LET’S TALK GLADIATORS
As a place for heavily choreographed battles to take place, the Colosseum was sort of the WWE arena of its day.
Along with the Colosseum, nothing is more emblematic of ancient Rome than the gladiator. Let’s discuss some of the facts and myths surrounding this iconic warrior.
Gladiatorial combat originated with the Etruscans, the civilization north of Rome in modern-day Tuscany. Rome conquered Etruria in the 4th century BC and adopted many of the region’s customs such as togas, human depictions of gods, chariot races, the arch, hydraulic engineering and by a circuitous route, their alphabet (and ours).
Adorable gladiator figurine.
Gladiatorial events were ritual sacrifices conducted as part of Etrurian funeral rites. The idea was to give the deceased an armed guard in the next world. It follows, then, that most of those early contests ended in the death of one of the combatants. This would not always be the case, however.
The word gladiator comes from the Latin gladius, which was originally a specific type of Spanish short sword used for thrusting at close range, but later came to be used as a term for any sword.
Gladiators were overwhelmingly prisoners of war, slaves or criminals. On occasion, a ruined man would enter a gladiatorial school in an attempt to win back his fame and fortune. The emperor Domitian was fond of using female gladiators. The emperor Commodus notably fought as a gladiator and, contrary to the film of the same name, shockingly won every bout.
His participation in the arena was scandalous; this was not a profession for a man of noble birth. Gladiators held a contradictory place in Roman society. On one hand, they could become celebrities, much as we have our sports heroes today. The best ones could win their freedom and acquire legions of fans and great wealth. On the other hand, gladiators were just a rung above slaves in the social hierarchy, right alongside prostitutes, actors and musicians – pretty much the lowest of the low. It was fine to watch them but to be them? Jupiter forbid!
Gladiators were trained in privately owned, for-profit schools. They practiced with wooden weapons weighing twice as much as the actual weapons used in combat. This built muscle mass and increased endurance, and this tactic would later be adopted by the Roman legions.
Mosaic of various gladiator types. Retiarius, center
There were various categories of gladiators, and the matches always saw two distinct styles pitted against each other. For example, one of the most recognizable types is the retiarius who wielded a net and a trident. This gave him great flexibility but no protection. As such, he might be set against a hoplomachi who wore a complete set of armor. A horse-mounted andabatae fought blind in a helmet that completely covered his head. He might square off against a thraces who wielded a small shield and a scythe-type sword.
19th century actor John McCullogh as Spartacus
And speaking of thraces, the most famous gladiator of all time, Spartacus, fought in that style. Whether he was actually from Thrace - covering parts of modern-day Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey - is an open question. Spartacus famously led a slave revolt in 73-71 BC. This was known as the Third Servile War, with this numbering indicating that the Republic occasionally dealt with large scale slave uprisings. Spartacus’ revolt was different, however; he amassed a huge army - some 70,000 men - which inflicted multiple defeats on the Roman legions sent to quell the uprising. Eventually by the efforts of Marcus Crassus, and with an assist from Pompey the Great, the revolt was put down and up to 6,000 surviving slaves were crucified along the Appian Way. Spartacus likely died in battle.
Marcus Crassus, in addtiion to defeating the slave army of Spartacus, was the richest man in Rome and may be the richest person who ever existed throughout world history. Ka-ching!
This revolt startled Rome. When Julius Caesar was an aedile (a public administrator), he staged elaborate gladiatorial games with 320 pairs of combatants fighting over a period of several days. He justified this as a funeral rite for his father even though he’d been dead for 20 years. This grand scale was deemed excessive, though, and emperors hence would reign in the games; the last thing the Empire needed was another huge revolt by physically fit, heavily armed, very angry men. In his 50+ years in power, Augustus only staged 8 games. But the pendulum would swing by the 4th century AD when gladiatorial games may have taken place on as many as 100 days a year.
Contrary to popular belief, not every gladiatorial contest ended in death. In fact, it’s likely only about 10% - 20% of matches did. Gladiators were a huge investment for their owners and trainers; killing one in every match didn’t make financial sense. Gladiatorial contests were often fixed, much as pro wrestling matches are today. Now imagine one professional wrestler dying as a result of every match. The sport would soon collapse.
Nevertheless, men were killed, and it was often up to the crowd or emperor to decide, depending on the moment in history. A wounded gladiator would elicit a cry from the crowd, Habet!, meaning, ‘he is wounded!’ The injured man would hold up a finger to his opponent, who would then seek the crowd’s or emperor's preference. The spectators would wave handkerchiefs if they wanted mercy. A common belief (perpetuated by the film Gladiator) is that a thumbs down signal, by contrast, meant ‘kill him.’ There’s no evidence to support this, however. A thumbs down could have meant, ‘no, don’t kill him,’ just as a thumbs up could mean ‘slice his throat.’ All we know for certain is that a thumb gesture indicated a preference.
Relief inside the Arch of Titus showing the looting of the Temple in Jerusalem. This plunder was the main source of revenue for construction of the Colosseum.
Despite all the attention gladiators get in our modern society, it was not the most popular sport in ancient Rome - not by a Roman mile. That honor belonged to chariot races which, at the height of the Circus Maximus, could find up to 300,000 spectators in attendance. Contrast this with the Colosseum’s capacity of 50,000. Also, this famous structure wasn’t opened until 80 AD and was funded by the plunder from the Jewish Revolt of 70 AD. The name Colosseum comes from a giant statue - a colossus - that Nero erected of himself when the site was part of his palatial estate built after the Great Fire of 64 AD. Eventually the head was replaced but the statue remained, possibly crumbling as a victim of the Vandals’ sack of Rome in 455 AD, collapsing in a later earthquake, or even enduring until the Middle Ages before being dismantled for scrap.
Gladiatorial combat was outlawed by the emperor Constantine I in the 4th century but endured in pockets of the empire for up to 2 more centuries before finally dying out. One of the hard things to stomach about the Romans is their bloodlust, and even if most gladiators survived their combat, many were hobbled oir maimed eventually. As Christianity took hold of the empire, this bloodlust gradually dissipated to the point we only have records of it today. And we can thank God - or Constantine - for that.
