Gladiators Read online

  combat, we can reconstruct something of the way in which

  gladiators fought. Gladiators were taught a standard ‘at the ready’

  stance which was shared with Roman legionaries and which is

  depicted on a variety of media. This consisted of achieving a

  comfortable, balanced position, with the left foot forward and

  the shield covering the left side whilst the right foot was kept

  back with the sword held horizontally by the side. This explains

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  why, when only one greave was worn, it was worn on the left

  side. Gladiators with large shields were then protected from their

  helmeted head to their greave-clad shin. When the gladiator

  wished to strike with the sword, it was necessary to change

  balance by advancing the right leg and bringing the sword arm

  into play. At this point their armguard served to protect the

  advanced sword arm from any blow against it.

  Various types of blow were possible with the gladius (and other

  swords), although some seem to have been favoured over others

  at different times and perhaps even at the same time by different

  instructors. There is some evidence that the various possible moves

  were known as numeri (‘numbers’) or dictata (‘rules’), a character

  in Petronius’ Satyricon disliking a Thracian who fought by the rules

  ( ad dictata), whilst Julius Caesar expected recruits to his gladiatorial

  school to learn the dictata. Clearly there was a fine balance between

  knowing the rules and sticking too closely to them. First was the

  horizontal stab ( punctim) which could easily be delivered from the

  ‘at the ready’ stance and could be fatal with just one blow. Next

  came the chop ( caesim), which required the arm to be raised and

  was thus more suited to use in the midst of close combat. Finally,

  there was a variant of the punctim which required reversing the grip

  on the sword and stabbing downwards with the blade as if it were a

  dagger and this, again, was only suitable in certain circumstances,

  notably close combat. The design of the gladius, with a top nut

  holding the pommel onto the tang, suggests one more way in

  which it could have been used offensively, namely punching down

  with it onto the unprotected head of an opponent, so particularly

  suited when, say, a secutor was fighting a retiarius.

  Whatever the weaponry, a great deal of attention must have

  been given to showmanship and this was where the manner in

  which the weapon was used would have mattered. The military

  writer Vegetius describes how deadly the tip of the gladius could

  be, observing that in some areas of the body a wound only

  needed to be 2 Roman inches (49 mm) deep to be fatal. This

  was good for soldiers in battle but made for a poor show in the

  arena, where spectacular (but not fatal) wounds would make for

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  a longer, more interesting contest. At the same time, gladiators

  who let a contest go on too long ran the risk of displeasing the

  crowd if they grew bored, so knowing how to to use a weapon

  effectively, and where the key vulnerable points of the body were,

  was of paramount importance.

  The combination of skill, training and art are all cited by

  Cyprian, a Christian writer deploring gladiatorial contests:

  ... if you turn your eyes and your regards to the cities themselves, you

  will behold a concourse more fraught with sadness than any solitude.

  The gladiatorial games are prepared, that blood may gladden the lust

  of cruel eyes. The body is fed up with stronger food, and the vigorous

  mass of limbs is enriched with brawn and muscle, that the wretch

  fattened for punishment may die a harder death. Man is slaughtered

  that man may be gratified, and the skill that is best able to kill is an

  exercise and an art. Crime is not only committed, but it is taught.

  What can be said more inhuman – what more repulsive? Training is

  undergone to acquire the power to murder, and the achievement of

  murder is its glory. (Cyprian, Epistles 1.7)

  Training in the Imperial schools lasted at least six months before

  achieving the lowly status of tiro. The effects of all this training

  could be seen on the skeletons of gladiators from the cemetery

  at Ephesus. The average height of the men examined was in the

  region of 1.68m. By comparing the dimensions of bones found

  with ‘normal’ examples that might be expected, it was possible to

  see how the enhanced musculature of the gladiators left its mark

  on their skeletons. This was true not only in their joints, but also

  in the calf, thigh and upper arm.

  The contest

  Shows were advertised well in advance, summarising what might

  be expected on the programme, as well as extra luxuries (such

  as vela erunt or ‘there will be awnings’) to tempt the undecided.

  Advertisements ( edicta munerum) were painted on walls, with

  the names of the sponsors the most prominent of all.

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  Adverts for games from Pompeii

  From Decimus Lucretius Satrius Valens, permanent priest of Nero

  Caesar, son of Augustus, twenty pairs of gladiators, and Decimus

  Lucretius Valens, his son, ten pairs of gladiators will fight at

  Pompeii on 27th April; there will be animal hunts and awnings.

  [signed] Polybius ( CIL IV, 7995)

  An impression, albeit fictional, of the sort of spectacle advertised

  and then put on at Pompeii can be gained from Petronius:

  Just think, we are soon to be given a superb spectacle lasting three days;

  not simply a troupe of professional gladiators, but a large number of

  them freedmen. And our good Titus has a big imagination and is

  hot-blooded: it will be one thing or another, something real anyway.

  I know him very well, and he is all against half-measures. He will give

  you the finest blades, no running away, butchery done in the middle,

  where the whole audience can see it. And he has the wherewithal; he

  came into thirty million when his father came to grief. If he spends

  four hundred thousand, his estate will never feel it, and his name will

  live for ever. (Petronius, Satyricon 45)

  The night before a contest, the gladiators of a familia enjoyed

  a banquet known as the cena libera (‘free meal’). Bizarrely, to our

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  Spectators attending gladiatorial games needed

  tickets in the form of a pottery or bone token

  ( tessera ) to gain entry. These could be obtained for

  free beforehand, or queued up for on the day of the

  contest, and bore a sector, row and seat number (e.g.

  CVN II GRAD III LOC VII would be cuneus (sector)

  2, gradus (row) 3, locus (seat) 7). Some of the sector

  numbers can still be seen above entrances to the

  Colosseum. Programmes ( libelli ) could be purchased

  telling audience members what to expect from the

  day’s entertainment and which gladiator was to fi ght

  which opponent.

  eyes at least, it was freely accessible and members of the public

  were allowed in to gawp. It has been speculated that the origi
ns

  of the meal may have lain in the sacrifi cial nature of the original

  funerary gladiatorial contests, but by the Imperial period, it was

  as much a part of the spectacle as the combat itself. It was also

  one of the few times when gladiators had the opportunity to eat

  something other than barley and beans (Plutarch noting the fare

  was good but the gladiators were not interested in it).

  Th e games began with a procession ( pompa ) where all the

  competitors could be seen and admired, along with the animals

  and prisoners involved in providing the entertainment. Such

  parades are depicted on some reliefs. An example of what it

  might have looked like in a provincial town comes from Pompeii

  and shows a pair of toga-clad lictors carrying the fasces , bundle

  of rods containing an axe, that symbolised a magistrate (diff erent

  ranks of magistrates had diff ering numbers of lictors). Next

  came three trumpeters ( tubicines , playing the tuba ), who were

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  later to provide the music to accompany the events, and then a

  platform ( ferculum) bearing two statues, carried by four bearers.

  Next were figures carrying a plaque ( tabella) and a palm branch.

  Then comes a man who is probably the editor, the person

  responsible for mounting the games. He is followed by six more

  men carrying the gladiators’ shields and helmets. Another man

  is carrying something that looks like a bowl and he is followed

  by another musician playing a lituus. Finally there are two men

  leading horses. The gladiators themselves do not appear in the

  relief, although they were obviously an important part of the

  procession, particularly since, unhelmeted, their public would

  be able to see them in all their glory. In Rome itself, pompae

  would have been larger and more magnificent.

  After the pompa came the main events. A pattern was

  established for the games by the time of the Empire. The broad

  outline was always the same: the morning would be devoted to

  animal hunts, with a lunchtime interval generally consisting

  of the execution of criminals, before the main event – the

  gladiatorial matches – started.

  The animal displays were first up in the morning and there

  were three ways they could have been presented, any or all of

  which might have been applied. By the Imperial period, crowds

  had long ago grown bored with just seeing exotic animals

  moping around and now needed some form of interaction,

  and the bloodier the better. The first option might be to have

  one type of animal pitted against another, such as lions against

  elephants. A second was for bestiarii or venatores to be pitched

  against them. Finally, there was what might be called execution

  by wild animal (for those suffering damnatio ad bestias as it was

  known), a fate traditionally associated with Christians, although

  it was not exclusively reserved for them, nor is it thought to have

  been as common as some supposed.

  Although the philosopher (and tutor to Nero) Annaeus Seneca

  is often cited as having been against the gladiatorial games in a

  famous passage, he was in fact protesting about these lunchtime

  executions, as is clear from the fact that those who had been

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  condemned to the arena ( damnatio to ludum), unlike gladiators,

  were unprotected:

  By chance I attended a mid-day exhibition, expecting some fun,

  wit, and relaxation – an exhibition at which men’s eyes have respite

  from the slaughter of their fellow men. But it was quite the reverse.

  The previous combats were the essence of compassion; but now all

  the trifling is put aside and it is pure murder. The men have no

  defensive armour. They are exposed to blows at all points, and no

  one ever strikes in vain. Many persons prefer this programme to the

  usual pairs and to the bouts ‘by request’. Of course they do; there

  is no helmet or shield to deflect the weapon. What is the need of

  defensive armour, or of skill? All these mean delaying death. In the

  morning they throw men to the lions and the bears; at noon, they

  throw them to the spectators. The spectators demand that the slayer

  shall face the man who is to slay him in his turn; and they always

  reserve the latest conqueror for another butchering. The outcome of

  every fight is death, and the means are fire and sword. This sort of

  thing goes on while the arena is empty. (Seneca, Moral Letters 7.3–4)

  After these so-called meridionali, the gladiatorial component

  of the show would be started off with a little light sparring

  between men using practice weapons, to pique the interest of

  the audience. This taster of things to come was known as the

  prolusio or prelude. Before there could be any serious fighting,

  however, there had to be an examination of the weaponry (a

  process known as probatio armorum) to make sure the weaponry

  ( ferra acuta – literally, ‘sharp steel’) was acceptable.

  The gladiatorial contests themselves thus occurred in the

  afternoons and were normally confined to just one pair at a time.

  There was a rule that the pair should be equally matched and not

  of the same armatura (so thraex could not fight thraex, nor retiarius another of his kind), although there was an exception insofar as

  eques was always matched against eques. There was a good reason

  for this: any more than one pair at a time could actually detract

  from the enjoyment of the audience, who prided themselves on

  being able to judge the finer points of a match and most of whom

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  would have been firm followers of some of the more famous

  combatants from particular gladiatorial schools. To understand

  why more than one pair was not a good idea, imagine being in the

  audience at a giant football stadium with several games going on

  at once. The exception to this was when teams were pitted against

  each other, such as the occasion recorded by Suetonius:

  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. Caligula bewailed this in a public proclamation as a

  most cruel murder, and expressed his horror of those who had had

  the heart to witness it. (Suetonius, Caligula 30.3)

  Such team events might be billed as re-enactments of famous

  battles. After the excitement (and death) of the morning hunt and

  lunchtime interval executions, the first pair of gladiators would

  enter the arena. These were usually equites, a pair of mounted

  gladiators. Unless they already knew them, this was the audience’s

  first chance to size them up. They would be hard task masters: they

  would expect them to get on with it, for there not to be too much

  running away and certainly no reluctance to actually engage in

  combat. At the same time, nobody (except perhaps the occasional

  gladiator) wanted to see it all over as fast as possible. It was, after all,

  a contest, and th
e crowd would want to see a stylish, technical fight,

  and the best of all would be one closely balanced. The pairings were

  ultimately decided by the individual sponsoring the games (the

  editor). Cicero, who was not averse to using the term ‘gladiator’ as

  an insult, could understand the concept of a stylish performance

  and would cheerfully employ it as a metaphor to make a point:

  For as we see athletes, and in a similar manner gladiators, act

  cautiously, neither avoiding nor aiming at anything with too much

  vehemence, (for over-vehement motions can have no rule), so that

  whatever they do in a manner advantageous for their contest, may

  also have a graceful and pleasing appearance; in like manner oratory

  does not strike a heavy blow, unless the aim was a well-directed one;

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  nor does it avoid the attack of the adversary successfully, unless

  even when turning aside the blow it is aware of what is becoming.

  (Cicero, Orator 228)

  At the crucial moment in the struggle between two opponents,

  when one managed to land a telling blow, the crowd would

  cry ‘ Habet! Hoc habet! ’ or ‘he’s had it!’. The victim, if still

  capable, might then decide to appeal to the crowd for mercy by

  dropping his shield and raising the forefinger of his right hand.

  This is the gesture most commonly shown in contemporary

  representations, rather than the famed thumb gesture. If the

  contest was indecisive and both contestants were dismissed,

  they were said to be stantes missum (‘dismissed standing’);

  alternatively, they might pause for a break and then carry on.

  Indeed, it was sometimes mandated that a fight should carry

  on ad digitum, in other words until one or other contestant

  pleaded for mercy. Depending upon how the crowd then

  responded – and there were clearly many factors affecting such

  a decision, such as loyalty, appreciation of both technique and

  style and perhaps even whether they had got out of bed on

  the wrong side that morning – with the famous pollice verso

  (‘turned thumb’) gesture mentioned by Juvenal that is the very

  quintessence of gladiatorial combat: thumbs up or down. Cries

  of ‘ Iugulum!’ (‘kill him!’) from the onlookers might be matched

  by appeals of ‘ Mitte! ’ (‘let him live!’).