were trained in this way. The

  shame all seems to have come from being seen to compete in public.

  Modern ‘civilised’ people like to think that they have risen above

  this sort of thing and that watching large numbers of people being

  killed is not something we would do. Yet we are quite content to

  watch it in the cinema or on television. One famous study from

  1976 estimated that, by the time they graduated from high school,

  the average American child had seen 13,000 simulated deaths on

  television. Other studies noted that violence in prime-time dramas

  was often glamorised, whilst in children’s cartoons it was trivialised.

  In 2012, another study (by an online undertaker) was published,

  revealing that in 2011 a single week’s viewing of 40 monitored

  programmes produced 132 simulated dead human bodies.

  Of course, we all know these are not real dead bodies and that the

  actors get up again and go home at the end of a day’s shoot. But are

  we not a little bit inured to the spectacle of death and just ever so

  slightly intrigued by the deaths of gladiators, mostly anonymised

  behind their large, visored helmets? Is it part of the fascination

  of gladiators that we identify to some extent with those ancient

  Roman audiences? In other words, are we closer to the crowd

  attending a gladiatorial contest than we might care to admit?

  Modern histories

  We have come a long way from when Michael Grant’s Gladiators

  was about the only popular book available on the subject. Now

  12 | GLADIATORS

  there are many, but still comparatively few that systematically

  examine the history of gladiatorial combat from its inception to

  its end. It is important to consider the historical development of