Gladiators Read online

  by Fulvius Nobilior in 186 BC (which we shall come to shortly),

  a general limit on the cost of games was introduced in the year

  179. Nevertheless, the gladiatorial escalation continued apace. It

  seems 174 BC was a bad year if you were a gladiator:

  Many gladiatorial games were given that year, some of them

  unimportant; one was noteworthy beyond the rest, that of Titus

  Flamininus, which he gave to commemorate the death of his father,

  lasted four days, and was accompanied by a public distribution of

  meats, a banquet and scenic performances. The climax of a show

  which was big for that time was that in three days seventy-four

  gladiators fought. (Livy 41.28.9–11)

  Gladiatorial combat was not an exclusively Roman taste. After

  Aemilianus’ Greek games, the Syrian King Antiochus IV decided

  to indulge in some one-upmanship and he staged gladiatorial

  games at Daphne, near Antioch (Syria). These games began

  with a magnificent parade of armed men, including 250 pairs of

  gladiators, and lasted 30 days in total. In his defence, Antiochus

  had spent time in Rome as a hostage, so may have developed

  a taste for gladiatorial games then. Alternatively, he may have

  had a well-honed sense of how to needle Scipio in exactly the

  right way.

  The expense of games inevitably spiralled upwards along with

  their duration and the number of performers, but cost was not

  the only thing increasing. Since gladiatorial combat was usually

  fought in the form of single matched pairs, large numbers of

  gladiators took a proportionally longer time to process: 250 pairs,

  CHapter 2: Origins | 21

  assuming they took an average of 10 minutes each to fi ght to a

  result, would represent more than 40 hours of combat.

  In 160 BC, when the great general Lucius Aemilius Paullus

  Macedonicus died, it was to be the occasion for something truly

  spectacular. Th ere was, however, a problem: two of Macedonicus’

  four sons had been given up for adoption (a common ploy

  amongst the not-so-well-to-do aristocracy) and Fabius, the

  remaining natural son, could not aff ord the games. One of the

  adopted brothers (Scipio Aemilianus, who became the adoptive

  son of Scipio Africanus) came to the rescue:

  Scipio, knowing that his brother was by no means well off , gave

  up the whole inheritance, which was estimated at more than

  sixty talents, to him in order that Fabius might thus possess a

  fortune equal to his own. Th is became widely known, and he

  now gave an even more conspicuous proof of his generosity. His

  brother wished to give a gladiatorial show on the occasion of his

  father’s funeral, but was unable to meet the expense, which was

  very considerable, and Scipio contributed the half of it out of his

  own fortune. Th e total expense of such a show amounts to not

  less than thirty talents if it is done on a generous scale. (Polybius

  31.28.3–6)

  Th irty talents was around 750,000 sesterces and nearly ten times

  what Nobilior paid for his venatio .

  Gallus (‘Gaul’)

  • Armour: helmet, mail

  • Special feature: unknown

  • Period: Republican

  • Common opponent: unknown

  22 | gLaDiatOrs

  The above list of events involving gladiators during the period

  of the middle Republic is unlikely to be comprehensive, not least

  because portions of Livy’s text are missing and survive only as

  summaries, but also because historians do not seem to have been

  very interested in gladiatorial combat in its early days, although

  they may not have been in tune with the zeitgeist. The playwright

  Terence, writing in the middle of the 2nd century BC, observed

  wistfully that gladiatorial shows were now more popular than

  dramatic performances. He may have been slightly bitter that an

  audience ran out of one of his plays when they heard there were

  gladiators nearby.

  Animal entertainments

  Animal entertainments, whether as staged hunts or as combat

  against exotic animals, seem to have had a completely different

  origin to gladiatorial combat. There is a connection with the various

  Hellenistic kingdoms around the Mediterranean which Rome

  encountered from the 3rd century BC onwards as it expanded its

  influence – not least because these were familiar with elephants

  and even used them in warfare. Indeed, it can be argued that the

  Roman fascination with exotic animals began with elephants. In

  275 BC, Manius Curius Dentatus celebrated a triumph after his

  victory over the invader Pyrrhus, the king of Epirus (a real, rather

  than Pyrrhic, victory), which was that part of Greece nearest to

  the heel of Italy. Dentatus was the first to exhibit elephants in this

  triumph – four of them, according to Eutropius, who admittedly

  was writing about five centuries later. Such was their popularity

  that it will come as no surprise that Lucius Caecilius Metellus felt

  obliged to display 140 elephants a few years later, after defeating

  the Carthaginian commander Hasdrubal at the Battle of Panormus

  in 251 BC. However, there clearly came a point when just seeing

  exotic animals was not enough and the desire to see them killed

  took over. According to Pliny the Elder:

  CHapter 2: Origins | 23

  Verrius informs us that they fought in the Circus, and that they were

  slain with javelins, for want of some better method of disposing

  of them; as the people neither liked to keep them nor yet to give

  them to the kings. Lucius Piso tells us only that they were brought

  into the Circus; and for the purpose of increasing the feeling of

  contempt towards them, they were driven all round the area of

  that place by workmen, who had nothing but spears blunted at the

  point. The authors who are of opinion that they were not killed,

  do not, however, inform us how they were afterwards disposed of.

  (Pliny, Natural History 8.6.4)

  In 167 BC, in a fit of inventive genius, Aemilius Paullus used

  elephants to crush deserters in a novel form of public execution.

  This was repeated by his son, Scipio Aemilianus, in 146 BC

  during his triumphal games after the successful defeat and

  destruction of Carthage (now part of Tunis in Tunisia) in the

  Third Punic War.

  The fact that some of the Hellenistic kingdoms also maintained

  animal parks for hunting purposes may well have influenced the

  Romans. These had obviously become a way of demonstrating

  the wide range of their trading links (and thereby status), as well

  as providing some exotic hunting for idle kings. In 275/4 BC,

  the king of Egypt, Ptolemy II Philadelphus, staged a day-long

  procession of exotic animals in honour of the god Dionysus

  through the streets of Alexandria. This was led by 24 chariots

  drawn by elephants, followed by lions, leopards, panthers,

  camels, antelopes, wild asses and ostriches – apparently in pairs

  – plus a bear, a giraffe and a rhinoceros for good measure. The

  fact that this occurred on the streets of the city demonstrates that


  it was fairly and squarely aimed at pleasing the public as much

  as the god. It united showing off the breadth of one’s domain by

  illustrating its wildlife diversity with the function of pleasing the

  masses; the added Roman value was almost inevitably going to

  be massacring all these animals brought to the capital at great

  expense. It was conspicuous consumption on a phenomenal and

  very bloody scale.

  24 | gLaDiatOrs

  After the elephantine delights provided by Dentatus and

  his imitators, exotic animal displays in Rome became more

  ambitious. Th e comic playwright Plautus, writing at the end

  of the 3rd century BC, mentions ‘ocean sparrows’ in the circus,

  meaning ostriches (the Romans were already normalising these

  exotic African imports with nicknames). In 186 BC, Marcus

  Fulvius Nobilior staged the fi rst recorded venatio or wild

  animal hunt with lions and panthers, to mark his military

  accomplishments in Greece, although his expenditure (spending

  money he had raised in Spain) was capped at 80,000 sesterces

  by the Senate. Th e animals probably came from Africa, since

  the Senate moved rapidly to restrict animal imports from there,

  probably as a result of this. Th is begs the question of where

  Nobilior got the idea for his event. Some have suggested that

  it developed from a Greek tradition (thanks to a comment by

  Th eodoric in the 6th century AD), whilst others have pointed

  towards evidence for hunting in Etruscan tomb paintings. Th ere

  may even have been some connection with the Ludi Florales , a

  religious festival where hares and deer were hunted in the Circus

  Maximus.

  In 169 BC, there was an animal spectacle held in the Circus

  Maximus, organised by the aediles Scipio Nasica and Lentulus

  where they exhibited 63 Africani (the word could mean leopards

  or panthers) and 40 bears and elephants. (Aediles were city

  Samnis (‘Samnite’)

  • Armour: helmet, armguard, greave, curved

  rectangular shield

  • Special feature: short sword

  • Period: Republican

  CHapter 2: Origins | 25

  magistrates who held office for one year and were responsible

  for the upkeep of public buildings and the provision of public

  festivals, which came to include putting on the games.) The

  limit on spending that the Senate imposed in 179 BC following

  Nobilior’s venatio was finally overturned in 114 BC by Gaius

  Aufidius – a tribune who was looking after the interests of the

  people (who wanted more spectacle, not a spending cap).

  By the end of the 2nd century BC, it was becoming

  increasingly clear that the forum was not the optimum space for

  holding games. The shape and proportions were wrong (it was

  rectangular and for some spectators it was too long to see what

  was happening at the other end) and there were obstructions

  such as statues and other monuments blocking the view. One

  solution was to erect temporary seating to provide some elevation

  and, naturally, charge for it. This did not go down well with the

  poor and Gaius Gracchus, a particularly proactive (or, to others,

  meddlesome) tribune of the people decided to act:

  The people were going to enjoy an exhibition of gladiators in the

  forum, and most of the magistrates had constructed seats for the

  show round about, and were offering them for hire. Caius ordered

  them to take down these seats, in order that the poor might be

  able to enjoy the spectacle from those places without paying hire.

  But since no one paid any attention to his command, he waited till

  the night before the spectacle, and then, taking all the workmen

  whom he had under his orders in public contracts, he pulled down

  the seats, and when day came he had the place all clear for the

  people. (Plutarch, Gaius Gracchus 12.3-4)

  Formalisation

  By the time of the Second Punic War, at the end of the 3rd

  century BC, it is probable that there were already gladiatorial

  schools and a formalised system for training gladiators, although

  these were obviously privately run. The general Cornelius Scipio,

  26 | gLaDiatOrs

  later to be known as Africanus for his eventual victory over

  Hannibal in North Africa, focused on Roman army training

  with some form of arms drill, but it was not yet the gladiatorial

  system. It would take another century before it was realised that

  the gladiatorial system could bring something to Roman army

  training that had, until then, been lacking. The results would

  speak for themselves. In fact, once it was introduced, the close

  relationship between gladiatorial and military training was to

  remain in place for at least four centuries, until such time as

  the army’s weaponry began to evolve away from the traditional

  gladiatorial armaturae.

  At the same time, the state insinuated its way into the business

  of organising games, which was threatening to become the

  preserve of rich and powerful men. The aediles, magistrates (first

  two, and later four of them) responsible for public buildings and

  the organising of festivals and, ultimately munera or games, were

  apparently directly involved in procuring animals for the games,

  as evidenced by Scipio Nasica and Lentulus in 169. Institutional

  control of the games was increasing, but there was still room for

  private enterprise.

  CHapter 2: Origins | 27

  CHApTeR 3

  RISE OF THE GLADIATORS

  Plays, farces, spectacles, gladiators, strange beasts, medals,

  pictures, and other such opiates, these were for ancient

  peoples the bait toward slavery, the price of their liberty,

  the instruments of tyranny.

  Étienne de La Boétie, Discourse on Voluntary Servitude

  popularity and politics

  REPUBLICAN ROME ENTERED AN EXTREMELY DANGEROUS phase in

  the last century BC, as already powerful men became ever more

  powerful and politics became about the competition between

  great men. For such men, any means of bolstering their power

  and infl uencing the mob became invaluable and gladiatorial

  games became just one weapon in this armoury. Th e Roman

  aristocracy were by now well aware of the effi cacy of these shows

  and they lost no opportunity to exploit them.

  A major change came in 105 BC when a gladiatorial

  performance was fi rst held in a theatre in Rome under the

  consuls Rutilius and Manlius (Rutilius will reappear later in

  another context, but still with a gladiatorial connection). Th is

  was the beginning of more permanent, less ad hoc venues, for

  28 | GLADIATORS

  gladiatorial shows, and a palpable sign of the change of emphasis

  between funerary ritual and entertainment. Th ey put on the

  display in their offi cial capacity as magistrates, ostensibly to

  encourage the Roman populace to maintain a warlike spirit

  during a time of peace.

  Marius, the great reformer of the Roman army at the end of

  the 2nd and beginning of the 1st century BC found a rather

  unusual aid in predicti
ng the outcome of gladiatorial contests:

  Th en she got audience of the women and gave them proofs of her

  skill, and particularly the wife of Marius, at whose feet she sat when

  some gladiators were fi ghting and successfully foretold which one

  was going to be victorious. In consequence of this she was sent to

  Marius by his wife, and was admired by him. (Plutarch, Life of

  Marius 17.2)

  What does not seem to have been considered is that this Syrian

  woman may just have had a very good eye for ‘form’ amongst

  gladiators, rather than the power of prophecy, and that luck may

  also have played its part.

  Th e import of exotic animals to be killed for the crowds

  also continued. When Quintus Scaevola was curule aedile in

  104 BC, he brought in the fi rst lions to Rome, according to

  Pliny the Elder; then Lucius Cornelius Sulla, whilst praetor in

  Andabata

  • Armour: mail, helmet

  • Special feature: blindfolded

  • Period: Republican

  • Common opponent: andabata

  CHApTeR 3: RISe Of THe GLADIATORS | 29

  93, produced 100 maned lions, only to be outdone by Gnaeus

  Pompeius – better known nowadays as Pompey – with 600 lions,

  315 of them with manes, and so on. Lion escalation became the

  munera in a roaring microcosm.

  The fascination with gladiators had its darker aspects too.

  Republican Roman society was heavily dependent upon slave

  labour, especially on the latifundia, the great agricultural

  estates that had been created by wealthy landowners buying

  up the original yeoman farmers’ lands. The whole business of

  gladiatorial combat was founded in the misery of slavery and the

  slender hope that being really good at it ultimately offered a way

  out. Equally, the threat posed by communities of skilled killers

  at the heart of civil society did not escape the ordinary citizen

  and their fears were to be realised in the 1st century BC with one

  of their worst nightmares: a slave revolt led by gladiators who

  thought they had found another way out.

  Spartacus

  Subject of a play, several historical novels, a ballet, a blockbuster

  film starring Kirk Douglas, a successful television series and

  several rock albums; who has not heard of Spartacus? A freedom

  fighter, socialist hero and enemy of Rome, he has become many