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  have been a core of truth behind it. What is significant are the

  details of gladiatorial tradition that such passages betray:

  At gladiatorial shows he would come to watch and stay to fight,

  covering his bare shoulders with a purple cloth. And it was his

  custom, moreover, to order the insertion in the city gazette

  of everything he did that was base or foul or cruel, or typical

  of a gladiator or a procurer – at least, the writings of Marius

  Maximus so testify. He entitled the Roman people the ‘People of

  Commodus’, since he had very often fought as a gladiator in their

  presence. And although the people regularly applauded him in his

  frequent combats as though he were a god, he became convinced

  that he was being laughed at, and gave orders that the Roman

  people should be slain in the Amphitheatre by the marines who

  spread the awnings. He gave an order, also, for the burning of the

  city, as though it were his private colony, and this order would

  have been executed had not Laetus, the prefect of the Guard,

  deterred him. Among other triumphal titles, he was also given

  the name ‘Captain of the Secutores’ six hundred and twenty times.

  ( HA, Commodus 15.3–8)

  On one occasion, Commodus took the opportunity to show off

  his skill as an archer:

  He shot arrows with crescent-shaped heads at Moroccan ostriches,

  birds that move with great speed, both because of their swiftness

  afoot and the sail-like nature of their wings. He cut off their heads

  at the very top of the neck; so, after their heads had been severed by

  the edge of the arrow, they continued to run around as if they had

  not been injured. (Herodian 1.15.5)

  This may have been the same occasion when he issued a rather

  menacing threat to the watching senators (who included the

  historian Cassius Dio). Their response resembles that of many

  sane people to subsequent despots of questionable sanity:

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  Here is another thing that he did to us senators which gave us every

  reason to look for our death. Having killed an ostrich and cut off

  his head, he came up to where we were sitting, holding the head in

  his left hand and in his right hand raising aloft his bloody sword;

  and though he spoke not a word, yet he wagged his head with a

  grin, indicating that he would treat us in the same way. And many

  would indeed have perished by the sword on the spot, for laughing

  at him (for it was laughter rather than indignation that overcame

  us), if I had not chewed some laurel leaves, which I got from my

  garland, myself, and persuaded the others who were sitting near me

  to do the same ... (Cassius Dio 73.21.1–2)

  Commodus decided to make a minor change or two to the

  enormous statue which gave its name to the Colosseum:

  He removed the head of a huge Colossus which the Romans

  worship and which bears the likeness of the Sun, replacing it with

  his own head, and inscribed on the base not the usual imperial and

  family titles; instead of ‘Germanicus’ he wrote: ‘Conqueror of a

  Th ousand Gladiators’. (Herodian 1.15.9)

  Suffi ce it to say that the last emperor who had put his own head

  on the Colossus had been Nero and that had not ended well.

  When Commodus’ possessions were sold off after after his death

  by Helvius Pertinax (AD 193), they were found to include

  Crupellarius

  • Armour: plate, helmet

  • Special feature: heavily protected

  • Period: Imperial

  • Common opponent: unknown

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  a gladiator’s cloak and arms decorated with gold and jewels; also

  swords, such as those with which Hercules is represented, and the

  necklaces worn by gladiators ( HA, Pertinax 8.3–4)

  Commodus had a well-known fondness for being identified with

  Hercules and a bust of him in the guise of that hero is displayed

  in the Capitoline Museums in Rome.

  The Severans

  Appropriately, Septimius Severus (AD 193–211) – whose first

  task was to deal with other pretenders to the purple – was

  proclaimed emperor in an amphitheatre (one of the two at

  Carnuntum in Austria) in AD 197. One of his opponents,

  Didius Julianus (AD 193 – who, his biographer sneered, had

  himself trained with gladiatorial weapons), attempted to arm the

  gladiators at Capua to form an army to oppose Severus, all to

  no avail.

  The games continued unabated during Severus’ reign, with him

  providing a show in Rome before he left for his Parthian Wars in

  the East. His son, Caracalla (AD 198–217) who murdered his

  brother Geta once their father was dead, was said to have liked

  the company of gladiators and charioteers (one of his nicknames

  was Tarautas, after an ugly gladiator of that name), but one tale

  about him provides an incidental detail of interest:

  He took pleasure in seeing the blood of as many gladiators

  as possible; he forced one of them, Bato, to fight three men in

  succession on the same day, and then, when Bato was slain by the

  last one, he honoured him with a brilliant funeral. (Cassius Dio

  78.6.2)

  Clearly, it was not normal to expect a gladiator to fight three

  opponents in one day. Whilst on campaign in the East, based at

  Nicomedia, one of the ways he amused himself was to fight as a

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  gladiator (although whether he competed in the arena or merely

  trained as one is unclear). Indeed, he celebrated his birthday

  there with games:

  Here it is said that when a defeated combatant begged him to spare

  his life, Antoninus said: ‘Go and beg your opponent. I have no

  power to spare you.’ And so the wretch, who would perhaps have

  been spared by his antagonist, had these words not been spoken,

  lost his life; for the victor did not dare to release him, for fear of

  appearing more humane than the emperor. (Cassius Dio 78.19.3)

  The crisis years

  The old fear of gladiator armies resurfaced during the reign

  of Maximinus Thrax (AD 235–8), when a senatorial revolt

  threatened the Praetorian Guard in Rome:

  Gallicanus, by his reckless crime, brought civil war and widespread

  destruction upon the city. He persuaded the people to break into

  the public arsenals, where armour used in parades rather than in

  battle was stored, each man to protect himself as best he could. He

  then threw open the gladiatorial schools and led out the gladiators

  armed with their regular weapons; finally, he collected all the

  spears, swords, and axes from the houses and shops. The people,

  as if possessed, seized any tools they could find, made of suitable

  material, and fashioned weapons. They assembled and went out to

  the Praetorian Camp, where they attacked the gates and walls as if

  they were actually organizing a siege. The Praetorians, with their

  vast combat experience, protected themselves behind their shields

  and the battlements; wounding their attackers with arrows and

  long spears, they kept them from the walls and drove them
back.

  With evening approaching, the besiegers decided to retire, since the

  civilians were exhausted and most of the gladiators were wounded.

  The people retreated in disorder, thinking that the few Praetorians

  would not dare to pursue so large a mob. But the Praetorians

  now threw open the gates and gave chase. They slaughtered the

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  gladiators, and the greater part of the mob also perished. (Herodian

  7.11.6–9)

  The notion that gladiatorial games hardened the population

  for war had been voiced by Pliny and reappears in the Historia

  Augusta (composed in the 4th century AD but using 2nd- and

  3rd-century sources):

  Whence this custom arose, that emperors setting out to war gave

  an entertainment of gladiators and wild beasts, we must briefly

  discuss. Many say that among the ancients this was a solemn ritual

  performed against the enemy in order that the blood of citizens

  being thus offered in sacrifice under the guise of battle, Nemesis

  (that is a certain avenging power of Fortune) might be appeased.

  Others have related in books, and this I believe is nearer the truth,

  that when about to go to war the Romans felt it necessary to behold

  fighting and wounds and steel and naked men contending among

  themselves, so that in war they might not fear armed enemies or

  shudder at wounds and blood. ( Historia Augusta, Maximinus and

  Balbinus 8.5–7)

  Gordian I (AD 238) was not emperor for very long, but he was

  familiar with gladiatorial games. Before he was emperor and

  whilst he was aedile, he personally provided twelve munera (one

  a month for his term of office!) which included between 150

  and 500 pairs of gladiators in each event. Once he had become

  emperor, he left his mark not only on the arena but also on the

  walls of the house of Pompey the Great (known as the Domus

  Rostrata from the fact the vestibule was decorated with the prows

  of captured pirate ships).

  There exists also today a remarkable wild-beast hunt of his, pictured

  in Gnaeus Pompey’s Domus Rostrata; this palace belonged to him

  and to his father and grandfather before him until your privy-purse

  took it over in the time of Philip. In this picture at the present day

  are contained two hundred stags with antlers shaped like the palm

  of a hand, together with British stags, thirty wild horses, a hundred

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  wild sheep, ten elks, a hundred Cyprian bulls, three hundred red

  Moorish ostriches, thirty wild asses, a hundred and fifty wild boars,

  two hundred chamois, and two hundred fallow deer. And all these

  he handed over to the people to be killed on the day of the sixth

  exhibition that he gave. ( Historia Augusta, The Gordians, 3.6–8)

  Thus Gordian I’s contribution to arena games was to introduce

  a level of interactivity for the audience which was previously

  unknown: they could actually participate in killing the wildlife

  assembled for their entertainment.

  That same Philip (the Arab, AD 244–49) decided to hold the

  Secular Games in Rome in April of AD 248. These Ludi Saeculares

  marked the 1,000th anniversary of the traditional foundation of

  Rome in 753 BC. This had to be done in a significant way and,

  fortunately, there were a few spare beasts that could drawn upon.

  There were thirty-two elephants at Rome in the time of Gordian

  (of which he himself had sent twelve and Alexander ten), ten

  elk, ten tigers, sixty tame lions, thirty tame leopards, ten belbi or

  hyenas, a thousand pairs of imperial gladiators, six hippopotami,

  one rhinoceros, ten wild lions, ten giraffes, twenty wild asses,

  forty wild horses, and various other animals of this nature without

  number. All of these Philip presented or slew at the Secular Games.

  All these animals, wild, tame, and savage, Gordian intended for a

  Persian triumph; but his official vow proved of no avail, for Philip

  presented all of them at the Secular Games, consisting of both

  gladiatorial spectacles and races in the Circus, that were celebrated

  on the thousandth anniversary of the founding of the City, when he

  and his son were consuls. ( Historia Augusta, The Gordians 33.1–3)

  The Historia Augusta’s biography of Probus (AD 276–82) has a

  particularly juicy tale to tell of the games he provided, whilst at

  the same time providing a cautionary tale over the use of such

  literary sources.

  He also gave the Romans their pleasures, and noted ones, too,

  and he bestowed largesses also. He celebrated a triumph over

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  the Germans and the Blemmyes, and caused companies from all

  nations, each of them containing up to fifty men, to be led before

  his triumphal procession. He gave in the Circus a most magnificent

  wild-beast hunt, at which all things were to be the spoils of the

  people. Now the manner of this spectacle was as follows: great trees,

  torn up with the roots by the soldiers, were set up on a platform of

  beams of wide extent, on which earth was then thrown, and in this

  way the whole Circus, planted to look like a forest, seemed, thanks

  to this new verdure, to be putting forth leaves. Then through all the

  entrances were brought in one thousand ostriches, one thousand

  stags and one thousand wild-boars, then deer, ibexes, wild sheep,

  and other grass-eating beasts, as many as could be reared or

  captured. The populace was then let in, and each man seized what

  he wished. Another day he brought out in the Amphitheatre at

  a single performance one hundred maned lions, which woke the

  thunder with their roaring. All of these were slaughtered as they

  came out of the doors of their dens, and being killed in this way

  they afforded no great spectacle. For there was none of that rush on

  the part of the beasts which takes place when they are let loose from

  cages. Besides, many, unwilling to charge, were despatched with

  arrows. Then he brought out one hundred leopards from Libya,

  then one hundred from Syria, then one hundred lionesses and at

  the same time three hundred bears; all of which beasts, it is clear,

  made a spectacle more vast than enjoyable. He presented, besides,

  three hundred pairs of gladiators, among whom fought many of

  the Blemmyes, who had been led in his triumph, besides many

  Germans and Sarmatians also and even some Isaurian brigands.

  ( Historia Augusta, Probus 19, 1–8)

  If this is an accurate account, there had been no letting up in the

  taste for or desire to provide lavish spectacles, despite the troubles

  of the Empire at this time. It does highlight one of the more

  unusual aspects of the whole ‘bread and circuses’ aspect of Roman

  society. Although there were snacks available to the audience, it had

  become a tradition to hand out free food in the form of gifts to the

  audience at munera. Often these were missilia (literally ‘missiles’)

  hurled into the audience in the form of small wooden balls bearing

  inscriptions which could be redeemed for those gifts, including

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&
nbsp; food. Once the Colosseum came into use, its ticketing system

  provided a ready-made token scheme akin to lottery tickets. One

  of the things given away apparently included meat. Huge displays

  of wild animals, most of them inevitably slaughtered, meant the

  organisers were faced with a glut of meat which had to be disposed

  of, so it ended up being given away to the crowd.

  Probus’ games were evidently divided between the animal

  ‘hunt’ in the circus (probably the Circus Maximus) and the

  gladiatorial show in the arena (the Colosseum). Th at the games

  occurred seems highly likely, but one of the problems with our

  principal source, the Historia Augusta , is that historians harbour

  serious doubts over its accuracy when relating detail. Without

  independent verifi cation, how is it possible to be sure that so

  much enticing material was not in fact fi ctional?

  We do know that a rather alarming incident occurred during

  his reign, when 80 gladiators escaped after killing their keepers

  and set about plundering in Rome. Although Probus was able

  to deal with the incident, it must have struck a chord with all

  Romans and reminded them of Spartacus.

  Amidst all the wearying excess, we fi nd the fi rst hints of a new

  attitude emerging from the Emperor Diocletian (AD 284–305):

  Diocletian and the tetrachy

  Diocletian was the founder of the Roman tetrarchy

  (meaning rule-of-four). At the end of the troubled

  times of the 3rd century AD, the Roman empire was

  divided into two halves, the Eastern and the Western.

  Each of these had a senior emperor (or Augustus )

  and a junior emperor (or Caesar ). Diocletian was

  Augustus of the Eastern Empire.

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  When Diocletian himself presented spectacles, after inviting all

  nations thereto, he was most sparing in his liberality, declaring

  that there should be more continence in games when a censor was

  looking on. ( Historia Augusta, Carus, Carinus, & Numerian 20.3)

  One of Diocletian’s major reforms was his attempt to tackle

  the problem of inflation in the form of his Edict on Maximum

  Prices from AD 301. Included within this were limits for beasts

  imported for the games, that for a first-rate lion being 150,000

  denarii (600,000 sesterces), whilst a second-rate one was listed at

  125,000 denarii (500,000 sesterces). The same list rated a military