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Gladiators


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Gladiators

Violence and Spectacle in Ancient Rome

Roger Dunkle
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First published 2008 by Pearson Education Limited

Published 2013 by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Copyright © 2008, Taylor & Francis.

The right of Roger Dunkle to be identified as author of this work has been asserted
by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or
by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission
in writing from the publishers.

Notices
Knowledge and best practice in this field are constantly changing. As new research and experience
broaden our understanding, changes in research methods, professional practices, or medical
treatment may become necessary.

Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own experience and knowledge in
evaluating and using any information, methods, compounds, or experiments described herein. In
using such information or methods they should be mindful of their own safety and the safety of
others, including parties for whom they have a professional responsibility.

To the fullest extent of the law, neither the Publisher nor the authors, contributors, or editors,
assume any liability for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of products
liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use or operation of any methods, products,
instructions, or ideas contained in the material herein.

ISBN: 978-1-4058-0739-5 (hbk)

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A CIP catalogue record for this book can be obtained from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Dunkle, Roger.
Gladiators : violence and spectacle in ancient Rome / Roger Dunkle.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4058-0739-5
1. Gladiators—Rome—History. 2. Violence—Rome—History. I. Title.
GV35.D86 2008
796'.0937—dc22 2008025904

Typeset in 10/14 pt Galliard by 73

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Contents


Preface vii

Publisher’s Acknowledgements x

Chapter 1 Cultural Context and Origins of Gladiatorial Combat 1

Chapter 2 Recruitment and Training of Gladiators 30

Chapter 3 Gladiator Games in Action 66

Chapter 4 A Brief History of Gladiator Games 153

Chapter 5 A Brief History of the Arena Hunt 207

Chapter 6 The Roman Amphitheatre and the Colosseum 245

Chapter 7 Gladiators in Film 288

Notes 305

Bibliography 376

Index 386

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Preface


Take up gladiators as a topic of serious study? Not a chance. That was the
way I felt about ten years ago. I had put together a lecture on gladiators that
I thought might interest a wider sampling of students in our department
and its electives.1 As far as I was concerned, however, gladiators might serve
as a popular and sensationalistic come-on, but I was not prepared to go any
further with the topic. My judgement was sincere, but premature. At the
same time as I was putting together the lecture, I was teaching a course on
ancient sport that focused on the Greek side with only brief forays into the
Roman. My experience with the course taught me that Greek athletics were
an important key to the understanding of Greek culture, as essential as other
traditional subjects such as politics and philosophy. Athletics were not on
the margins of Greek culture, but in fact nearer to the centre. Could this
also be true of gladiatorial combat and Roman culture? As I began to dig
below the flashy surface of things gladiatorial, I found that I could answer
yes. It became clear to me that gladiatorial combat was not an exotic
sideshow for the Romans, but an entertainment that was integral to their
culture, demonstrating important Roman values, a virtual symbol of what it
meant to be Roman. In the back of my mind, the idea began to form of a
book that could be especially useful to students and the casual reader, and
on occasion even to the scholar.
When Pearson asked me to submit a book proposal, I decided that my
main concern in such a book would be to get the reader to see the phenom-
enon of gladiatorial combat as the Romans saw it: its organization, profes-
sionalism, competitive qualities, political character, holiday atmosphere,
and, of course, its bloody violence. It is difficult for us to judge the Romans
fairly in this area since their naïve delight in arena violence with little hint of

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PREFACE

guilt goes against the grain of modern ethical values. The modern tendency
is to decry violence of any kind, but this attitude, which was not shared as
dogmatically by the ancients, verges on the hypocritical, given our society’s
obsession with violence in entertainment. This approach, of course, is not to
imply my advocacy of gladiator duels as entertainment, but my desire to set
the record straight. On the other hand, as unattractive as arena entertain-
ments are to modern taste, the Romans cannot be dismissed as pure sadists.
There are fascinating paradoxes to be found in the sources. The undeniable
callousness of the cold-hearted gladiator ‘industry’ can be countered with
the humane side of life and death evident in the gladiator schools. Equally
interesting is the coexistence of the Roman contempt for the low social
status of gladiators with admiration for the courage these fighters display in
the arena. A similar paradox can be found in the staged animal hunts closely
associated with gladiator duels, in which the crowd can switch from enjoy-
ing the slaughter of wild animals to admiring the intelligence and skills of
trained animals without missing a beat. On the other hand, we must be pre-
pared to accept some unpleasant truths about the Romans (and even our-
selves). As Professor Heinrich Von Staden once pointed out, scholars
cannot ignore aspects of ancient cultures that offend modern sensibilities.
They must be fairly evaluated and communicated to interested readers
along with the glories of these civilizations.
Another purpose of this book is to de-emphasize (but not ignore) theor-
etical approaches to the topic, so beloved of scholars. I will discuss and eval-
uate various existing theories regarding gladiatorial combat in this book,
but will add nothing theoretical to the debate. My approach will be to place
gladiatorial combat in its cultural context, while giving an historical per-
spective to the development and decline of gladiatorial combat. The last
two chapters of the book will deal with topics that are not usually included,
or are merely mentioned in passing, in books that concentrate on gladiators.
Chapter 6 deals with the venues of gladiator shows and what it was like to
be a spectator at these sites. Chapter 7 is on gladiators in film and is import-
ant to this book, because films are probably the most significant source of
the modern public’s knowledge of gladiators. I will direct the reader’s
attention to both the virtues and the flaws of the film industry’s depiction
of gladiators in films over the past eight decades.
In pursuit of my policy of accessibility for the non-professional, I will ex-
plain aspects of Roman culture familiar to the scholar, but probably unfamiliar

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PREFACE

to the average reader, as they come up in the text. I will also translate
foreign words and titles of important scholarly works in other languages.
Abbreviations of journals and the names of ancient authors and their works
are taken from the Oxford Classical Dictionary, Liddell and Scott’s A
Greek–English Lexicon (1961 reprint) and L’Année philologique (The Year in
Philology).2 Where no generally accepted abbreviations exist, I have given
the full title of works and on a few occasions have improvised an easily
understood abbreviation, for example RG for Augustus’ Res Gestae (Acc-
omplishments). Two frequently used abbreviations referring to inscriptions
are CIL (⫽ Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, ‘Collection of Latin Inscrip-
tions’) and ILS (⫽ Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae, ‘Selected Latin Inscriptions’).
AE stands for L’Année epigraphique (The Year in Epigraphy). Translations of
ancient and secondary sources are my own, except when their source is indi-
cated in the endnotes. When the three official names (tria nomina) of a
Roman citizen are mentioned, the first (praenomen), in accordance with
Roman custom, will be abbreviated as in the following examples: Ap. ⫽ Ap-
pius; Aul. ⫽ Aulus; C. ⫽ Gaius; D. ⫽ Decimus; Cn. ⫽ Gnaeus; L. ⫽ Lucius;
M’. ⫽ Manius; N. ⫽ Marcus; P. ⫽ Numerius; M. ⫽ Publius; Q. ⫽ Quintus;
Ser. ⫽ Servius; Sex. ⫽ Sextus; Ti. ⫽ Tiberius.
I would like to express my appreciation to Pearson for inviting me to
submit a book proposal, with special thanks for the invaluable help I re-
ceived from the editorial staff and freelance editors (in alphabetical order):
Mary-Clare Connellan, Natasha Dupont, Ruth Freestone King, Casey Mein,
Helen Parry, Mari Shullaw and Debra Weatherley. I must also mention the
Interlibrary Loan department at the Brooklyn College Library, without
whose help this book would not have been possible. Finally, I would feel
remiss if I did not acknowledge my gratitude to scholars who have preceded
me and have written so brilliantly on this topic. My debt to them is obvious
throughout the book.
I dedicate this book to my wife, Dr Ruth Passweg. She graciously toler-
ated a husband who, although present in the house, was in effect absent,
holing himself up in his office almost every day for three years. Moreover,
going beyond any normal call of duty, she tirelessly proofread various
versions of the manuscript, created the index and provided the invaluable
service of discovering numerous repetitions and inconsistencies in the text.

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Publisher’s Acknowledgements


The publisher would like to thank the following for their kind permission to
reproduce their photographs:

Tarina Peterson: Figure 1; Jona Lendering (www.livius.org): Figure 2;

The Ministry for cultural heritage and Environment (Soprintendenza
archeologica di Pompei): Figure 3; Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples:
Figure 4; The Bridgeman Art Library Ltd: Galleria Borghese, Rome, Italy/
Alinari Figure 5; The Art Archive: Museo Nazionale Terme Rome/Gianni
Dagli Orti: Figure 6; akg-images Ltd: Gilles Mermet: Figure 8; Corbis:
Roger Wood: Figures 7, 9, 10, 11, 17 and 23; Corbis: The Art Archive:
Figures 12 and 18; Bridgeman Art Library Ltd: Museo Archeologico
Nazionale, Naples, Italy/Giraudon: Figure 13; Kunstsammlungen de Veste
Coburg, Germany: Figure 14; Corbis: Bettmann: Figure 15; Scala London:
Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin/Hermann Buresch: Figure 16;
Musée départemental de l’Arles antique.: Cl. M. Lacanaud: Figure 19; The
Art Archive: Gianni Dagli Orti: Figure 20; The Trustees of The British
Museum: Figures 22 and 29; Bridgeman Art Library Ltd: Phoenix Art
Museum, Arizona, USA: Figure 24; Corbis: Alinari Archives: Figure 25;
Corbis: Vince Streano: Figure 26; Corbis: Bettmann: Figure 27; Scala
London: Vatican, Museo Gregoriano Profano: Figure 28.

Every effort has been made to trace the copyright holders and we apolo-
gise in advance for any unintentional omissions. We would be pleased to
insert the appropriate acknowledgement in any subsequent edition of this
publication.

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Chapter 1

Cultural Context and Origins

of Gladiatorial Combat


O n the day before she was to be thrown to the beasts for refusing to
sacrifice for the well-being of the emperors, a young Christian woman
named Vibia Perpetua had a dream that, like most dreams, was a combina-
tion of reality and fantasy with an admixture of incoherency.1 In her dream,
Perpetua is led into the amphitheatre, but not to face the wild beasts. She
finds herself facing a frightening Egyptian opponent in a yet undetermined
contest and when her seconds strip off her clothes, she has been trans-
formed into a man.
The Egyptian rolls in the dust and Perpetua is rubbed down with oil,
both typical preparations for a wrestling match or for the pankration, a
no-holds-barred contest that is a combination of boxing and wrestling.
Then there arrives a gigantic man taller than the walls of the amphitheatre,
who is wearing a tunic with two vertical stripes and carries a rod and a green
branch on which are golden apples. His dress and rod identify him as a ref-
eree of gladiator matches.2 The branch seems to be a substitution for a palm
branch, one of the symbolic prizes given to winners of Greek athletic con-
tests, but also to victorious gladiators. When the official explains the terms
of the contest, saying that the winner must slay the opponent with a sword,

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GLADIATORS

we are led to expect a gladiatorial match. Once the contest begins, however,
the exchange of blows with fists and feet combined with wrestling holds
reveals that the contest is the pankration. After defeating the Egyptian,
Perpetua leaves the arena in triumph through the Porta Sanivivaria (‘the
Gate of Life’), through which victorious gladiators leave the arena. With
the typical freedom of a dreamer, Perpetua has merged the pankration
and gladiatorial combat.3 For Perpetua, the dream in which she defeats the
Egyptian is prophetic of her victory over the Devil (for which the Egyptian
is a stand-in), which she will achieve the next day as a martyr when she and
her friends are thrown to the wild beasts in the arena.4 The golden apples
attached to the branch are a symbol of immortality, suggesting the eternal
life in heaven that Perpetua will win through her martyrdom.5
Perpetua’s subconscious identification of herself with a pancratiast and a
gladiator seems odd. Indeed, Christianity was extremely hostile to all pagan
spectacles, especially gladiatorial combat, but in her concluding remarks on
her dream, Perpetua glories in her dream victory as a pancratiast/gladiator.6
Despite official Christian antagonism, the athlete and the gladiator were
admired by those Christians who yearned for the crown of martyrdom.7
These embodiments of masculine energy and power seem to have been in-
spiring exemplars, particularly for female martyrs, whom even their fellow
Christians might expect to be weak in the face of the horrific mental and
physical demands of martyrdom. The encyclical letter from the Christians of
Vienne and Lyons in Gaul to their fellow Christians in the Near East de-
scribes Blandina’s famous martyrdom in Lyons (AD 177) in athletic terms,
presenting Christ as her athletic model:

. . . tiny, weak, and insignificant as she [Blandina] was, she would give in-
spiration to her brothers [in Christ], for she had put on Christ, that mighty
and invincible athlete, and had overcome the Adversary [the Devil] in
many contests, and through her conflict had won the crown of immortality.8

As Brent Shaw points out, the athlete and the gladiator, both arena per-
formers, were empowering figures, because of their strength of will and
discipline.9 Christianity was quick to adopt the athlete as a figure to be em-
ulated in a spiritual context. For example, athletic imagery is prominent in
advice to prospective martyrs given by Tertullian, a Christian apologist of
the second century AD. He presents God and the Holy Spirit as officials in
charge of athletes, whose rigorous training is an inspirational model for

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Christians preparing for martyrdom. Just like athletes, martyrs must build
up their moral strength by strict training to achieve victory. He describes
the prison in which martyrs await their ordeal in the arena as a palaestra
(‘athletic training ground’).10 Even more germane to the martyr was the ex-
perience of the gladiator who faced the real possibility of death every time he
appeared in the arena. The oath taken by volunteer gladiators emphasized
the horrific physical trials they will have to endure during their training and
in the arena: burning, binding, beating and death by the sword, all of which
were especially pertinent to martyrs.11 It is not surprising that the popular
image of the gladiator as a heroic figure of great moral and physical power,
willing to suffer wounds and even death in the all-out struggle for victory,
found its way into her dream. The dream must have been a source of great
comfort in as much as it encouraged her to see her execution in the arena the
next day not as a degrading defeat, as her captors hoped, but as a triumphant
victory. The ending of her life as a martyr would follow the glorious example
of the gladiator. Just as the gladiator was able to transcend and defeat death
by courageous behaviour in battle, she would achieve the same result
through her martyrdom. In fact, Perpetua prominently displayed two no-
table characteristics of the gladiator during the tribulations of her last day
on earth. As she and her friends were led from the prison to the amphithe-
atre, Perpetua stared down the hostile crowd that lined their path.12 An un-
flinching stare was prized in gladiators because it signified a powerful will to
win. In the gladiator school of the emperor Caligula were two gladiators
who did not blink no matter what threat they faced and thus were invincible
opponents.13 Perpetua’s death also closely followed the gladiatorial tra-
dition. When the crowd protested the order that Perpetua and her friends be
put to death out of the sight of the spectators in the spoliarium, she and her
colleagues were more than happy to display the strength of their faith in the
arena.14 We know that death in the spoliarium was a matter of shame for
gladiators: Seneca explains that a true gladiator would rather die in the
middle of the arena than in the spoliarium.15 An even more significant simi-
larity to the gladiator was Perpetua’s conduct when faced with death in the
arena. Since the animals were able to kill only two of her Christian col-
leagues, an apprentice gladiator was assigned the task of executing Perpetua
and two other members of her group with a sword. The executions were
accomplished efficiently until it came to Perpetua, who was last in line. It
seems that the young gladiator was nervous about killing Perpetua because

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GLADIATORS

his first blow hit a bone and she had to guide his wavering (errantem) sword
to her throat. This situation duplicates the scene that Seneca the Younger
describes, in which a losing gladiator, who at first had fought tentatively, re-
deemed himself by calmly accepting his death as decreed by the giver of the
games. He offered his throat to his opponent and guided his wavering
(errantem) sword to its destination.16
Although the legacy of the gladiator lay dormant for centuries after the
disappearance of gladiatorial combat in late antiquity, it was revived with the
excavations of Pompeii beginning in the eighteenth century. The discovery
of an amphitheatre, gladiatorial school (with a store of gladiator armour),
and numerous inscriptions gives eloquent testimony of how important a
role gladiators had played in the life of the town. Popular novels such as
Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s The Last Days of Pompeii (1834) also did much to
popularize the gladiator as did Jean-Léon Gérôme’s famous painting Pollice
Verso (1872) (Figure 24 in this volume) that was inspired by the artist’s visit
to the Naples museum where he saw the gladiatorial armour discovered at
Pompeii. This painting became (and still is) immensely popular and has
had enormous influence on the depiction of gladiators in film, which itself
has turned out to be an even more effective medium for shaping public
awareness of, and interest in, the gladiator.17 In a more popular vein, the
last two decades of the nineteenth century saw a craze for all things Roman,
especially arena events. Show business promoters such as P. T. Barnum and
the Kiralfy brothers cashed in on this fad and presented onstage in America
and in England various aspects of Roman life, with a special emphasis on
arena events (portrayed harmlessly), to satisfy, like an ancient sponsor of a
gladiator show, their audience’s ‘fascination with blood in the arena’. Imre
Kiralfy’s Nero or the Destruction of Rome (1888) presented depictions of
gladiatorial combat and martyrdoms of Christians by wild beasts and other
scenes illustrating the decadence of Rome.18
In the academic world, scholars took up research on the historical gladi-
ator with enthusiasm. From Germany came a carefully researched account
of gladiators and gladiatorial combat in the second volume of Ludwig
Friedländer’s four-volume work Darstellungen aus der Sittengeschichte Roms
in der Zeit von August bis zum Ausgang der Antonine (Representations
from the History of Roman Customs in the Period from Augustus to the End
of the Antonines, 1862–71). The contribution of French scholars has
been especially notable. The authoritative article of Georges Lafaye on the

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gladiator in Daremberg and Saglio’s Dictionnaire des antiquités greques et

romaines (Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, 1896) began a tra-
dition that culminated in two magisterial tomes: Louis Robert’s Les Gladia-
teurs dans l’Orient grec (Gladiators in the Greek East, 1940) and Georges
Ville’s La Gladiature en occident des origines à la mort de Domitien (The
Phenomenon of the Gladiator in the West from its Origins to the Death of
Domitian, 1981). The spate of books on gladiators in English, French and
German in the past forty years give further graphic proof of continued schol-
arly interest in the topic.
Today, the word ‘gladiator’ is still highly charged; in addition to its literal
meaning, it has been applied figuratively to athletes and even practitioners
of non-athletic professions, indicating an aggressively courageous nature
and a willingness to sacrifice everything in the pursuit of success. There
must be very few people today, young or old, who could not explain what a
gladiator is and identify his historical context in a general way. The popu-
larity of the gladiator is probably due in great part to his exotic character,
originating in an ancient culture in some ways alien to our own that found
entertainment in a sport that involved the very real risk of death. Obviously,
no civilized country today would tolerate gladiatorial combat. Real sword-
play for entertainment runs counter to the ethical concerns of major mod-
ern religions and is objectionable on purely human terms. After all, most
modern states have outlawed blood sports involving animals, such as bull-
fights, dogfighting and cockfighting. A question comes to mind: why did
the violent and bloody sport of gladiatorial combat achieve great popularity
among the ancient Romans, who are credited with bringing civilization to
the western world? The answer to this question reveals how much we mod-
erns are both like and different from our cultural ancestors.
First, we must understand the role of gladiatorial combat in ancient
Roman culture. There is a letter written by Pliny the Younger (early second
century AD) to a friend named Maximus that provides an interesting insight
into the place of gladiatorial combat in Roman society:

You were right to promise a gladiatorial show [gladiatorium munus] to

our fellow citizens of Verona, by whom you have long been loved, looked up
to and praised. Also, your most beloved and loyal wife came from that city,
to whose memory either some building or spectacle and above all, this one
[gladiatorial combat], which is especially appropriate to a funeral, was

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GLADIATORS

owed. Moreover, this gladiatorial show was requested by so many citizens of

Verona that it seemed not resolute but rude to say no. That show reflected
outstandingly on your great generosity, through which you displayed your
magnanimity. I wish that the African panthers, which you bought in great
numbers, had arrived on the appointed day, but although they were de-
tained by the weather, you nevertheless deserve the credit since you were not
responsible for your inability to present these animals . . . 19

The purpose of this letter is to congratulate Maximus, a wealthy and well-

respected member of the aristocracy in Verona, for a gladiator show he has
given in memory of his dead wife.20 Pliny praises gladiatorial combat as
‘especially appropriate to a funeral’. This is because gladiator games from
the very beginning of their history at Rome were closely associated with
funerals. The connection between a gladiator show and honouring the
memory of a dead wife might be hard for us to fathom. The presentation of
gladiatorial combat was called by the Romans a munus, a Latin word that
meant ‘duty’or ‘gift’ and by extension ‘funeral honours’, an obligation per-
formed for, or a gift given to, the dead. Georges Ville says that throughout
the Republic the word munus had the general meaning of ‘spectacle’, a
show given as a gift to the people by Roman magistrates or even private cit-
izens. Therefore, the word munus could also refer to the spectacles called
ludi in honour of the gods, consisting of entertainments such as theatrical
presentations and chariot racing, or to a gladiatorial spectacle, which until
the late first century BC was given only in honour of the dead. By the early
empire, the primary meaning of munus had become ‘gladiatorial combat’,
driving out the general meaning of ‘spectacle’. The reason for this was the
immense popularity of gladiator games. All spectacles were ‘gifts’ to the
Roman people, but as Ville points out, gladiatorial combat was ‘the gift par
excellence to the people’.21
The giver of a munus, called either an editor or munerarius, undertook all
the expenses of giving a munus, which were considerable. He was under a
great deal of pressure to give a worthy show because stinginess in presenting
gladiatorial combat could ruin his reputation among his fellow citizens.
Therefore, Maximus’ munus in memory of his wife was not entirely a private
affair. He publicly proclaims his devotion to his wife by presenting the munus
free of charge to his compatriots, who view the munus not as a solemn
occasion but as an enjoyable entertainment anticipated with pleasure.22 They

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in fact had urgently requested him to give the munus, fearing that Maximus
would choose a duller alternative funeral honour, like the construction of
a public building in Verona dedicated to his wife. This would have been a
worthy gift to the city to honour his wife, but nowhere near as exciting as a
gladiator show. In the cities and towns of Italy, a munus was not a common
occurrence and thus was eagerly anticipated. The odd combination of
funeral ritual and popular entertainment is characteristic of gladiator games
in Italy. The earliest evidence of gladiatorial combat is found in tomb paint-
ings of fourth century BC southern Italy, which were no doubt commemora-
tions of combats given at the funeral, although we also hear of gladiatorial
combat that served as a diversion at banquets in Campania at the end of the
same century.23 The poet Silius Italicus (first century AD) writes of Campani-
ans livening up their banquets with gladiators ‘falling on the drinking vessels
and sprinkling the tables with much blood’. He also refers to this party as ‘a
horrid sight’.24 The Romans disliked the luxurious lifestyle of the Campani-
ans and no doubt viewed these gladiatorial duels in the midst of dinner as just
another of their excesses. Conservatism led the Romans to require a justifi-
cation for gladiatorial combat beyond mere amusement. Throughout the
Republic, the funerals of great men provided a sufficient pretext for gladiato-
rial combat. It was not until approximately two and a half centuries after the
first gladiator duels in Rome that gladiator games could be offered with no
other excuse than their entertainment value.
Perhaps the thing that might strike us the most in Pliny’s letter is the
matter-of-factness displayed by its author in reference to gladiatorial combat
as a way of honouring a dead wife.25 Another example of what might seem
to us an incongruous combination is a munus given for the birthday of the
emperor Vitellius in AD 69.26 This was a large-scale spectacle with gladiator
duels taking place in all 265 districts of the city (probably in open
squares).27 One could argue that a munus fitted the mood of a funeral, but
in its later history it could celebrate a happy occasion. Perhaps, the strangest
of all examples of this Roman attitude towards gladiatorial combat is the de-
piction of gladiators arming before a contest in the presence of a referee on
a mosaic floor from a Roman villa at Bignor in Sussex. On closer inspection,
these figures are revealed to have wings, indicating that they are cupids.
K. M. Coleman says that in this mosaic, ‘the grim reality of arena has been
translated into whimsical fantasy’.28 It would come as much less of a sur-
prise that children played ‘gladiators’, if this game did not presuppose that

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parents were willing to take their children to the amphitheatre.29 We have

only one example in the ancient sources of the experience of a child’s reac-
tion to events in the arena, that of the future emperor Commodus, who
cried and turned away his eyes when he witnessed condemned criminals
(damnati) thrown to wild beasts. As we shall see later, Commodus soon
adjusted to the violence of the arena and even became a performer, fighting
as a gladiator and as an animal hunter.
This matter-of-factness, however, should not be taken to mean universal
approval of gladiatorial combat by the Romans. Even the gladiator, who
generally enjoyed great popularity, was an ambivalent figure, evoking a mix-
ture of condemnation and approval in Roman society. According to Marcus
Junkelmann, in the Roman mind the gladiator was at the same time a ‘hero
and a criminal’ and ‘a darling of the public and pariah’.30 Among the sena-
torial class, we hear of distaste for gladiator shows and spectacles in general,
arising from contempt for what some aristocrats considered the entertain-
ment of the masses and of uncultured aristocrats, unworthy of a refined
man’s interest. For example, Cicero mocks Piso for pretending that he did
not attend games on one occasion because he despised spectacles: ‘he will
leave the games to us idiots’.31 Cicero in a letter cites his friend Marius’ dis-
dain for gladiator games.32 Marius had left Rome for the country rather
than attend the great games of Pompey in 55 BC. Cicero praises Marius’
action: ‘. . . but if you thought these affairs [i.e., gladiator games] ought to
be scorned, which everybody else admires . . . I rejoice . . .’.33 Cicero had
once done the same thing as Marius, when he left for the country to avoid
having to attend a munus.34 Cicero also provides evidence for ethical
objections to gladiatorial combat in his Tusculan Disputations. Cicero states
that there are some who think this sport is ‘cruel and inhuman’, but surpris-
ingly he also says that he himself is undecided about this judgement.35
Despite his lukewarm attitude towards gladiatorial combat, Cicero may
have been a more than an infrequent spectator, as his familiarity with gladi-
ators and gladiatorial shows reveals. Towards the end of the second century
AD, however, there is evidence of stronger concerns about the morality of
gladiatorial combat, no doubt influenced by Greek philosophy.36 Marcus
Aurelius, an emperor with a strong philosophical bent, disliked the blood-
shed of gladiatorial combat and therefore did not allow gladiators to use
sharp weapons at any show he attended, but instead required them to fight
with blunt swords.37 Aurelius, however, was often away from Rome fighting

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in defence of the northern frontier, so in his absence gladiatorial combat

was most probably conducted in its traditionally bloody way. His objection
to gladiatorial combat seems to be echoed in the speech of a senator speak-
ing on behalf of legislation proposed by Aurelius and his son and co-ruler
Commodus. The senator strongly supports the proposal to end a tax on the
expenditures of sponsors of gladiatorial shows. He condemns revenue
coming into the treasury from gladiator games as ‘contrary to divine and
human law’ and ‘contaminated with the sprinkling of human blood’.38 But
again, despite these condemnatory words, the senator does not urge the
abolition of gladiatorial games. Simply put, his argument is: ‘Let the gladia-
tor games go on, but the emperors should not be tainted with unseemly
profit’. These objections, however, were expressed by a very small minority
of the population and sometimes were not even sincere, in that they were
uttered only because the speaker wanted to show his intellectual and moral
superiority to the rest of the population. This attitude is similar to that of
some intellectuals today who claim they never watch television. Most
Romans took to gladiatorial combat the way Americans take pleasure in
baseball and Europeans enjoy football. Gladiators were a frequent topic of
ordinary conversation. Educated men such as Maecenas and Horace could
discuss the relative merits of two gladiators as they rode together in a car-
riage.39 Tacitus complains that a passion for gladiators is practically inborn
in Romans and dominates the conversations of the young.40 Whatever as-
persions were cast on gladiatorial games, there was never any question of
banning them.
At the Veronian munus, there must have been bloodshed and perhaps
even one or more gladiators lost their lives, not at all what most of us would
call a proper honour for a dead wife. Yet Pliny makes clear how appropriate
and proper in his view Maximus’ munus was. Moreover, there could have
been more bloodshed than just that from human bodies. Maximus had
scheduled a venatio (‘hunt’), a staged animal hunt in which men fought
wild beasts and wild beasts fought each other, along with other entertain-
ments involving animals. By the first century AD, the venatio, originally a
separate event, had become a regular part of the munus. Maximus had gone
to the trouble and expense of importing panthers from Africa, which along
with other large cats were among the animal superstars of the venatio. The
mention of bad weather suggests the delay took place at sea. This does not
necessarily mean, however, that Maximus cancelled his venatio. He might

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have purchased local animals as an emergency measure, herbivores such as

deer, wild horses, asses etc. to be killed in their place. Another typical feature
of the munus was the execution of convicted criminals and/or prisoners of
war, which by our standards would seem to have made Maximus’ munus an
even less appropriate honour for his wife. Pliny makes no mention of execu-
tions at Maximus’ spectacle. It may have been that, as sometimes happened,
no convicts or prisoners of war were available on this occasion.

Origins of gladiatorial combat

The most popular ancient theory about the origin of gladiatorial combat was
that it was a form of human sacrifice to the dead. Tertullian sees the munus
as a duty performed for the dead, arguing for the progress of the ritual from
human sacrifice to what he calls a ‘more humane atrocity’, that is, combat, in
which at least one combatant would survive. His tone is sarcastic and hostile,
because as a Christian he disliked gladiatorial combat and in fact, all other
pagan spectacles.

The ancients thought that performing this spectacle was a duty to the dead,
after they tempered it with a more humane atrocity. For, once upon a time,
since it had been believed that the souls of the dead were propitiated by
human blood, having purchased captives or slaves of bad character, they
sacrificed them as part of funeral ritual. Later they decided to mask the
impiety as entertainment. And so those they had purchased and trained in
what arms and in whatever way they could, only that they might learn to be
killed, they soon exposed to death on the appointed day of the funeral. Thus,
they sought consolation for death in homicide. This was the origin of the
munus.41

The theory still has adherents among modern scholars. Allison Futrell, in a
recent book, has argued in its favour, joining it with another major theme of
gladiatorial combat: Roman power. She alleges that gladiator games were
originally human sacrifices to sustain Roman political power.42 Thomas
Wiedemann in his Emperors and Gladiators, however, categorically disasso-
ciates human sacrifice from Roman funerals: ‘there is no evidence at all that
the Romans at any period thought that any such human sacrifices were
appropriate in connection with funerals’.43 Wiedemann’s observation is
supported by another consideration. Gladiators with their intense desire for

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victory and readiness to accept death only as a last resort did not make good
sacrificial victims. One essential requirement of an effective sacrifice was the
complicity, either real or fictional, of the victim. Moreover, not every gladi-
atorial match ended in death; in fact, as we shall see, many did not.44
Moreover, Futrell’s emphasis on the theme of Roman power is some-
times overstated. She sees the amphitheatre (and the gladiatorial shows held
there) as ‘a major political tool for Roman control’.45 Her primary example
of this claim is the gladiatorial games given by high priests of the imperial
cult throughout Italy and the Roman provinces in both the west and east.
Futrell assumes that these games were imposed on the provincials by a to-
talitarian Roman state.46 Indeed, the choice of gladiator shows as an adjunct
to the worship of the emperor was a statement of loyalty by the provincials
and the presentation and viewing of such fights was a clear sign of roman-
ization.47 The main impetus for the presentation of gladiator games, how-
ever, really came from the provincial priests themselves, who, like Roman
aristocrats, used the munus and other entertainments to advance themselves
in the competition for status with other elites in their city and province.
These provincial priests presented gladiatorial combat because they knew it
would win them the favour of the grateful people.48 Keith Hopkins argues
that the variety of local celebrations of the imperial cult

demonstrates that the festivals were not instituted . . . by the dictate of the
central government. The varied arrangements reflected local initiatives or
competitive innovations rather than imperial decree.49

Likewise, Simon Price sees the adoption of Roman practices (such as gladi-
ator shows) in the Greek east ‘as a strategy in the competition for status
within the elite’.50
One might not fully agree with Futrell’s hyperbolic statement that ‘the
amphitheater was power’, but to reject it completely is wrongheaded. One
cannot help but think, especially during the Republic when there were con-
stant wars, that spectators at a munus were reminded of Roman military
success as they watched gladiatorial combat in the amphitheatre, particu-
larly with the appearance of gladiator types called the Samnite, Gaul and
Thracian, all recalling one-time enemies of Rome. J. C. Edmondson argues
that gladiator games ‘repeatedly underlined the centrality of the military
ethic at Rome and emphasized the military basis of Rome’s world domi-
nance’, while Marilyn Skinner nicely sums up the Roman attitude: ‘Rooting

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for the underdog was not a Roman tradition: audiences preferred the
psychological security of locating themselves on the winning side’.51 In fact,
a similar interpretation has been suggested for the venatio, since many of the
animals in the venatio came from far-flung parts of the empire.52 In
addition, the venatio implied another kind of Roman supremacy: Rome’s
power over nature.53 A central theme of Martial’s A Book of Spectacles is the
submission of wild animal nature to the emperor and his empire, as demon-
strated by the venatio celebrating the inauguration of the Colosseum.

Gladiatorial combat as funeral games

There is little doubt, however, that gladiatorial games, even if they were not
strictly speaking human sacrifice, were in origin funeral offerings in honour
of the dead.54 The first gladiatorial combat at Rome was at the funeral of
the Roman aristocrat. D. Junius Brutus Pera in 264 BC, presented by his
two sons in honour of their father.55 There are a few other details about this
first munus at Rome that are worth mentioning. These details are from late
sources, but they seem credible. The fourth century AD poet Ausonius
writes that the gladiator show for Junius Pera consisted of three pairs of
fighters, while Ausonius’ contemporary, Servius, notes that these gladiators
were ‘captives’.56 They were called bustuarii, that is, ‘gladiators who fought
at the place where the deceased was cremated and buried’ (bustum).57
Bustuarius was synonymous with gladiator and remained in common usage
at Rome at least until the time of Cicero.58 The three pairs seem appropri-
ate for a first-time event with modest beginnings in a modest setting, while
the identification of the gladiators as ‘captives’ at least accords with the fact
that captives (that is, prisoners of war) were one of the primary sources of
gladiators throughout the history of the games. It would be interesting
to know whether these first matches were fights to the death. Because of
the lack of evidence, this question is impossible to answer with certainty.
Ausonius says that the three pairs of gladiators were sent as a funeral offer-
ing at Pera’s tomb, perhaps (but not necessarily) suggesting that death was
an expected result.59 The poet, however, is a very late source (about six cen-
turies after the fact) and probably not reliable on this detail. Donald Kyle
believes that early gladiators fought to the death.60 Perhaps he is right, but
our first solid evidence of gladiator fights that did not allow a defeated
opponent to be spared dates to the late first century BC. I would prefer to

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think that these first fights in Rome were like the ones that followed them
until the end of the Republic: duels that could end in a death, but not
necessarily so. A gladiator could achieve victory just by rendering his op-
ponent unable or unwilling to continue. David Potter has suggested that
fourth century BC gladiator bouts in southern Italy probably lasted only to
the first appearance of blood.61 If he is correct, these southern Italian fights
could have influenced the format of the first duels at Rome.

Greek funeral games

Competition may seem to us a strange way of honouring the dead at a
funeral, but there was a long history of agonistic games presented at funer-
als in Mediterranean culture. As mentioned earlier, fourth century BC tomb
paintings in southern Italy provide good evidence of funeral gladiatorial
games (along with boxing and chariot racing). Much has been written on
the geographical journey of gladiatorial combat to Rome, but there is some
disagreement about their ultimate place of origin. The Augustan historian
Nicolaus of Damascus says that the Romans ‘borrowed this practice from
the Etruscans’, a non-Italic people, who were Rome’s northern neigh-
bour.62 Ville does not dispute Nicolaus’ claim, but points out that the his-
torian does not say that the Etruscans were inventors of gladiatorial combat,
just that the Romans took the practice from them and postulates a path
from the Osco-Samnite people in southern Italy to Etruria to Rome.63
Ville’s hypothesis has generally won the acceptance of scholars.64
There is abundant literary evidence for funeral games in Greece. Cer-
tainly, the most famous set of funeral games were those that Achilles pre-
sented in honour of his friend Patroclus in the twenty-third book of the
Iliad. Other legendary Greek heroes such as Oedipus, Pelias, Amarynkeus,
Oenomaus, Pelops, Melicertes and Opheltes were reported to have been
honoured with funeral games. That this practice was not confined to legend
is confirmed by the poet Hesiod’s mention of the funeral games for a
certain Amphidamas, at which he won a prize for his poetry.65 Annually
repeated athletic games were instituted in honour of deceased Greek mili-
tary heroes such as Miltiades, Brasidas, Timoleon and Philopoemen. Even
groups of warriors could be honoured by similar games such as the
Eleutheria (‘Freedom Festival’), which celebrated the heroism of the Greek
dead at Plataea in their victory over the Persians, and the Epitaphia, an

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annual athletics festival honouring the Athenian war dead, as the name
suggests.66 These funeral contests, both legendary and historical, consisted
mostly of Greek-style athletics events such as chariot and foot racing,
wrestling, boxing, javelin throwing, discus throwing, and jumping, but in
Achilles’ games for Patroclus there is an armed duel between Ajax and
Diomedes that very much resembles a gladiatorial match. Achilles, beseeched
by his fellow Greeks, stops the fight when Diomedes seems to be about to
wound Ajax in the neck.67 The input of the Greek soldiers watching this fight
directed towards the presiding Achilles anticipates the practice of the Roman
arena, in which the crowd communicates by shouts or gestures its will con-
cerning the fate of the losing gladiator to the editor. There is, however, an
important difference. The Roman crowd was quite willing to tolerate the
serious wounding and even death of a gladiator, because these fighters were
persons of no status such as convicts, prisoners of war and slaves, whereas
Diomedes and Ajax were aristocrats, heroic leaders of Greek contingents at
Troy. Mark Golden points out that it is important to notice that the hono-
rands of Greek games were heroes (like Patroclus): ‘The contests affirmed
[the] special status [of the deceased] at the same time [as] . . . they revealed
that of living victors’.68 This statement could apply equally to the gladiatori-
al games given at Rome during the Republic, which honoured important
men, frequently with distinguished military careers.69 Wiedemann describes
the purpose of these munera given as funeral tributes to great men by their
sons: ‘In the Republic, a private munus symbolized the survival of individuals
in the memory of their fellow-citizens because of their military virtue’.70

Gladiatorial combat as sport

Like the events of Greek funeral games, gladiatorial combat can be seen as
athletic competition. Ville writes of the ‘agonistic nature’ of gladiatorial
duels as a competitive sport that went through the process of secularization
and professionalization.71 The average person today would probably not be
willing to call gladiatorial combat a sport because of its bloody and some-
times lethal nature. On the other hand, judged by Johan Huizinga’s classic
definition of play (of which sport is a subcategory), gladiator fights might
actually qualify as sport. Huizinga’s requirements are that a game must:
(1) be voluntary, but with rules, (2) not be ordinary life, but have the illu-
sion of reality, (3) not be serious but be totally absorbing, and (4) be limited

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by time and place.72 Requirements 1 and 3 are troublesome in their appli-

cation to gladiatorial combat. As for 1, we know that there were reluctant
gladiators who fought only because they were forced to do so by their slave
status but there probably were many slave gladiators who were like other
athletes, both ancient and modern, eager to compete and to win.73 On the
other hand, gladiatorial combat had its rules (to be discussed later) that al-
lowed the possibility of avoiding serious bloodshed and death. Moreover,
gladiators were given defensive armour sufficient to allow a trained fighter
to defend himself effectively, which required a skilled opponent to work
hard to overcome. Every measure was taken to ensure a fair fight. That is
why Seneca, a great fan of arena events, was so outraged by the sword fights
of untrained convicted criminals without defensive armour.74 He calls these
combats pure homicides, in essence denying these contests the status of
sport.75 In the case of requirement 3, it is difficult to call a game that allows
death as one of the conditions of victory, not serious. Huizinga, however,
does allow an exception for an ancient competition of this sort that applies
to gladiatorial combat:

. . . it would be rash to assert that every use of the word ‘play’ in connection
with serious strife is nothing but poetic license. We have to feel our way into
the archaic sphere of thought, where serious combat with weapons and all
kind of contests ranging from the most trifling games to bloody and mortal
strife were comprised, together with play proper, in a single fundamental
idea of a struggle with fate limited by certain rules.76

As far as most ancients were concerned, gladiatorial combat was a civilized

sport, but in the second century AD games came under attack by Christian
apologists. It should be noted, however, that the violence of gladiatorial com-
bat was not the most crucial factor in Christian objections to gladiator games.
An even more important issue for Christians was what they believed to be the
close association between gladiatorial games and the pagan gods.

The popularity of gladiatorial combat

How could a civilized people enjoy such a sport as gladiatorial combat? First,
there is no doubt that there existed a high tolerance of cruelty and violence
in Roman society. Life was harsh in Rome, but not untypical of most pre-
industrial states. Nevertheless, we must be careful in identifying the roots of

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this harshness. There were undoubtedly some Romans who were pitiless
sadists, as is true of almost every society, but one should keep in mind Keith
Hopkins’ caveat: ‘[in the case of the Romans] we are dealing . . ., not with
individual sadistic psychopathology, but with a deep cultural difference’.77
Coleman also warns of the unfairness of sadism as an explanation of the tol-
erance of gladiatorial combat among the Romans: ‘It is crass and unhelpful
merely to characterize the Romans as bloodthirsty’. She instead seeks an
answer in Roman attitudes towards the classes of men who became gladia-
tors.78 A. W. Lintott takes a wider view, explaining that the ethical principles
of the Mediterranean world, whether Greco-Roman or ‘barbarian’, were
quite different from ours and ‘did not place such a high value on human
existence in itself as ours do now’.79 Moreover, Rome was in origin a warrior
society and militarism remained a primary characteristic of the Romans
throughout their history. War was a high-stakes proposition, both for the
Romans and for their opponents. Thousands of Roman soldiers died in Italy
and abroad in countless battles. Roman treatment of the enemy could be
very harsh, sometimes even involving the slaughter of non-combatants. In
Spain, during the second Punic War, Scipio Africanus attacked the town of
Iliturgi in Spain (206 BC), which had gone over to the enemy, and his
soldiers killed all armed and unarmed citizens alike, including women and
infants.80 In Rome, prisoners of war were often executed in public as a
demonstration of Roman power. Even Roman soldiers were subject to harsh
penalties. In order to ensure strict military discipline in the Roman army,
serious infractions were dealt with ruthlessly. Consider the practice of
decimation, in which one soldier out of every ten guilty of dereliction of
duty was chosen by lot to be bludgeoned to death by his fellow soldiers.81
One famous instance of decimatio was Crassus’ punishment of soldiers who
were defeated by an army led by the gladiator Spartacus.82 The Romans be-
came more and more inured to the harshness of war during the third and
second centuries BC when Roman armies were regularly called on to fight
wars on an increasingly wider scale in the west (the three major wars against
Carthage) and in the Greek east. It is not surprising that gladiatorial combat
quickly became a favoured attraction at Rome during this very period.
The harshness of Roman society was evident not only in warfare but also
at home in the treatment of slaves. In fact, the cruel punishment of slaves
goes a long way to explaining the Roman tolerance of gladiatorial combat.
All gladiators by virtue of their profession were the property of their lanista

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(owner/trainer of a gladiator troupe) and thus in effect his slaves. Even a

free man who voluntarily agreed to serve as a gladiator became a temporary
slave of the lanista for an agreed period. According to Roman civil law,
‘slaves are considered to be nothings’ with absolutely no rights.83 A slave
was legally the property of the master and could be sold by the master, even
if it meant that the slave was separated from his or her family.84 Slaves were
usually branded like cattle to indicate their status and the identity of their
master. One method of getting rid of an undesirable slave was to sell him to
a lanista, a punishment for the slave and a profitable deal for the master.85
Sick and old slaves were abandoned in the same way as some people today
rid themselves of an unwanted pet by releasing it far from home.86 When
offences were committed by slaves in the household, the master was the sole
judge and jury. For minor offences, flogging was the typical punishment.
For serious crimes, the master legally had the power to impose a death
penalty, which could take several cruel forms: crucifixion, burning alive, or
exposing the slave to wild beasts in the arena (ad bestias).87 The death
penalty was sometimes applied to slaves whether they were guilty or not.
When a slave committed a crime such as the murder of a master, the custom
was that all slaves in the household be executed. During the reign of Nero,
Pedanius Secundus, the prefect of the city, was murdered by his own slave.
When there was an attempt to carry out this traditional penalty, there was a
minor revolt of the common people on behalf of the innocent slaves. The
issue reached the floor of the Senate, which was divided over the justice of
this penalty. The speech of C. Cassius, who defended the punishment of all
slaves on the basis of deterrence, won over the majority. The Senate voted
for death to all, but the common people, using stones and torches,
interfered with the implementation of the penalty, until Nero provided a
contingent of soldiers to lead the condemned to the place of execution.88
The harshness of these penalties for slaves seem to stem from the Roman
fear of slave revolts, which had been launched with some temporary success
twice in Sicily (135–132 BC and 104–101 BC) and once in Italy under the
leadership of Spartacus (73–71 BC). The comment of Pliny the Younger
(a very humane man) on the ruthless punishment of slaves who had mur-
dered their cruel and sadistic master is telling and representative of the typi-
cal Roman attitude in this matter: ‘Slaves are ruined not by the judgment of
their master, but by their propensity toward crime’.89 As far as the Romans
were concerned, slaves were not capable of moral behaviour, except under

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compulsion. Slaves were not part of the Roman community; they were
disposable people. Orlando Patterson writes about slaves of all cultures and
periods: ‘The slave was natally alienated and condemned as a socially dead
person, his existence having no legitimacy whatever’.90 They were without
the protection of law and were subject to whatever punishments a master
wished to impose on them without concern for the suffering involved.
Thus, it is not difficult to understand why, given this attitude towards
slaves, most Romans saw nothing wrong with gladiatorial combat. The pre-
vailing feeling among Romans was that gladiators, given their background
of slavery, crime, or opposition to the Roman state as enemy soldiers,
deserved whatever fate they suffered.91 This was also the Roman attitude
towards freemen who volunteered their services as gladiators, willingly
accepting a condition equivalent to slavery in what was considered a dis-
graced profession.
Compassion did exist among the Romans, but their standards in this
matter were quite different from ours. The degree of compassion felt by a
Roman citizen was determined by the status of the victim. The higher the
status, the greater the compassion; the lower the status, the greater the in-
difference.92 In fact, not every Roman saw pity as a virtue, particularly in
the case of convicted criminals who lost their freedom because of their
crimes. Seneca sees pity (misericordia) as a vice in opposition to the virtues
mercy (clementia) and gentleness (mansuetudo):

. . . all good men should display mercy and gentleness, but will avoid pity;
for it is the vice of a timid mind succumbing at the sight of another’s
troubles. And so it is a common vice of every person of the weakest character
such as old women and weak women in general, who are moved by the tears
of the worst criminals, and if they could, would break open their prison. Pity
does not see the cause of their plight, but only the plight itself.93

In view of this attitude, the gladiator could not expect much pity from the
crowd.
On the other hand, the life of a gladiator did have a positive side for men
whose situation was desperate. It offered the hope of survival and a better
life, but naturally did not guarantee the achievement of those goals. The
possibility existed that the gladiator could achieve some fame and dignity in
the arena and even make some money. If he fought well over a period of
years and was skilful and lucky enough to survive, he might be granted a full

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discharge from his obligation to fight in the arena and eventually his com-
plete freedom, resulting in a modified form of citizenship, from which he
had been excluded because of his status and profession. Honour was avail-
able not only to winning gladiators but also to losers. Wiedemann has
turned on its head the usual view of the arena as a place where men pro-
gressed only from life to death and reminds us that the reverse was also true.
He points out that spectators were witnesses not just of death in the arena
but also of life won back by losing gladiators whose efforts had won the
approval of the crowd and the editor. Even a gladiator whose request for
life was denied could achieve some dignity in death.94 Spectators respected
the gladiator who stoically accepted the editor’s decision of death and sub-
mitted to death by the sword of his opponent. Such a death was hon-
ourable, similar to the death of a Roman citizen on the battlefield and thus
a kind of redemption from the disgrace (infamia) that the gladiator had
endured while alive by the mere fact of his occupation.95
As a warrior society in origin, Romans were fascinated with martial virtue
and the high-risk game of life and death that was war and gladiatorial com-
bat. Wistrand has pointed out that gladiatorial combat demonstrated the
most fundamental of all Roman values, virtus, a word whose basic meaning
is ‘manhood’, which came to mean ‘courage in war’.96 J. P. Toner sees the
gladiator as an archetypical symbol of Roman culture, whose code in extreme
situations was either to kill when necessary, or to accept death when in-
evitable.97 The Romans cherished legends from their early days in which
heroes voluntarily suffered great pain and even death in conflict with the
enemy on behalf of their country. Two legends dating from the late sixth
century when the Romans were freeing themselves from Etruscan domi-
nation are well-known examples. Horatius Cocles all by himself fearlessly
defended a bridge across the Tiber against the attacking Etruscans. As he
drove the enemy back, the Romans destroyed the bridge and Horatius swam
back to the Roman shore.98 The heroism of Mucius Scaevola is another case
in point. He attempted to kill Porsenna, the Etruscan ruler of Clusium, who
had besieged Rome in reaction to the Romans’ expulsion of their Etruscan
king, Tarquinius Superbus, from their city. Porsenna captured Mucius, but
the Roman demonstrated his lack of fear by voluntarily inserting his right
hand into fire while giving no evidence of the pain he was feeling. Porsenna,
admiring his courage, released him.99 The general Regulus was captured by
the Carthaginians in the first Punic War (264–241 BC). They sent him to

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Rome to convince his fellow Romans to exchange prisoners, believing that

Regulus would argue in favour of the exchange, which would include him-
self. Regulus did just the opposite. Since he had made a solemn promise to
the Carthaginians to return to them, he went back to Carthage and was tor-
tured to death.100 Perhaps the most inspiring story of heroic courage and
self-sacrifice is to be found in the story of the Roman general Decius Mus,
who, during the Samnite wars (340 BC), solemnly dedicated his life to the
gods in return for victory, an act that the Romans called a devotio. He
charged on horseback into the midst of the enemy and was killed. This
valiant act changed the tide of battle, which ended in a glorious Roman
victory.101 It seems probable that the spectators recognized a connection
between gladiatorial combat and real warfare.102 Wiedemann argues that
gladiatorial combat reflected the way Romans fought in battle with its special
emphasis on individual hand-to-hand fighting.103 The Romans even took
this emphasis one step further with their practice of resorting to single com-
bat between a Roman champion and an enemy opponent to settle the issue at
hand. S. P. Oakley lists over thirty examples of single combat in Republican
warfare. (The custom seems to have died out in the early empire.)104
Roman intellectuals such as Cicero, Seneca and Pliny the Younger
stressed the association between gladiator games and martial virtue, viewing
gladiatorial combat as an incitement to virtus in the spectators. This theme
appears first in Cicero, which consists of an a fortiori argument proposing
that if gladiators, men of dubious moral character, could display virtus in the
face of pain and death, then law-abiding freeborn Roman citizens could find
no better reason to behave similarly in a similar situation.

What blows do gladiators who are either incorrigible criminals or barbar-

ians bear! How they, who have been well trained, prefer to receive a blow
than shamefully avoid it! How often it is apparent that they prefer nothing
other than to satisfy their master or the people! They, exhausted by their
wounds send a message to their masters to find out what they want: if their
masters so desire, they are ready to give up and die. [In this situation] has
even a mediocre gladiator groaned, what gladiator has ever even changed
his expression? What gladiator has either fought or admitted defeat shame-
fully? What gladiator, when he has lain down in defeat and was ordered to
receive the deathblow, drawn back his neck? So effective is the force of prac-
tice, preparation and habit.105

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In addition to their courage, Cicero notes in the above passage gladiators’

almost obsessive devotion to their master, whether the editor who had hired
their services in the arena or the crowd in the amphitheatre. When a glad-
iator indicated that he could no longer continue fighting, he had to accept
the decision of the editor (advised by the crowd) even if it meant submitting
to a deathblow from his opponent. A notable example of gladiatorial loyalty
outside the arena can be seen in the behaviour of the gladiator troupe that
Marc Antony had acquired to fight in a munus to celebrate his anticipated
victory over Octavian at Actium. After Octavian’s victory, all of Antony’s
allies deserted him except for this troupe. His gladiators, fighting their way
south from Cyzicus (on the southern shore of the Sea of Marmara) where
they were training for the munus, made their way as far as Syria, in the
attempt to reach their master in Egypt. Surrounded by the enemy, they sent
a message to Antony to come to them, but when he did not answer, they re-
alized that he was dead, and surrendered. Cassius Dio notes the striking
contrast between their despised status and their noble behaviour.106
At the end of his life, Cicero had an opportunity to follow the gladiator-
ial model of virtus when he was being pursued by Herennius, an assassin
whom Antony had assigned to kill him. Although, at first, Cicero tried to
escape in his litter, he eventually accepted death by the sword like his ideal
gladiator, achieving an honourable death:

When Cicero saw Herennius running through the portico, he ordered his
servants to set the litter down. He, as he was accustomed, touching his chin
with his left hand, stared intently at his slayers. His squalid and unkempt
look along with the anxiety on his face caused the bystanders to hide their
faces in shame as Herennius killed him. Extending his neck outside the lit-
ter, [Cicero] was slain.107

Seneca similarly expresses admiration for the virtus of the gladiator,

who, even if his performance has not been stellar, willingly faces death at the
hands of his opponent as ordered by the editor.108 Stoicism, a philosophy
followed by Seneca, promoted the doctrine that virtus was more import-
ant than life itself, an attitude which characterized the best gladiators.109
Pliny the Younger, using the same a fortiori argument as Cicero, stresses
the moral example that gladiators set for spectators. Gladiatorial combat
inspires men to incur ‘beautiful wounds and to despise death, when the
love of glory and desire for victory is seen even in the bodies of slaves

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and convicted criminals’.110 Julius Capitolinus, one of the imperial biogra-

phers in the late Historia Augusta claims that, in the third century AD, em-
perors began the practice of giving gladiator games and an animal hunt
before they led their troops out to war to habituate the soldiers to the sight
of wounds and blood.111 It should be noted, however, that the writers of
the Historia Augusta did not always employ the highest standards of his-
torical criticism. In fact, Ville argues that this claim is a fiction and really a
defence of gladiatorial combat against Christian objections, drawing upon
familiar themes from Cicero and Pliny the Younger.112
There is also evidence that Roman spectators held the gladiator to a high
standard of moral behaviour in the arena. Seneca, citing Cicero, says that
spectators became angry with gladiators if they sought to save their own
life at all costs and did not accept death when ordered by the editor.113 On
the other hand, the courageous fighter evoked a positive response among
spectators. Seneca writes of another arena performer, an animal hunter
(venator):

Occasionally, we spectators experience pleasure if a resolutely minded young

man, armed with a spear, stands fast before the charge of a wild animal, if
he fearlessly endures the attack of a lion and the more courageous he is, the
more pleasing is the spectacle.114

There were, however, other less idealistic reasons for the popularity of
gladiator shows. One of the early objectives of gladiatorial combat was to
humiliate the enemy. The first recorded contact of Rome with gladiators
took place in the late fourth century BC in southern Italy after a significant
victory of Rome and its Campanian allies over the Samnites (309 BC), a fierce
Italic people who had defeated the Romans at Caudine Forks (321 BC), one
of Rome’s most disastrous losses. In order to commemorate their military
victory, the Romans followed their usual custom after a victory. They took
the captured gold- and silver-plated shields back to Rome to display in the
Forum and to honour their gods as a thanksgiving for victory. Their Cam-
panian allies, however, had a different method of celebrating their conquest,
born of ‘contempt and hatred’ for their neighbours in central Italy. The
Campanians held celebratory banquets at which the diners were entertained
by gladiatorial combat in which the gladiators were required to wear cap-
tured Samnite armour and were called ‘Samnites’.115 This impersonation
was intended as the gravest of insults to the defeated enemy. It was almost as

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if the Campanians had forced the Samnite prisoners of war themselves to

entertain them in this way. The comment of a speaker in a rhetorical exercise
on two men forced to fight by a rich man for his amusement is relevant
here: ‘it is the cause of the greatest anguish to suffer a penalty imposed to
give pleasure to an enemy. How wretched it is [to suffer] compulsion!’116
The Romans must have been impressed by these ‘Samnite’ gladiators, be-
cause they foreshadow the later appearance at Rome of various ethnic glad-
iatorial types derived from the fighting style, armour and weaponry of
Roman enemies. Not surprisingly, the two earliest types, most likely dating
from the third century BC, were the ‘Samnite’ and the ‘Gaul’, both enemies
of the Romans.117 Later, probably in the early first century BC, the thraex
(‘Thracian’) appeared after Roman victories in the Mithridatic Wars.118
These types may have developed from the practice of originally having
actual Samnite, Gallic and Thracian prisoners of war fight each other in their
characteristic armour for the entertainment of the Romans. Occasionally,
enemies of Rome were able to turn the tables and force Romans to fight
each other for their entertainment. The rebel Spartacus forced captured
Roman soldiers to fight as gladiators for the amusement of himself and his
men in return for the shame that they suffered by being compelled to be-
come gladiators.119 Jewish rebels in Cyrene (North Africa) did the same
thing to both Romans and Greeks.120 Eventually these different gladiator
types were impersonated by professional fighters, who were not of Samnite,
Gallic or Thracian origin, and had learned these ethnic fighting styles in
gladiatorial schools. For example, an inscription points out that a certain
Thelyphus, a Samnite gladiator, was a native Thracian.121 By the late Re-
public and the early empire, the Roman gladiator began to lose his various
ethnic identities. Ethnically neutral gladiator types like the murmillo,
secutor, retiarius, provocator, hoplomachus and eques were introduced and
the Samnite and the Gaul eventually disappeared in the early empire. The
thraex, however, endured throughout the history of gladiator games. Per-
haps, the disappearance of two of the three ethnic gladiators is a sign that
humiliation of enemies was no longer uppermost in the mind of the
Romans in the early empire. The degradation of enemies, however, was still
at least implicit in so far as prisoners of war were still being forced to fight as
gladiators for the entertainment of their conquerors.
My preference, when it comes to explaining the Roman fascination with
gladiatorial combat, is not to emphasize one overarching meaning in this

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sport. The phenomenon is too complex, as we have seen above in the con-
tradictory reactions of contempt and admiration that gladiatorial combat
inspired in the Romans.122 The reasons for the popularity of the munus
ranged from the morally idealistic to the satisfaction of baser human in-
stincts. Some of the theories advanced by scholars, such as the display of
martial virtue and the demonstration of Roman power, have support in the
sources and do shed light on the allure of gladiatorial games. Other theories
seem less likely. For example, Paul Plass’ catharsis hypothesis that the viol-
ence of gladiatorial combat homeopathically cleansed the spectators of ag-
gressive impulses, does not make sense in the context of Roman culture.123
There is no evidence that the Romans ever believed this and, even if indeed
they did, it is impossible to prove that it had any positive effect in this re-
gard. As it was, gladiatorial combat did not prevent Roman society from
being rife with violence throughout its history.
Without claiming overriding significance, I would like to suggest an
additional reason for the hold that gladiatorial combat had on the attention
of the Roman world. A passage from Livy provides some evidence on the
appeal of gladiator games from the spectator’s point of view. The passage
describes the introduction of gladiatorial combat in Antioch in the Greek
east by the romanized Hellenistic monarch Antiochus Epiphanes (175 BC).
Although the audience is Greek, the example can still be applied to the
Romans.

He [Antiochus] gave a gladiatorial munus of the Roman kind that at first

produced significant terror among the spectators, who were unused to such
a spectacle, rather than pleasure. Then, by giving munera rather often, both
the type that lasted until one opponent was wounded and the other kind
that required a fight to the death, he made that sort of spectacle familiar
and pleasing to the eyes.124

The Greek audience naturally was a bit squeamish at first, never having seen
such a spectacle before. Nonetheless, Antiochus determinedly habituated
his subjects to gladiatorial combat both in its milder and in its most deadly
form. The result of this process was that his spectators soon found blood-
shed and death pleasing as entertainment: they had learned to enjoy the
pleasure of gladiatorial games. In the early days of gladiator games at Rome,
Roman audiences no doubt also experienced this transition from terror to
pleasure. A speaker of a practice rhetorical exercise says that some Roman

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spectators felt squeamish and even turned their heads rather than see the
wounds of gladiators. This speaker, however, also points out that squeamish
spectators learned to tolerate the bloody violence in the arena, when they
experienced what we would today call Schadenfreude (‘joy in another’s
suffering’) in watching gladiators, who in many cases were condemned
criminals or prisoners of war, get their just deserts by risking their lives in
the arena.125 A famous example of this transition from horror to pleasure is
the experience of a young man named Alypius who, as a Christian, detested
gladiatorial shows but was dragged by his friends to a munus. When the
games began, Alypius shut his eyes tightly to avoid watching the proceed-
ings, but opened them when he heard a huge shout from the crowd in reac-
tion to a gladiator being wounded and falling to the ground. He was
immediately intoxicated by the sight of blood. He had quickly learned to
appreciate the delights of the amphitheatre, which, according to Alypius’
older friend, the Church Father Augustine, seethed ‘with monstrous plea-
sures’.126 Pliny the Younger emphasizes the pleasures of sights and sounds
in the amphitheatre in a more positive way, while Seneca mentions the
pleasure of seeing bloodshed.127 Although Christian writers are hostile
witnesses, they were quite familiar with the attraction of gladiatorial games.
Cyprian, a third century AD bishop of Carthage, speaks of blood delighting
the eyes and points out the ironic purpose of gladiator shows: a man is killed
for the pleasure (voluptas) of man.128 The ‘delights’ of the amphitheatre
derive from one of man’s most primal experiences: the sight of blood.
Moreover, bloodshed and death did not just occur in gladiatorial combat.
By the middle of the first century AD, the munus had developed into a
three-part show: the morning animal hunt (venatio), the noonday event
(meridianum spectaculum) in which criminals guilty of capital crimes were
executed in various ways, and the afternoon gladiator show. Claudius was
perhaps the greatest fan of the munus among all the emperors. He gladly sat
through all three parts of the munus, even the noonday festival when most
spectators left the arena for lunch. Suetonius describes him as ‘cruel and
bloodthirsty’, and Claudius undoubtedly deserved these epithets for his
excesses in the amphitheatre, such as ordering gladiators who fell acciden-
tally to be slain. He was especially eager that retiarii (‘net-men’) suffer this
fate because they fought with no helmet and Claudius liked to see the
expression on their faces when they died.129 Claudius, however, despite his
excesses, was not that different from the average spectator, who enjoyed

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viewing violent death. Then there was the demand of the Carthaginian
crowd to witness the execution of Perpetua noted earlier in this chapter.130
Tertullian mentions how people who abhorred the sight of a man dead of
natural causes, once inside the amphitheatre were fascinated by the sight of
mutilated and bloodied corpses. After the show was over, this wish was ful-
filled at closer range. It was the custom at Carthage to allow spectators to
come down into the arena after the show to view the corpses of those killed
in the show and take pleasure in examining their faces close up.131 This fas-
cination with the bodies of those killed violently was characteristic not just
of the Romans. Plato writes of how a certain Leontios, who was ashamed of
his strong desire to look at the corpses of executed criminals in a pit outside
Athens, finally capitulated to his craving.132 The desire to view human suf-
fering and death seems to be a universal human trait. Thomas Macaulay
records the party atmosphere that surrounded the punishment of those
convicted of serious crimes in seventeenth-century England:

Gentlemen arranged parties of pleasure to Bridewell on court days for the

purpose of seeing the wretched women who beat hemp there whipped. A man
pressed to death for refusing to plead, a woman burned for coining [coun-
terfeiting], excited less sympathy than is now felt for a galled horse or an
overdriven ox. Fights compared with which a boxing match is a refined and
humane spectacle were among the favourite diversions of a large part of the
town.133

It comes as something of shock when Macaulay adds that gladiator matches

were held in that era (although certainly not with the frequency of ancient
Rome).

Multitudes assembled to see gladiators hack each other to pieces with deadly
weapons, and shouted with delight when one of the combatants lost a finger
or an eye.

Friedländer gives two other examples of gladiator games in Christian

Europe, one in fourteenth century Naples and the other in sixteenth cen-
tury Lyons. The descriptions of these shows quoted by Friedländer reveal
fights as violent and lethal as in ancient Rome.134 Leonard Thompson
points out the festivity (picnics and the like) that surrounded public hang-
ings in eighteenth century England and lynchings in twentieth century
America.135 The celebratory ambiance of all these violent entertainments

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correlates well with the spectators’ mood at a munus in ancient Rome. A

character in Petronius’ Satyricon talks about his enthusiastic anticipation of
an upcoming munus and unashamedly reveals its primary attraction: ‘[the
editor] will present, with no chance of reprieve, a regular butcher’s shop
right in the middle of the arena so that every spectator can see all the bloody
action’.136 The Romans seem to have accepted bloodshed in the arena as a
morally neutral spectacle. Seneca depicts travellers, eager to return to the
city after some time in the country, talking in the same matter-of-fact way
about the pleasures of the munus: ‘Too long our ears have not heard the ap-
plause and noise of the crowd; now it is also time to enjoy human blood’.137
It seems to be a typical assumption that one of the primary reasons one goes
to a gladiator show is to witness a death, as is illustrated by the following
incident involving the consul L. Quinctius Flamininus (192 BC). Lucius had
taken his favourite male prostitute with him to Gaul, leaving Rome just
before the presentation of a munus that the prostitute had expected to at-
tend. When a Gallic aristocrat showed up at a banquet, Flamininus asked
the prostitute if he would like to see this Gaul die since he had missed the
gladiator show at Rome. When the prostitute, not taking Lucius seriously,
agreed, the consul took a sword and killed the Gaul.138 Even in the Greek
east where there was some resistance to Roman gladiator games, most cities
eventually embraced this form of entertainment as a source of pleasure.139
A character in a story by the Greek author Lucian, a second century AD
satirist, writes of the ‘delight’ (terpnon) of the gladiator show he attended,
including seeing wild animals speared and pursued by dogs (venatio), and
convicted criminals in chains being attacked by wild animals.140 Pliny the
Younger speaks of the crowd’s enjoyment of the punishment of informers
who plagued their fellow citizens with false accusations during the reign of
the tyrannical Domitian. The spectators’ enjoyment is the satisfaction of
justice done, but not of the informers’ bloodshed, because Trajan, ever the
merciful emperor, had decreed banishment for them. Pliny, however, may
be revealing his unspoken desire to have enjoyed the sight of their blood
when he mentions that these informers were standing in the blood of con-
victs executed earlier.141
As unattractive to us as the Roman mindset discussed above is, anyone
who believes in the importance of history as a tool for understanding the
human condition must be careful to avoid self-righteousness in judging
the behaviour of societies that have long disappeared. As Walter Pater

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explains in Marius the Epicurean in reference to gladiator shows, every

society has its own peculiar moral blindness that is not shared by posterity
and exposes the earlier society to anachronistic criticism:142

That long chapter of the cruelty of the Roman public shows may, perhaps,
leave with the children of the modern world a feeling of self-complacency.
Yet it might seem well to ask ourselves – it is always well to do so, when we
read of the slave-trade, for instance, or of great religious persecutions on this
side or on that, or of anything else which raises in us the question, ‘Is thy ser-
vant a dog, that he should do this thing?’ – not merely, what germs of feel-
ing we may entertain which, under fitting circumstances, would induce us
to the like; but, even more practically, what thoughts, what sort of consider-
ations, may be actually present to our minds such as might have furnished
us, living in another age, and in the midst of those legal crimes, with plaus-
ible excuses for them: each age in turn, perhaps, having its own peculiar
point of blindness, with its consequent peculiar sin – the touch-stone of an
unfailing conscience in the select few.143

E. Gunderson’s use of the word ‘banality’ to describe Roman acceptance

of lethal violence as a normal entertainment seems to recall the thesis of
Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil:
the normality of evil acts in Nazi Germany. Gunderson writes:

What is ultimately scandalous about the arena is its banality. The brutality
of the games does not express in sublimated form the brutality of civiliza-
tion: this brutality instead participates in the production and reproduction
of social truths with which violence is ultimately in accord.144

One, however, should not apply Arendt’s judgement of the Nazis to ancient
Rome. The cruelty of the Nazis, unlike that of the Romans, must be judged
in the context of more humane values of the twentieth century.
It could be argued that we moderns have less need for real bloodshed
and death as entertainment because we have been accustomed to accept
realistic substitutions in films, television, websites, video games and so on
that cater to a desire for violent and grotesque fantasies.145 One might
object that these substitutions are primarily directed at young males. True
enough, but the popularity of such scenes goes beyond this target group
and permeates the rest of society. That, at least, is the judgement of the con-
trollers of various media, who generally know their audience well. It is also

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the conclusion of the news media (which do not target young males), whose
‘if it bleeds, it leads’ policy can be observed daily on television and in news-
papers.146 It is hard to disagree with K. M. Coleman when she writes of the
human psyche’s susceptibility to ‘the thrill of vicarious pain’.147 Remember
that the difference between the Romans and ourselves on this issue is not
the result of a sudden awareness on our part of the need for the more hu-
mane treatment of all human beings and animals, but the gradual shift in so-
cietal values that has taken place since the industrial revolution. In the
matter of watching wild animals being killed for entertainment, modern
Americans are not that different from the Romans. Beginning in the mid-
1960s, American television viewers clearly enjoyed watching celebrities and
famous hunters kill big game such as elephants, lions, rhinoceros and
bears.148 They watched ABC TV’s The American Sportsman in large
enough numbers that the show lasted twenty-two seasons. Although the cli-
mate with regard to hunting and the treatment of animals in general has
changed to a degree in the early twenty-first century, another big game
hunting show remains on the TV schedule in America.149 Naturally, the
wounding and killing of human beings for entertainment is quite another
matter, but it should be noted that we still satisfy our natural appetite for
viewing bloodshed and violent death not with live action but at one remove
thanks to technological advancements.

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Chapter 2

Recruitment and Training

of Gladiators


W ho were gladiators? How did they become gladiators? Cicero identi-

fies them as ‘either men of no moral worth or barbarians.’1 What
Cicero means is that they are either criminals convicted of capital crimes
(‘men of no moral worth’) or prisoners of war (‘barbarians’) taken captive in
one of the countless wars the Romans waged during the Republic and the
empire.2 The criminals had been condemned in court to live in a gladiator
school (damnatio ad ludum gladiatorium), where they would be trained for
a gladiatorial career. This penalty provided a rich resource of recruitment. In
the province of Bithynia (modern north-west Turkey) in the early second
century AD, so many convicts were given this penalty that the gladiator
schools could not accommodate them and they were forced to become
public slaves.3 Some convicts were sentenced to a school for arena hunters
(ludus venatorius), a penalty equivalent to service in the gladiator school,
although the risk of death was probably less.4 In the category of ‘men of no
moral worth’, Cicero probably would also include slaves. The ancients
believed that slaves were not capable of moral judgement: a slave’s testimony
in court was accepted only if it was given under torture. Slaves were bought

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by lanistae on the open market and sometimes were sold by their masters
directly to lanistae, usually as punishment. The future emperor Vitellius
once sold a difficult slave to an itinerant lanista, but relented just before the
man was to appear as a gladiator and gave him his freedom.5 In fact, a sig-
nificant number of gladiators were slaves.6
The men who fell into the hands of a lanista had little control over their
destiny. They were the property of the lanista, whom the Romans generally
considered a heartless seeker of profit.7 Seneca compares the lanista with a
slave dealer who fattens up his slaves like cattle and keeps them in good con-
dition to get a better price for them.8 In one of his letters, Seneca puts the
lanista in the same class as the pimp (they are both traffickers in human
flesh), each a despised outcast from decent society.9 Under the control of
these ruthless owners, gladiators found themselves forced to embrace the
life of a gladiator, spending their best years risking serious injury and an
early death in the arena. There could be an upside to a career as a gladiator,
but it was a long shot. The loss of a match did not automatically mean
death. A loser could be granted discharge, which would allow him to come
back and fight another day. There was even the possibility of eventual per-
manent release from the arena for the lucky few. Despite the odds, there
were undoubtedly a significant number of gladiators who embraced the
terms of their new life as a gladiator. They welcomed the chance to win
glory in the arena as a mitigating factor of their slavery.
A good example of gladiator ‘recruitment’ is the best-known gladiator in
both the ancient and the modern world, Spartacus. His rejection of the career
that slavery had imposed on him and his desperate fight for freedom is well
known from a novel by Howard Fast (Spartacus 1951) and a popular film
starring Kirk Douglas based on this novel and directed by Stanley Kubrick
(1960). Since the eighteenth century, Spartacus has been used by various
novelists, dramatists and film makers to comment on contemporary issues
of personal freedom. For example, the revival of Bernard-Joseph Saurin’s
tragedy Spartacus in 1792 gave public voice to the desire for freedom that
fuelled the French Revolution. Dr Robert Montgomery Bird’s play The
Gladiator (1831) was a veiled attack on the institution of slavery in America.
In early twentieth century Italy, Spartacus was depicted as a symbol of Italian
nationalism in Giovanni Enrico Vidali’s film Spartaco o Il gladiatore della
Tracia (1913), based on Raffaello Giovagnoli’s epic novel, Spartaco (1874).

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Howard Fast, in his novel Spartacus, made Spartacus into a communist

revolutionary intent on making Rome a classless society:

The whole world belongs to Rome so Rome must be destroyed and made only
a bad memory, and then where Rome was, we will build a new life where all
men will live in peace and brotherhood and love, no slaves and no slave mas-
ters, no gladiators and no arenas, but a time like the old times, like the
golden age. We will build new cities of brotherhood, and there will be no
walls around them.10

When the novel reached the screen, Fast’s communist message was toned
down to make the film acceptable to a mass American audience of the post-
McCarthy era. Spartacus became simply a slave trying to lead his army of
slaves back to their homelands, symbolically suggesting at the same time
contemporary black and Jewish aspirations and in general the uncontrover-
sial ideal of human freedom. The film even appealed to political and reli-
gious conservatives of that era by presenting a crucified Spartacus at the end
of the film as a Christ figure and by substituting religious piety for class
struggle as a motivation for Spartacus’ resistance to Roman tyranny. Thus,
conservatives were encouraged to see Spartacus as a symbol of America’s
cold war struggle against godless communist dictatorships.11
The views of Spartacus in these and other modern representations are
quite different from how this rebel was perceived by the Romans them-
selves. The Roman author Florus expresses a typical Roman attitude when
he cites his disdain for Spartacus’ army of slaves led by gladiators in rebellion
against their Roman masters. He calls slaves human beings of the lowest
type, and adds that their gladiator leaders were the lowest of the low. In the
Roman view, the success achieved by Spartacus’ army against Roman armies
reversed the natural order of things. Roman soldiers, freemen enjoying
full citizenship rights, were not supposed to lose to a ragtag collection of
slaves, but in a number of embarrassing defeats, they had become prisoners
of war and thus objects of contempt.12 The ultimate in Roman shame was
Spartacus’ use of four hundred captured Roman soldiers as gladiators at the
funeral of a woman said to have committed suicide because she had been
raped by a Roman. This event reversed the Roman custom of using slaves
like Spartacus and his colleagues to fight at funerals of notable Romans.
Now, like a wealthy aristocrat at Rome, a gladiator had become an editor of
a munus with Romans soldiers providing the entertainment.13

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Spartacus’ native land was Thrace, which today cuts across the bound-
aries of three modern nations on the north Aegean coast: Greece, Bulgaria
and European Turkey. Spartacus had been a mercenary in the Roman army,
probably in the First Mithridatic War in the 80s BC, but had deserted and
become a bandit. He was captured and, because of his outstanding strength
and military experience, was sold to Lentulus Batiatus, a lanista who ran a
gladiatorial school (ludus) in Capua in southern Italy. Since the third cen-
tury BC, Roman conquests in the eastern Mediterranean and Aegean areas
had provided a steady supply of slaves to Italy, fuelling an agricultural and
pastoral economy that produced unparalleled affluence in Italy. Capua, the
chief city of Campania, with its excellent soil and the influx of slaves to work
the land, enjoyed great prosperity. Cicero says that this affluence fostered an
attitude of luxuria and superbia (‘luxury and arrogance’) that no doubt
played a role in the growth of gladiator shows in that area.14 The training of
slaves as first-class gladiators along with the cost of their armour and main-
tenance was indeed an expensive luxury. Campanian gladiators were con-
sidered the crème de la crème of the profession. Their stellar reputation was
still evident in the middle of the third century AD when a munerarius in
Minturnae (modern Minturno) proudly boasted of having ordered the
deaths of ‘eleven leading gladiators of Campania’ during his munus.15 This
boast of the munerarius calls attention to how great his costs were in deny-
ing eleven appeals for release from such valuable gladiators, for whom he
must compensate the lanista on top of the considerable rental fee. The
superbia of the spectators was also engaged by their experience of Schaden-
freude as they watched men whom they scorned degrade themselves by
participating in bloody fights as an entertainment. Appian reports that
Spartacus’ speech to his fellow gladiators in favour of escape from the ludus
focused on this very subject: the shame of being put on view for the amuse-
ment of others.16 The same luxuria and superbia were evident at an even
more affluent Rome and not surprisingly helped promote the spectacular
growth of gladiatorial games there.
We can only speculate what Spartacus’ period of training was like in
Batiatus’ gladiatorial school in Capua. It was no doubt as thorough and
harsh as necessary to prepare the trainees for their violent careers as gladia-
tors. There was another reason for their harsh treatment. A substantial num-
ber of the trainees were men who, like Spartacus, had been condemned to a
gladiator school (damnati ad ludum) for some crime. They were prisoners

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in the school, who had to be carefully supervised and kept under lock and
key while they were not training. Plutarch’s account notes that the rebellion
began when they seized knives and skewers from a kitchen. Although these
are not formidable weapons, they seem to have been enough to hold their
guards at bay while they escaped. Plutarch goes on to report that they ob-
tained real weapons when they had the good fortune to come upon a wagon
full of gladiatorial weapons going to another city. Later, when they seized
weapons from Capuan soldiers trying to stop them, they threw away the
gladiator arms, which they considered ‘dishonorable’ and ‘barbaric’.17
Plutarch, no admirer of Roman gladiatorial combat, criticizes the ‘injus-
tice’ of these men being forced by their owner to fight as gladiators.18 As a
man well versed in philosophy, his views in this matter were in line with
those of some other Greek intellectuals, but differed from those of the rest
of Greek society, who, like the Romans, believed that gladiators, as men of
low status and worth, deserved whatever fate befell them.19 The Roman
contempt for slaves in general and for gladiators in particular no doubt con-
tributed to the Romans’ slowness in realizing that Spartacus and his col-
leagues, who were disciplined and skilled fighters, posed a greater threat
than two earlier slave revolts in Roman Sicily in the previous century. At
first, the Roman authorities did not take the runaways seriously, assigning
smaller armies under lesser commanders. Their disdain for Spartacus’ slave
army had led them to react with less than an all-out military effort. After sev-
eral disastrous Roman losses, however, their contempt was dispelled. Even
then the Romans suffered losses. Two Roman armies, each led by one of the
two consuls (the chief executive magistrates of Rome) engaged Spartacus’
followers and were soundly defeated. The army of the provincial governor of
Cisalpine Gaul suffered the same fate. It was only when M. Licinius Crassus,
one of the richest men in Rome and a man of great determination, was
appointed general that the tide turned. He restored discipline to his army by
applying the penalty of decimation to soldiers guilty of cowardice, putting to
death fifty out of a five hundred man group. In a final confrontation,
Spartacus was killed in battle (his body was not found) and the six thousand
captured survivors of his army were crucified along the complete length of
the Appian Way from Rome to Capua, a distance of 125 miles. Over this dis-
tance, there would have been one cross every 35–40 yards.20
What do we know of Spartacus the gladiator? Was he only a gladiator in
training or is it possible that he was already a well-known gladiator? The fact

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that he was housed at a gladiatorial school does not necessarily mean that he
was only a trainee; gladiators who had already embarked on their pro-
fessional careers also lived in these schools. There is a fresco at the entrance
to a house in Pompeii that depicts two gladiators on horseback fighting
each other.21 Each gladiator is named on the fresco, although only one
name can be made out clearly: Spartaks, an Oscan (the native Italic language
of Campania) form of the name Spartacus.22 Could this be the famous
Spartacus or, since Spartacus was a Thracian name, just another Thracian of
the same name? Unfortunately, we have no way of telling. All we know is
what Plutarch tells us that the gladiators of Batiatus’ ludus were mostly
Thracians and Gauls, so there could easily have been more than one
Spartacus in the school.23

Volunteer gladiators (auctorati)

Although most men became gladiators involuntarily, there were freemen
(and later even women) who were willing to assume the life of a gladiator
temporarily. Who were these people and what was their motivation to be-
come gladiators? During most of the Republic, there were no doubt enthu-
siastic young men of the lower classes, seeking fame and fortune in the
arena, who volunteered themselves. After all, they had little to lose. The
stigma attached to the profession of gladiator, however, seems to have had
considerable force in a society preoccupied with social standing and repu-
tation. It kept men from the two upper orders, the senatorial and equestri-
an classes, from fighting in the arena.24 This stigma was called infamia
(‘disgrace’) a legal penalty that resulted in disqualification from exercising
certain citizen rights in the public and private sectors, such as serving in the
army, voting for magistrates or on the passage of laws, serving on juries,
immunity from physical attacks or corporal punishment, and acting on
behalf of another person in court. Infamia could be incurred in various
ways: for example, a judge accepting bribes, a soldier avoiding his duty or
showing cowardice in battle, any conviction in court, bankruptcy.25 Infamia
also applied automatically to anyone engaged in certain lines of work. One
of these professions was prostitution, which does not come as a surprise,
but also included under this censure was any profession connected with
entertainment such as acting or fighting as a gladiator or an arena hunter.

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Catharine Edwards points out that what these professions had in common
was the production of pleasure:

In the theaters, arenas, and brothels of Rome, the infamous sold their own
flesh (in the case of actors, gladiators, and prostitutes; and the flesh of others,
for pimps and trainers of gladiators were also stigmatized). They lived
by providing sex, violence, and laughter for the pleasure of the public – a
licentious affront to Roman gravitas.26

By the early empire, however, even the threat of infamia was not suffi-
cient to deter significant numbers of freemen of any class from becoming a
gladiator. The life of a gladiator seems to have been especially appealing to
the financially desperate, whose only hope to make some money was to fight
for a price in the arena. In fact, becoming a gladiator was one of the most
common options of the insolvent. Satirists saw the bankrupt man’s choice
to become a gladiator as the equivalent of hitting rock-bottom. Horace’s
victim of insolvency has only three options: to become a gladiator, a profes-
sional gardener or a driver of a carriage.27 Juvenal saw the ultimate fate of a
bankrupt as ‘resorting to the pot-luck meals of the gladiator school’.28 We
hear of recruiters of gladiators who took advantage of inexperienced young
men.29 These recruiters, looking for handsome and well-built young men
with potential as a sword fighter, no doubt painted an overly positive pic-
ture of life as a gladiator to entice them. Such young men were not just of
the lower classes, but also from the upper orders of society. Many of the elite
volunteers, having acquired an addiction to luxury in their upbringing, had
managed to impoverish themselves very quickly.30 A speaker in a rhetorical
exercise gives a good account of their plight, disowned by their families for
their spendthrift ways and other unacceptable conduct:

Young men who come from wealthy families of the highest rank, suddenly
separated from not only their wealth but lacking even the basic necessities
to sustain life and spirit will not engage in everyday work, not being
able to endure the drudgery of labour. Their only alternative is to take
on a dangerous occupation that could cost them their life [i.e., become a
gladiator].31

The authorities tried to stem through legislation the tide of elites volunteer-
ing as gladiators. Suetonius tells us that aristocratic spendthrifts of both
upper orders deliberately brought infamia upon themselves in other ways

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so that they could lose their status as members of the senatorial or equestri-
an orders and thus circumvent the ban against elites fighting as gladiators.32
Bankruptcy was not the only reason for signing up as a gladiator. Ville
adds love of glory, a longing to engage in combat, and more sinister
motives: a taste for killing, sadism and a death wish.33 Boredom with peace,
the desire to avoid the long-term commitment of military service (20 to
25 years) and the need for a new identity have also been suggested.34 Carlin
Barton has argued eloquently for a psychological explanation of the free-
born Roman’s desire to take up the life of a gladiator. She sees this aspir-
ation as a desperate response to the devastation of the civil wars that
brought an end to the Roman Republic.35 Samuel Dill suggests some shal-
lower reasons for signing up: ‘the splendour of arms, the ostentatious pomp
of the scene of combat, the applause of thousands of spectators on the
crowded benches, [and] the fascination of danger . . .’.36
There was a legally prescribed process (auctoratio) for free men who
desired to become a gladiator. A person who went through this process was
called an auctoratus, that is, ‘one who hires himself out to another for a
price’. This process was also available to prospective wild-beast fighters
(bestiarii and venatores). The first step was to declare one’s intention to a
tribune of the people, who could either approve or disapprove.37 If ap-
proved, the candidate entered into a contract with a lanista, or directly with
an editor of a gladiator show. The latter method was mostly for the upper
orders and the commitment was usually for one appearance only. The usual
contract specified the amount of money to be paid to the auctoratus, the
specific length of service as a gladiator and the maximum number of com-
bats required of the auctoratus.38 The contract probably also specified the
cost of release from the agreement for the auctoratus before its terms were
fully met. Just as a slave could buy his own freedom from his master, an
auctoratus could buy out his contract with the lanista or have someone else
do it. The rhetorician Quintilian tells a story of a sister who had redeemed
her auctoratus brother a number of times. Apparently, he would sell himself
to a lanista whenever he needed money. The sister, disgusted with having to
redeem her brother so many times, cut off his thumb while he was asleep to
prevent him from fighting again. He took her to court and she expressed
her reaction in this way: ‘You really deserved to have your hand intact.’
Quintilian explains this cryptic statement by adding that the phrase ‘so that
you could fight [and be killed in the arena]’ is understood.39 Ovid notes

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that some auctorati did not know when to call it a career.40 The typical
Roman attitude towards this business deal between lanista and auctoratus
can be best summed up in Livy’s phrase: ‘[the auctorati] put their blood up
for sale’.41 The candidate solemnly swore ‘to be burned, bound, beaten and
to be put to death by the sword’ and to do ‘whatever else was ordered’, a
total dedication of body and mind.42 The burning, binding and beating
were punishments that could be imposed by his superiors in the course of
his training or even in the arena, while death by sword refers to the losing
gladiator’s willingness to accept death at the hands of his opponent if
ordered by the editor of a munus.43 This oath was most likely sworn only to
a lanista. Since the commitment on the part of a lanista was a substantial
one, involving expensive long-term training in a gladiator school, he needed
the firmest possible guarantee of the applicant’s sincerity and cooperation.
This process was not necessary for an equestrian or a senator in good stand-
ing, who generally made an agreement with the editor (most often the
emperor) for one event only and did not require any special training. The
last step in the process of becoming an auctoratus seems to have been an in-
itiation ritual in the arena in which the auctorati were whipped with rods,
perhaps while running a gauntlet of veteran gladiators.44 In the late Repub-
lic, large numbers of freeborn men became gladiators, but by the middle of
the first century BC, slaves still outnumbered free gladiators.45

The gladiator school (ludus)

Each ludus housed of a troupe of gladiators (familia gladiatoria), who were
trained in various styles of fighting. (Note that the singular of the word
ludus denotes a gladiator school whereas the plural ludi refers to games
celebrated annually in honour of various gods.) Typically, the gladiator
school was owned by a lanista, often an ex-gladiator, who rented his troupe
to givers of gladiator shows. In Capua, however, the owners of major
schools that we hear of belong to upper-class Roman families, for example
Lentulus Batiatus (Vatia) and Julius Caesar himself. C. Aurelius Scaurus,
whose gladiatorial school provided instructors in swordplay to the Roman
army in 105 BC, may have been another Roman aristocrat who owned a
ludus in Capua.46 Caesar purchased his ludus in anticipation of his aedile-
ship in 65 BC during which he planned to offer a grand munus to ensure his
election to higher office. He maintained ownership of this school even after

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his election to the praetorship and the consulship. By 49 BC, this school
housed perhaps as many as a thousand gladiators.47 The fact that Caesar
held on to a school of this size after his aedileship was undoubtedly a sign of
the scale of his political ambitions beyond even the highest magistracies.
The decision of a Roman politician to own his own gladiator troupe may
have been made in good part for economic reasons. First, lanistae often
charged outlandish fees for the use of their gladiators. Moreover, an editor
renting gladiators from a lanista often found himself in a bind in the midst
of a munus. The purpose of his giving a munus in the first place was to
please the people to advance his political career. What if the crowd vocifer-
ously demanded the death of a defeated gladiator? The editor would have to
think twice about ordering the death of a defeated gladiator to please the
spectators because of a hefty compensation fee due to the lanista in this
circumstance. According to one legal source, the compensation was legally
defined as fifty times the rental price of the gladiator.48 On the other hand,
failure on the part of the editor to cater to the desires of the crowd usually
meant a damaging loss of favour and respect. Given these considerations,
the choice to own a troupe might seem prudent, especially since the surviv-
ing gladiators could be sold at a profit after the munus or given to friends to
strengthen political alliances. The purchase of a gladiatorial school, aside
from its political advantages, could be a good investment. Cicero’s best
friend Atticus, a member of the equestrian order, invested in a ludus. In a
letter to Atticus, Cicero is quite enthusiastic about the purchase because of
the report he has heard about the excellence of Atticus’ gladiators. He
points out to Atticus that if he had been willing to hire them out for two
recent gladiatorial shows, he would have recovered all his costs in purchas-
ing the school.49 One might justly wonder how the equestrian Atticus per-
formed what is essentially the function of the disgraced lanista without
incurring infamia. Cicero expresses no disapproval at all of Atticus’ invest-
ment. Perhaps Atticus, like the members of the senatorial class mentioned
above, was able to distance himself from this disreputable business by not
being involved in the day-to-day affairs of the school and using representa-
tives to run the school for him. Another consideration is that Atticus,
already a wealthy man, did not make his living from his investment; his glad-
iatorial venture may have been, in effect, a hobby. The same justification
could be applied to Caesar’s owning a ludus, but there is a difference.
Caesar established his school to train gladiators for his own use and not as

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an investment. If he occasionally rented out gladiators to other editores, he,

too, undoubtedly did it through representatives, anticipating the later prac-
tice of emperors as owners of imperial gladiator schools.

The training of gladiators

The training of gladiators was serious business; spectators wanted to see
gladiators who were experts at their profession and could produce an excit-
ing fight. The instruction they received in gladiatorial schools was famous
for its high quality. Christian writers reluctantly praised the discipline that
gladiators attained, which enabled them to kill more effectively. The Christ-
ian apologist Minucius Felix, in condemning ‘the evil pleasures’ of Roman
games, notes ‘the discipline of killing’ in the training of gladiators.50 Cyprian
of Carthage makes the point even more forcefully:

Skill, discipline, art, all enable [a gladiator] to kill. Not only a crime is
committed, but it is taught; what can be more inhuman, what can be more
repulsive? Instruction makes it possible to kill and once the slaying is accom-
plished, there is glory.51

The satirist Juvenal in the course of his lampoon of a woman who un-
dergoes gladiator training (perhaps in preparation for the arena), gives an
idea of what took place on the exercise grounds of the ludus. The most basic
drill involved attacking a wooden post called a palus, on which she inflicted
‘wounds’ with repeated attacks of a wooden sword and her shield. (Note
that the shield could be used as an offensive, as well as a defensive, weapon.)
These attacks, however, are not performed in a random fashion, but follow
prescribed and systematic directions of a teacher of gladiatorial skills (doctor
or magister) standing nearby. Juvenal calls these directions ‘numbers’
(numeri), which elsewhere are referred to as ‘instructions’ (dictata).52 Al-
though there is no clear evidence of exactly what these numbers or dictata
were, in general they must have been a predetermined series of offensive and
defensive movements. A speaker in Petronius’ Satyricon complains of a glad-
iator who fought only by the numbers, that is, mechanically.53 Although fol-
lowing these rules too closely might on occasion have resulted in a boring
fight, nonetheless the dictata represented a crucially important facet of the
gladiatorial art and could not be ignored. Julius Caesar urged trainers to im-
part the dictata to his inexperienced gladiators.54 The following comment

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by Tertullian reveals that fans were familiar with these dictata, and would
try to help a gladiator who was not putting them into practice by shouting
them from their seats. Sometimes this practice actually helped the gladiator:

Not only trainers and those placed in charge urge the best gladiators [to pay
attention to the dictata] but also the untrained and amateurs [among the
spectators] from afar [from their seats], with the result that often the
dictata suggested by the crowd itself are profitable [to the gladiators].55

Seneca records traditional wisdom regarding defensive techniques.

An old Latin proverb warns the gladiator to keep his head about him and
observe warnings given by the face, hands and bending of the body of his
opponent.56 Robert points out that skill was even more important for a
gladiator than force.57 Later in their training, gladiators would engage in
practice fights with each other, still using the wooden sword. At the most
advanced stage of their training, gladiators practised with opponents, using
real weapons.58
A description of a training session for new recruits (both soldiers and
gladiators) written by Vegetius, a fourth century AD author, gives us more
details. In this account, Vegetius looks back to the training techniques of
the past. Trainees worked out carrying shields made of twigs that were
woven in such a way as to be double the normal weight of wicker-work and
wooden swords that were double the weight of real swords. In the morning
and afternoon they practised at the palus, which each recruit stuck in the
ground so that it was 6 (Roman) feet high (5 feet 8 inches in modern mea-
surements).59 The recruit treated the palus as an imaginary opponent,
which was approximately the size of a tall Roman. The moves described by
Vegetius give us some sense of the nature of the dictata:

[The trainee] pretended he was now attacking his opponent’s face, now
threatening his sides, sometimes striving to cut his knees and legs. He would
draw back, spring forward, and attack his imaginary opponent. He would
apply every kind of attack, every technique of warfare. And in this practice,
caution was observed so that the recruit tried to inflict a wound on his
opponent in such a way that he in no way laid himself open to a blow from
his opponent.60

The teachers in the ludus were called doctor or magister and were usually
ex-gladiators or, in some cases, active gladiators, who passed on their

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knowledge and experience to their students. Included in Martial’s litany

of the achievements of the great gladiator Hermes is the statement that he
is ‘both an (active) gladiator and a magister’. Martial also points out that
he is skilled in all methods of fighting.61 Normally, a magister or doctor
would teach only one or two styles of fighting. We hear of doctores who
taught styles of fighting employed by various types of gladiators: thraex,
hoplomachus, murmillo, provocator and secutor.62 Juvenal’s female student-
gladiator seems to be learning two different styles of fighting indicated by
the two kinds of protective armour she possesses. For the first style of arma-
ment, the poet lists a belt worn around a loincloth (balteus), an arm protec-
tor consisting of thickly wrapped linen (manica), ‘crests’ (perhaps a crested
helmet), and a greave (a metal protector) on the left leg. This last piece of
equipment on the left leg suggests that the gladiatorial type here may be the
secutor (‘pursuer’).63 Her other armament (helmet and linen leg protectors
on both legs) is enough to tell us a different kind of gladiator is indicated
but is too vague for an exact identification.64

The ludus as living quarters

The ludus, which was not only a training institution but also served as living
quarters for gladiatorial troupes, existed at Rome from at least the second
century BC. Travelling troupes might not have their own ludus, but presum-
ably they would stay at a ludus in the town or city where they were going to
perform, either paying rent or receiving hospitality as a professional cour-
tesy. Eppia, a senator’s wife who fell in love with a gladiator named Sergius
belonging to a travelling familia, followed him to Alexandria in Egypt.65 It
is likely that she and her lover stayed at the famous ludus in Alexandria.
Although we hear of only a few specific gladiator schools in Republican
times, there must have been a great number of gladiator troupes housed in
small gladiatorial schools at Rome in the first century BC. This is indicated
by the danger the Roman Senate saw in their presence at Rome during the
imminent threat of the Catilinarian revolution in the 60s BC. It was the con-
cern of the Senate that the revolutionaries might attempt to use gladiators
as a military force. The Senate had learned the hard way what military suc-
cess a gladiator-led army could achieve during Spartacus’ revolt. Therefore,
the Senate decreed that these familiae be transferred to Capua and neigh-
bouring towns in southern Italy.66

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In the late Republic, Capua surpassed Rome as a centre for gladiator

training and lodging. The most famous schools were located in Capua, like
those of Batiatus and Julius Caesar. The choice of Capua as a site for a glad-
iatorial school was not fortuitous. Capua, like Praeneste (modern Palestrina)
and Ravenna in Italy, and Alexandria in Egypt, was thought to foster good
health in gladiators because of their sea breezes.67 Although climate was
important for gladiators, diet was even more crucial for these athletic men.
The food served at gladiator schools (known by the generic term sagina)
may deservedly have had a reputation for being unappetizing. A fictional
gladiator describes the sagina he was fed at a school as ‘worse than any
hunger’.68 On the other hand, the typical gladiator diet, which Juvenal calls
miscellanea (‘hodge-podge’ or ‘potluck’), was no doubt nourishing and de-
signed to produce strength.69 We know that, from the earliest days, barley
was the chief staple of gladiators’ diet. In fact, gladiators were often called
hordearii (‘barley men’).70 The cheapness of this grain no doubt made it
popular with lanistae. The portions, as the diet of men engaged in such a
profession required, were generous, even larger than the rations given to
Roman soldiers. Tacitus notes that Vitellius served gladiator-sized rations to
his soldiers during the civil wars of AD 69.71 Another indication of the large
amount of food gladiators consumed is Augustus’ banishment of familiae
gladiatoriae in schools at Rome to a distance of 100 miles from the capital
during a famine.72 The large number of these ludi probably represented a
considerable drain on the food supply.
The living conditions in a ludus were no doubt substandard. There were
complaints about the ‘filthy condition’ of the cells in which gladiators
were required to live.73 The cells in the ludus at Pompeii were quite small,
between 32 and 49 square feet, accommodating two or at most three
men. In as much as there were no beds, the inmates probably used straw
mattresses.74 The ludus was not a prison as such. There were gladiators who
were allowed to leave and return as they wished. Nonetheless, it was a prison
for those gladiators who could not be trusted. They were usually kept in
chains in a separate part of the ludus. Juvenal mentions a prison within the
ludus.75 A fictional inmate of a ludus, a freeman who had been sold to a
lanista by pirates, was naturally desperate to escape and therefore could not
be allowed the freedom to come and go. He compares his ludus unfavourably
to a work-farm (ergastulum) where inmates worked in chain gangs and
protests the ‘disgraceful confinement’ to which he was subjected.76 As we

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have seen, Spartacus and his comrades were kept under lock and key because
they were believed most likely to attempt escape – a belief that later proved
to be well founded. But even the rebellious Spartacus was allowed to live
with his wife in his cell.77 A woman who lived with a gladiator in a ludus was
called a ludia, that is, ‘a woman of the ludus’.78 The word often had a
derogatory meaning. The Eppia mentioned earlier is referred to by Juvenal
as a ludia, which in this case seems to mean something like ‘a gladiator
groupie’, a woman who formed a temporary relationship with a gladiator.79
The famous gladiator Hermes attracted the attention of the ludiae. Martial
calls him ‘the focus of the groupies’ affections’.80 It may be hard to think of
gladiators as family men, but some gladiators had not only wives but chil-
dren as well who were housed in the ludus or, sometimes even in a private
house. In epitaphs, the wife is often mentioned as responsible for having set
up the memorial for her dead husband. In one epitaph there is a reversal of
the favour: a veteran eques (‘horseman gladiator’) named Albanus, stationed
at the Ludus Magnus in Rome, had set up a memorial for his ‘dearest wife’
Publicia. In another, a certain Euche, who set up a memorial for her gladia-
tor husband Faustus, is called a contubernalis. One could not contract a legal
marriage with a slave, so a man and his slave partner who lived under the
same roof were referred to as contubernales (literally, ‘sharing the same
tent’), something like our ‘common law spouse’.81 Suetonius tells the story
of an essedarius, whose four sons’ urgent request that he be discharged com-
pletely from service as a gladiator was granted by Claudius.82 There is a mov-
ing epitaph of Urbicus, a secutor, who at age 22 was killed in his eighth fight,
leaving behind his wife Lauricia and a 5-month-old daughter Fortunensis.83
Some schools even allowed fans to visit on a regular basis to keep up with the
latest gladiatorial news. Apuleius criticizes the uncle and guardian of his
stepson for allowing the boy to waste so much time in a ludus, talking with
the lanista about the names, fights and wounds of his gladiators.84
The criminal background of many of the men in the ludus probably
made life as difficult as the living conditions. These were rough men, whose
belligerent character was suited to their profession as a gladiator. Many of
them had been judged guilty of the most heinous crimes: temple-robbing,
arson and murder.85 They probably made it especially tough on inexperi-
enced newcomers in the ludus by subjecting them to verbal and physical
abuse as a kind of initiation ritual.86 From the point of view of the lanista,
however, the crimes committed by these inmates before entry into the ludus

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were irrelevant as long they did not seriously harm other members of the
ludus, and were not disobedient.
The social structure of the ludus reflected the Roman love of organiz-
ation and hierarchy. Each category of gladiators was divided into four seg-
ments named after the post used for training exercises: first, second, third
and fourth palus.87 Gladiators of the same gladiatorial type were ranked in
these hierarchical groups according to the number of times they had been
victorious in the arena. For example, all the thraeces in the school were
divided in these four ranks. Robert notes that, in inscriptions, gladiators
very seldom mention their membership in the two lowest classes (tertius
and quartus palus).88 There was no glory in advertising membership in
these lowest ranked groups. On the other hand, gladiators trumpeted their
membership in the primus and secundus palus.89 Record-keeping was an
important function in the ludus. Slave functionaries called tabularii or
commentarienses (‘secretaries’) kept careful records of winners and losers in
the arena and other details in order to keep the status of each gladiator up
to date within each category. These records were also useful in putting
together programmes for spectators (libelli).90 Knowing the records of
paired gladiators added interest to the fight and was useful in placing bets, a
favourite activity of the Romans at gladiator shows. The primus palus in
each category of fighting style consisted of the most successful gladiators in
the ludus, while the quartus palus contained those with the smallest number
of victories. The gladiator in training, called a tiro (‘apprentice’), could be-
come a part of this ranking system only when he was promoted to the status
of ‘veteran’ after his first bout, if he survived. In fact, many tirones never re-
ceived that promotion because they were killed in their first bout. A tiro
could be quite young. A funerary inscription honours a gladiator who en-
tered the ludus at age 17.91
The leader of a group of gladiators of the same type (thraeces, murmil-
lones, etc.) in a school received a title derived from name of the highest-
ranked group in that category. He was called the primus palus. For example,
the emperor Commodus, whose fantasy of gladiatorial glory was nourished
by his unbalanced mind, considered himself the leading secutor (‘pursuer’)
in that category in Rome and thus was given (or took) the title of primus
palus, which entitled him to a special cell in what was probably the largest
gladiatorial school in the empire, the Ludus Magnus in Rome. Commodus
was extremely proud of his unearned top ranking among secutores in the

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ludus. In order to memorialize his imagined excellence as a gladiator, he had

the following words inscribed on the base of the colossal statue of Nero
adjacent to the Colosseum, the head of which he had replaced with his
own likeness: ‘primus palus of the secutores; the only left-handed fighter to
win . . . twelve thousand matches’.92 This number of wins seems grossly
exaggerated even for a narcissistic emperor like Commodus. Could the
source (Cassius Dio) have got the number wrong? Possibly. Herodian gives
the much more realistic number: one thousand.93 No matter what the
number of ‘victories’ Commodus may have won, his success was due to the
fact that his opponents were smart enough to concede victory to him rather
than lose their own lives, if they won.94 In a further act of self-promotion,
he made more changes to the statue. His extreme fascination with, and
participation in, the events of the arena led him to identify closely with
Hercules, the patron saint of gladiators and arena hunters. Therefore, he
proclaimed himself a second Hercules by adding a club (Hercules’ signature
weapon) and a bronze lion (the Nemean lion, killed by Hercules as his first
labour) at the feet of the statue.95
The familia gladiatoria in a ludus was multi-ethnic. Their native lands
were widely scattered across the empire, from Spain to the near and middle
east.96 Eastern gladiators frequently made their way west, and occasionally
gladiators from the west are found in the east.97 Despite the cultural and
language differences, emotional attachments among gladiators were quite
common; there are numerous examples of surviving comrades paying for
the burial of their cellmates.98 Sometimes all the members of the troupe
(familia) chipped in to pay for the burial.99 Robert gives an example of a
funeral monument set up by a certain Paitraeites (an alternative spelling of
the common gladiator name Petraites) and other cellmates in the ludus for
their beloved colleague Hermes (not the Hermes celebrated by Martial).100
An extraordinary example of loyalty among gladiators is an epitaph telling
of members of troupe of paegniarii (‘play gladiators’, who did not use lethal
weapons) in the Ludus Magnus, who paid for the burial of one of their
fellow paegniarii.101 What is unusual about this act is that the deceased,
Secundus, had died at age 98, five or even six decades after the end of
his gladiatorial career. Strong friendships were also formed in the ludus
between teacher and student. A trainer (doctor) in a ludus in Brixia (modern
Brescia) paid for the burial of a provocator (‘challenger’) named Antigonus,
while at Rome a doctor named Marcion did the same for another provocator

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by the name of Anicetus.102 Generosity in this area could also come from
other sources. Non-gladiatorial friends took care of the burial of a thraex
called Volusenus; fans of a gladiator named Glauco in Verona helped his
wife finance his burial.103 On one occasion, a munerarius honoured three
gladiators whose deaths contributed significantly to the success of his
munus by building a tomb for them.104
It was not unusual for friendships to be formed not just among gladia-
tors of the same type but also across types. Thus, since members of the same
familia fought each other in the arena, it was not uncommon for friends to
be matched against each other.105 Seneca writes of men in the ludus ‘living
with each other and fighting each other’.106 Cicero notes that a murmillo
killed a thraex, who was his friend.107 No doubt the pairings in some cases
even involved two cellmates. An inscription from Rome mentions a
retiarius and a murmillo as cellmates, a possible pairing in the arena.108
Helmets with visors that covered the face made it easier to wound and kill
an opponent who, in some cases, was a close friend.109
There was some segregation in the ludus. Juvenal tells us that light-
armed gladiators were kept separate from the heavy-armed.110 The poet
criticizes a retiarius for having rejected the heavy armature of a murmillo,
secutor or thraex, expressing a strong condemnation: ‘You have earned the
scorn of the city.’111 One could argue that a light-armed gladiator in com-
bat with a heavy-armed opponent is owed greater respect for his courage,
but in the Roman mind, the heavy armour (helmet, shield and so forth) be-
stowed a much greater aura of virility. The vulnerability of the retiarius,
whose defensive armour consisted only of minimal protection for the left
shoulder and arm and both shins, seems to have suggested effeminacy.112
This attitude is best illustrated in Homer’s Iliad, when the Trojan Hector
considers removing his armour and approaching Achilles, with a pro-
position to end the war by giving back Helen:

I am afraid that if I go up to him, he will not pity me

Nor will he respect me, but he will kill me naked as I am
Just as if I were a woman.113

There was even some separation within the same gladiatorial type.
Volunteer retiarii, probably because they were inept amateurs, were kept
separate from the regular professional retiarii, as Juvenal tells us, in a re-
mote part of the school.114 The difference between these two types of

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retiarii may have been signified outwardly by the wearing of a tunic by the
volunteers and the naked torso of the professional.115 Then there were the
effeminate homosexuals among the gladiators whom Seneca says were ban-
ished to ‘the repulsive’ (obscoenam) part of the school where they practised
their ‘disease’.116
The ludus was a common feature of large towns and cities throughout
the empire. Extant inscriptions often tell us how the construction of a ludus
was financed. For example, in the town of Este in northern Italy, a ludus
was built at public expense and, at Praeneste, a private citizen (his name has
been obliterated by damage to the stone) paid for the ludus out of his own
pocket. He also built a brand new spoliarium.117
Although there were many gladiatorial schools throughout the empire,
archaeology can provide us with significant evidence of material remains in
only one town outside Rome: Pompeii, where the preservation of buildings
has been good because of their burial under tons of volcanic ash during the
famous eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. The first ludus in Pompeii
was a residential house dating from the first century BC which was used as
quarters for what must have been a limited number of gladiators.118 This
house continued to serve as a ludus during the first half of the first century
AD. Its use as a ludus is revealed by the great number of graffiti found on the
columns of the house’s peristyle, which were no doubt written by the glad-
iators themselves.
Sometime in the middle of the first century AD, Pompeiian gladiators
were given a larger space for living quarters and training. A quadriporticus,
a central courtyard surrounded on all four sides by a portico containing cells
and larger rooms was converted into a ludus (Figure 1). This structure had
originally been used by theatregoers during intermissions at the theatre to
stretch their legs out of the sun (without artificial lighting, plays were pre-
sented during the day) or to avoid cold winds. Its identification as a ludus is
also confirmed by the discovery of gladiatorial armour (helmets, greaves,
shields and one belt) in the cells as well as some interesting gladiatorial
graffiti. The inscription of a certain Samus is typical of these graffiti. He
speaks of himself in the third person: ‘Samus, [the winner] of one victory,
one [laurel] crown, a murmillo and an eques, lived here’.119 He is especially
proud of his crown, which was a gladiator’s reward for an outstanding per-
formance in victory. Samus also notes his versatility in being able to perform
in the arena as either a murmillo or as an horseman gladiator. A gladiator

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Figure 1 Ludus at Pompeii. Tarina Peterson, with permission

named Mansuetus inscribed his vow to Venus, the patron divinity of

Pompeii, to dedicate his shield to her if he should win.120 Also included
among these graffiti are the much-quoted boasts of two gladiators, proud of
their success with the opposite sex: Celadus, a thraex and Crescens, a
retiarius. Celadus calls himself ‘the one whom girls sigh for’ and ‘the one
whom girls honor’.121 Crescens refers to himself as ‘the lord of girls’ and, as
‘the netter [retiarius] of girls at night’.122 He is a typical example of Tertul-
lian’s description of gladiators as ‘the most enthralling objects of love to
whom women surrender their bodies’.123 In Crescens’ case, however, there is
another consideration with regard to his sex appeal: the fact that he was a
retiarius. Since the retiarius did not use a shield, his body was more exposed
to the spectators than any other gladiator, making this type of gladiator a
sexually charged figure. Although some took the retiarius’s near-nakedness
as a sign of effeminacy, the retiarius also could embody heterosexual attrac-
tion. This seems to be the case in Artemidorus’ interpretation of a dream in
which the dreamer fights a retiarius: the dreamer will marry a sexually
promiscuous woman.124 It should also be noted that there was another im-
portant reason for female fascination with gladiators in addition to physical
attraction. Hopkins and Beard write of a nostalgie de boue (‘longing for the

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gutter’, literally ‘mud’) among upper-class Roman women who were at-
tracted by the degraded social status of gladiators.125 A female slave in
Petronius’ Satyricon criticizes the sexual tastes of her mistress, who shows a
predilection for slumming. She says that sexual arousal is only possible for
her mistress with men who are socially far beneath her: servants with
hitched-up tunics, gladiators, who fought with a minimum of body cover,
muleteers and actors.126 A common slur against unpopular Romans of
note was that they were fathered by gladiators. Upper-class women were
commonly accused of affairs with gladiators, like Faustina, the wife of the
emperor Marcus Aurelius and the mother of the ‘gladiator’ emperor Com-
modus.127 Another prominent example is Juvenal’s story about the sena-
tor’s wife named Eppia who ran away to Egypt with a gladiator named
Sergius mentioned earlier in this chapter. The poet points out that Sergius’
actual looks did not seem to justify her obsession with him:

What did Eppia see in him that she allowed herself to be called a
gladiator groupie? For her dear Sergius had been shaving for a
long time already and with a wound in his arm was looking
forward to retirement. Moreover, there were many disfigurements
evident on his face, for example where it had been chafed by his
helmet and then there was the wart on his nose and the unpleasant
disorder of a continually dripping eye. But he was a gladiator.
This profession makes them all Adonises. She preferred a
gladiator to her children and homeland and to her sister and her
husband. It is the sword that they love.128

After the conversion of the quadriporticus to a ludus, the open courtyard

became a training ground. A sundial found in the courtyard was probably
used as a timing device for the gladiators’ exercises. The two stories of space
behind the four porticoes were converted into living quarters for the gladi-
ators, and on these two levels there were approximately seventy cells that
housed at least two gladiators each. The capacity of approximately 140 glad-
iators at one time permitted the presentation of a good-sized munus outside
of Rome.129 There were larger rooms that must have served as the kitchen,
dining room and storerooms, and a meeting room (exedra) with images of
gladiatorial armour on its walls. Another room may have served as a stable
because the skeletons of a horse and a man were found there. Perhaps the
horse was used by horseman gladiators. The prison is identifiable because of

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the shackles attached to the walls which made it impossible for a fettered
man to stand. Four skeletons were found in the prison but they were un-
chained. Also found in one of the cells was a female skeleton wearing jewels,
suggesting that this ludus was accessible to the public.130 What this woman
was doing in a gladiator cell is open to all sorts of speculation. She could
have been having an affair with gladiator or merely had sought the gladiator
school as a last refuge during the final destruction of the city. The discovery
of a skeleton of an infant in the ludus might be further evidence that some
gladiators lived with their families in the ludus.131

Imperial gladiators
Julius Caesar set the direction of the gladiatorial system that was to charac-
terize the imperial era with the ownership of his own ludus and enormous
familia gladiatoria in Capua. Just before the beginning of the civil war with
Pompey, Caesar was planning another ludus in Ravenna, which was not
built until after his death, probably by his adopted son Octavian, who was
later known as Augustus. Caesar had recognized that the possession of a
large number of gladiators was not only a sign of his ability and willingness
to entertain the people but also a symbol of his political power supported by
the favour of the people. Caesar’s gladiators became known as Iuliani
(‘Julius’ gladiators’). (Note that Julius is a surname. His first name was
Gaius.) After his assassination, they retained this name when they were in-
herited by his adopted son Octavian, who became a member of the Julian
family.132 These gladiators became the nucleus of what eventually was
known as the imperial familia gladiatoria. Under the Julio-Claudian dy-
nasty, Iuliani was the generic name for gladiators owned by the emperor.
Imperial gladiators were not just stationed in Rome, but were found
throughout Italy and the rest of the empire. These gladiators represented
the best sword fighters available throughout the empire and could usually
be relied upon on to give the best show. Nero formed another group of
imperial gladiators named after himself, the Neroniani (‘Nero’s gladiators’)
which coexisted with the Iuliani. No other Julio-Claudian emperor named
a familia after himself. Nero’s fervent devotion to his gladiators was indi-
cated by his extravagant gift of a magnificent house and a large amount of
cash to one of his Neroniani, a murmillo named Spiculus. Suetonius
comments that the value of these gifts was equal to the wealth of a Roman

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general who had enjoyed a triumph.133 This observation is meant to high-

light the inappropriateness of Nero’s act, which gave a mere gladiator
financial equality with a Roman aristocratic hero. With the end of the Julio-
Claudian dynasty in AD 69, the names Iuliani and Neroniani were no
longer relevant and ceased to be used. Imperial gladiators began to be
known merely as the gladiators of the princeps (‘first citizen’), or of Augus-
tus, or of Caesar, all three of these words having acquired the meaning of
‘emperor’.
We have some information about the imperial schools of Caligula and
Claudius, but it amounts only to odds and ends. (Tiberius had little interest
in gladiators.) Pliny the Elder says that Caligula had twenty pairs of gladia-
tors in his school and that two of his gladiators, as noted in Chapter 1, were
famous for their unblinking stare.134 A gladiator named Studiosus from
Caligula’s school was well known for having a right arm longer than his left,
no doubt because of his constant practice with the sword.135 Caligula took
a close personal interest in his school, as shown by the story of his habit of
practising with a gladiator (murmillo) from his school. Both used wooden
weapons. When the gladiator threw himself prostrate on the ground in ad-
mission of defeat (a wise act for any opponent of this unstable emperor),
Caligula treacherously stabbed him with a real dagger and then ran around
the practice area with a palm branch, as winners in real gladiatorial duels did
in the arena.136 Of Claudius’ school we only hear of the name of the
procurator: Sulpicius Rufus.137 The first evidence of a procurator as admin-
istrator of an imperial school is from the time of Augustus in reference to
the famous imperial school in Egyptian Alexandria.138 The procurator, gen-
erally of equestrian rank, was an agent of the emperor in various capacities.
Many procurators had significant administrative experience outside the
gladiatorial system, even governing imperial provinces as a representative
of the emperor. P. Bassilius Crescens served as procurator of the Ludus
Matutinus (‘Morning School’), an imperial school for the training of animal
fighters, in addition to his supervision of the grain supply at Ostia.139
P. Cominius Clemens, who had been prefect of the praetorian fleets at
Misenum and Ravenna and procurator of the imperial province of Dacia
Apolensis (modern Romania) served as procurator of an imperial gladia-
torial school in northern Italy.140 In the late second century AD, T. Flavius
Germanus at different times was procurator of the Ludus Matutinus and
the Ludus Magnus at Rome. He was also the supervisor (curator) of

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Commodus’ grand triumph in 180 AD.141 The appointment of able, experi-

enced men like these as curatores of gladiator schools was no doubt a big
step forward in the professionalization of the gladiatorial system. Procu-
rators not only administered individual schools, but sometimes were in
charge of all the schools in a given area that cut across the boundaries of
provinces.142 For example, in the west one procurator administered the
imperial schools in northern Italy, Pannonia and Dalmatia, the last two
provinces encompassing the area of modern Austria, Hungary and the for-
mer Yugoslavia. Another procurator named L. Didius Marinus had experi-
ence in supervising imperial schools in both the west and the east: (in the
west) the Gauls, Britain, Spain, Germany and Raetia (modern Switzerland
and Bavaria); (in the east) Asia, Bithynia, Galatia, Cappadocia, Lycia,
Pamphylia, Cilicia, Pontus, Paphlagonia (all nine provinces covering most of
the area of modern Turkey) and Cyprus.143 These procurators were not for-
mer gladiators like many lanistae but astute businessmen who, on behalf of
the emperor, supervised the acquisition, training, maintenance and rental
of imperial gladiators.
Imperial gladiators naturally were featured in the munera given by the
emperor, but they could be also rented out to an editor who was willing to
pay a higher price for the sake of a quality show. Procurators of imperial
schools regularly rented out gladiators to editores throughout Italy and in
the provinces. These rentals made the imperial schools a money-making
proposition for the emperor. In Pompeii, the aedile A. Suettius Certus
presented Neroniani, while an editor named M. Mesonius was able to
present both Iuliani and Neroniani at his munus.144 Also in Pompeii,
N. Festus Ampliatus gave a munus, the significance of which is indicated by
a monumental tomb that memorialized it.145 An inscription on the wall
gives the results of the gladiatorial duels on the last day of Ampliatus’
munus.146 All the gladiators mentioned in this inscription are Iuliani. It is
notable that these gladiators are called by their individual names; usually
inscriptions when referring to imperial gladiators just call them Iuliani or
Neroniani. Therefore, we can be certain that these gladiators were among
the best of imperial gladiators, well known by name.
Since imperial gladiators belonged to the emperor, technically he could
sell them, but this was not normal practice. Emperors usually did not want
citizens to have access to a resource that could win them significant public
favour. It would also have diminished the emperor’s stock of top-notch

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gladiators. The supply of imperial gladiators was already subject to loss in

the normal course of events as they appeared in munera. Although imperial
gladiators most often fought ordinary opponents, they were sometimes
matched against each other, ensuring that at least some would be killed.147
The only emperor who sold imperial gladiators was Caligula, and that was
under circumstances better described as the theatre of the absurd. Caligula,
having found that the imperial treasury was almost empty (due to his
financial irresponsibility), resorted to a desperate measure to replenish it.
He auctioned off gladiators from his imperial school. Aponius Saturninus, a
distinguished man who had held the office of praetor, made the mistake of
nodding off to sleep as he attended this auction. Caligula, immediately
sensing an opportunity, told the auctioneer to watch the frequent nods of
Aponius as he slept. The auctioneer realized that Caligula wanted him to
interpret the nods as signs of bidding. Before Aponius awoke, he had
bought thirteen gladiators for 9 million sesterces, an enormous sum of
money.148

Medical care
Imperial gladiators generally enjoyed excellent physical care. Tired and
aching muscles were worked back into shape by skilled masseurs (unctores).
Under Commodus, there was a noted masseur at the Ludus Magnus nick-
named Pirata (‘Pirate’).149 Most important of all, physicians (medici) looked
after the gladiators’ general health and cared for their wounds. Medical care
was also available in lesser gladiator schools, but probably of much lower
quality. In such schools, even if there was a trained medical doctor in resi-
dence, his care was usually inferior. In some cases, lanistae, having gained
some practical medical knowledge by experience, administered medical
treatment themselves.150 On the other hand, some imperial schools had
at their disposal a whole staff of doctors who were of the highest quality.151
The most famous doctor of a ludus was a Greek named Galen, the greatest
physician and medical writer of the ancient world, who early in his career was
appointed gladiatorial doctor by the high priest in charge of the imperial cult
of the province of Asia (AD 157–161).152 The ludus where Galen worked
was in Pergamum (modern Bergama), the greatest city of the province and
one of the first provincial cities to have an imperial cult. The ludus in this city
was one of the most prestigious gladiatorial schools in the Greek east.

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On assuming his position at Pergamum, Galen’s first concern was the diet
of his gladiators. He complained that their current diet, barley gruel mixed
with beans, produced an undesirable flabbiness in their body, and substituted
more nutritious food.153 Galen, however, was not just a nutritionist. His ex-
pertise in treating wounds, especially those of the thigh, was quite effective
in keeping his gladiators alive and in condition to fight again. During his
tenure at this school (almost four years), only two gladiators died from injury.
To appreciate this achievement fully, one must consider that sixty gladiators
had died during the term of Galen’s predecessor as medicus.154
Other imperial schools probably could not approach the excellence in
medical care that Galen provided, but no doubt still provided the best care
available in the area. Arena hunters in Corinth showed their gratitude for the
excellent medical care provided by their doctor by setting up a statue of him
in the arena near where the animals came out of their cages.155 We also hear
of the name of a medical doctor in the Ludus Matutinus at Rome, Eutychus,
recorded in an inscription on a family tomb which he had constructed.156
Whether owned by the emperor or a lanista, gladiators and venatores
represented a large investment. The prudent owner kept them in the best
physical shape possible.

The character of imperial gladiators

Imperial gladiators enjoyed the best training, armament and accommo-
dation. Thus it is not surprising that the gladiators’ morale was high in the
imperial schools. It would be rare for an imperial gladiator to be less than
eager to fight and prove his worth. Although most imperial gladiators were
slaves, there probably would have been virtually no need in imperial schools
to apply force to get them to fight. Imperial gladiators were made of stronger
stuff and were imbued with an abundance of competitive spirit. During
the reign of Tiberius, the great gladiator Triumphus chafed under the infre-
quency of munera. His comment has become famous: ‘How our beautiful
age perishes!’157 The philosopher Epictetus gives more details about how
imperial gladiators reacted to infrequent appearances in the arena:

. . . among the imperial gladiators, there are some who are annoyed because
no one leads them forth [from the ludus], or pairs them in fights and they
pray to the god and they approach their procurators with requests to fight in
the arena.158

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This was the reputation of the imperial gladiators, which led Roman specta-
tors to look forward to their appearance in the arena. Perhaps we get the
best sense of how imperial gladiators were viewed by Roman spectators
from Suetonius’ mention of a standing promise that the emperor Domitian
had made to spectators at the annual quaestorian games in December: to
present two pairs of his imperial gladiators, if requested by the crowd.159
This favour of Domitian was in accordance with a custom of allowing
the crowd to request gladiators in addition to those who had been adver-
tised before the munus. The added gladiators were called postulaticii
(‘requested’) in contrast to the scheduled combatants, who were known as
ordinarii. It might be interesting to speculate on Domitian’s motivations
for this promise. First, Domitian had a strong interest in spectacles,
especially gladiatorial games, which he spruced up with novelties, such as
presenting gladiatorial games at night with female and dwarf gladiators.160
Moreover, Domitian had revived the annual quaestorian games in Decem-
ber, which had not been given for about a decade, so he must have felt some
responsibility for their success.161 The board of quaestors, who were legally
required to finance the December munus, were relatively young magistrates
(in their early thirties) on the lowest rung of the Roman political ladder.
The quaestors may not always have had the financial resources to rent the
best gladiators, so their shows may have gained the reputation of falling
below the standard set by the munera of the emperor. Suetonius records
one occasion when the quaestors’ munus may not have pleased the specta-
tors, because they took Domitian up on his promise. In response, the em-
peror ordered two pairs of gladiators from his imperial school to appear last
in the arena, probably to give the munus a grand finale and make the crowd
forget what had gone before. Suetonius’ description of their appearance is
brief but significant: they appeared ‘in imperial splendor’, a phrase that must
refer to the impressive armour they were wearing, which no doubt gleamed
in the bright sunlight.162 We can imagine the rest. They were most likely
carrying their helmets as they entered the arena, as gladiators usually did
when they marched into the arena in procession, and in all probability were
better-looking than the ordinary gladiator.163 Beauty of face and body was
much valued, especially in imperial gladiators, and was reflected in their
monetary value.164 There must have been great excitement among the
crowd at the appearance of these four gladiators. This initial thrill of their
appearance was no doubt soon replaced by the anticipation of two great

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fights as one would expect of gladiators with superior fighting skills and
great professional pride. Although Suetonius does not record anything
about the duels themselves, we may presume that the crowd enjoyed the
fights immensely, especially if the preceding part of the show had been dis-
appointing. Given the pride that Domitian no doubt took in his familia
gladiatoria, it is somewhat ironic that gladiators from his school took part
in his assassination.165

The imperial ludus

Early in the first century AD, imperial gladiators were housed in pre-exist-
ing schools in Ravenna and Capua, but more imperial schools were
needed, especially in Rome. Around the middle of the first century AD, two
schools had been built in Rome that had no specific name besides ludus,
one for gladiators and one for beast fighters. After the building of the
Colosseum (dedicated in AD 80) in the heart of the city, there was a need
to centralize the housing and training of gladiators near their place of
performance. It made sense to build a school immediately adjacent to the
Colosseum rather than having to transport gladiators a long distance from
imperial schools in Praeneste and Capua. Late in his reign, Domitian
(AD 81–96) may have begun to restore the existing gladiator school, but
more likely he began to build a completely new structure. Its name was the
Ludus Magnus, but before it was completed, he was assassinated. Trajan
started the building all over again and it was finally finished under his
successor, Hadrian. Domitian built two other gladiatorial schools in
roughly the same area: the Ludus Gallus and the Ludus Dacicus (their exact
location is not known). There is hardly any evidence available beyond the
mere mention of these schools, but the former was probably for training
Gallic prisoners of war and the latter for training Dacians, who must have
been plentiful at Rome after the two military expeditions Domitian had
sent against Dacia. There were even more Dacian prisoners after Trajan’s
two successful campaigns there in the early second century. Included in
this complex was an armamentarium (a gladiatorial armoury), a sani-
tarium (hospital), a spoliarium and a choragium, a warehouse for stage
properties used in the arena.
The Ludus Magnus was built adjacent to the Colosseum to which it was
connected by an underground passageway to allow gladiators to make their

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way to the arena without being seen and to transport animals to the arena
without having to take them through the streets. As its name indicates, it
was a huge structure, undoubtedly the largest in the empire, which housed
hundreds of gladiators, a large staff of trainers, referees, medical doctors,
masseurs, armourers, maintenance personnel, administrative officials and
their staff, and other functionaries. We know the names of two low-level
managers of the Ludus Magnus, Nymphodotus and Hyacinthus. A man
named Tigris served as a courier. A certain Demosthenes was a maker of the
manica (perhaps also at the Ludus Magnus), a protective sleeve worn by
gladiators. One of the most respected positions in the ludus were the trainer/
referees, former gladiators who had distinguished themselves in the arena
and had been granted release from fighting and their freedom (more in
Chapter 3). Trophimus was the name of a secunda rudis (instructor/referee
second class) in the Ludus Magnus as probably was Q. Titius Lathricus.
Cornelius Eugenianus and Flavius Sigerus, each a summa rudis (instructors/
referees first class), the former in Rome and the latter in Mauretanian
Caesarea (North Africa). Another important functionary was the herald,
whose job it was to communicate with the crowd in the arena. We do not
have the name of a herald at the Ludus Magnus, but we meet a herald in an
epitaph, T. Claudius Celer, who had served in that position in Ancona
(central Italy) and whose burial was taken care of by a secunda rudis named
Beryllus and all the officials of the ludus.166
Except for its monumental size, the plan of the Ludus Magnus is very
much like that of the gladiatorial barracks of Pompeii, a structure with a
central exercise area surrounded by living quarters (cells) for the gladiators
attached to the inside of the outer walls (Figure 2). The one difference is
that the exercise ground of the Ludus Magnus is surrounded by seating
arranged in the oval shape of an amphitheatre. As one might expect, the
arena of the Ludus is significantly smaller than that of the Colosseum, but
still about the size of arenas outside of Rome. The seating could accom-
modate as many as three thousand spectators, who could indulge their
fascination with gladiators on a daily basis, watching them practise.167 This
is a good indication that fan interest was generated not just by bloodshed
and death but also by an appreciation of the art of fencing, since gladia-
tors practised with wooden swords or blunted metal swords. Imperial glad-
iators at last had a home worthy of their talents in the greatest city of the
empire.

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Figure 2 A model of the Ludus Magnus showing the three tiers of gladiator quarters and the
practice arena with seating Rome, Museo della Civiltà Romana. © Jona Lendering; from
www.Livius.org, with permission

The high costs of gladiators

The steady rise in prices of gladiators during the late Republic and the early
empire was fuelled by a mounting demand for them. One only has to com-
pare the 4,000 sesterces required as a minimum expenditure for a munus
given by the authorities in the Roman colony of Urso (modern Osuna) in
Spain (middle 40s BC) with the cheapest category of munus offered free to
the public (30,000–60,000 sesterces), as stipulated by imperial legislation
late in the reign of Marcus Aurelius (AD 161–80).168 Of course, allowance
has to be made for inflation over a more than two-century period, but it
should be noted that the figures given in the legislation were price controls
establishing prices lower than they had been in the past.
As we shall see, almost every editor wanted to surpass his predecessors in
the quantity and quality of his munera. Fortunes were lost in pursuit of big-
ger and better munera. During the early imperial period, there were attempts

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to prevent prodigal spending on munera. When Augustus gave the board of

praetors control of munera, he tried to minimize the financial problems they
might face by assigning them an appropriation from the imperial treasury to
help defray their costs. He also forbade any one of the praetors to spend
more than his colleagues and limited them to two munera a year with no
more than sixty pairs of gladiators.169 Augustus wanted to ensure that there
would be no more ruinous competition among aristocrats with each trying
to outdo his rivals at any cost. Tiberius, followed his adoptive father’s policy
in this matter. He decreed a reduction in the expenses of gladiatorial shows
by strictly limiting the number gladiators in a munus.170
Competition among wealthy elites in the provinces, however, continued
unabated and uncontrolled. By the end of the second century AD, the situ-
ation had reached a crisis. High priests of the imperial cult in various cities
of the provinces were being bankrupted by their sponsorship of munera
associated with the worship of the emperor.171 We hear from one aristocrat
in Gaul, who considered his fortune lost when he was appointed high priest
and appealed to the emperors to be released from this onerous financial
burden.172 This complaint is contained in a famous inscription engraved
in bronze called the Aes Italicense (‘the bronze from Italica’), which was
found in an amphitheatre near the Roman town of Italica in Spain (near
Seville).173 This inscription contains a record of a Senate discussion of a
proposed decree of the co-emperors Marcus Aurelius and his son Com-
modus limiting the size of munera and the prices of gladiators in the
provinces and outlines in detail how this is to be accomplished.174 Imperial
policy had contributed to the problem when Aurelius drafted gladiators into
his armies fighting barbarian invasions from the north, creating a shortage
in gladiators and a steep rise in their value.175 The government also had
imposed a 25–33 per cent tax on money made by lanistae on the rental of
gladiators, who in turn passed this business expense on to their customers
by increasing their prices for gladiators.176 This tax brought an estimated
60–120 million sesterces annually into the imperial treasury, which muner-
arii throughout the empire were paying on top of the already inflated cost
of the gladiators. David Bomgardner estimates the modern value of the
tax at approximately £375 million–£750 million, or roughly $690 million–
$1.5 billion.177 This meant that munerarii throughout the empire were
spending an enormous amount of money just on gladiators, not including
the other major expense of a munus: the importation of animals for the

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venationes along with other necessary expenses. Thus, the emperors decided
to repeal this tax and place controls on the prices of gladiators to protect
munerarii from financial ruin.178
The emperors’ proposal involved the creation of categories of munera
and gladiators according to cost. The categories are differentiated according
to the amount of money the editor was willing to spend, with subdivisions
consisting of prices permitted for gladiators of various levels of quality, from
high to low (except for the highest category in which the prices of gladiators
are listed from low to high). The legislation does not take into account dif-
ferent types of gladiators (retiarii, secutores, etc.) and mentions only briefly
munera assiforana, which were small gladiatorial shows given for profit,
perhaps with the lanista as editor.179 These shows were to retain their old
limit in cost of 30,000 sesterces.180
Below, categories 1–4 refer to the range of the total cost of a show,
while items a–e refer to classes of gladiators according to cost per gladiator.
The first two categories of munera allow the editor to choose among three
classes of gladiators, while the last two categories have five. (HS is the
Roman abbreviation for sesterces.) As Michael Carter argues persuasively,
the reason for this discrepancy is that the relative costs of gladiators in the
legislation is based on the four palus ranks in the ludus, discussed earlier
with the addition of the tiro class, the gladiator in training with no experi-
ence in the arena.181 For example, in 1 and 2 below, c would be the cost of
the tiro, b of the fourth palus and a of the third palus. The reason for the
absence of the second and first palus in 1 and 2 is that it would be financially
foolish to risk upper-level gladiators in these low-priced shows. As one
would expect, all four categories of the palus ranking system (along with the
tiro class) are accounted for in the five price levels of the two most expens-
ive shows.

1) 31,000 to 60,000 HS
a. 5,000 HS
b. 4,000 HS
c. 3,000 HS
2) 60,000 to 100,000 HS
a. 8,000 HS
b. 6,000 HS
c. 5,000 HS

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3) 100,000 to 150,000 HS
a. 12,000 HS
b. 10,000 HS
c. 8,000 HS
d. 6,000 HS
e. 5,000 HS
4) 150,000 to 200,000 HS
a. 6,000 HS
b. 7,000 HS
c. 9,000 HS
d. 12,000 HS
e. 15,000 HS182

The key provision to limiting spending is the requirement that the editor
choose an equal number of gladiators from each class from high to low to
counteract the tendency of editores to select only the most expensive gladia-
tors to produce the best quality show. There is one other provision: in ad-
dition to the gladiators who fight in duels, the munerarius must rent an
equal number of fighters called gregarii (‘fighters in a group’) who fight in
small infantry skirmishes. These gladiators naturally were inferior in quality
to the duellers. This difference is reflected in their price: 2,000 sesterces for
a team leader and not less than 1,000 sesterces apiece for the rest. This pro-
vision of the legislation seems to be an attempt to ‘beef up’ the munus with-
out significantly greater expense to compensate for the smaller number of
duelling gladiators the munerarius would be able to hire. One illustrative
example should be sufficient to explain how this system works. Suppose that
the munerarius was willing to spend between 150,000 and 200,000 sester-
ces on gladiators who fought in pairs, the most expensive of the four
categories of show (category 4 above). First, one needs a sense of perspec-
tive to appreciate how much the new imperial legislation benefited an
editor of a high quality munus. In the middle of the first century AD, a char-
acter in Petronius speaks of a local patron in an unnamed Italian town being
able to spend 400,000 sesterces on a munus.183 Compare this outlay (which
would have been significantly higher over a century later) to the cap of
200,000 sesterces allowed by law for the most costly munus. In order to
keep within the prescribed range for expenditures on gladiators, he could

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choose three gladiators from each of the five classes, which would come to a
total of 147,000 sesterces for fifteen gladiators, seven pairs with one gladia-
tor to serve as a replacement. In addition, he would have to choose fifteen
gregarii at a minimum of 1,000 sesterces apiece, except for the team leader,
who would get 2,000 sesterces, for a total of 16,000 sesterces. The grand
total would be 163,000 sesterces.184 Besides the benefit of lower expendi-
ture for a munus, another effect of these stipulations was to forestall accu-
sations of stinginess against the editor for giving a bare bones show. After all,
he was just following the law.
The problem with the model of the ratio of price to number of gladia-
tors suggested above is that seven matches seems arguably much too low a
number for the highest quality munus of the high priest at Pergamum, the
most prominent provincial centre of the imperial cult in the Greek east, if
not in the whole empire. There is, however, another possibility. Michael
Carter maintains that these prices were not for the lease of the gladiators,
but in fact represented their purchase value. He points out that the prices
given in the legislation are comparable to the purchase prices of other kinds
of slave performers. Thus, the lease price would be a percentage of the
overall value of the gladiator. The lease rate for each gladiator would not
be fixed, but determined by negotiation between the lanista and the repre-
sentative of the high priest, anywhere from as low as 2 per cent to as high as
20 per cent or more. (Carter argues that the editor would not have wanted
to have direct contact with the lowly lanista, who, like his charges, was con-
taminated with infamia.)185 Some gladiators in the same price level would
command a higher lease rate, while others would be leased at a lower
rate.186 It would all depend on the results of the bargaining. For the sake of
argument, suppose that these two bargainers were negotiating in the con-
text of the most expensive munus (category 4 above) and decided on an
average lease rate of 10 per cent for the trained gladiators. This rate would
allow the editor to hire twenty trained gladiators in each price class, a total
of one hundred gladiators. The cost would be 98,000 sesterces for the
trained gladiators and 101,000 sesterces for an equal number of gregarii,
amounting to a total of 199,000 sesterces. Raise the average lease rate to
15 per cent and the total number of gladiators and gregarii would fall to
eighty, while a 20 per cent lease rate would buy the services of sixty-five
from both groups. These numbers of combatants would have been more in

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keeping with the quality of show expected of the high priests in provincial
centres. There is, however, an unknown factor here. Did the 200,000 ses-
terces cap include just the combatants or all the expenses of the munus like
those outlined by Carter?

. . . officials to oversee the combats, animals for a venatio, and perhaps con-
victs (damnati) to be publicly executed . . ., not mention the costs of adver-
tisement, gifts to be distributed to the people and preparing the
amphitheatre . . . for the show.187

If the cap included all expenses for the munus, the editor would have had to
scale back dramatically the numbers of leased gladiators mentioned above to
keep within the cap. Another expense of the editor cited by Carter (which
likely did not count under the cap) is the huge sum that the editor would
have had to put on deposit upfront to reimburse the lanista with the full
purchase price for any gladiators seriously injured or killed in the munus.
The editor could control this post-munus expense to some degree by ignor-
ing the request of spectators to kill losing gladiators, but this practice came
with the serious risk of losing the favour of the people, which he was seek-
ing to win with the munus. On the other hand, however, the lower expen-
ditures thanks to the legislation might have encouraged some editores to
make more crowd-pleasing decisions.
Given the fact that the financial tables had been turned on the lanistae
and they were feeling the crunch of lower prices for their product, it is likely
that they would have held out for higher lease rates, especially in the case of
editores willing to spend the highest amount of money allowed by the new
law. The new limits on spending for munera represented a steep decline in
cash flow for the lanista in comparison with the munera of the past. More-
over, some lanistae still owed back taxes on gladiator sales to the amount of
more than 5 million sesterces, a debt that Marcus Aurelius and his son
Commodus had proposed to forgive, at least in part, to relieve the financial
pressure that their new decree put on the lanistae.188
Another cost-saving measure of this legislation applied only to Roman
Gaul. There was an ancient and eagerly anticipated sacrificial ritual involv-
ing the death of victims called trinqui at spectacles given during the cel-
ebration of the imperial cult at Lyons, where the council of the three Gauls
(Lucdunum, Belgica and Aquitania) convened. The measure put controls
on the price that provincial procurators could charge lanistae for damnati

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to serve as trinqui (six gold coins or 600 sesterces per man) and on the price
that lanistae could charge the high priests of the imperial cult who served as
munerarii (2,000 sesterces per man).189 This price control was very benefi-
cial to the Gallic munerarii, who undoubtedly did not want to disappoint
spectators by reducing the size of, or even omitting, this traditional part of
the festivities. In 1955, Oliver and Palmer proposed a theory that the
cheaper prices for damnati explains the famous persecution of Christians
at Lyons in AD 177, who, instead of expensive gladiators, were used as
trinqui.190 This theory enjoyed general acceptance for a time, but in 1972
Musurillo pointed out that there is no support for this thesis in the ancient
sources and other scholars proposed other more compelling reasons for the
executions of Christians at Lyons.191
There was one other measure in this legislation that dealt with the
financial plight of the provincial high priests. The decree sanctioned an in-
formal practice of high priests in various provinces, which effectively passed
over the lanista in the process of obtaining gladiators. In order to cut the
costs of hiring gladiators, priests in some provinces, upon entering office,
bought gladiators who had been purchased and trained by their predeces-
sors. At the end of his term, he then would sell the gladiators to his suc-
cessor at a higher price. The only stipulation that the decree adds is that the
sale prices must follow its dictates, which were primarily designed to restrain
the greed of lanistae.192 Another benefit of the new legislation was the re-
placements for injured and dead gladiators for priestly familiae could be
purchased from lanistae at more reasonable prices.
We do not know how effective this legislation was in solving the econ-
omic crisis. One would guess that it must have had at least temporary
success, but more economic problems were coming. Inflation was creating
a major economic problem during the third century as evidenced by
Diocletian’s edict in AD 301, which set maximum prices, in all probability
including outlay for gladiators.193 The cost of a munus was still a major
problem in the late fourth century. A letter from the city prefect of Rome,
Symmachus, to the emperors Theodosius and Arcadius in the late fourth
century speaks of a need to limit expenses for shows including munera and
warns of the possibility of wealthy men leaving the city to avoid the expense
of a munus.194

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Chapter 3

Gladiator Games
in Action


Preliminaries

T he munus, whether large or small, required elaborate preparation. The

editor had to allow sufficient time for procuring a worthy gladiator
troupe and all the apparatus necessary for putting on a show. Machinery
and stage properties were part of the tradition of munera, especially in
amphitheatres with an underground area. Procrastination by the editor could
only result in a cancelled show. The architect Vitruvius stresses promptness
as an essential quality of the sponsor of a munus:

This fault [of the patron not being able to finish the task] exists not only
in the case of constructing buildings but also in shows that are given by
magistrates in the forum, whether of gladiators or of stage plays. To these
magistrates neither delay nor postponement is allowed, but necessity compels
them to complete the different aspects of the project in a limited amount of
time, such as seats for the spectators, the putting in place of the awnings,
and whatever, in accordance with the practices of show business, is provided
for the people by means of machinery for their viewing pleasure.1

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Advertisement
After obtaining gladiators by rent or purchase, one of the editor’s first
concerns was the advertisement of his upcoming show. This involved
having professional painters paint announcements called edicta munerum
(‘announcements of gladiator shows’) on the walls of houses and public
buildings. We know a good deal about these edicta from inscriptions in and
around Pompeii. These announcements regularly contain the following in-
formation: the name of the editor, his credentials, the reason for the show,
the contents of the show, the town or city in which show will be given,
date(s), and any special features that might make the munus more appealing
to potential spectators.2 Sometimes the editor adds a condition to the date.
An editor in his advertisement of a munus that was going to take place in
late February or early March (the damaged text of the inscription is unclear
on this matter) indicates to prospective spectators that the munus will be
held on these dates only ‘if the weather allows’.3 This was a prudent warn-
ing for a munus given in these late winter months. On the other hand,
another editor, advertising a munus to take place in July when he could be
more confident of good weather, announces that his show will be held on
the assigned date ‘come rain or shine’.4 The price of a seat never appears
because, as noted earlier, almost all munera, whether in Rome or in the rest of
the empire, were given as gifts to the citizens by prominent members of the
community. The information given by these edicta is presented in hierarchi-
cal form from more to less important. The gladiatorial combat as the main
feature of the munus is always mentioned first after the name of the editor,
but no individual names of the gladiators are given unless their fame made
them an extraordinary attraction.5 Even imperial gladiators, except on
rare occasions, are only referred to by their title: Iulianus or Neronianus.
The beast hunt (venatio), a morning prelude to the afternoon gladiator
show, is usually mentioned next, and with gladiatorial combat forms the
nucleus of the munus legitimum (‘a proper munus’).6 The most common
added feature of munera is the presence of awnings, which were most desir-
able in the spring and summer, when spectators needed to be shaded from the
hot Mediterranean sun.7 Most munera were held in the spring, but awnings
were not guaranteed by every editor, even at warmer times of the year.8 As one
would expect, awnings were not usually provided in the late autumn or win-
ter, but there are even exceptions to this rule.9 A less common added feature

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Figure 3 Edictum of D. Lucretius Satrius Valens. Inscription painted in red in Region IX, insula 8
in Pompeii. Upon authorization of the Italian Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Environment

is the sparsio (literally, ‘scattering’ or ‘sprinkling’) which entails the distri-

bution of gifts and/or the sprinkling of perfumed (with saffron) water on
the crowd.10 The introductory parade (pompa) of gladiators led by the
editor, was not often included in advertisement. Perhaps it was such a regu-
lar feature of the munus that it seemed unnecessary to advertise it. One in-
scription does mention the pompa, but the show advertised lacks a gladiator
show and consists only of secondary features such as a venatio, Greek sports,
and sparsiones.11 Thus the mention of the pompa is probably included be-
cause the editor wanted to inform his prospective spectators that, despite the
absence of gladiators, the pompa would still be included in his show, but on
this occasion consisting only of arena hunters and the other participants.12
An interesting example of an edictum muneris is the one advertising a
munus given at Pompeii by a certain D. Lucretius Satrius Valens (Figure 3).13
A translation of the inscription reads as follows:

Twenty pairs of gladiators of D. Lucretius Satrius Valens, priest for life

[flamen perpetuus] of Nero Caesar, [adopted] son of Augustus [the
Emperor Claudius], and ten pairs of gladiators of his son D. Lucretius
Valens will fight at Pompeii from April 8 to 12.14 There will also be a
proper [legitima] beast hunt and awnings.

Note that Lucretius specifies the number of pairs he and his son will pre-
sent. Lucretius undoubtedly gives this information because thirty pairs of
gladiators was a large number for a munus outside of Rome, and the quan-
tity of gladiators was an important feature of a munus. If these matches were
spread out evenly, there would be six matches a day for the five-day period.

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Often no specific numbers are given in these edicta, which no doubt indi-
cates that the number of pairs involved was not terribly impressive, other-
wise the exact number would have been proudly proclaimed. The usual
formula when specific numbers are not given is that ‘a gladiatorial troupe
(familia gladiatoria) of so and so will fight at Pompeii . . .’.15 The mention
of Lucretius’ office as flamen of the emperor Nero reveals that he, as chief
priest of the imperial cult, belongs to the most elite level of Pompeian
society. The venatio is called legitima for the same reason as the number of
pairs of gladiators is mentioned: to set off this munus from other lesser
shows. A venatio legitima was one that included all the animals that a spec-
tator could expect: large cats, bulls, bears, deer and boar.16 It is clear that
Lucretius had opened up his deep pockets and had spent very generously
for this munus. In the inscription, his abbreviated praenomen (like our first
name) and his surname appear in large capital letters, an indication of the
pride that Lucretius took in his presentation. These large letters are also
meant to catch the eye of the passer-by. Note that the awnings are provided
even in the middle of April. This inscription is also notable because of
the information that the painter included within and to the right of the
edictum: SCR CELER (‘Celer painted this’) surrounded by the curve of
the C of Lucretius and SCR AEMILIUS CELER SING AD LUNA
(‘Aemilius Celer painted this all by himself by the light of the moon’).17
The painting of this announcement in the middle of the night no doubt was
intended to give Pompeians a pleasant surprise as they noticed the edictum
early the next morning. Celer, indicating twice that he was the painter of
this edictum in addition to mentioning the difficulty of the task, manages to
give this advertisement for a munus the additional function of billboard for
his own services.
An edictum of Nigidius Maius, another outstanding citizen of Pompeii,
announces a munus with an editor’s proudest boast: that all expenses for the
show will come from his own pocket with no contribution from the town
treasury:

Twenty pairs of gladiators and substitutes [suppositicii], presented by the

quinquennalis, Cn. Alleius Nigidius Maius without any cost to the citi-
zenry, will fight at Pompeii.18

It is odd that this inscription does not mention the date(s) of its presen-
tation. I have no satisfactory explanation for this omission. Perhaps this

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inscription was an early general announcement which was followed up by a

later and more specific one. The reference to ‘substitutes’ (suppositicii) has
been interpreted in various ways. Some take it to mean that the winner of
each of the twenty matches presented by Nigidius would have to fight
another gladiator. The problem is that this arrangement would double the
number of matches and the editor would have to rent sixty gladiators in-
stead of just forty. It would in all probability have doubled the length of the
spectacle.19 More likely, these suppositicii were replacements that the editor
employed under certain circumstances to maintain the goodwill of the spec-
tators. For example, a suppositicius might replace a gladiator who had
fought badly and lost very quickly or perhaps had been incapacitated in
some way before the match. A suppositicius might even be called upon to
test the endurance and ability of a winning gladiator who had revealed ex-
traordinary strength and skill in the previous match. There might even be a
less worthy motive. On one occasion, the emperor Caracalla forced a gladi-
ator named Bato to fight two suppositicii after winning his first match. Not
surprisingly, Bato was killed in the third match and in recognition of his per-
formance was honoured by the emperor with a splendid funeral. Cassius
Dio attributes Caraclla’s use of substitutes in this case to his desire to see as
much blood as possible in the arena.20
Nigidius most likely provided an unstated number of back-ups but
probably not one for every match. This promise of substitutes reassured
spectators that they were likely to see twenty good matches. He employed
this back-up policy in at least one other munus.21 Martial uses the term
suppositicius in his praise of the great gladiator Hermes: ‘Hermes is alone a
substitute for himself ’.22 What Martial means is that there is no one who
can replace Hermes and thus a suppositicius is unnecessary when he fights.23
There is another term, tertiarius (literally, ‘third), which at first might seem
synonymous with suppositicius, but is not. Tertiarius appears in a passage in
Petronius’ Satyricon in which the speaker criticizes an editor for his parsimo-
nious ways:

He presented horsemen [equites] as small as those who appear in lamp dec-

orations, you would think them farmyard roosters, one as thin as a rail, the
other, bow-legged, another gladiator, a tertiarius, was a dead man who re-
placed a dead man, who had torn tendons. Another was a thraex of some
quality, but he fought mechanically.24

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A tertiarius (‘third man’) would seem to be different from a suppositicius,

who only fought when needed. The tertiarius was probably scheduled from
the beginning to fight the winner of a given match. It is significant that the
tertiarius appears in this passage complaining about a stingy editor. The
device of the tertiarius allowed the editor to present more matches at lower
cost, in essence two matches for the price of three, rather than four, gladia-
tors. In the Petronius passage above, the tertiarius, like the other gladiators
in the show, was worthless, virtually a dead man like the corpse he replaced.
On the other hand, it would make sense that the tertiarius would usually
have the advantage, since most winners of the first match were likely to be
in no condition to give the fresher tertiarius a good fight.25 In either case,
the participation of a tertiarius virtually assured a match of diluted quality,
but significant savings for the editor. An editor named Nonius Bassus pro-
vides another example of parsimony. An honorific commemoration of a
munus he presented calls the forty scheduled pairs of gladiators he pre-
sented ordinarii, a term that means only the gladiators scheduled to appear
fought.26 He did not follow the generous custom that allowed the crowd to
request the editor to add unscheduled matches at the end of the munus. As
we have seen in the previous chapter, gladiators who fought in these extra
duels were called postulaticii (‘request gladiators’).27
There is an additional comment to right of the text of the Nigidius
Maius edictum (not included in the translation above) that is difficult to
make complete sense of, but it is clearly an encomium to a certain Telephus,
identified as a summa rudis (often written as one word: summarudis). He is
complimented as an ‘ornament of the munus’. The rudis was a wooden rod
awarded by a munerarius to a gladiator, which symbolized his permanent
release from service as a gladiator. Modern texts sometimes mistakenly call
the rudis a wooden sword. The confusion stems from the use of the word
rudis for both instruments, but the wooden sword used as a training device
is always in the plural in Latin (rudes) with a singular meaning whereas the
rod is always in the singular (rudis).28
The recipient of the rudis was known as a rudiarius. This reward was
generally proclaimed by an editor urged on by the crowd during the
munus.29 The title of summarudis (‘retired gladiator first class’) was given
only to the most distinguished of these rudiarii. They served as instructors
in gladiatorial schools and/or referees of gladiator combats.30 (The word is
commonly used with the latter meaning.) As is evident from this inscription,

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these retired gladiators were greatly revered in the west and in the Greek
east. There is an epitaph of a summarudis named Aelius inscribed on an altar
in Ancyra (modern Ankara), whom the epitaph describes as ‘an illustrious
citizen of Pergamum’ and ‘belonging to an association of retired gladiators
first class in Rome’.31 The inscription goes on to list other important Greek
cities that had honored him with citizenship, such as Thessalonika, Nicome-
dia, Larisa, Philippopolis, Apros, Berge, Thasos and Byza. To be awarded
citizenship in a city not of one’s birth was one of the highest honours in the
ancient world. It is interesting to see what a difference a distinguished re-
tirement made in the life of gladiator, who would never have been hon-
oured in this way during his active career.32 Removed from the infamia of a
career as a gladiator, the summarudis became eligible for public honours.
Rudiarii also enjoyed significant prestige. There was a strong demand for
their appearance in the arena as gladiators. In the 20s BC, Tiberius paid
100,000 sesterces each to rudiarii to fight in funeral munera for his father
and grandfather.33 Appearance fees for rudiarii could go as high as
240,000 sesterces.34

Anticipation of the munus

A munus at Rome or anywhere else in the empire was a much anticipated
event and this expectation was at least in part due the sporadic presentations
of munera. It is sometimes wrongly assumed that gladiator games were
almost a daily event in Rome, but this is far from the truth. In the Republic
and the imperial period, gladiator games were a relative rarity, even under
emperors who were active givers of spectacles, and that rarity was an im-
portant factor in the popularity of the games.35 When Augustus gave con-
trol over the presentation of state-sponsored munera to the board of
praetors, he forbade them to give a munus more than twice a year. Later in
the first century AD, when the organization of these regularly scheduled
gladiator games was transferred to the board of quaestors, the quaestors
gave one munus annually in December. But even these regularly scheduled
munera were suspended occasionally, depending on the whim of the em-
peror. All other munera were one-time events produced on special occa-
sions by the emperor or sponsors favoured and approved by him, although,
by the end of the first century AD, the giving of munera was virtually the
province of the emperor alone. Even imperially sponsored munera might be

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suspended for long periods if an emperor, like Tiberius, was not particularly
fond of gladiatorial games or a bloodless version substituted, as in the case
of Marcus Aurelius. In towns of Italy, grass-roots pressure from the people
was frequently a factor in inducing local elite, especially those whom they
had entrusted with public office, to give a munus along with other enter-
tainments. The formulaic phrase ‘at the request of the people’ (postulante
populo or its equivalent) is often found in inscriptions praising these patrons
for obliging their fellow citizens.36 These inscriptions sometimes stress how
quickly the patron responded favourably to the will of the people.37 This is
not to say, however, that there were not elites who were more than willing
to take the initiative in return for the gratitude and favour of their fellow
citizens. One sponsor in the town of Circeii (modern San Felice Circeo),
apparently without any pressure from the people, built an amphitheatre at
his own expense, and dedicated it with gladiatorial combat and a venatio.38
When L. Flavius Silva Nonius Bassus, one of Vespasian’s generals (and him-
self a Flavian), built an amphitheatre for his fellow citizens in Urbs Salvia
(modern Urbisaglia) and dedicated it with a munus, he was no doubt in-
spired by Vespasian’s building of the Colosseum and Titus’ dedicatory
munus rather by than any demands of the people.39
The emotional involvement of the people with a munus began when the
show was first advertised, and grew to a fever pitch until the munus took
place. The anticipation might be compared to a child’s impatient wait for
Christmas to come. Seneca uses the example of an approaching munus to
illustrate the psychological condition of someone anticipating a future plea-
sure: ‘Just as when the day of a gladiatorial munus is announced . . . they
wish that the intervening days fly by. Every delay of an anticipated event is
impossibly long’.40 The excitement aroused by an upcoming munus can
also be seen, and even felt, in this passage from Apuleius’ Metamorphoses
about an imminent munus in Greece:

There [in Plataea, a city in Greece] we heard frequent rumour about a cer-
tain Demochares, who was about to give a gladiatorial munus. He was a
man from the noblest of families and extremely wealthy and outstanding in
his generosity; he was going to provide pleasures for the people with a splen-
dour worthy of his wealth. Who has a sufficient gift of eloquence to be able to
describe in suitable words each and every aspect of the varied magnificence
[of his show]? 41

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A passage in Petronius’ Satryicon describes in detail what excites the average

man about an upcoming munus. It would appear that the speaker has seen
an advertisement of the munus and cannot contain his enthusiasm. Besides
the guarantee of significant bloodshed and death, the central attraction, the
editor had promised the appearance of dwarf gladiators and a female chariot
fighter (essedaria) as exotic sideshows. Perhaps even more tantalizing is the
scheduled execution of a slave steward for having had sex with his master’s
wife. As a feature of the venatio, he will be thrown to the wild animals (ad
bestias), but what is even better, his execution will provoke a dispute be-
tween two factions in the crowd. One faction consists of jealous husbands
expressing satisfaction at the death of a slave caught in adultery with his
master’s wife; the other, characterized as ‘lovers’, will support the slave, ex-
cusing him because the master’s wife is a slut and had probably forced him
to have sex with her. No doubt, many public executions were routine and
not terribly interesting to the crowd, but here, the acquaintance of the spec-
tators with the details of the slave’s offence and their different opinions
about the execution would make this event even more interesting and ex-
citing.42 Enthusiastic anticipation was notably evident when Julius Caesar
was about to present his grand triumphal games in 46 BC. No inconvenience
was enough to discourage attendance at these games, especially the munus.
Fans from the towns of Italy, who came to Rome for the show, had to stay
in tents set up in the streets and along roads. The crowd was so great that
some people, including two senators, were crushed to death.43

Cena libera
Another component of the preparation for the munus was the so-called ‘free
dinner’, which was given by the editor and took place on the eve of the spec-
tacle. The word ‘free’ as applied to cena suggests to us a dinner you do not
have to pay for. Liber, however, is not used in this sense in Latin, but means
something like ‘limitless’ or ‘free from restriction’. As applied to cena, it
probably had a double connation: a dinner unlimited in quantity at which
one can indulge one’s appetite to the fullest. The invitees were all the par-
ticipants in the next day’s munus: gladiators, beast fighters and condemned
criminals (damnati) who were to be put to death in the arena the next day.
This custom seems to be in the tradition of the condemned man’s last meal,
but this was only true of the damnati.44 Gladiators and beast fighters

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probably enjoyed this meal more, since their death was by no means certain.
The menu was an enticing one, consisting of costly foods with an invitation
to indulge one’s appetite to the limit. Plutarch writes of the food ‘pleasing the
stomach’.45 One of the purposes of this dinner was the expression by the
editor of his gratitude to the participants in the show, whose suffering and
death would bring him great public favour.46 A North African mosaic from
El Djem (modern Tunisia) may show a boisterous drinking party in the am-
phitheatre following a cena libera. It depicts five partygoers reclining at
table, probably professional venatores who the next day will fight the sleep-
ing bulls depicted at the bottom of the picture. The five revellers have pre-
sumably been partaking of the wine contained in a large mixing bowl and
two jugs in front of the table, offered to them by an attendant on the right.
Above the head of each reveller is a short inscription: ‘We will take our
clothes off! We have come to drink! You all are talking too much! Let’s have
fun!’ The fifth inscription (‘We are holding three!’) is quite cryptic and
there is no satisfactory explanation of this comment. The revellers must
have been getting quite boisterous, because another attendant on the left
warns them: ‘Silence! Let the bulls sleep!’47
The cena libera was often held in a public place such as the town forum,
with tables set out in the open air.48 The meal would have taken place in the
late afternoon. The public was invited to observe the participants in this
dinner and even talk to them. The location and the involvement of the pub-
lic suggest another purpose of the cena: advertisement. The munus would
take place, or at least begin, on the next day and the anticipation of the
show was pushed to a peak by this dinner. If the public had any doubt about
attending, the cena might change their minds.
The evidence suggests that more went on at the cena libera than
overindulgent eating. A passage in Plutarch speaks of Greek gladiators ig-
noring the food and making provision for their wives by entrusting them to
their friends and freeing their slaves in the event of their death in the
arena.49 In essence, these gladiators were making their wills, showing con-
sideration for those whom they would leave behind if they were killed in the
arena. The anonymous account of the martyrdom of Perpetua and her
friends has preserved for us some interesting information about the behav-
iour of Christian damnati at a cena libera. The author of this account
describes the dinner as an expression of spiritual love (agape) among Chris-
tians rather than as a typical cena libera. That love, however, did not extend

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to pagan observers at the cena, whose curiosity obviously annoyed the

Christians. They were quick to respond harshly to the inquisitiveness of
visitors to the dinner. Citing the happiness that they will find in the next
day’s suffering, they threaten observers with the judgement of god.50
Apparently, these Christian damnati were more tolerant of pain and suffer-
ing than of attempts to humiliate them; on the other hand, they had much
to be bitter about.

The munus: events preceding gladiatorial combat

Pompa
The pompa (‘procession’) was a regular feature of the munus. It got the
munus off to a dignified start and offered an excellent opportunity for the
spectators to express with applause and shouts (acclamatio) their gratitude to
the sponsor, who led off the procession. Figure 4 is the top panel of three of
a bas-relief depiction of a pompa from Pompeii. The other panels present
the two main events of the munus: gladiatorial combat and the venatio.51
The procession, which is to be viewed from right to left, begins at the far
right of the top segment. The first person in the procession is about to enter
the arena, which is indicated by the triangular object in the upper right hand
corner, probably a representation of the awnings (vela), a frequently adver-
tised feature of the munus.52 The first two figures wearing togas at the head
of the procession are lictors, usually attendants of magistrates with executive

Figure 4 Pompeian bas-relief: pompa. Necropolis at the Stabian Gate. (The panel has been
divided into two segments, one above the other.) Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale

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powers.53 Lictors, however, may been provided as an honorary escort to

all editores, even those who were not magistrates. Behind the lictors are
three trumpeters, who provided musical accompaniment for the proces-
sion.54 Then come two armourers working on gladiatorial armament
carried on a platform by four slaves.55 The sculptor’s inclusion of armourers
in the procession is probably a reference to the examination of arms
(probatio armorum) by the editor, which took place in the arena after the
procession was finished. In this ceremony, the editor would check all gladia-
torial armament, especially the swords and daggers to see if they were sharp
enough to do real damage. We hear of the emperor Titus allowing two aris-
tocrats, who were plotting against him, to perform this task as he sat close
by them in order to assure them that he did not intend to do them any
harm.56 The next two figures are arena attendants (ministri), one carrying a
tablet, which could be used to transmit information to the spectators, and
the other a palm branch, a symbolic award given to victorious gladiators.
The figure in the toga behind the attendants is no doubt the editor himself
dressed in a toga, the star of the pompa, who is looking back at six ministri
(two on the far left of the top segment and four on the far right of the
bottom) carrying shields and helmets of the gladiators who will fight later.
Undoubtedly the gladiators themselves would have also taken part in the
actual procession but were probably omitted from the bas-relief to save
space.57 In any case, they are depicted in action in a lower panel not in-
cluded here.58 We have no information about the identity of this editor. He
could have been a duovir of Pompeii, one of the two executive officers of
the town, or a priest of the local imperial cult (like D. Lucretius Satrius
Valens above) or even a wealthy private citizen. Although the editor of a
munus was normally a man of great social and political stature in the com-
munity, wealthy freedmen occasionally gave munera in their home towns.
Not surprisingly, the poet Martial expresses contempt for these low-born
editores: ‘A shoemaker gave you a munus, cultured Bononia [modern
Bologna]; a fuller gave one for you Mutina [modern Modena]: what’s next,
an innkeeper?’59 After the attendants carrying shields and helmets comes
another attendant carrying an unidentifiable object in his left hand. Behind
him is a musician playing a short curved trumpet (lituus). The procession
ends with two ministri leading horses which will be ridden into combat by
gladiators known as ‘horsemen’ (equites), who traditionally appeared in the
opening event of the munus.

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In Lucian’s Toxaris, we hear of another kind of parade of gladiators,

called a propompē (‘a procession in advance [of the event]’), which takes
place three days before a munus presented in the city of Amastris (southern
shore of the Black Sea). This parade consists of young men hired to fight in
the munus, who march through the town’s forum beginning early in the
morning to advertise the munus.60 There is no unequivocal evidence that
processions of gladiators took place before the day of the munus in Italy for
the purpose of advertisement. It has been suggested, however, that gladia-
tors belonging to one of Julius Caesar’s assassins (D. Brutus) might have
gathered at Pompey’s theatre on the day of the assassination under the pre-
text of advertising an upcoming munus.61 If this were the case, their real
purpose would have been to protect the assassins after Caesar’s murder.

Venatio
Up until the early empire, gladiatorial combat and the venatio were, for the
most part, stand-alone events, but a kind of natural attraction gradually
brought them together so that eventually the venatio joined with the gladi-
ator show in the same day-long event.62 The venatio had much in common
with gladiatorial combat. Both involved violent fights that could end in
death for either opponent. The lives of gladiators, beast fighters and even
their animal opponents could be spared by the munerarius because of cour-
ageous fighting. All these arena performers could win fame and glory by
outstanding performances in the arena. The primary meaning of the word
venatio was ‘hunt in the wild’, but applied to a spectacle, it meant ‘a staged
hunt in the arena’.63 As a spectacle, the venatio featured human hunters
attempting to kill animals of all kinds and sizes, but especially large and dan-
gerous predators such as lions, tigers, leopards, bears and even elephants.
There were two kinds of beast fighter, a venator (‘hunter’) and a bestiarius,
literally ‘a beast man’, i.e. ‘one who fought wild animals’. The difference has
been interpreted variously, but I believe that, at least during the Republic, it
was mostly a matter of equipment and dress. The venator wore no armour
and his weapons were the venabulum (‘thrusting spear’) and the lancea
(‘a light throwing spear’), whereas the bestiarius resembled a gladiator with
helmet, shield and sword.
The arena venator wore a tunic like his real-life counterpart who pursued
prey in the wild running after his dogs (Figure 5).64 Speed was an essential

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Figure 5 Venator spears leopard. Galleria Borghese, Rome, Italy/Alinari/Bridgeman Art

Library Ltd

attribute of the hunter both in the arena and in the wild.65 Although Italian
hunters hunted small prey and even larger prey such as boar in Italy, they
did not have the experience of dealing with the kinds of large and dangerous
predators that were imported from North Africa and other parts of the em-
pire. Thus, it is not surprising that during the first century or so of the
venatio, native hunters were imported along with their prey. These foreign
hunters were familiar with the hunting of large prey such as lions, leopards
and elephants. For example, in 93 BC, Sulla gave a venatio in which one
hundred lions, a gift of King Bocchus in Mauretania (modern Morocco),
were for the first time allowed to range freely in the arena.66 The king also
sent native Mauretanian spear throwers no doubt because of their expertise
in hunting these animals back home. There were probably no hunters avail-
able in Italy who could have served as worthy opponents to these powerful
animals. Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus in 61 BC imported a hundred
Ethiopian hunters to fight the same number of Numidian bears.67 When
Pompey staged a venatio that involved a group of twenty elephants, he

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brought in skilled Gaetulian hunters (modern southern Algeria).68 When

crocodiles were first exhibited in Rome sometime in the late first century BC
or early first century AD, they were escorted by crocodile hunters from the
Egyptian town of Tentyra (modern Dendera) who supervised their display
in the arena.69 Imported hunters with long familiarity with their prey prob-
ably served another purpose: the feeding and care of the animals before the
show. By the first century AD, foreign hunters whose skills were honed in
real hunts in the wild became less necessary. A class of professional hunters
had begun to be developed in Italy, who were recruited from the same
sources as gladiators and trained in a school for arena hunters to kill large
predators.70
The bestiarius, on the other hand, was entirely a creature of the arena. In
fact, bestiarii may originally have been gladiators transferred to the venatio,
using the same armour and wielding a sword (Figure 6). Gladiators and
bestiarii were linked in the Roman mind. On one occasion a politician, ac-
cused of illegally giving a gladiatorial munus, defended himself by claiming
that the participants in his spectacle were not gladiators but bestiarii.71 Al-
though this transparently false claim was weakened by the obvious difference
between gladiator games and a venatio, this rationalization would have been
completely nonsensical if it had not been for the similarity of these two types

Figure 6 Bestiarius and venator in the Circus Maximus. Museo Nazionale Terme Rome/Gianni
Dagli Orti/The Art Archive

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of fighters. Cicero refers to gladiators and bestiarii in the same breath as

armed guards of his friend Milo.72 A speaker in Petronius’ Satyricon criticiz-
ing inept gladiators he had seen in a recent show compares them un-
favourably to bestiarii, who apparently were considered inferior sword
fighters.73 The bestiarius and the venator could appear together in the same
venatio, as can be seen in Figure 6.
It should be noted that Junkelmann sees the gladiator-like fighters who
appear in artistic representations of venationes as only a different type of
venator and points out that the heavy-armed hunter disappeared from artis-
tic representations, leaving the light-armed venator as the main human actor
in the venatio. Like most other scholars, he identifies the bestiarius as an
assistant to the venator who served as animal keepers and provoked the ani-
mals to fight in the arena.74 This indeed may have been true of the later
imperial period, but I believe that the evidence shows that the bestiarius, at
least until the mid-first century AD, had been a heavy-armed fighter of wild
animals. The incorporation of the venatio into the munus may have been a
critical factor in the demotion of the bestiarius as a heavy-armed beast fighter
to a subordinate of the venator. Perhaps the givers of this new form of
munus wanted the variety created by limiting the fighter with shield and
other armour to gladiatorial combat as a contrast to the light-armed venator
who fought without any body armour at all. Seneca twice refers to a ludus
bestiarius (‘beast fighter school’), which seems to indicate that bestiarii were
still being trained as professional beast fighters in the mid-first century, but
I suspect that this was just a popular name preserving an old usage that was
popularly applied to the official name of the school: Ludus Matutinus.75
The name used in Justinian’s Digest may reflect more accurately the charac-
ter of the animal fighters school in the imperial period: ludus venatorius
(‘the school for venatores’).76 In this period, the word bestiarius seems to
have referred primarily to someone condemned to be thrown to the beasts
(ad bestias).77 The term is appropriate to those who incurred this penalty
because they were sometimes given weapons (but no defensive armour) to
use against the beasts or were expected to fight unarmed. We know that
Julius Caesar, in 65 BC, gave silver-plated weapons to convicts who were
thrown to the beasts.78 Although silver-plating may have enhanced the look
of these weapons, it certainly would not have improved their effectiveness.
Even regular weapons given to noxii were purposely not of sufficient quality
to be effective fighting tools. The object of this penalty was to make the

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execution as entertaining as possible without interfering with its desired

result: death for the noxius.
In discussing Claudius’ interest in arena events, Suetonius links bestiarii
closely with the meridiani, literally ‘the noon people’, suggesting that
bestiarii were victims thrown to the beasts during the venatio whereas the
meridiani were noxii who incurred other forms of execution at the noonday
spectacle, which immediately followed the venatio.79 A Senecan anecdote
reveals even more clearly the bestiarius as a man who is thrown to the beasts.
In the arena, a lion recognizes his former trainer among the bestiarii and
rescues him from the other lions.80 The bestiarii here seem more to be vir-
tually helpless victims rather than professional beast fighters. A late piece of
evidence from Tertullian refers to the bestiarius ‘as an evil man’, that is, a
noxius condemned to death in the arena.81
Although the word venatio refers primarily to the battle between men
and wild animals, it is also an umbrella term that includes a number of other
events: animals fighting other animals, exhibition of exotic animals seen at
Rome for the first time, executions of noxii by being thrown ‘to the beasts’,
and presentation of performing animals. Images from the famous Zliten
mosaic provide us with important evidence about these various events of the
venatio. Sometimes those condemned to face the beasts were bound to a
stationary post in the ground or on a platform, or in a little cart (Figure 7)
or were just restrained from behind by an attendant (Figure 8). Another
way of forcing damnati to face the animals was to whip them from behind
(Figure 8), a technique sometimes used on reluctant gladiators.82
Large beasts fighting each other was a favourite attraction of the venatio.
Seneca reports that bulls and bears were often tied together and when one
animal was victorious, the other, if not dead, was then killed by a confector
(literally, ‘a finisher’), whose job it was to kill animals that had been seriously
wounded but not killed by their opponent.83 The winning animal might
even fight another day (depending on its condition).
Figure 9 shows us a bear and bull linked together with a wounded wild
ass in the lower left-hand corner. In this case, two chains attached to a metal
ring connect them, rousing both animals to a fury because of their inability
to detach themselves. A noxius is forced to perform the unenviable task of
unlinking with a curved stick these two ferocious beasts in the frenzy of
battle. In all likelihood, one or both of these animals eventually would be
provoked enough by his proximity to turn on him. The fear that the noxius

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Figure 7 Zliten mosaic: noxius in cart attacked by leopard. Villa at Dar Buc Amméra, Tripoli-
tania. Archaeological Museum, Tripoli. Roger Wood/Corbis

Figure 8 Zliten mosaic: noxius forced by man to confront a leopard. Gilles Mermet/akg-
images Ltd

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Figure 9 Zliten mosaic: bear, bull and noxius. Villa at Dar Buc Amméra, Tripolitania. Archae-
ological Museum, Tripoli. Roger Wood/Corbis

feels in attempting to accomplish this task is shown by his tentative approach.

He steps widely to keep himself at the greatest possible distance from the
animals as he tries to detach them.84
Indeed, wild animals in the arena often had to be provoked to fight each
other or human opponents. Many beasts were rendered passive when they
were released from a dark underground area into a bright sunlit arena sur-
rounded by thousands of noisy spectators. One method of spurring these
animals to action was to throw a stuffed dummy (pila) at them. There were,
however, some animals that needed little or no incentive to attack. The poet
Martial tells us of a bad-tempered rhinoceros that used a bull as a pila, a
tame tigress that tore a lion to pieces, an elephant that gored a bull, and
another rhinoceros that tossed a bull in the air.85
Another animal versus animal event of the venatio was the pursuit and
killing of deer or boar by a pack of hunting dogs (Figure 10). Ovid refers to
it in a simile as if it were a common feature of the venatio: ‘. . . just as the
deer, about to perish in the morning sand, is the prey of dogs’.86 The
‘morning sand’ is a reference to the venatio, which took place in the morn-
ing. The dogs worked in concert with a human hunter as they would in the
wild. Some of these hunting dogs achieved fame by their prowess in
the arena. In the fourth century AD, seven Scottish hounds that participated
in a venatio given by the son of Symmachus, the prefect of Rome, won

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Figure 10 Zliten mosaic: venator, deer, wild goats, dogs and boar with trainer. Villa at Dar
Buc Amméra, Tripolitania. Archaeological Museum, Tripoli. Roger Wood/Corbis

the esteem of Rome.87 In an epitaph for an arena bitch, Martial makes the
dog speak of her training administered by master trainers of the amphithe-
atre and her noble death in a fight with a huge boar.88 Figure 10 also con-
tains an example of a performing animal: a boar, which sits up on his
haunches as his trainer (perhaps a dwarf) prepares to throw an apple (?) to
him. (The trainer appears to be holding a similar fruit in his right hand
with others in reserve in a fold of his tunic.) Salvatore Aurigemma sees the
clumsy movements of this beast as a note of comedy amidst the bloody
tragedy of the amphitheatre.89
Besides the bloody violence, there was also a strong element of intellec-
tual curiosity in the Roman fascination with the venatio. This can be seen in
the pages of Pliny the Elder’s Natural History, which has considerable space
devoted to the animals of the venatio. Until the coming of the venatio, the
urban population of Rome had little chance to observe the wild animals
even in the rest of Italy, much less distant provinces. There were no public
menageries in Rome like our modern zoos. During the late Republic,
wealthy aristocrats like the famous scholar M. Terentius Varro and the great
orator Q. Hortensius Hortalus did keep private menageries (vivaria), which
consisted of animals such as hares, deer, wild sheep, boar, wild goats and

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other quadrupeds. These animals were kept to amuse guests and to provide
meat for the table.90 Nero’s vivarium on the grounds of his Golden House
(Domus Aurea) seems to have been a much larger-scale version of the late
Republican private vivarium. Suetonius tells us, without giving much detail,
that it consisted of ‘a large number of every kind of herd animal and wild
beast’.91 The only menagerie that approached the modern zoo in size and
variety was maintained by the emperor Gordian III (AD 238–244). The ani-
mals in this menagerie were meant to amuse the public, but not in a zoo.
Gordian had intended to present these animals in the arena in a celebration
of a triumph over Persia. He died before he could achieve this victory and
his vivarium fell into the hands of his successor, Philip the Arab, who used
them in a venatio in the celebration of Rome’s millennium in AD 248. Some
of the animals Philip merely presented to the public in the arena and all the
rest were killed in various animal hunts.92
As noted in Chapter 1, the venatio brought awareness to Romans of
their far-flung empire from which the great beasts of the arena had come
and gave them a sense of their domination of nature.93 The latter theme can
be found in the geographer Strabo’s comment on the gratitude of North
African nomads to Roman hunters collecting wild animals in the region for
venationes. These hunts allowed the nomads to gain control of the area and
devote themselves to the settled life of agriculturalists.94 The hunters were
so effective at their work that certain species of animals became extinct in
over-hunted regions. A fourth century AD orator expresses regret that ele-
phants had vanished from Libya, lions from Thessaly, and hippopotami
from the area of the Nile.95
Once wild animals were captured and transported to Italy, some Romans
could not resist the attempt to improve on nature, applying artificial en-
hancements to wild animals. Seneca deplores the appearance of a lion tamed
to tolerate a gilded mane, preferring an unadorned lion with an unbroken
spirit.96 In a venatio given by Gordian I in his aedileship, there were three
hundred Moorish ostriches dyed a vermillion colour.97
Roman spectators were also fascinated by the behaviour of wild animals,
whether in the heat of battle or in performing tricks. Some animals demon-
strated an intelligence that struck Romans as close to human.98 The venatio
points up a paradox of the Roman character: their appreciation of the
beauty, strength and intelligence of wild animals in contrast to their assump-
tion that it is normal and even admirable to slaughter them for pleasure.99

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The givers of venationes were proud of the large numbers of animals slain at
their own shows to entertain the people. Augustus in his Res Gestae boasts
that in the twenty-six venationes he had given during his rule, approximately
3,500 animals were killed. He takes pains to point out that these were
African animals, that is, he had gone to the great expense of obtaining
exotic large predators such as lions and leopards and not local animals such
as boar, hares and deer.100 This impressive number, however, was far sur-
passed by Titus during the dedications of the Colosseum and his Baths
when 9,000 animals were killed, and later in the early second century AD
during the celebration of Trajan’s victory over the Dacians, when, in shows
over a period of 123 days, 11,000 animals were slaughtered.101
A detailed account of a typical venatio survives from the late empire con-
tained in a letter from the ostrogothic ruler of Italy, Theodoric (AD 493–526)
to the consul Maximus, composed by his secretary Cassiodorus.102 In the
absence of any earlier such accounts, the description is valuable as a represen-
tation of the state of the venatio in the last stage of its history. The account of
a venatio does not describe the killing of any animals. An earlier part of the
letter, however, does mention the awful fate that arena-hunters could suffer
when confronted by wild beasts:

And if [the hunter] is not good enough to escape from a wild animal, he
will not be able to have a proper burial: with the man still alive, his body
perishes and before the body can be be properly disposed of, it is savagely
eaten. Captive, he becomes food for his own enemy and he satiates the one
whom he desires to be able to kill. . . . The spectacle . . . in its action is hor-
rible to an unimaginable degree.103

Apparently the venatio of the late empire emphasized acrobatics. The

letter focuses on the dangerous stunts performed by venatores in the arena.
The emphasis is on the hunters deceiving and evading the animals in an
acrobatic manner, thus rousing them to a fury. Lethargic beasts made for a
dull venatio. Here is Cassiodorus’ account:

First, trusting in a fragile wooden pole, [a hunter] runs to confront the

beasts and that which he really desires to escape, he seems to seek with a great
rush and both the predator and prey proceed at an equal pace, nor otherwise
can [the venator] be safe, unless he rushes upon what he desires to avoid.
Then with a high jump into the air, his bent supine limbs are thrown high

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into the air just like the lightest cloth and the animal passes quickly beneath,
before [the hunter’s] body can descend. Thus it happens that the animal
which is tricked can seem more tame. Another hunter, taking advantage of
four panels that rotate around a central pole and keeping close to his op-
ponent, escapes, not by running away, nor does he put himself at a distance,
but follows his pursuer, placing himself near to his pursuer at a run, so that
he may avoid the mouths of bears.
Another man stretched out on his stomach on a low bar, teases a deadly
beast and unless he took risks, he would not survive. Another man opposing
a very savage animal protects himself with a portable wall of reeds, in the
manner of a hedgehog, which, suddenly going on to its back and gathering
itself together, hides and although it has not really gone away, its little body
is not seen. For just as [the hedgehog], when danger approaches, having
rolled itself into a ball is defended by natural spines, thus the man, pro-
tected by stitched-together wicker, is rendered more fortified by frail reeds.
In the arena, other men from behind, so to speak, an array of three small
doors dare to provoke the savage animals waiting for them, hiding them-
selves by means of these latticed gates, now showing their faces, now showing
their backs, so that it is almost a miracle that they, whom you thus see run-
ning speedily through the claws and teeth of lions, can escape. Another man
is brought close to the wild beasts on a rolling wheel: another is placed on top
[of the wheel] so that he may be removed from danger. Thus this wheel re-
sembling the treacherous world refreshes one with hope, while it tortures the
other with fear: nevertheless [this wheel] smiles on all but only so that it can
deceive them.104

Some of the devices employed in this account need further comment. The
four panels on a pivot is reminiscent of a device called the cochlea (also
spelled coclia, coclea), which the first century BC scholar Varro says was used
in the arena when bulls fought men or other large animals.105 It has been
described as a circular cage, open on one side, which delivered beasts into
the arena. It rotated on a pivot so that as it revolved it sent only one animal
at a time into the arena.106 In Theodoric’s time, however, the cochlea was
used by arena-hunters for a different purpose: to tease the animals while
keeping themselves protected from attack. The apparatus was like modern
revolving doors with four panels attached to a central pole, but unenclosed.
The hunter could baffle pursuing animals by placing himself between two

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panels and pushing the panel in front of him at a run to keep the device ro-
tating, thus explaining the oxymoronic trope above of the hunter following
his pursuer. Cassiodorus says that the device was used with bears, but it
could also be used with other large predators like lions, as is depicted on the
lower section of the dyptych of Anastasius, consul in AD 517.107 The pole
vaulting needs no further explanation, except to add that this technique was
also popular in Greece and the Greek east as the following poem from the
Greek Anthology shows:

A man stuck a pole in the ground and throwing his body into the air was
bent head first. Having provoked the animal underneath his jump, he
landed with nimble feet. [The animal] did not catch him. The crowd gave
a great shout and the man escaped.108

The ‘hedgehog’ device would seem to be a wicker sphere large enough to

hold a man, which had projecting spines to discourage an animal from tear-
ing it apart and getting at the man. The crowd no doubt enjoyed seeing
large animals pushing this ‘ball’ around the arena.109 The description of the
two men and the rolling wheel might be a see-saw-like device that exposed
the man closer to the ground to the animals as it put the other out of
reach.110 The man supine on the low bar no doubt would have been acro-
batically expert at keeping himself just out of reach of the animals. As
Cassiodorus’ description suggests, the three latticed doors, when men stood
in open doorways, served to tease the animals and, when closed behind the
men as they ran from the pursuing beasts, provided safe haven. The latticed
doors are said to be ‘in an open area’, which may mean that they were set in
the arena wall or in a free-standing wooden wall just in front of the arena
wall.111 Men in a doorway either holding cloths or gesticulating with a hand
to catch the attention of the beasts and tease them can be seen in amphithe-
atre scenes on North African mosaics.112 It has been argued that these
stunts were merely simulated combat, perhaps to avoid harming expensive
animals, while at the same time putting the human participants at risk.113
The ivory diptych of Areobindus (AD 506), however, indicates that the
killing of wild animals was still the main feature of the venatio in the early
sixth century.114 While the venatio served as a prelude to gladiatorial com-
bat throughout most of its history, it was destined to outlast its featured
partner in the munus by over three quarters of a century.

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The noonday spectacle (meridianum spectaculum)

For the first century and a half of gladiatorial combat, the show began early
in the morning and continued throughout the day with no intermission. In
61 BC, a lunch break was instituted, during which spectators left the am-
phitheatre, a custom that continued at least into the third century AD.115
After all, sitting for seven or eight hours without intermission must have
strained the limits of human endurance, no matter how popular the enter-
tainment. There were some spectators, however, who were willing to stay in
their seats during the break for various reasons (perhaps for fear of losing
their seats while they were out). Sometime in the reign of Caligula or of
Claudius, a diversion, inspired by the popularity of the ad bestias executions
in the morning venatio that had begun sometime in the early empire, was
presented to fill the void between the venatio and the afternoon gladiator
show. This was the event that became known as the ‘noonday spectacle’
(meridianum spectaculum), which featured the execution of convicted
criminals (purchased by the editor from the authorities).116 Like the execu-
tions during the venatio, the number of executions at noon depended on
the quantity of convicts available at any given time. Thus, there were no
doubt some munera which did not feature this event because of the un-
availability of victims or the inadequate budget of the editor.117 Obviously,
expense would not be a crucial consideration when the editor was the em-
peror and thus, the number of executions, depending on availability, was
usually large, but in the rest of Italy where munera were smaller in scale in
comparison with Rome, the number of executions was much more limited.
For example, the epitaph of an editor from the town of Peltuinum (central
Italy) lists four noxii executed in a three-day munus he had given, while
another editor’s epitaph from Beneventum (southern Italy) mentions four
noxii who were executed during a four-day munus.118
Before the introduction of noonday executions, the noon interval in the
munus apparently had been used for light entertainment, perhaps provided
by ‘play gladiators’ (paegniarii), who entertained the crowd by fighting with
wooden weapons and whips mimicking the deadly serious fighting of real
gladiators. One day the philosopher Seneca remained in his seat, expecting a
change of pace from the violence of the morning’s venatio like the diversion
described above. What he probably saw first was nearly naked men chained
to each other marched into the arena as a prelude to their execution.119

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Their punishment required that they fight one another to the death.
Seneca strongly objects to the way the damnati were forced to fight. They
were armed with swords, but without helmet and shield, with the result that
their whole body was exposed to their opponent’s thrusts, which very often
found their mark. There was no need for the fencing skills of the pro-
fessional gladiator in these fights. Seneca calls them ‘pure homicides’. A
man who had killed his opponent was forced immediately to fight a survivor
of another fight and so on. In the end, all were killed, having carried out
mutually their sentence of death.120 It should be noted, however, that
Seneca is not protesting the death penalty for the damnati, but the savagery
of the spectacle, which is far removed from the sport of gladiatorial combat,
and its negative effect on the spectators. The fans of the noonday event pre-
ferred quick bloodshed and death in great quantity. They preferred inartis-
tic killings to the contests of trained gladiators. Seneca, repulsed by the
bloodthirsty behaviour of this crowd, quotes the shouts of the crowd to at-
tendants in the arena given the responsibility forcing reluctant combatants
to fight:

‘Kill him, whip him, burn him!’ ‘Why does he face his opponent’s sword so
timidly?’ ‘Why is he so tentative in killing his opponent?’ ‘Why is he so re-
luctant to die?’ ‘Force him with blows to risk being wounded!’ ‘Make them
exchange blows with their unprotected chests!’121

No doubt what Seneca misses the most in these free-for-all bloodbaths is

the lack of moral meaning. In contrast to gladiatorial combat, there was no
opportunity to admire the courage of the fighters since they usually had to
be forced to fight, making a noble death impossible.122
Claudius was a great fan of these murderous combats among the damnati.
While most other spectators left the arena for lunch, Claudius stayed to view
the spectacle and even sought to add to the number of the damnati. If he was
angered by a mistake made by members of the arena staff, he condemned
them to fight in the arena on the spot.123 Claudius must have been somewhat
uneasy about the pleasure he took from these public executions, because he
dealt with this shame in an odd way. He had a statue of Augustus removed
from the arena so that it would be spared the sight of wholesale slaughter, an
act which aroused much laughter behind his back.124
It should be noted that this method of executing prisoners based on
the gladiatorial model was not the only punishment carried out at the

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meridianum spectaculum. There were other even more hideous tortures:

hanging, the eculeus (a wooden horse on which the victim was mounted and
then tortured by the application of pulleys and weights), a stake driven
through the back of the head emerging through the mouth, the tunica
molesta (‘the grievous tunic’), made of flax and smeared with combustible
substances like pitch, in which the victim was burned to death, ‘the frying
pan’ or ‘iron seat’, on which victims sat until their flesh roasted), and dis-
memberment by means of horse-drawn chariots sent in different direc-
tions.125 As horrible as these punishments were, they were in fact not
motivated by sadism, but to promote the maintenance of good order in
Rome, which like other pre-industrial states, lacked a real police force or a
prison system. These harsh public executions sent a message to law-abiding
citizens that the state was acting aggressively to protect them. There was also
a psychological dimension to these drastic physical penalties. Public punish-
ment was, by its very nature, humiliating because it allowed the community
to be entertained by the victim’s suffering. The humiliation was exacerbated
by a spirit of mockery that permeated the whole process of the execution.
Here are three examples that encapsulate the derisive tone of Roman execu-
tions. The first one is the execution of the deposed emperor Vitellius, and
although it does not take place in the arena, it has much in common with
practices there:

. . . with his hands tied behind his back and a rope around his neck, half
naked in torn clothes he was dragged into the Forum, suffering mockery
consisting of words and deeds all along the Via Sacra. His head was held
back by his hair, just as happens to condemned criminals [in the arena]
and the point of a sword was held under his chin, to force him to hold his
face up to be viewed and not let it hang down. Some pelted him with excre-
ment and mud and others called him an ‘arsonist’ and a ‘glutton’, while
other members of the crowd criticized the defects of his bodily appearance:
his extraordinary height, his red face from excessive wine drinking, his fat
belly, and one weak thigh because of a chariot accident. . . . Finally at the
Gemonian Stairs, he was tortured and put to death slowly and then
dragged by a hook into the Tiber.126

Informers, although they did not suffer the death penalty, were similarly
forced to face the crowd in the arena with their heads forcibly bent back-
wards in order accept the derision of the crowd.127 An inscription from the

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town of Grumentum (southern Italy) perhaps provides more evidence in

this regard, reporting that, at a munus, each of the noxii to be executed was
‘elegantly dressed’. This might have been an attempt to mock the convicts
for some perceived pretension of theirs that involved fancy clothing.128
Humiliation was also prominent in the passion of Jesus. He was mocked for
his claim to be king of the Jews by dressing him in a royal cloak and placing
a crown of thorns on his head. In addition, a placard identifying him as
‘king of the Jews’ was attached to his cross.129
At the end of the noonday event when the arena was strewn with bodies,
there appeared two arena attendants (ministri), one representing Dis, the
god of the underworld, and the other, Mercury, the escort of the dead to
the underworld. According to Tertullian, Dis, carrying a hammer, removed
the bodies of the dead with the help of other attendants, dragging them by
means of a hook out of the arena.130 Mercury was easily recognizable be-
cause of his winged cap and his staff, which was partially made out of metal
so that it could be heated to test whether there were any damnati feigning
death. The role of these ‘gods’ in the noonday event was clearly character-
ized by comic parody.131 Tertullian mentions how he and his companions
‘amidst the light-hearted cruelties of the noonday event laughed at
“Mercury” testing with a branding-iron to see if those who are apparently
dead are really dead’.132 In the case of Dis, the laughter might have been
evoked by the incongruity of the divine king of the dead performing the
menial task of cleaning up the arena.133
These comments of Tertullian have spawned dubious claims that hammer-
wielding attendants impersonating the Etruscan death spirit Charun or Dis
dispatched gladiators who were feigning death.134 The reason for these
dubious assertions is the fact that Tertullian refers to the damnati in the
passage discussed above as ‘gladiators’.135 He is, however, using the word
loosely as a blanket term, because it is clear that he is talking about the
meridianum spectaculum and not gladiatorial combat. One can understand
this confusion because, as we have seen, the damnati often fought each
other with swords. Another source of confusion is the depiction of Charun
holding a hammer in a fresco from the François tomb at Vulci (fourth
century BC), which has led to its identification with Tertullian’s hammer-
wielding Dis. The wide gap in time between these two infernal deities, how-
ever, makes this identification unlikely.136 The function of the hammer is
another problem. The attendant impersonating Dis could have employed

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it to finish off dying damnati, but not gladiators, as is sometimes claimed.137

Junkelmann says that the hammer brings to mind an execution, which is
entirely appropriate to the meridianum spectaculum, but I would have to
add, not in any practical way.138 Since Tertullian explains the function of
Mercury’s rod, but not that of the Dis’ hammer, it is more likely that the
hammer was merely symbolic. Ville tentatively suggests that Dis or Charun
may have escorted stretchers carrying the corpses of gladiators out of the
arena, but only at certain times and places throughout the empire. He, how-
ever, argues against a significant role for Mercury (such as giving the signal
to start the combat) and, in accordance with myth, proposes the function of
‘divine herald’ in the arena.139

The afternoon combat

Gods of the arena
Although the gods Hercules and Mars had a place in the hearts of gladia-
tors, there is no doubt that Nemesis was the reigning divinity of the
arena.140 Not surprisingly, she was also popular among soldiers.141 Both the
soldier and the gladiator, whose careers entailed a high risk of death, trusted
their fate to her. The awe that her great power evoked in her devotees is
evidenced in an inscription found in Rome, in which she is addressed in
both Greek and Latin as ‘the great Nemesis, queen of the universe [and]
great avenging queen of the city’.142 Despite her great power, she was
viewed as goddess who would listen to human prayers. An inscription from
Apuli in Dacia labels her with the epithet ‘most receptive to prayers’.143 Her
cult was popular throughout the empire. For example, an inscription from a
shrine of Nemesis (Nemeseion) in Halicarnassus (modern Bodrum in south-
west Turkey) records the sacrifice of a pig to the goddess by a retiarius
named Stephanos, either to accompany a prayer for victory or as an act of
thanksgiving for a victory.144 The cult of Nemesis was also prominent in the
western provinces. A room was found in an amphitheatre in Chester in
the north of England which contained an altar to Nemesis.145 When things
did not turn out well in the arena, the goddess might be blamed. In an
epitaph found in Verona, a deceased gladiator in his epitaph is made to
advise other gladiators not to trust Nemesis because the goddess deceived
him (by not preventing his death).146 There were also cults of Nemesis
attached to amphitheatres in Aquincum (Budapest) in the province of

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Pannonia, in Carnuntum in the province of Noricum (southern Austria)

and in Carthage.147 Nemesis was closely associated with three other god-
desses connected with the amphitheatre: Fortuna, Victoria (‘Victory’, the
counterpart of the Greek Nike) and Diana, the patron divinity of venatores.
M. Velleius Zosimos, a priest of ‘the unconquerable Nemesis’ commis-
sioned a bas-relief depicting Nemesis, Victoria and Ares (Greek counterpart
of Mars). Nemesis is shown holding scales in her right hand with a wheel of
fortune at her feet, revealing her virtual identification with Fortuna. This
bas-relief is located in a theatre in Philippi (Macedonia), which had been
converted for the presentation of venationes and gladiatorial combat.148
The inscriptions above from Aquincum and Carnuntum give further evi-
dence of syncretism (Diana/Nemesis and Juno/Nemesis). Futrell’s excel-
lent analysis of the cult of Nemesis reveals the goddess as ‘the power of
changing fortune’ and ‘a distributor of good and bad. . . . The amphithe-
ater, like the empire itself, was an instrument of fate, who, personified as
Nemesis, personally supervises the spectacles of Rome’.149

Prolusio
Before the gladiator fights began in earnest, there was a warm-up period
(prolusio), just as in any modern sport.150 As a preliminary exercise, gladia-
tors engaged in shadow fencing with wooden swords.151 In an analogy,
Seneca contrasts the prolusio with a real gladiatorial fight:

How stupid it is to wave your sword in the air when you have heard the
signal for battle. Get rid of those practice weapons of yours. Now is the time
for real weapons.152

Cicero points out that some exercises were more for show than anything
else.153 For example, Samnite gladiators brandished spears although they
never used such weapons in battle in the arena.154 The prolusio was accompa-
nied by music provided by horns accompanied by a water organ (hydraulis),
which continued through each match until it ended with the release of the
loser or his death, no doubt greatly enhancing the dramatic mood of these
events in the arena, like a musical score for a film (Figure 11).155
We hear of another preparatory exercise that was more psychological
than physical. Cicero refers to this exercise as ‘that gladiatorial routine’, the
arousal of anger as an emotional spur to courage.156 It calls to mind the

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Figure 11 Zliten mosaic: horn players (standing figure plays the tuba and seated figures the
cornu) and organist with the couch of Libitina for dead or dying in background. A summarudis
restrains the sword hand of a victorious eques while an editor makes a decision on missio
requested by the defeated eques on the ground. Note the backwards gaze of the referee,
probably towards the unseen editor. Villa at Dar Buc Amméra, Tripolitania. Archaeological
Museum, Tripoli. Roger Wood/Corbis

‘trash talk’ employed by modern athletes. Cicero quotes the speech of a

great gladiator Pacideianus referring to his opponent:

If you are interested, I will defeat and kill him, he said. This is the way it
will happen: I myself before I receive his sword in my face, will thrust mine in
that wretch’s stomach and lungs. I hate the man; I will fight him in a rage,
nor will it take longer than for both of us to grasp our swords in our right
hand. This is how much I am filled with fervour and hatred of him.157

The listing of events

The pairings of the gladiators in a munus were made ahead of time by the
editor in the days before the show. During the Republic and early empire
these decisions would have been made in consultation with the lanista from
whom the editor had rented the gladiators.158 Later, when the imperial
schools had been established, the emperor, who was most frequently the
editor at Rome, no doubt consulted with the procurator and instructors
of the school. As early as the first century BC, the pairings of gladiators
were published ahead of time in pamphlet form and sold in the streets.159
Cicero calls this pamphlet ‘the pairings of gladiators’ (gladiatorum composi-
tiones).160 In the imperial period, the pamphlet was called a libellus muner-
arius, literally, ‘a little book of the munus’, or more simply a libellus.161 Ovid
shows us how common these pamphlets were at gladiatorial games, when he

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recommends as a way to meet girls at a munus asking a girl to borrow her

libellus.162 Seduction of women may have been easier at a gladiatorial show,
given Roman women’s notorious sexual fascination with gladiators. While
watching almost naked muscular men fighting in the arena, a woman might
have found herself ready to settle for a more available man in the crowd.
This pamphlet, sold a day or so before the munus, gave the number of pairs,
the names of gladiators paired together, the order of their appearance and
their previous record in the arena.163 The libellus was useful to the spectator
because the public notices of the munus (edicta munerum) usually gave only
the number of pairs without specific names of gladiators, unless famous
gladiators were scheduled to appear. Another publication was available to
fans who were not able to attend the munus so that they could find out the
winner of each match. The results of matches were published regularly in a
kind of newspaper called acta diurna, ‘daily journal’.164 We can get a sense
of what these reports were like from an inscription on a wall in Pompeii. It
is a long inscription, but two examples will suffice. Only the most crucial in-
formation is presented for each match: the style of fighting of each fighter,
the names of the two opponents and, if applicable, their special status as
imperial gladiators, the result of the match, and how many fights each glad-
iator has had:

Hoplomachus vs Thracian: Cycnus, a Julianus, won. Nine fights. Atticus, a

Julianus, was released. Fourteen fights.165

In the Latin original, this information, except for the names of the gladia-
tors, was conveyed concisely by abbreviations in order to save space. Here is
the Latin for the first selection:

OT
V Cycnus Iul
VIIII
M Atticus Iul XIV

O ⫽ hoplomachus (the ‘h’ was silent and spelling often followed pronuncia-
tion) and T ⫽ thraex; V ⫽ vicit (‘won’); Iul ⫽ Julianus; with the Roman
numerals VIIII and XIV the word pugnarum [‘of fights’] is understood, in-
dicating how many fights each opponent has had (‘[a gladiator] of nine
fights . . . of fourteen fights’), and M ⫽ missus (‘released’) in reference to
the loser whose life was spared.

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The gladiators
Types of gladiator
Gladiators were not an undifferentiated group of sword fighters; they were
divided up into categories based different styles of armour, weapons and
fighting. Sometimes it is hard to determine with certainty the type a gladia-
tor depicted in surviving ancient representations. We must accept the possi-
bility that occasionally variety in armour and weapons was allowed within a
given gladiator category.166 For the most part, however, gladiators con-
formed generally to type. During the Republic, there were five known glad-
iator types: samnis (Samnite), gallus (Gaul), thraex (Thracian), provocator
(‘challenger’) and eques (‘horseman’). The first three types are ethnic in ori-
gin, that is, their armour, weapons and style of fighting were derived from
peoples who had engaged in war with the Romans: the Samnites, Gauls and
Thracians. As noted earlier, these gladiator types must have developed from
the practice of forcing prisoners of war from the same region to fight each
other wearing their characteristic armour and employing their distinctive
fighting styles. In time, the names of these three ethnic gladiatorial types no
longer indicated warriors native to these regions, but merely a gladiatorial
style. These ethnic gladiatorial types throughout the Republic kept the
memory of Rome’s past military successes alive by re-enacting them in the
arena. The Samnite and the Gaul, the earliest gladiator types we know of,
did not survive much beyond the Republic; only the thraex survived into
the imperial period and remained popular into late antiquity. The Samnite
and the Gaul, however, may have produced descendants under different
names. Luciana Jacobelli argues convincingly that the Samnite gladiator dis-
appeared during Augustus’ reign because the Romans wanted to avoid in-
sult to a people who had become their loyal allies.167 In fact, this may have
also been the reason for the disappearance of the gallus. By the early empire,
the Gallic provinces had become thoroughly romanized. In the ancient
world, it was believed that the murmillo was descended from the Gaul,
while it has been recently claimed by Junkelmann that the murmillo and the
secutor are actually survivals of the Samnite.168 We know nothing about the
Gaul and very little about the Samnite. Horace says that Samnites fought
slow, protracted duels. This perhaps indicates that they were weighed down
by heavy armour.169 The poet also implies that Samnites only fought other
Samnites. Like the later secutor, the Samnite wore a greave on the left leg

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only.170 In addition to the thraex and the essedarius, a British import of the
early empire, ethnically neutral gladiator types like the murmillo, secutor,
retiarius, hoplomachus, veles, provocator and eques were the staples of gladia-
torial shows during the imperial period.
The best way of differentiating the different categories of gladiators is by
means of variations in the standard armour: helmet, shield, an arm guard
(manica), loincloth (subligaculum) held in place by a metal belt (balteus),
and metal greaves (ocreae), often backed by wrappings of quilted linen,
which were sometimes used independent of greaves. Of these pieces of
armour, the shape of the helmet and of the shield (rectangular or round, small
or large) are most useful in assigning a gladiator to a specific category.

Eques
One type of gladiator easy to identify is the eques (‘horseman’), a lightly
armed fighter who fought both on horseback and on the ground. It is clear
that the equites were real horsemen. Cicero reports that the crowd’s hissing
of an unpopular politician startled ‘the gladiators and their horses’.171
These gladiators with horses could only be the equites. An eques always
fought an opponent of the same category.172 The only detailed description
we have of the equites in a munus comes from a medieval author Isidore of
Seville (seventh century AD), but his overall knowledge of gladiators accords
well with the ancient sources, thus giving credence to the evidence he
provides:

Of the several types of gladiators, the first contest involves the equestrians.
Two equites, preceded by military standards, entered the arena, one from
the west, the other from the east, riding on white horses, wearing smallish
golden helmets and carrying light weapons.173

Note that the equites had the honour of being the opening act of gladiator
shows.174 Isidore’s description makes it easy to understand why the equites
were first in the programme. The equites riding white horses and golden
helmets provided an impressive prelude to what was to follow. The eques
wore a tunic and brimmed helmet with visor and two feathers, a tunic (in
contrast with most gladiators, who are naked to the waist), a medium-sized
round shield, a manica, and linen leggings.175 Isidore notes the equites’
‘fierce determination in accordance with their courage’ as they entered bat-
tle. The battle must have begun on horseback with lances. Isidore speaks of

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Figure 12 Madrid mosaic: Two equites and two referees. Bottom panel: beginning of fight; top
panel: end of fight. Madrid, Museo Arqueológico Nacional. The Art Archive/Corbis

one eques jumping off his horse and the other falling, no doubt unseated by
a blow of his opponent’s lance. The fight continued on the ground with
swords, if necessary. Despite their equestrian character, surviving artistic
depictions concentrate on the equites fighting on foot as in Figures 11
and 12.176 There are two inscriptions on the mosaic in Figure 12: Quibus
pugnantibus Symmachius ferra misit. Maternus [vs] Habilis [names of the
two gladiators] and Haec videmus and Symmachi, homo felix. Habilis [vs]
Maternus. They are translated thus: ‘Symmachius [the editor] provided
weapons and armour for these fighters. Maternus vs Habilis.’ ‘These are the
things that we saw. O Symmachius, you are a fortunate man [to be able to
give such a good show]! Habilis [vs] Maternus.’ The direct address to the
Symmachus represents an acclamatio (‘shouts’) of the crowd, honouring
him for his show. The symbol that looks like a zero (after the name
Maternus) with a diagonal line through it is actually the Greek letter theta,
the first letter of the noun thanatos (death), which indicates the fate of
Maternus (see also Figure 25).177

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Provocator
The provocator (‘challenger’) was another gladiatorial type that originated in
the Republic and survived into imperial times. Cicero mentions the provocator
in the same speech along with the equites and the Samnites.178 The
provocator looked much more like a standard gladiator than did the eques.
His visored helmet was not brimmed and had a neck guard in the back. He
wore a loincloth (subligaculum), standard attire for all gladiators except for
the eques, and a greave on his left leg. The shield of the provocator was con-
cave and rectangular. Perhaps his most identifiable feature was the breast-
plate he wore, held on the body by straps that met at the back, which
protected the upper chest.179 No other type of gladiator wore any protec-
tive armour on the chest.

Thraex
The thraex was the sole survivor into the imperial period of the ethnic-based
gladiators of the Republic. It is uncertain when the thraex became a gladia-
torial type at Rome. There are two possibilities: (1) when Rome took Thra-
cian mercenaries captive in the war against Perseus (171–167 BC), or (2)
when many Thracians were taken as prisoners in the Mithdridatic wars in
the 80s BC (as mentioned in Chapter 1). The fact that Cicero (106–43 BC)
was first to mention the thraex seems to argue for the latter.180 Indeed,
Spartacus was an ethnic Thracian, but we do not know whether he was
trained as a thraex in Batiatus’ school. The thraex was traditionally paired
with the hoplomachus and the murmillo. In fact, the thraex was among the
first gladiators to be paired with a different gladiatorial type. The purpose
behind pairing different types of gladiators was to produce matches that
were more interesting. The armour, weapons and style of fighting of each
gladiator represented both advantages and disadvantages when matched
with another gladiatorial type. If the advantages and disadvantages balanced
well, then it was more likely that a good fight would result. For example,
the main weapon of the hoplomachus was a thrusting spear, which gave him
an advantage when he was paired with the thraex, who wielded a short,
curved sword (sica). On the other hand, the hoplomachus had only a very
small circular shield to defend against his opponent’s sword attacks, while
the thraex had a larger rectangular shield to protect himself from his op-
ponent’s spear. This principle of compensation and balance was frequently
applied to pairings in the imperial period.

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There was a factor, however, that could upset the ideal of balance in pair-
ing gladiators. A speaker in a practice oratorical exercise puts the difference
between fighting a hoplomachus and a thraex on the same level with the
difference between fighting a right-handed or left-handed gladiator, a dis-
similarity that was considered to be significant because of the rarity of left-
handers.181 The normal matching of right-handed opponents presented a
balance of defence and offence with the sword hand of both gladiators im-
mediately opposite the shield-bearing hand of his opponent. Conversely,
when a left-handed gladiator faced a right-hander, his sword hand was im-
mediately opposite the sword arm of his opponent. K. M. Coleman argues
that this situation gave a decided advantage to the left-hander, who could
directly attack the unshielded side of his opponent, while the right-hander
had been trained to attack with his right arm moving across his body to get
to his right-handed opponent’s unshielded side. Wiedemann goes so far as
to suggest that some right-handed gladiators chose to learn how to fight
left-handed to inspire fear in their right-handed opponents.182 Baudoin
Caron rightly casts doubt on Wiedemann’s use of Seneca the Elder and
Cassius Dio as sources for his claim and questions Coleman’s argument,
claiming that in a match involving a right-hander and a left-hander, both
had the same advantage of being able to attack each other’s unshielded flank
directly.183 It is clear, however, that the Romans believed left-handedness in
gladiators to be a significant advantage. Junkelmann points out that left-
handedness was important enough to be recorded along with the type of
gladiator in inscriptions.184 It seems more likely, however, that the advan-
tage of the left-hander was more psychological than physical. Even today,
left-handers in tennis, boxing and baseball are thought to have an advantage
over their right-handed opponents.
The armament of the thraex was similar to that of other gladiators such
as the hoplomachus and the murmillo, but there were significant differences.
The thraex carried a fairly small, oblong shield (parma or its diminutive
parmula) that was significantly lighter than that of the murmillo. Junkel-
mann estimates the weight of the thraex’s shield at 6.5 pounds in compari-
son with the murmillo’s shield, which he considers the heaviest item among
the murmillo’s armament, weighing between 35 and 39 pounds.185 The
brimmed helmet of the thraex had a high crest topped by the image of a
griffin, a mythological monster with the head and wings of an eagle and the
body of a lion (Figures 13 and 14), the companion of Nemesis, as we have

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Figure 13 Helmet of the thraex with griffin finial and visor. Museo Archeologico Nazionale,
Naples, Italy/The Bridgeman Art Library Ltd

Figure 14 Funerary monument for thraex M. Antonius Exochus. Note the curved sica (to the
left of his right arm), his helmet (over his left shoulder) between the front legs of a griffin (instead
of a griffin finial) and his two metal greaves. He holds the palm of victory in his left hand and
there is a half-visible crown (indicating an outstanding performance) behind him to his right.
Drawing of 16th century of lost original: Codex Coburgensis. Coburg, Kunstsammlungen de
Veste Coburg, Germany

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seen, a divinity closely associated with gladiators.186 The weapon of the

thraex was also distinctive: a short, curved sword (sica) in comparison with
the more usual medium length straight sword (gladius) (Figure 14). There
is evidence that the sica could give the thraex an advantage in certain situ-
ations. A duel depicted on the Zliten mosaic shows a thraex employing a
sica effectively at a point in the action when the gladius would have been
virtually useless.187 His opponent’s attack on the back of his neck puts the
thraex in an awkward position, requiring him to raise his shield to counter
the blow. The elbow-shaped sica, however, allows the thraex to take the
offensive by delivering with an upward movement a serious puncture
wound just below his opponent’s right buttock (in the mosaic blood
streams profusely from the wound to the ground) that would not have been
possible with the straight gladius.
Since the thraex had a relatively small shield, he needed greater protec-
tion for his legs, so he wore quilted linen leggings that served as a backing
for metal greaves on his shins and continued all the way up his thighs to his
hips under his loincloth.

Hoplomachus
The hoplomachus (‘heavy-armed in battle’), a gladiatorial type modelled to a
degree on the Greek hoplite, as its name suggests, was a traditional op-
ponent of the thraex and the murmillo. The hoplomachus was somewhat
similar to the thraex. They both wore a manica on their right arm and, be-
cause of their smaller shields, wore the extra-long quilted linen leggings.
Their weapons, however, were quite different: the hoplomachus used a
thrusting spear as a primary weapon and a dagger as a back-up. On the other
hand, the difference in shields was significant. The shield of the hoplomachus
was circular and concave, but quite small, whereas the thraex’s shield was
larger and rectangular, but only capable of protecting his torso. Since both
shields were fairly small, they were both included in the category of parma,
whereas the murmillo’s shield (scutum) was significantly larger, covering
almost his whole body from neck to feet.

Murmillo
The murmillo was one of the most heavily armed gladiators, whose helmet
was notable for its prominent angular crest (Figure 15). His large shield

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Figure 15 Murmillo helmet with prominent crest and visor. Bettmann/Corbis

(scutum) was oblong and concave in shape, providing protective coverage of

just about his whole body, on a par with the shields of the provocator and
the secutor. It has been suggested that the word murmillo is derived from
mormulos, Greek for a kind of fish.188 This assumption is based on a passage
from Festus, which quotes a humorous song sung (or recited) by a retiarius
to a Gaul (the gladiator type): ‘I do not attack you, I attack a fish. Why do
you flee me, Gaul?’ Festus explains that the murmillo was an offshoot of the
Gaul, whose helmet was decorated with the image of a fish.189 In the song,
the retiarius, who employed the tools of a fisherman (net and trident) in the
arena, uses the murmillo’s origin to mock him. Since the murmillo was an
early opponent of the retiarius, Festus’ claim is perfectly plausible, but not
confirmed by other sources and there is no other evidence of any gladiator
wearing a helmet with the image of a fish, unless one is willing to see the an-
gular crest of the murmillo’s helmet as a stylized dorsal fin.190 On the other
hand, in the ancient mind, the retiarius was closely connected with the sea.
Arnobius compares Neptune, who carries a trident, to a retiarius.191 At
least one retiarius had the stage name Aequoreus (‘of the sea’), an epithet of

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Neptune. The discovery of a galerus decorated with images of a dolphin,

anchor and crab would seem to strengthen the connection of the retiarius
with the sea, but Junkelmann points out that sea motifs have been found on
the armour of other gladiator types.192
The murmillo and the thraex were at the centre of a conflict of fan parti-
sanship based on the size of their shields: the scutarii, rooters for the
murmillo, who carried the scutum, and the parmularii, supporters of the
thraex, who carried the comparatively small parma. Although this rivalry
focused on the murmillo/thraex pairing, it also included the less common
hoplomachus/murmillo pairing, another example of the parma versus the
scutum.193 In comparison with the virtually body-covering scutum of the
murmillo, the parma or parmula (diminutive) of the thraex was approxi-
mately half the size. Thus the thraex was at a significant disadvantage, and,
as we hear from Martial, rarely won matches with the murmillo.194 Martial
notes the great uproar of the parmularii when the thraex did win.195
Therefore, it would seem that the contention between the parmularii and
the scutarii was in essence between fans who favoured the underdog and
fans who liked to back a winner. This rivalry reached the highest levels of
Roman society. Caligula was a parmularius. Suetonius tells us that Caligula
placed some thraeces in charge of his German bodyguard, and that ‘he re-
duced the armament of the murmillones’.196 What this vague statement
probably means is that Caligula reduced the size of their shields. Caligula’s
devotion to the parma even led him to fight as a thraex with a real weapons
(but not in arena).197 On the other hand, Nero was a scutarius, as his fabu-
lous gifts to the murmillo Spiculus (mentioned earlier) indicate. His devo-
tion to this murmillo lasted until the end of this life. When it became clear
that Nero would lose his throne, he wanted this same gladiator to kill
him.198 The emperor Titus sided with the parmularii, joining the common
folk in public demonstrations and using insulting words and gestures
against the scutarii.199 Domitian, one of Rome’s most tyrannical emperors,
was in this matter consistent with his political philosophy, supporting the
dominant scutarii and wreaking cruel vengeance on the parmularii, who
were vociferous in their support of the thraex. Domitian, who identified
very closely with his gladiators, considered any verbal assault on the scutarii
an attack upon himself. Any offence given to him was made more heinous
by his claim of divinity, since he considered any affront an act of impiety
deserving the most serious punishment.200 Thus, he condemned numerous

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parmularii to death by fire in the arena. Pliny the Younger writes of Domit-
ian’s victims in this case as paying for ‘his wretched pleasures by becoming
part of the spectacle and being subject to the hook and fire’. This is a refer-
ence to the penalty of crematio, after which the body was dragged out of the
arena by means of a hook.201 On another occasion, a man of some distinc-
tion, a paterfamilias (the head of an extended family) in the Colosseum
shouted loud enough for Domitian to hear: ‘A thraex could hold his own
against a murmillo, but not against the editor [i.e., Domitian himself].’
Domitian’s immediate reaction was to have this man dragged from his seat
into the arena and thrown to the dogs, while wearing a placard reading: ‘I
am a parmularius who spoke impiously’.202
As mentioned earlier, occasionally the two carriers of the parma fought
each other: the thraex and the hoplomachus.203 One example of this pairing
is the famous match between Verus and Priscus during the inauguration
of the Colosseum described by Martial in his Book of Spectacles.204 The
emperor Titus, the editor, after a long fight in which neither gladiator could
gain an advantage ordered both opponents to continue the fight without
their shields (posita . . . parma, ‘with the parma having been laid aside’).205
This pairing might help explain why Titus, an avid parumularius, was so
generous in his grant of discharge to both gladiators.206 The parmularius/
scutarius controversy lasted at least to the end of the second century AD
(and probably further), as is clear from Marcus Aurelius’ boast that he had
been taught by his father not to take this trivial issue seriously.207 The fanat-
ical devotion to gladiators based on the size of their shield is analogous to
the allegiance of Roman chariot racing fans to team colours rather than to
individual drivers. The epitaph of an oil dealer named Crescens, proudly
proclaims that he is a ‘supporter of the blue faction of chariot drivers and of
gladiators who use the parma’.208

Retiarius (‘net-man’)
Of all gladiators, the light-armed retiarius (Figure 16, gladiator on left) is
the easiest to identify for various reasons.209 While all other gladiators re-
sembled soldiers to a degree in their armament (helmet, shield, greaves and
sword), the retiarius wore no helmet, was armed with a trident (fuscina),
dagger and net, had no shield, and wore a metal protector on his left shoul-
der (galerus), a piece of equipment worn regularly by no other gladiator.210
The galerus was necessary because, without a shield and a helmet, the

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Figure 16 Retiarius, referee (summarudis) and secutor. Villa of Nennig, Germany. Bildarchiv
Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin/Hermann/Scala London

retiarius was exposed to attack on his left shoulder and the left side of his
head. The lack of a shield also required that the retiarius wear a manica on
his left arm, instead of his right, as did other gladiators who had a shield to
protect their left side. He wore other standard equipment: the subligaculum
(loincloth) with a balteus (metal belt), and greaves on both legs.211
As we have seen above, the earliest regular opponent of the retiarius was
the murmillo, who, by the middle of the first century AD, began to be replaced
by the heavily armed secutor, perhaps a variation on the murmillo.212 The
retiarius with his right hand threw the net at his opponent to entrap him
(the net had lead weights, which facilitated throwing it with accuracy). The
retiarius in Figure 16 has already thrown his net unsuccessfully and uses his
trident. In Figure 17, the retiarius, having lost his trident, has no choice but
to engage his opponent at close quarters with his dagger. The contest be-
tween the retiarius and the secutor was one between gladiators who were polar
opposites. The retiarius was one of the most lightly armed gladiators, whereas
the secutor (‘pursuer’) was one of the heaviest. Thus, the retiarius needed

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Figure 17 Zliten mosaic: retiarius with dagger, bleeding from a leg wound. Villa at Dar Buc
Amméra, Tripolitania. Archaeological Museum, Tripoli. Roger Wood/Corbis

all his weapons plus significant agility to even the odds in battle with his
opponent. Using foot speed to tire out his heavily armed opponent was one of
the strategies of the retiarius. In Juvenal, a retiarius named Gracchus flees
his secutor opponent, although this particular example may illustrate cow-
ardice as much as strategy.213 An epitaph from Dalmatia (modern Croatia)
identifies a deceased retiarius as Rapidus, an apt name for this type of gladia-
tor, while another from Parma characterizes the departed retiarius as ‘nimble’
(alacer).214 The net could turn the tide of battle in the retiarius’ favor by
hindering the movement of the secutor but was no guarantee of victory. In a
mosaic from Madrid (Figure 18) there are two panels showing two different
stages of a fight between a secutor named Astyanax and a retiarius called
Kalendio. In the lower panel, Kalendio has ensnared Astyanax in his net and is
trying to inflict a wound with his trident on Astyanax’s knee. In the upper
panel, Kalendio has lost his trident and is trying to defend himself with a dag-
ger. Although we are not shown the end of the fight, the Greek theta follow-
ing Kalendio’s name in both panels reveals the result of the match.

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Figure 18 Madrid mosaic: Astyanax (secutor), Kalendio (retiarius) and referees. Madrid, Museo
Arqueológico Nacional. The Art Archive/Corbis

Although the regular dress of the retiarius consisted only of the subli-
gaculum, some retiarii wore a tunic. The sources refer to this type of
retiarius as the retiarius tunicatus.215 For example, the retiarius Kalendio
in Figure 18 wears a tunic that partially covers his left arm and from the
middle of his torso to just above his knees. (The regular tunic extended
further upwards to the neck, covering the shoulders and the upper arms.)
The question is, what was the significance of the tunic for the retiarius?
Since it served no practical purpose, it surely must have had some kind of
symbolic significance. Some have taken the tunic worn by a retiarius as a
sign of his homosexual effeminacy and associate it with that part of the glad-
iatorial school that housed gladiators with this tendency, as mentioned in
Chapter 2.216 This interpretation is based on Juvenal’s reference to ‘the
shameful tunic’. This, however, is probably a misunderstanding of the
poet’s meaning.217 Why the tunic should be associated with sexual disgrace
is unclear. The horsemen gladiators (equites) wore tunics and were not

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accused of sexual deviancy. Suetonius mentions the retiarius tunicatus in a

passage that hints at not even a subtext of homosexual effeminacy. The
biographer reports a group fight (gregatim) arranged during the reign of
Caligula between five retiarii tunicati and five secutores that took a strange
turn even before the match could begin.218 Although the prime attraction
of any munus was its individual duels between two gladiators, we hear oc-
casionally of group fighting among gladiators, which was probably popular
among less discerning fans. The special skills of the gladiator could not be
fully appreciated in a gang fight. The tunicati laid down their tridents, sur-
rendering to the secutores, an act that apparently implied a request that their
life be spared. The editor (unnamed, perhaps Caligula) rejected their appeal
and ordered their deaths. Before they could be dispatched by the secutores,
one of their number, ignoring the command of the editor (from which there
was no appeal), picked up his trident and killed all five of the secutores. This
flagrant violation of normal procedure in the arena so angered Caligula that
he issued an edict calling it ‘most cruel murder’, cursing those who had
watched it.219 This evidence seems to require another meaning for the tunic
worn by some retiarii. Early in the twentieth century, S. G. Owen argued
persuasively that when Juvenal called the retiarius’ tunic ‘shameful’, the ep-
ithet actually applied to the wearer of the garment and not to the tunic it-
self, suggesting that the tunic was worn by auctorati to differentiate
themselves from slave retiarii.220 Juvenal mentions another retiarius tuni-
catus named Gracchus, a noble guilty of homosexual effeminacy, who be-
came the bride of another man, but his tunic has nothing to do with his
sexual preference.221 Gracchus’ performance in the arena is unprofessional
in its ineptitude. He throws his net but misses badly. Having failed to
entangle his secutor opponent, he flees but not without looking up at the
spectators to make sure he is recognized.222 Juvenal adds that Gracchus’
secutor opponent ‘endured a dishonour worse than any wound when he was
ordered to fight with [the inept] Gracchus’.223 No doubt like many an
upper-class auctoratus, Gracchus was an unskilled amateur who would have
been scorned by professional retiarii and forced to live with other retiarii
tunicati in isolation from authentic retiarii in the ludus.224 If Gracchus’ un-
professional behaviour could be taken as typical of retiarii tunicati, it would
go a long way towards explaining the peculiar behaviour of the tunicati in
Suetonius who surrendered without fighting and perhaps even the treach-
ery of the one tunicatus that enabled him to kill five secutores.

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Secutor
From at least the middle of the first century AD , the secutor (‘pursuer’) be-
came the traditional opponent of the retiarius. In fact, the secutor seems to
have been created with the retiarius in mind as an opponent as is indicated
by the alternative name contraretiarius (‘anti-retiarius’), as if the only
reason for the existence of the secutor was to provide an interesting op-
ponent for the retiarius.225 The secutor and murmillo are almost identical in
their armament, wearing a manica on the right arm, greaves, and a long
concave shield on the left. Like all other gladiator types (except for
provocator), the secutor had a completely unprotected torso, although there
is one example from Tomis (Constanta in modern Romania) of a secutor
wearing a what looks like a coat of mail, leaving only his neck vulnerable to
a deathblow.226 The most important difference between the two gladiators
is the helmet. In contrast with the murmillo’s visored helmet with a brim
and feathers, and high, extended crest, the secutor’s helmet had no brim or
visor but reminds one of an inverted fish bowl with its virtually round and
smooth surface, covering the whole head down to the chin, with a small
crest and two tiny eyeholes (Figure 19). The small eyeholes are meant to

Figure 19 Secutor helmet. Arles, Musée départemental de l’Arles antique

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protect the secutor from the three prongs of the retiarius’ trident. Wider
eyeholes would increase the risk of being blinded, at least in one eye. A
larger crest would have made it easier for the retiarius to entangle the
secutor in his net or fend him off with the trident. These protective measures
were designed to prevent a short match in which the retiarius could achieve
an easy victory. On the other hand, these advantages were counterbalanced
by an attenuated field of vision for the secutor, which would have made it
difficult for its wearer to keep track of both the retiarius’ net and trident,
and a reduced air supply, which could quickly tire out the secutor in any pur-
suit of his mobile, light-armed opponent.227 The secutor’s helmet gave the
gladiator a rather menacing, inhuman appearance, which created a dramatic
contrast with the very human-looking and vulnerable retiarius. It is not sur-
prising that the retiarius/secutor pairing became the most popular combi-
nation in gladiatorial shows.

Veles
The veles was a lightly armed gladiator about whom we know little. As Isidore
of Seville informs us, the velites fought each other with spears, which they
threw at both close and more distant range. They were apparently quite popu-
lar with spectators, perhaps because their style of fighting represented a
change from the usual close sword fighting of most other gladiators.228 There
is no evidence regarding their armour, but in as much as they are lightly
armed, we might guess that they wore either a tunic or just a subligaculum and
carried a small shield. The head covering was probably a leather cap instead of
a heavy metal helmet. One interesting point is that, unlike all other gladiators,
the veles had a counterpart with the same name in the Roman army.

Lesser known gladiator types

Some or all of the gladiator types discussed in this section may indeed have
been popular, but the sources both literary and graphic do not provide
much information about them.

Essedarius
The name of this type of gladiator comes from a Gallic word, essedum, ‘a
two-wheeled war chariot’ and means ‘one who fights from a chariot’. The

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essedarius as a gladiatorial type was no doubt inspired by the chariot fighters

that Roman soldiers under the command of Julius Caesar had seen in
Britain. Thus, the essedarius is another example of a foreign soldier assimi-
lated as a gladiator into the arena. Julius Caesar mentions them quite fre-
quently and describes their manner of fighting in real warfare:

[The chariot fighters] ride about everywhere throwing spears and create
much panic in [our] ranks because of their horses and the sound made by
the wheels, and when they have made their way among the troops of
[Roman] cavalry, they jump down from their chariots and fight on foot.229

The essedarius fought other essedarii, beginning the match from their
chariot and then finishing the battle on foot, a sequence of fighting similar
to that of the equites, who began the contest on horseback.230

The following gladiators may have been sideshow entertainers, who per-
formed in between the regular gladiator matches.

Laquearius
The word laquearius means ‘lasso man’. The only evidence we have of their
style of fighting comes from Isidore of Seville. The fighting style of laquearii
is somewhat similar to that of the rodeo cowboy who lassoes a calf from
horseback and wrestles him down. The laquearius, however, works on foot
and his job to ensnare men with his lasso and throw them to the ground.
Lafaye claims that the laquearius used his lasso to strangle his opponents.231
Isidore says that his opponents both flee from him and run after him.232 This
cryptic statement might make sense if, as is most likely, the laquearii fought
each other. Then the pursuer, when he misses ensnaring his opponent with
his lasso, needs to collect his rope and as a result becomes the pursued.

Andabata
The andabata fought blindfolded or perhaps with a helmet that covered his
eyes. Naturally, this gladiator only fought other andabatae. Since we hear
nothing of this gladiator from imperial writers, most likely the andabata
had disappeared from the arena by the end of the Republic. With its similar-
ity to a ‘pin the tail on the donkey’ game, the performance of the andabatae
must have aimed at a comic effect, but sometimes with deadly results.

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Junkelmann calls the fight between two andabatae ‘a battle of macabre

grotesqueness’.233 Cicero’s mention of the andabatae seems to imply that
they were not a significant attraction in the arena.234 It is not known
whether the andabata had his own special armament or other gladiatorial
types took turns playing the andabata.

Paegniarius
The word paegniarius means something like ‘play gladiator’. Whatever that
is supposed to mean, it is clear that the paegniarius did not employ deadly
weapons. Whatever weapons he used probably produced at most bruises
and minor cuts. The purpose of the paegniarii was probably to provide a
respite for spectators from the bloody violence of gladiatorial combat. They
could have performed during the interval between gladiator duels, or, as
was suggested earlier in this chapter, they may have provided the light en-
tertainment that Seneca was looking forward to during the lunch break in
the middle of a munus, only to be outraged by the bloody meridianum spec-
taculum.235 There is, however, no evidence linking them to any specific
portion of the munus. Although their ‘playful’ style set them off from their
gladiatorial colleagues, they were nonetheless considered real gladiators and
were housed in the Ludus Magnus.236 In the only literary reference we have
to this gladiatorial type, Caligula, in one of his psychopathic moods, forced
distinguished heads of families with notable physical disabilities to perform
in place of the paegniarii.237 No doubt Caligula believed that the sight of
disabled older men of some note engaging in mock fights would serve as
acceptable substitutes for the paegniarii. Their ineptness caused by inexpe-
rience, age and disabilities probably achieved the same result as the pro-
fessional skills of the paegniarii. We do not hear of what reception the
crowd gave to Caligula’s mean-spirited mockery of upstanding Roman citi-
zens. Although there may have some who were shocked by this behaviour
on the part of their emperor, there were probably many spectators who
enjoyed the display. The average Roman spectator had high tolerance for
witnessing acts that we would condemn as gratuitous cruelty.
A third century AD mosaic from Nennig, Germany (Figure 20) is gener-
ally taken to depict paegniarii, although the fighters go beyond what we
would today consider ‘play’. We see two fighters attacking each other, one
with a whip and the other with what seems to be a stick. They are clothed

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Figure 20 Paegniarii. Villa of Nennig, Germany. Gianni Dagli Orti/The Art Archive

from neck to knee, perhaps to protect them from serious injury, and wear
what appear to be metallic leggings on their calves. Attached to their left
arm is a small concave shield, from the top of which project slightly curved
(metal?) rods. These rods may have served to fend off blows.

Sagittarius
As the name indicates, this gladiator is an archer (sagitta ⫽ ‘arrow’), but the
evidence for this gladiatorial type is very slight. An inscription from Venusia
(modern Venosa) announces the presence in a tomb of twenty gladiators,
one of whom is a sagittarius.238 A bas-relief in Florence depicts two ar-
moured archers fighting each other, framed by two other gladiator pairs
similarly engaged.239 Was it simply a matter of two archers shooting at each
other? An analogy used by the poet Persius seems to support this interpret-
ation: ‘We strike and in turn expose our legs’.240 If this line really does refer
to arena archers, then we might think of fighters protected by armour from

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head to waist, but without any linen leggings or greaves, shooting at each
other and suffering arrow wounds on their bare legs.241 The sagittarii posed
a security problem with their ability to make lethal shots from a distance.
They were likely watched closely in the arena by well-armoured soldiers.

Scissor, hastarius, dimachaerus and pontarius

These four gladiator types are known only by name. Scissor means ‘carver’,
hastarius, ‘spear man’, dimachaerus, ‘a fighter with a dagger in each hand’,
and, pontarius, ‘a platform fighter’.242 The name scissor (‘carver’) provides
no hint of this gladiator’s performance in the arena. Hastarius could easily
be another name for a hoplomachus who carried a spear. Pontarius seems to
be a general term for any gladiator who fought on a platform. There is
pictorial evidence that the retiarius was occasionally pitted against one or
two secutores, whom he fought while standing on a platform, accessed by
steps on one or both sides (Figure 21). Note that the more lightly armed
retiarius was given the more advantageous position against the heavily
armed secutor, no doubt in order to give the retiarius a chance of victory.243
When he had to deal with two secutores, he was given piles of stones stacked
in pyramid shape on the platform to help him fend off his two opponents
as they tried to reach him. If the retiarius were able to kill or seriously
wound one of them before the other reached the platform, then he had a

Figure 21 Pontiarii. Trieste Museum

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much better chance of defeating the other secutor.244 This form of fighting
must have been popular with spectators because, in an inscription from
Pompeii in which the components of two munera are listed, the pontarii are
the only specific category of gladiator mentioned.245 Like the pontarius, the
dimachaerus may not be a separate category of gladiator, but, as Robert
points out, could be a retiarius or even a heavy-armed gladiator of various
categories who wielded a dagger or short sword in each hand: a ‘specializa-
tion’, as Junkelmann calls this form of fighting.246

A provincial gladiator: cruppellarius

The various provinces into which Gaul was divided took up gladiatorial
combat with enthusiasm as part of their romanization. We know that the
gallus became a popular gladiator type at Rome early in the history of glad-
iatorial combat, but it is doubtful that the gallus would have ever been ac-
cepted in Gaul, since he was created as a reminder of Gallic defeat. There
seems, however, to have been at least one native gladiatorial type that was
created in Gaul and did not appear in arenas outside that area: the
cruppellarius. We hear of this Gallic gladiator type only once, when a group
of cruppellarius were recruited by a Gallic rebel named Sacrovir in the early
first century AD to fight against the Romans. On the evidence that we have,
these gladiators were virtually useless in war and perhaps boring in the
arena. They were covered from head to toe in virtually impenetrable metal
plating of some kind (mail?), but were so hindered by the heavy armour that
they could not inflict significant damage on their opponents. In battle
against the Romans, their protective covering was an effective defence
against spears and swords, but the Roman soldiers eventually got the best
of them by chopping at their armour with axes, pickaxes, pikes and forked
poles to expose their bodies to attack.247

Female gladiators
The Romans were fond of novelty in their entertainment, and there was no
greater novelty than the spectacle of women appearing as gladiators in the
arena, particularly aristocratic women. Female gladiators represented the
contradiction of one of Rome’s most cherished traditional values, the as-
sociation of women with the household and various domestic tasks. When
a woman fought in the arena, she was abandoning her female role and

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invading an exclusively masculine area of martial virtue and, when she

fought as a professional gladiator, she, like a freeborn man, incurred the dis-
honour of infamia by taking up a disgraced profession. The scandal created
by this act was probably even greater in the case of a woman. But as is the
case even today, scandal fascinated the Romans despite societal disapproval,
leading them to flock to see such performances and fuelling the desire of
performers to attain notoriety by fulfilling this demand.
We hear of no female gladiators during the Republic, when women were
less free to pursue their own desires. The legal and moral control that the
paterfamilias wielded over his family, especially female members, was not to
be questioned. The power of the family patriarch seems to have been a suf-
ficient deterrent to female members of the family from putting themselves
on display in the theatre or in the amphitheatre. Women, however, began to
acquire greater freedom in the late Republic and early empire, so it is not
surprising that we first hear of women wanting to perform as gladiators. The
threat of infamia was apparently no longer enough to discourage individual
women from volunteering themselves. By the early first century AD, the
number of women fighting in the arena was sufficient to spur the Senate
into action. In AD 11, a Senatus Consultum (‘Decree of the Senate’) was
issued imposing an age restriction on both freeborn men (25 years old) and
women (20 years old) before they could sign themselves up as gladiators or
act on the stage.248 This decree appears to be designed to stem the tide of
impressionable young aristocrats, swept away by the romance of the arena
and the stage, from volunteering their services in these venues. Eight years
later, a second decree was issued to deal specifically with the problem of
women from senatorial and equestrian families serving as gladiators. It
would seem that, during this eight-year period, women from these two
upper classes had begun to appear on the stage and to fight as gladiators in
the arena in even greater numbers. The Senatus Consultum of AD 19 took a
stricter approach. It forbade women of these classes to appear on the stage
or become gladiators and prohibited lanistae from hiring them. The reason
for these prohibitions given in this decree was that the infamia that these
aristocrats incurred diminished the dignity of their respective classes.249
Another penalty was added: those who disobeyed this decree were to be
deprived of a proper burial with a funeral.250 The existence of both these
decrees indicates the active interest of women of all classes in fighting as a
gladiator and the desire of Roman spectators to watch them perform.

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Apparently, the decree of AD 19 was either forgotten or ignored during

the reign of Nero, because more and more freeborn women were becoming
performers in the theatre and the arena. Tacitus calls attention to the large
numbers of upper-class women and senators who suffered disgrace because
of their appearances in the arena.251 Another historian who expressed cha-
grin at such behaviour was Cassius Dio, who was himself a member of the
senatorial class. He points out that their service as gladiators and as arena
hunters was in some cases voluntary and, in others, forced by the emperor.
These aristocratic men and women, encouraged by Nero’s appearances on-
stage, engaged in other activities in public equally productive of infamia
such as singing and dancing, playing musical instruments, acting in plays,
and driving horses in the Circus Maximus.252 Nero presented an ethnic
variation on the female gladiator when he gave a munus in Puteoli hon-
ouring Tiridates, the king of Armenia, in which Ethiopian women (along
with Ethiopian men and children) fought as gladiators.253 A character in
Petronius’ Satyricon mentions an essedaria, a female gladiator who rode in a
British war chariot, as a featured attraction in a munus in southern Italy.254
Female gladiators continued to appear in the arena throughout the rest of
the first century AD and during the second. Aristocratic women who per-
formed in the arena, both in gladiatorial combat and in the venatio, were a
special target of Juvenal’s satire. He complains of a certain Mevia who par-
ticipated in the venatio as a venator, dressed up like an Amazon with one
breast exposed and carrying hunting spears.255 He also rails against women
who disgrace their famous ancestors by training as gladiators in the ludus,
wearing the typical gladiatorial armour from helmet to greaves.256 The ulti-
mate disgrace would be if this training were for real gladiatorial combat.
Cassius Dio seeks to put the best face possible on a venatio given during the
dedication of the Colosseum, when he expresses relief that the women who
participated in this event were not of the two upper classes.257
Suetonius credits Domitian with being the first emperor to incorporate
female gladiators and arena hunters into a nocturnal munus in the amphithe-
atre by torchlight.258 The female gladiators do not seem to have been taken
seriously in Domitian’s shows. The poet Statius speaks of these feminine
fighters as ‘untrained and ignorant of weaponry’. Moreover, they were pre-
sented in conjunction with dwarf gladiators, who appeared immediately after
them. Since the Romans were less than sympathetic to physical deformity,

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Figure 22 Two female gladiators. British Museum, London, © The Trustees of The British
Museum

combat involving dwarfs was for laughs. Statius depicts Mars and the person-
ification ‘Bloody Courage’ (Cruenta virtus) laughing at the dwarfs in close
combat, wounding and threatening death to each other in a comic parody of
real gladiatorial combat.259 The same comic effect would have been achieved
when, on occasion, female fighters were matched against dwarfs, truly a
bizarre combination, but probably much enjoyed by the spectators.260
In a bas-relief found in the Greek east at Halicarnassus two female glad-
iators are depicted in combat (Figure 22). There is no way of telling their
social rank; they could be aristocrats or ordinary women, but they appear to
be real gladiators. They are heavy-armed fighters, but it is not clear to what
specific category of gladiator they belong. They are not wearing their
helmets, which are on the ground on either side of what seems to be a plat-
form on which they are standing. Otherwise they sport the usual equipment
of the heavy-armed gladiator: shield, manica, balteus, subligaculum and
greaves. The reason for the helmets on the ground will be dealt with later in

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this chapter in ‘Gladiatorial combat’. The medium size of their concave rec-
tangular shields offers the possibility that both are thraeces, but there are
some problems with that interpretation. The thraex did not usually fight
another thraex, and their weapon appears to be a straight short sword or
dagger rather than the Thracian’s curved weapon (sica).261 It has been
suggested that they are provocatores, who did fight each other, but there is
no evidence of the breast plate protecting the upper torso, characteristic of
that type of gladiator. If the helmets on the ground were represented more
clearly, we might be able to be more exact about their gladiator type. Both
gladiators have one naked breast exposed that is not covered by the shield,
which may mean that they fought with naked torsos just like most male
gladiators. Completely naked torsos would suggest that these female gladia-
tors sought equality with male gladiators, who (except for the provocator)
wore no protective armour on their upper body as a badge of courage.
The inscription below them gives their names: Amazonia and Achillia,
appropriate pseudonyms for female gladiators. The name Amazonia refers
to the mythical female warriors who fought with one breast exposed.
Achillia is the feminine form of Achilles, the greatest of all Greek legendary
fighters. In fact, ancient spectators would have recognized in these names a
reference to the legend according to which Achilles killed the Amazon
Queen Penthesilea, ally of the Trojans at Troy, without realizing that she
was woman until he stripped her armour.262 The Greek word apeluthēsan
(‘they were released’) indicates that they both fought well enough to
impress the editor and the spectators, so that the former called it a draw and
allowed both to retire from the arena to fight another day. This suggests
that these female gladiators were not aristocratic women on a lark, but
lower-class women who were fighting for their lives.263 The fact that this
match was thought deserving of durable commemoration in sculpted mar-
ble indicates how seriously these gladiators were taken. This slab may have
been commissioned and put on public display in Halicarnassus by the editor
to remind his fellow citizens of the great show he had put on, but this is not
how editores usually memorialized their shows. An editor typically celebrated
his munus with paintings displayed in locations frequented by the public,
and privately with mosaic floors depicting various events in his munus in a
reception area for all his guests to see.264 Thus it has been argued that this
relief could have been set up in the ludus in which these women were
trained as an example of their achievement.265

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In the late second century or early third century AD, Septimius Severus
proclaimed a ban on upper-class female gladiators, citing essentially the
same reason as the senatorial decree of AD 19.

The women in this contest fought so energetically and savagely, that they
were the cause of other elite women becoming the object of jokes and as a
result, it was decreed that no woman should ever again fight in a gladiato-
rial duel.266

We only hear of female gladiators once more, in an inscription from the

Roman port of Ostia in which a local magistrate named Hostilianus credits
himself with being the first to present female gladiators in that city.267
M. Cebeillac-Gervasoni and F. Zevi date the inscription to the second half
of the second century AD, most likely before the ban.268 In the inscription,
Hostilianus is called ‘the administrator of the young people’s games’
(curator lusus iuvenalis) in Ostia. The participants in these youth games
were members of a paramilitary youth organization called a collegium
iuvenum (‘an association of young people’), consisting of aristocratic
youth.269 These organizations existed in towns and cities throughout the
empire. They trained young men and, on occasion, young women, in mar-
tial arts, including swordsmanship. An inscription from Carsulae (north of
Rome, near modern San Gemini) mentions a gladiator who was a trainer
of youths (pinnrapus iuvenum).270 Cebeillac-Gervasoni and Zevi have
suggested that the female gladiators in Hostilianus’ show could have been
trained in the collegium iuvenum at Ostia (Rome’s seaport), perhaps under
his supervision. They also have proposed that Hostilianus’ female gladiators
may have been presented in the context of the games (iuvenalia) that were
required of the young men and women as demonstration of their acquired
skills rather than at the normal munus.271 These women no doubt fought
with wooden weapons or, at worst, with dulled swords. Coleman, however,
interprets this evidence differently. She dates this inscription to a period
after Septimius Severus’ ban on aristocratic female gladiators and argues
that the use of the word mulieres (‘women’) rather than feminae (‘ladies’)
means that no aristocratic women were involved in this show, and thus
would not have violated Severus’ ban. She also points out that it is likely that
other shows involving female gladiators had been presented in various
towns, of which no record has survived.272

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Gladiator names
The names of gladiators were an important aspect of their mystique. Most
gladiators chose stage names that projected an attractive gladiatorial image
of themselves to the spectators. On the other hand, many gladiators used
their real names. Most of those who did so were undoubtedly auctorati and
used the three names, typical of Roman citizens, as an attempt to differenti-
ate themselves from the slave gladiators, their social inferiors. An example of
one of these three-part names is one that a graffiti artist painted on the side
of a tomb in Pompeii above his depiction of a gladiator, L. Raecius Felix.273
Sometimes auctorati, following usage in everyday Roman life, used only
their praenomen (‘first name’) and their nomen (surname) like M. Attilius,
who defeated Raecius. Another possibility for a freeborn auctoratus was to
be known just by his nomen or by his cognomen (third name).274 Nonethe-
less, despite the dignity and status that these three names brought to nu-
merous gladiators, they lacked the imaginative aura of stage names.275 In
adopting pseudonyms, gladiators drew heavily on Greco-Roman myth and
legend, which was familiar to most spectators. Obviously, the sobriquet
‘Achilles’ excited the imagination much more than L. Raecius Felix. Greek
and Roman epic provided a rich resource for appropriate gladiatorial names,
especially since the heroes in these works fought duels with swords. The
pseudonyms that follow are a selection from the numerous surviving pseu-
donyms: Patroclus (best friend of Achilles), Diomedes (one of the leading
Greek warriors), Aias/Ajax (second greatest Greek warrior), Hector (lead-
ing Trojan warrior) and Turnus (Aeneas’ chief opponent in the Aeneid).
Other heroic legends such as the story of the Argonauts and the Seven
against Thebes were also favoured sources, for example: Polydeuces (Latin
Pollux), the famous boxer and immortal brother of the mortal Castor
(also a gladiatorial name), and Bebryx (Argonauts); Eteocles, Polyneices,
Tydeus, Hippomedon, Amphiaraus and Parthenopaeus (from Theban
legend). The names Eteocles and Polyneices are particularly fitting because
of the fratricidal sword duel they fought for the kingship of Thebes. We
know that two brothers in Smyrna (modern Izmir on the western coast of
Turkey) took the names of the quarrelling Theban brothers, but in real life
their feelings for each other were quite different as Polyneices’ epitaph
reveals: ‘Eteocles [set up this monument] in memory of his brother Polyne-
ices, an essedarius’.276 Two names, Bebryx and Tydeus, add a frisson of

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ruthless savagery to a gladiator’s image. Bebryx (‘the Bebrycian’) undoubt-

edly refers to a character in the Argonautica, Amycus, the arrogant king of
the barbarian Bebrycians, who ignored the laws of hospitality by immedi-
ately challenging any stranger arriving on his shore to a boxing match and
then killing him. His last opponent was the Argonaut Polydeuces, whose
training in the techniques of boxing enabled him to defeat and kill Amycus,
a victory of civilized skills over brute force.277 Tydeus alienated his patron
divinity, Athena, by eating the brains of his Theban opponent, Melanip-
pus.278 The adjectival names Ferox (‘arrogantly savage’) and Pugnax (‘com-
bative’) carry the same meaning, but without the specific savagery in the
stories of Amycus and Tydeus. There were other legendary heroes whose
names gladiators favoured, such as Perseus, who beheaded the Medusa,
Bellerophon, who rode the flying horse Pegasus, and Meleager, who killed
the monstrous Calydonian boar (also a good name for a venator). Another
category of adjectives and nouns (both Latin and Greek) stress victory and
superiority in general: Victor (‘winner’) and in its passive form, Invictus
(‘invincible’), the Greek equivalent of which was Anicetus, Neikophoros
(‘victorious’), Exochus (‘mightiest’), Amaranthus (‘unperishable’), Trium-
phus (‘triumph’) and Tyrannus (‘tyrant’). Stephanos (‘crown’) is a very
popular gladiatorial name because it signifies the pursuit of excellence. A
crown was awarded not just to any winner of a gladiatorial contest, but to
one who has performed outstandingly.
Not all gladiator names were suggestive of martial virtue and force. There
are some names that suggest trickery and/or skill. Hermes and Autolycos,
for example, were both mythical tricksters. The pseudonyms Argutus (‘keen-
minded’) and Pardos (‘leopard’, a wily predator) have the same connotation,
while Capreolus (‘wild goat’) suggests light-footedness. Another group of
gladiator names from Greco-Roman myth emphasize beauty and sexual
attractiveness and no doubt were a further stimulus to women who were
vulnerable to the sexual appeal of gladiators: Hippolytus (a handsome youth
who rejected all women and died for this offence against Aphrodite),
Hyacinthus (a beautiful young man loved by Apollo) and Eros/Cupid, the
god of love himself.279 Sometimes adjectives were used as names with the
same intent: Kallimorphos, (‘of beautiful form’), Euprepes (‘good looking’),
Euchrous (‘having a good complexion’) and Decoratus (‘handsome’).
Gladiators were also fond of using stage names to associate themselves
with precious jewels and with gold. Perhaps gladiators named Amethystus

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(‘amethyst’), Beryllus (‘beryl’) and Smaragdus (‘emerald’) had these gems

set into their armour and weapons as decorations. Aureolus (‘golden’) was a
favourite name of leading gladiators.280 The Greek stem ‘chryso-’, meaning
‘golden’, appears frequently in gladiatorial names: Chrysanthus (‘golden
flower’), Chrysopetasus (‘golden hat’, probably a reference to Hermes’
broad-brimmed hat) and Chrysomallos (‘golden fleece’), a reference to the
story of Argonauts. Two other golden names suggest an association with
Eros: Chrysopteros (‘of golden wing’, an epithet of Eros) and Chryseros
(‘golden love’). Finally, the popular sobriquets Columbus and Palumbus
(‘dove’ and ‘ring dove’) seem odd for gladiators, emphasizing gentleness
over violence. These names may be intended to be ironic as seems to be the
case with the names Trupheros (‘dainty’) and Hilarus (‘cheerful’).281

Great performers in the arena

We know that certain gladiators attained great fame and popularity, but it
might seem surprising, given the honours heaped on athletes today, that
there seems to be so little praise of star gladiators in Roman literary sources.
There is also no record of statues of gladiators in comparison with the hun-
dreds of statues of great Greek athletes we read about in Greek sources such
as Pausanias. The reason for this neglect is the disgrace associated with the
profession of gladiator. There was one writer, however, whose enthusiasm
for gladiators led him to dedicate a poem of praise to a contemporary star of
the arena. The name of the gladiator was Hermes, whom the poet Martial
lavishly praises for his skills, competitive character, and his overwhelming
superiority among gladiators. Each line of the poem begins with the name
Hermes:
1 Hermes, the martial pleasure of the age;
Hermes, trained in the use of all weapons;
Hermes, both gladiator and teacher;
Hermes, the stormy terror of his gladiator school;
5 Hermes, whom alone Helius fears;
Hermes, before whom alone Advolans falls;
Hermes, trained to win without killing;
Hermes, the only gladiator who can substitute for himself;
Hermes, the enricher of ticket scalpers;
10 Hermes, the care and despair of gladiator groupies;

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Hermes, proud user of the warlike spear;

Hermes, threatening with his marine trident;
Hermes, the object of fear in his soft cap;
Hermes, the glory of universal Mars;
15 Hermes, singular in all ways and three times unique.282

Martial’s emphasis is on Hermes’ unusual versatility, to which he refers in

lines 2 and 11–15. Apparently, Hermes, although familiar with all styles of
fighting (2), had mastered the fighting styles of three different types of
gladiators; usually, a gladiator specialized in only one. The three types here
are the hoplomachus (‘spear’, 11), retiarius (‘trident’, 12) and veles (‘soft
cap’, 13). Hermes’ choice of these three gladiatorial types suggests that he
was not much of a sword fighter, since none of these three types used that
weapon. The hoplomachus used a lance and dagger, the retiarius, a trident
and a dagger, and the veles, a throwing spear. Hermes seems not to have
been the strongest of gladiators because both the retiarius and the veles
were light-armed gladiators and the hoplomachus, while not exactly light-
armed, was somewhere in between in this regard, carrying a small, round
shield weighing only about 4 pounds. It is not surprising that Hermes was
already a teacher in the gladiator school, while he was still an active gladia-
tor (3). His versatility made him particularly valuable as an instructor.
Helius (‘sun god’) and Advolans (‘the flying gladiator’, a reference to his
speed) are apparently outstanding gladiators who have been defeated by
Hermes. Especially notable is Hermes’ ability to win without killing (7),
which suggests that not all gladiators were out to kill their opponents unless
it was necessary. His mastery of weapons was such that he could employ
them with just enough force to inflict non-lethal wounds that would cause
his opponent to submit. Hermes also possessed the sine qua non of a great
gladiator: women found him sexually attractive (10).
Martial also praises an animal fighter named Carpophorus in two poems.
The praise, however, although effusive, is much less specific and somewhat
formulaic. In both poems from his Book of Spectacles, Martial associates
Carpophorus with the achievements of mythical heroes such as Hercules,
Jason, Theseus and Meleager, who killed or subdued monstrous animals.283
Martial’s three poems (one for Hermes and two for Carpophorus) represent
the only extant paeans to specific fighters in the arena. Other gladiators had
to settle for the ephemeral applause of the crowd and whatever monetary

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awards the editor deemed appropriate as recognition of their victories in the

arena. The gladiator and the animal fighter were men of the moment
(sometimes a very brief moment) and not for the ages.
It should be noted, however, that human performers were not the only
ones to achieve fame in the arena. There were large predators whose success
in killing hunters or performing tricks in the arena brought them such
fame that they were given names and their images were artistically rep-
resented. For example, a North African mosaic from Rades celebrates
famous trained bears with impressive names: Braciatus, Gloriosus, Simpli-
cius, Alecsandria, Fedra (the tragic heroine Phaedra) and Nilus (‘the Nile’),
while a mosaic from Curubis (modern Kourba in Tunisia) honours two
bears who were obviously effective killers named Crudelis (‘cruel’) and
Omicida (‘man-killer’).284 The Magerius mosaic from Smirat in Tunisia
honours four courageous leopards which were killed by equally famous
hunters. The leopards were named Victor (‘winner’), Crispinus (‘Curly’, a
common Roman cognomen), Luxurius (‘pleasure-loving’) and Romanus
(‘Roman’). While the average person had to be satisfied with watching these
beloved animals in the arena, an emperor could indulge his enthusiasm
more immediately. Valentinian I (AD 364–375) kept two female bears, Mica
(‘Gold Flake’) and Innocentia (‘Innocence’), renowned as ‘devourers of
men’ in cages just outside his bedroom. Innocence, because of her great
success in killing human opponents in the arena, won the equivalent of a
gladiator’s rudis, when Valentinian released her into the woods. Ammianus
Marcellinus, who tells this story, carries the parallel with a gladiator even
further when he calls Innocence ‘well deserving’ (bene meritam), a phrase
commonly used in the epitaphs of gladiators to sum up their careers.285

The main event: gladiators in the afternoon

The mood
The atmosphere of the combat was serious and even sombre. The menace
of violence and death pervaded the arena. A passage in a rhetorical exercise
presents a fictional recruit’s reaction to his first appearance in the arena. His
words vividly present the terrors of the arena for participants and even for
the crowd. After all, the excitement of vicarious fear that was aroused in
spectators by identifying themselves with the gladiators was part of the

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fun.286 Romans, who were not jaded by the overload of violent entertain-
ment that we moderns are regularly subject to in films and on television,
would have been especially vulnerable to the brutal sights and sounds they
experienced in the arena.

Now the day was here and the people had now gathered for the spectacle of
our [i.e., the recruit and his fellow gladiators] suffering and now those
about to perish, having been put on display in the arena, had led a proces-
sion of their own death. The munerarius took his seat, about to gain public
favour at the cost of our blood . . . one thing . . . made me miserable, that
I seemed inadequately prepared; to be sure I was destined to become a vic-
tim of the arena; no gladiator had cost the munerarius less. The whole arena
resounded with the apparatus of death. One man was sharpening a sword,
another one was heating plates with fire, some gladiators were being struck
by rods, others, by whips [all these devices were used to force reluctant gladi-
ators to fight].287 You would have thought these men were pirates.288 Trum-
pets blared with their funereal sound [trumpet music was associated with
funerals]; after the couches of Libitina [⫽ ‘stretchers’] were brought in,
there was a funeral procession before those carried out [of the arena] were
even dead. Everywhere there were wounds, moans, gore; every possible dan-
ger was evident.289

Gladiatorial combat
At a large-scale munus, the spectators could expect to see twelve or thirteen
matches in an afternoon, which would take at least three hours to com-
plete.290 This estimate is based on the presumed average length of a gladia-
torial contest being between ten and fifteen minutes. One would also have to
allow some extra time for those matches that required the editor to make a
life or death decision and for normal breaks between matches. This time
would have been used by arena attendants called harenarii (‘sand men’) who
cleaned up the bloody sand with rakes and sprinkled it with water.291
What was a gladiatorial match like? Surviving ancient art such as paint-
ings and mosaics give us still-life depictions, but modern re-creations in
films often provide a better representation of these fights. There is one lit-
erary description of gladiatorial combat in Lucian’s Toxaris, although the
account is very brief. It is fictional, but no doubt Lucian had seen real
matches. The fight takes place in the Greek city of Amastris on the

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southern shore of the Black Sea. Two friends, Toxaris and Sisennes, both
Scythians, who have lost all their possessions to thieves, find out about a
munus to be held in three days’ time. Apparently, the show was organized
in a rather impromptu way, without the careful preparation typical of most
munera.292 The editor of this show was recruiting gladiators with an offer
of 10,000 drachmas to anyone willing to take part in the gladiatorial show.
Sisennes enthusiastically decides to take up the offer and, on the day of the
munus, leaves his seat in the theatre and enters the fighting area. With
characteristic bravado, he decides to fight without a helmet. The match
then begins:

Taking his position [Sisennes] fought helmetless and right away he himself is
wounded, having been cut behind the knee by a curved sword [His opponent
was a thraex.] with the result that much blood flowed. I [Toxaris] was
already dying with fear, but [Sisennes] alertly pierced with his sword the
chest of his opponent as he was boldly rushing in for the kill. As a result, his
opponent fell before his feet and he, in bad shape himself, sat on the corpse
and came close to dying himself, but I ran to him, helped him up and com-
forted him. And when he was dismissed as the winner, I picked him up and
carried him back to our quarters.293

This fight is really quite a simple one with a quick decisive result. One must
remember that the gladiators described here are amateurs, attracted by the
offer of cash for their participation. It is not surprising that these two young
men seem to be ignorant of defensive techniques, leading to a short, bloody
fight. Moreover, the quick death of Sisennes’ opponent eliminates the need
for a dramatic life or death decision by the editor. The crowd does not have
the opportunity to recommend discharge or death for the losing gladiator.
If Sisennes had not been able to continue after initially being seriously
wounded by his opponent, he would have had two choices: to fight on in
his weakened condition until he was killed by his opponent (or by some mir-
acle won the match), or to ask the editor for release (missio), which, if
granted, would have allowed him to walk (or be helped) out of the arena.294
If he chose the first option and was killed, his result would have been re-
ported as stans periit (literally, ‘he died standing’), an honourable death. If
he chose the latter option, he would have given a clear signal to the
summarudis and to the editor by lifting his left arm and raising the index
finger of his left hand (Figure 23). Often this gesture would be accompanied

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Figure 23 Zliten mosaic: a hoplomachus waits while his opponent, a murmillo, having discarded
his shield as a sign of submission, asks for missio (stans missus) with an upraised index finger of
his left hand. Villa at Dar Buc Amméra, Tripolitania. Archaeological Museum, Tripoli. Roger
Wood/Corbis

by the discarding of an important piece of equipment such as a helmet,

shield or sword. Sometimes the gladiator conceding defeat would merely
lower his weapon.295 In a Pompeian graffito, the gladiator L. Raecius Felix
has thrown his helmet to the ground, while the gladiator seeking missio in
Figure 23 has thrown off his shield from his left forearm and hand so that
he can signal submission with his finger. These are signs of an admission of
defeat, but it still mattered whether the gladiator made them while standing
or from various lower positions (sitting, leaning, squatting or kneeling) on
the ground. An epitaph of a gladiator named Flamma (‘Flame’) shows that
this was an important difference.296 The inscription records that Flamma
died at age 30, having had thirty-four matches, of which he won twenty-one
and then mentions two kinds of missio: stans [missus] (‘released while stand-
ing’) and mis[sus] (‘released not standing’).297 These releases account for
twelve of his losses (stans eight times and missus four). The missing loss was
of course his final bout in which he was killed. Flamma was undoubtedly

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proud that the number of releases standing is twice those requested from
the ground. In only four of his losses had he been beaten so badly that he
could not get up to request missio from a standing position. The fact he
requested and had been granted missio from a standing position mitigated
the shame of his losses on eight occasions.
There is one other category of release, stantes missi, which is the plural of
stans missus, but has a different meaning: a draw rather than a defeat. The
opportunity for the release of both gladiators was infrequent, since both op-
ponents had to request missio simultaneously. The poet Martial recorded a
celebrated instance of this result during the inauguration of the Colosseum
(mentioned earlier).298 The gladiators in this match, Priscus and Verus, had
been fighting intensely for an extended period of time with no decisive out-
come. Titus stopped the match and imposed a new condition (lex, ‘rule’):
that both gladiators lay down their shields (parma . . . posita, with their shields
laid aside’) and fight until one raised a finger in surrender (ad digitum).299
Titus’ lex was designed to bring the match to an end more quickly. Both
gladiators would have lost their main defence against serious wounds to the
torso. When this solution did not achieve its intended result, the crowd, im-
pressed by the efforts of these evenly matched gladiators, began to demand
missio for both of them. Things came to head when both gladiators eventu-
ally asked for missio at the same time.300 The obvious intent of his lex had
been to determine a winner, but the simultaneity of their requests for missio
now allowed him to make a decision fair to both gladiators in recognition of
their epic match. Titus pronounced the match a tie, declaring both gladia-
tors winners with the presentation of palms, symbolic of victory. In ad-
dition, Titus granted missio in its ultimate form, a complete discharge from
their service as gladiators, symbolized by the presentation of the rudis.301
Another example of stantes missi can be seen on the bas-relief from Halicar-
nassus discussed earlier, in which two female gladiators appear in full armour
except for their helmets (Figure 22). The legend in Greek, apeluthēsan
(‘they were released’), appears above the two fighters. Coleman has com-
pellingly argued that their heads are bare because they have performed a
gesture of surrender, placing their helmets on the ground on either side of
the platform on which they are standing. Thus, apeluthēsan is a Greek
translation of the Latin stantes missi. Just as the match of Priscus and
Verus received a poetic monument to commemorate its rare outcome, the

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discharge of Achillia and Amazon was memorialized with a stone monu-

ment for the same reason.302
If, however, missio were not granted to the losing gladiator, it would
mean that the petitioner would be killed by the victorious gladiator in a rit-
ual that would bring a dramatically powerful end to the contest. First the
referee (summarudis), stepped in with his rod to keep the two fighters
separate (Figure 23), or just restrained the sword hand of the victorious
gladiator while the editor made his decision (Figure 11). The task of pre-
venting the winning gladiator from attacking a gladiator who had requested
missio was the primary responsibility of the summarudis.303
The editor had the final word on the matter of life or death of a gladia-
tor, no matter how vociferous the crowd was in support of or against, a
gladiator.304 The failure to comply with his decision was not tolerated. Dur-
ing the reign of Commodus, a number of victorious gladiators apparently
showed reluctance to kill their defeated opponents when the emperor de-
nied missio. Commodus’ punishment was swift and severe. He had the dis-
obedient gladiators chained together and forced them to fight each other in
a group. They were bound so close to each other that some gladiators acci-
dentally killed those who were not their immediate opponents.305
It should be noted, however, that some editores seem to have been will-
ing on occasion to leave the decision to grant release or not up to the win-
ning gladiator. The emperor Caracalla told a defeated gladiator to direct his
request for missio to his opponent. This pronouncement could put the win-
ning gladiator in a difficult situation. The losing gladiator could have been a
comrade or even a cellmate in their ludus. If, however, he followed his first
inclination and spared his opponent, he might offend the emperor in ap-
pearing to be more merciful than his ruler. Thus, he regretfully chose the
safer option for himself and refused missio.306 An epitaph of a gladiator
named Urbicus seems to presume that an editor had granted him the power
to decide whether his opponent would live or die. In the epitaph, he speaks
to those gladiators who read this inscription on his tomb: ‘My advice is that
you condemn to death a gladiator whom you have defeated.’ Apparently,
Urbicus had granted missio to his opponent, who on a later occasion had
killed him.307 (Note that it is the custom in epitaphs for the deceased to
speak to passers-by.) In their own epitaphs, some gladiators speak of their
own compassion towards their rivals in the arena, who were probably fellow

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members of the familia. For example, Olympus says that he spared the lives
of many opponents.308
The editor’s life-and-death decision was not made in a vacuum. There
were a number of factors that could come into play. First, the editor invited
the spectators to give their opinions. Spectators who had been won over
by a display of courage and skill by the petitioner would shout missum
(‘[I want him] released’) or missos (‘[I want] both gladiators released’). An
inscription records what was probably the chant of two competing factions
among the spectators in reaction to both opponents’ request for missio:
missos missos, iugula iugula (‘Release them, release them; cut their throats,
cut their throats!’309 The shouts in favour of missio were often accompanied
by gestures such as shaking the flaps of the toga or waving handkerchiefs.310
If the editor decided to spare the losing gladiator, he used a hand signal,
which consisted of turning the thumb, pressed to the fist, down towards the
ground, a sign of approval among the Romans.311 Those spectators who
disagreed or merely wanted to see a man put to death shouted iugula
(‘cut his throat’) and turned their thumb upwards pressed against the closed
fist in a gesture called ‘the hostile thumb’ (pollice infesto).312 A poem in
the Anthologia Latina confirms the tie between the ‘the hostile thumb’ and
the fate of a defeated gladiator: ‘even the defeated gladiator is hopeful in the
cruel arena although the crowd threatens him with the hostile thumb’.313
The ‘thumbs down’ gesture given by the Vestal Virgins in Jean-Léon
Gérôme’s famous painting Pollice Verso (1872) (Figure 24) is a commonly
understood gesture of disapproval in modern times, but had just the oppo-
site meaning in the ancient world. Anthony Corbeill argues that, in the
Roman mind, the thumb was symbolic of the penis and thus this gesture
would be the ancient equivalent of giving the losing gladiator ‘the finger’.
He also argues that the modern ‘thumbs up’ sign did not have a positive
meaning until the twentieth century. (Clearly, however, the modern
thumbs-down sign had already acquired a negative meaning by the time of
Pollice Verso.) Corbeill describes the development of this gesture: ‘In paral-
lel to the representation of the phallus in Roman antiquity, the originally
apotropaic significations of the thumb came to be perceived as hostile and
threatening.’314 Thus, Juvenal’s famously ambiguous phrase ‘turned
thumb’ (pollice verso) as a sign of condemnation from the spectators means
specifically ‘with upturned thumb’.315 Of course, Juvenal did not need to
explain that to his readers, who were quite familiar with the gesture.

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Figure 24 Pollice Verso (Jean-Léon Gérôme). Note the Vestal Virgins in the upper right-hand
corner giving the anachronistic ‘thumbs down’ signal. Phoenix Art Museum, Arizona, USA/
The Bridgeman Art Library Ltd

If there were a clear consensus among the crowd for either discharge or
death, there would be pressure on the editor to please them. We know that
spectators usually liked to see the request for missio answered negatively by
the editor so that they could see what amounts to an execution of the losing
gladiator by his victorious opponent. Editores seeking public favour would
often grant their wish. Juvenal, in his rant against men who had been lowly
musicians and arena attendants but were now wealthy enough to give
munera, notes that they, in their desire to ingratiate themselves with the spec-
tators, went along with crowd’s desire to deny missio: ‘they kill to please the
spectators’.316 Another important consideration was economic. When an
editor decided not to grant missio, he was obliged to compensate the lanista
from whom he had rented the gladiator, and the more valuable the gladia-
tor was, the more the editor had to consider whether he wanted to add a
considerable payment to the significant amount of money he had already
spent on his munus. Thus, it is unlikely that a valuable commodity like a

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‘star’ gladiator would be denied missio. Moreover, because he was freeborn,

an auctoratus would be given more consideration with regard to missio than
a slave gladiator. Veteran gladiators were also more likely to be spared when
they lost. An inscription records a munus, given by a certain M. Mesonius,
in which the veterans lost and were released: a dimachaerus in his twenty-
first fight lost to a hoplomachus in just his third and was released; an
essedarius in his fifty-second match lost to another essedarius in his twenty-
seventh and was spared.317 Sometimes, personal motives came into play,
affecting the editor’s decision, as when Claudius wanted to order the death
of the gladiator Sabinus, the prefect of the German bodyguard under
Caligula, but was persuaded by his wife Messalina, who had been Sabinus’
lover, to spare him.318 Of course, the desire to avoid outlandish expenditure
was not always the primary motivation of an editor who wanted to please
and impress the crowd. If he adopted a policy of no release in his munus,
he was likely to produce a permanent record of his generosity (to the spec-
tators), as did the editor in a third century AD inscription from Minturnae,
which credited him with presenting eleven matches over a four-day period
and denying missio to eleven gladiators.319
If the editor was not the emperor and the ruler was present at the munus,
the editor could be intimidated by the imperial presence when he was decid-
ing the issue of missio and thus would follow what he knew to be the em-
peror’s usual policy in this matter. Ovid points out that when Augustus
entered the amphitheatre as a spectator at someone else’s munus, a defeated
gladiator was sure to be granted missio, although the preference of the
editor and the crowd might have been just the opposite.320 By the middle of
the first century AD, however, spectators increasingly preferred a more lethal
result. A character in Petronius’ Satyricon talks enthusiastically about an up-
coming munus in which the gladiators will fight to the death.321 It is during
the reign of Augustus that we first hear of a new condition or lex laid down
for combat by some editores: sine missione (‘without release’). This meant
that surrender with a request for missio would not be allowed. The fight will
be to the death. Augustus reacted negatively to this new policy and estab-
lished a ban on fights sine missione.322 Augustus’ preference for missio seems
to have been a desire to preserve what had been the custom in gladiatorial
fights up to his day: virtually automatic release for the petitioning gladiator.
His ban may have been occasioned by a munus given by Lucius Domitius
Ahenobarbus, the grandfather of the emperor Nero. Suetonius gives only a

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very general reason for Ahenobarbus’ offence: ‘he [Domitius] gave a munus
that was of such savagery that Augustus was forced to restrain him with an
edict after a private reprimand had failed’.323 One possibility is that the
practice which Suetonius characterizes as ‘savagery’ (saevitia) was Domi-
tius’ lex of sine missione for all the matches in his munus. Another possibility
is that Domitius, without officially proclaiming a policy of sine missione,
merely refused missio to all gladiators requesting it, thus producing the same
results as a declaration of sine missione, as probably was the case with the
editor at Minturnae mentioned above. A fictional munus in southern Italy
in Petroniius’ Satyricon was apparently advertised as requiring fights to
the death. The phrase used is ‘without escape’ (sine fuga), most likely syn-
onymous with sine missione.324 This perhaps suggests that Augustus’ ban
was occasionally ignored outside of Rome. Drusus, a son of the emperor
Tiberius, was the editor of a munus along with his brother Germanicus
(AD 15), in which he was censured both by shocked spectators and his father
for ‘rejoicing excessively in blood however cheap’.325 Although the Romans
normally saw nothing wrong with gladiators being killed, there was too
much ‘cheap’ blood shed in this munus, even for jaded Roman spectators.
Now, the question is what specifically made this munus so bloody? It is un-
likely that Augustus’ ban on sine missione matches would have been flouted
openly during the reign of his adopted son, Tiberius. In all probability, it
was the extra-sharp swords that Drusus supplied to his gladiators, which
became known as ‘Drusian’ swords and no doubt produced significantly
worse wounds in comparison with ordinary swords.326 The policy of the
emperor Marcus Aurelius, who was averse to the bloodshed of gladiatorial
combat, was never to give sharp swords to his gladiators when he was editor,
but to supply them with blunted weapons.327 David Potter argues that glad-
iators rarely fought in matches in which the death of one opponent was
a condition. He also points out that while the emperor was free to impose a
sine missione condition on his munus, munerarii in the provinces had to get
his permission.328
The emperor Claudius followed in the footsteps of his two ancestors
Domitius Ahenobarbus and Drusus (both members of the Claudian clan) in
the matter of gladiators. Suetonius characterizes his behavior as an editor
as ‘cruel and bloodthirsty’ because of his policy that even an accidental fall
of a gladiator would result in his death. Apparently, Claudius justified this
principle by counting the position of the fallen gladiator on the ground as

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an admission of defeat and an appeal for missio. Once a gladiator fell,

Claudius automatically denied missio. He imposed this policy not only when
he was editor, but also on other editores.329 On the other hand, Claudius
sometimes could act generously as an editor. On one occasion, he released
an essedarius when he was supplicated by the gladiator’s four sons, an inci-
dent discussed earlier in a different context. Claudius was then moved to
send an attendant around the amphitheatre carrying a placard advising the
people to beget children in light of how valuable his four sons had been to
the essedarius.330
Once the editor had made his decision, a fanfare from the arena orches-
tra signalled his readiness and all attention would be turned towards him as
he gave either a positive or negative hand signal. This moment can be seen
in Figure 11. A summarudis restrains the right arm of a victorious eques as a
horn player, accompanied by the other musicians, signals the moment of
decision.331
There were specific expectations of how a defeated gladiator should be-
have after he was refused missio. Just like soldiers, gladiators were trained to
give unquestioning obedience to their superiors. The most important aspect
of this obedience was their complete submission to the decision of the
munerarius and an unflinching reception of the deathblow (Figure 25).332
Of course, the ideal was not always attained in practice. Some gladiators,
facing imminent death, did not behave so courageously, a behaviour
that annoyed the crowd which had come to expect higher standards.333
Nonetheless, Cicero believed that gladiators generally provided an example
of what behavioural miracles ‘practice, preparation [and] habit’ could cre-
ate. What amazed Roman intellectuals about gladiators, who were in large
part slaves, was the admirable courage they commonly exhibited, a moral
quality which was thought to be characteristic only of freeborn men. Seneca
gives the example of a gladiator who had not shown any courage through-
out the whole match, but when denied missio, ‘offered his throat to his op-
ponent and guided the wavering sword to its destination’.334 He also notes
that losing gladiators would rather display their courage to the crowd by
being dispatched by their opponent in the arena than having their throat
ignobly cut in the spoliarium.335
There is one other possible outcome of a gladiatorial duel: both gladia-
tors kill each other. This was not a common occurrence in the arena, and
because of its rarity, was considered a significant event. When two gladiators

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Figure 25 Borghese mosaic: Astacius, ordered by the munerarius, delivers deathblow to his
opponent. Note ‘theta’ symbol over dead gladiator in lower right-hand corner. Torrenova,
Borghese Gallery. Alinari Archives/Corbis

killed each other, Claudius had a set of small knives made out of their
swords as a memento of the occasion.336 The scholiast Porphyrion, in an
explanatory note on one of Horace’s Satires, mentions that an epic match
between Bythus and Bacchius, two of the most famous gladiators of the late
first century BC, resulted in the death of both fighters.337
Even damnati could be released, although it happened rarely. Such a re-
lease occurred in Claudius’ famous naumachia (‘staged naval battle’) on the
Fucine Lake, when all the damnati who survived the fighting were released
because of their bravery. The most unusual case of a released damnatus is
that of Androclus (to be discussed in Chapter 5), who won the hearts of the
crowd and the emperor when he told the story about his earlier kindness to
a lion that did not attack him in the arena. A good part of this story is fic-
tional, but the details of its conclusion in the amphitheatre are almost cer-
tainly authentic. At Rome, the release of a damnatus was an ad hoc decision
of the editor (usually the emperor), but in the provinces, this kind of release
was eventually incorporated into the law with specified conditions. A statute

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in Justinian’s Digest orders that the presiding official at a venatio in the

provinces should not release someone condemned ad bestias just ‘because of
the favour of the crowd’, but only if the damnatus has the kind of ‘strength
and skill’ appropriate to a performer in the arena at Rome. Even in this case,
the provincial editor should first consult the emperor.338 An animal in a
venatio might even win missio if, like a gladiator, it won the favour of the
crowd and the editor. Martial tells a story of the emperor’s release of a doe,
which, having outwitted pursuing hounds with her twists and turns,
stopped in front of the emperor’s box and seemed to adopt a suppliant
stance. The emperor granted the request and the dogs did not harm the
doe. According to Martial, this was the result of the emperor’s divine power:
one of the poet’s servile flatteries of the emperor.339

Survival odds and life expectancy

The life and death decisions of the munerarius bring to mind certain ques-
tions. What were the chances of survival for a gladiator in a given match?
How long were their careers, on average? In order to calculate the survival
odds of gladiators, Ville has used inscriptions that record deaths and sur-
vivals in matches and give the age of gladiators at death. The statistics that
Ville, or any scholar, presents cannot pretend to scientific precision because
of the haphazard survival of inscriptions.340 The inscriptions involving glad-
iators obviously represent only an infinitesimal percentage of all the gladia-
tors who fought in ancient times. Epitaphs of gladiators, which are an
important source of our knowledge of gladiatorial careers, exist only for
those gladiators whose surviving friends and/or family had the resolve and
the financial resources to commemorate his professional life with a tomb
and an inscription. Given this limitation, however, statistical averages based
on minimal evidence are still valuable for the approximations that they pro-
vide us. Ville says that the odds of a gladiator surviving a match in the first
century AD were nine to one in his favour.341 Hopkins and Beard, using a
different set of inscriptions as evidence (which they honestly call ‘a ridicu-
lously small sample’), do not differ substantially from Ville. They calculate
the survival rate of the first century AD as slightly over eight in ten.342 Dur-
ing this period, missio seems to have been the norm. Only the incompetent
or the cowardly were refused release. In the second and third centuries AD,
however, Ville states that survival rate decreased by half, so that a gladiator

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had only slightly less than five chances out of ten to leave the arena alive.343
An extreme example is a munus that was given in AD 249 in Minturnae dis-
cussed earlier. The editor denied missio to the losers of all 11 matches.344
Ville sees the reason for this as the increasing competition among editores to
win favour among the spectators, who wanted to witness a death in every
match. By the second century, the denial of missio had become the rule
rather than the exception.345 Missio was awarded only when the loser had
impressed the editor and the crowd with his bravery.
In reality, the odds of survival were different for each gladiator in accor-
dance with his level of skill and experience. Not surprisingly, a majority of
inexperienced gladiators were killed in their first or second fights. Highly
skilled fighters naturally had a much better chance of survival, but there
were other factors involved in their greater probability of survival. First,
gladiators of the highest level, such as imperial gladiators, were only
matched with gladiators of similar proficiency on special occasions (to lessen
the risk of serious injury or death of very expensive gladiators); for the most
part, they fought inferior combatants. Thus, these proficient gladiators piled
up very impressive records of victories during their long careers. Ville cites
gladiators who won from 30 to 150 career victories.346 As we have seen
earlier, star gladiators were too valuable to be denied missio. This was also
true to a lesser degree of merely good gladiators. Ville also ventures an av-
erage age of gladiators who died in combat based on sixteen epitaphs that
give age of the deceased. His calculation is 27 years of age, but he rightly
does not propose this average with any great confidence.347 Hopkins and
Beard suggest a significantly lower number for the average: 22.5 years.348
While there is no doubt that becoming a gladiator increased the risk of an
early death, one should not exaggerate the statistical significance of the early
deaths of gladiators. Wiedemann notes that one has to judge the lifespan of
gladiators in the context of life expectancy among their non-gladiatorial
contemporaries.349 In ancient Rome, there was a considerable risk of an
early death even for non-gladiators. Three out of five persons died before
the age of 20.350 On the other hand, there were some gladiators whose
careers were relatively long. For example, the gladiator Flamma died at
age 30 having fought thirty-three times.351 We cannot be sure how many
years it took him to compile thirty-three fights, but approximately a decade
might be a reasonable guess. M. Antonius Niger, a thraex, died at age 38,
but he had fought only eighteen times.352 Since his three names indicate

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that he was a freeman, he was no doubt an auctoratus, who probably signed

up later in life for a limited period and perhaps died a natural death.
There were also the lucky few who were successful enough to survive
until they were granted a complete release from their service as gladiators
(rudiarii). It seems that there were different periods of service as a gladiator
before a criminal condemned to a gladiator school (damnatus ad ludum
gladiatorium) became eligible for the rudis according to the nature of the
crime. An edict of Hadrian states that a man convicted for cattle rustling
had to fight in the arena for at least three years before he could receive the
rudis. A munerarius could make a special grant of freedom along with the
rudis, but normally the receipt of the rudis did not mean that the convict
was automatically a freeman.353 Although the convicted cattle rustler had
escaped the dangers of the arena, he still could not become a freeman until
after the fifth year.354 One presumes that during the two-year period he was
still confined to the ludus, assisting in the training of other gladiators or
even doing odd jobs. We have no evidence of how long the waiting period
was for those guilty of other crimes. One thing, however, is certain; this re-
lease did not come quickly.355 The sources speak of ‘old’ and ‘decrepit’
gladiators, probably in their mid to late thirties.356 Ville mentions four
rudiarii who had participated in various numbers of matches over the
course of their careers: one in perhaps as many as eighteen, two others,
eleven each, and one as few as seven.357 How long a career does each of
these numbers represent? It impossible to tell since we have no idea how
often, on average, they fought in a given year. Hopkins and Beard suggest
that gladiators fought an average of just under two times a year, whereas
Coleman proposes an average of two or three fights a year. Both estimates
represent a low frequency of fighting, which probably was true only of the
best gladiators.358 It would seem logical that star gladiators, worth more
alive than dead to their lanista or procurator, fought a smaller number of
duels annually than did their lesser colleagues. Ville gives an example of an
imperial gladiator who he calculates had fought in less than six munera
annually, and of another who had only five combats in four years.359 On the
opposite end of the spectrum, we hear of gladiators fighting more than
once in a munus. A thraex named M. Antonius Exochus (Figure 14) fought
twice in a munus celebrating a posthumous triumph of Trajan.360 In the
first match on the second day of the munus, Exochus, a tiro (‘apprentice
gladiator’), fought another tiro named Araxes to a draw. (It was normal

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practice for a tiro to fight another tiro.361) In the second match on the
ninth day, Exochus defeated a more experienced gladiator named Fimbria in
his ninth fight.362 Perhaps Exochus had impressed the crowd so much in his
first fight that the editor brought him back for an encore, but at least al-
lowed him six days to recover from his first match.363 The participation of
suppositicii or tertiarii in a munus required that their opponents had to
fight twice in the same day. There are recorded examples of one gladiator
fighting two opponents, and of another who faced three opponents, in the
same day.364

Rewards of the gladiator

After the match, the editor presented the winning gladiator with various
rewards for his victory. The winner received a palm branch, symbolic of
victory, which he carried as he circled the amphitheatre to the enthusiastic
applause of the crowd.365 There was another symbolic prize, a laurel crown,
which was at first given to gladiators for an extraordinary victory. In time,
however, editores began to behave like college professors who contribute to
grade inflation. They awarded the laurel crown automatically so that it was
devalued and was no more prestigious than the palm branch. Thus, when
career records were compiled and memorialized in inscriptions, the absence
of the laurel crown became more meaningful than its presence. If the num-
ber of crowns did not match the number of victories, then the number of
victories left over was obviously not terribly impressive.366
Victory in a gladiatorial contest, however, brought more than just sym-
bolic compensation. After the match was over, the editor handed a cash
prize directly to the winning gladiator. Suetonius provides us with a descrip-
tion of an award ceremony in which a good-natured Claudius counted
aloud in unison with the crowd and on the fingers of his left hand as he
doled out gold coins to the winner with his right.367 The valuable metal
plate on which these coins were piled was also part of the prize.368 The glad-
iator, however, could not keep all his prize money. It had always been the
custom for the lion’s share of a gladiator’s cash reward to go to his lanista.
Legislation of Marcus Aurelius and his son Commodus (AD 177–180)
set the division of prize money at 1:3 for a free gladiator and 1:4 for a
slave.369 Although gladiators were no doubt overjoyed to be rewarded
with money, this kind of prize was not a matter of great pride. When the

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accomplishments of gladiators were recorded on their epitaphs, there is only

mention of the symbolic prizes they have won (palms and crowns). As
Valerie Hope points out: ‘No gladiator is described in terms of his monetary
worth or the extent of his winnings’.370

Various pleasures of the munus

The violence of the venatio and gladiatorial combat naturally provided the
primary pleasures of a munus, but the spectacle had other features that gave
great pleasure to the crowd. Spectators would certainly be disappointed if
the editor omitted too many of these extra features. An inscription from the
Greek city of Mylasa (modern Milas in south-western Turkey) consists of a
decree honouring a high priest of the imperial cult (his name is not found in
the surviving part of this inscription) for a munus he gave.371 The decree
lists specifically what the crowd enjoyed about the munus.
The inscription stresses the incredulous wonder, amazement and shouts
of the crowd at the sight of the gladiators’ beauty and strength in the
pompa.372 The spectators’ positive reaction is also evoked by the generosity
of the editor, who spent a great amount of money on the gladiators’ arma-
ment with its gold ornamentation.373 Although only gold is mentioned in
the surviving portion of this inscription, Robert believes that silver was
probably also used in this munus.374 Silver was a common enhancement of
gladiator armour. Pliny the Elder writes that, when Julius Caesar gave funeral
games in honour of his father in 65 BC, ‘the whole apparatus of the arena
was silver’, including the silver ornamentation of the gladiators’ armament.
Even damnati who were condemned to fight wild animals in the venatio of
this munus were given weapons adorned with silver. Pliny adds that this
practice was much imitated in the towns of Italy.375
The Mylasian editor generously added a scattering of roses and gifts
among the spectators.376 Roses may also have been strewn on the arena
floor as can be seen from amphitheatre scenes on two North African
mosaics.377 As for the main show, the high priest supplied gladiators of
every type.378 The variety provided by these different styles of fighting was
important to the success of a munus. The interest of the crowd, however,
was not completely technical. There is mention early in the inscription of
the gladiators competing for their lives.379 This could merely be a reference
to the general risk of death that was present in every gladiatorial duel, but

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more likely it meant that the bouts were fights to the death. (The muner-
arius may have received permission from the emperor.) All these features of
this munus illustrate the editor’s willingness to go the extra mile in pleasing
the people, thereby creating mutual goodwill between the editor and the
spectators.380 At the end of the inscription, the high priest is praised for sur-
passing all expectation with his generosity.381 This, no doubt, is a reference
to the end of the munus when the high priest, like a modern stage per-
former at the end of the show, received shouts of approval and thanks from
the crowd (acclamatio). This inscription from which we have obtained so
much evidence about the munus at Mylasa, was publicly displayed in the city
and was itself a commemoration of the great event and a tangible expression
of the people’s gratitude.382
The public banquet (epulum) was another popular ‘extra’ of the munus.
Probably the most famous epulum was given by Domitian in the Colosse-
um. The poet Statius saw this banquet as especially notable because of the
‘liberty’ it exemplified: ‘every order ate at one table: children, women, men
of the lower orders, equestrians and senators’. Moreover, Domitian dined
with his subjects, no doubt a poetic hyperbole merely referring to Domit-
ian’s presence in the amphitheatre when the epulum took place.383 Statius
describes this huge banquet.

Behold, there a group of good-looking people elegantly dressed enter the

seating area, not smaller in number than those seated. Some carry bread-
baskets and snow white napkins and splendid foods; others distribute mel-
lowing wine.384

The public banquet mentioned in Petronius in a southern Italian town

would have been on a very modest scale in comparison with Domitian’s
grand feast.385
Another popular feature of the munus was a sparsio (literally ‘a sprin-
kling’), a word which had two different meanings in association with the
munus. One kind of sparsio involved gifts or tokens for gifts that were
thrown to the crowd (missilia, literally, ‘things thrown’), like the gifts scat-
tered at the munus in Mylasa above. At a show sponsored by Nero the
following were thrown to the crowd, creating a mad scramble among the
spectators: ‘various kinds of birds, a variety of foods, tokens [to be ex-
changed] for wheat, clothes, gold, silver, gems, pearls, paintings, slaves,
beasts of burden, tamed wild beasts and finally, boats, apartment buildings

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and farms’.386 At the inauguration of the Colosseum in AD 80, the emperor

Titus threw round wooden tokens into the crowd from the upper part of
the auditorium, which could be redeemed for food, clothing, silver and
gold vessels, horses, beasts of burden, cattle and slaves (no boats, apartment
buildings and farms this time!). Those who were lucky enough to catch one
of these tokens with the gift inscribed on it could exchange it for the prize
at a distribution centre.387 The sparsio, however, could cause disturbances
among the crowd. Seneca notes the chaos and the ill will that arose among
the greedy crowd in the rush to grab the gifts or the tokens.388 Another
kind of sparsio involved spraying the crowd with perfume, usually the
essence of saffron mixed with water. Seneca mentions an impressive spray
that reached from the bottom of the amphitheatre to its highest point ac-
complished by water pressure.389 With the heat in the spring and summer
and the unpleasant smells generated by the venatio and the carnage of glad-
iatorial combat, this spray came as welcome refreshment that cooled and
deodorized.390
In imperial times, there were occasionally unscheduled events which,
although they no doubt made the crowd nervous, added an unexpected
thrill to the munus, at least for those spectators who were lucky enough not
to be directly involved. Normally the anonymity of a large crowd protected
individual spectators, but sometimes a spectator caught the attention of the
emperor at the wrong time and gave offence. Roman spectators were not
beyond hurling verbal abuse at the emperor.391 The crowd had to be pre-
pared for almost anything, especially when the editor was an unstable and
tyrannical emperor like Caligula or Domitian. An offending spectator might
suddenly find himself part of the show. For example, a certain Esius Procu-
lus, who was nicknamed Colosseros (‘colossal love-god’) because of his
beauty and large, muscular body, was suddenly ordered into the arena by
Caligula to fight first against a thraex and then a second time against a
hoplomachus, both of whom Esius defeated. Apparently, Caligula, who was
envious of his handsome face and popularity with women, was determined
to punish him. He then ordered Esius to be dressed in rags and to be led in
chains throughout the city. After displaying him to a group of women, he
had his throat cut.392 Then there was the man, mentioned earlier in this
chapter, who taunted Domitian about his partiality to gladiators with large
shields. The crowd was immediately treated to his execution when he was
thrown to hunting dogs in the arena.393

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Crowd behaviour
Crowd participation, whether with shouts or with gestures, was constant
throughout the munus. They unabashedly volunteered their comments on
the action, gave advice to the gladiators, or even expressed their opinions on
matters external to the show such as politics. As one would expect, signifi-
cant moments in combat elicited the most powerful crowd reactions. When
a gladiator was felled by his opponent, the crowd exploded. Shouts of ‘hoc
habet!’ (‘He’s had it!’) or ‘peractum est!’ (‘It’s all over!’) could be heard
all over the amphitheatre.394 If something happened to upset them, the
spectators could act, as Seneca suggests, like a child throwing a tantrum,
especially if a gladiator did not live up to their expectations:

Why does the crowd become angry with gladiators and unjustly think that
they have been done an injustice because [the gladiators] are unwilling to
accept their fate [after missio has been refused]? They believe that they have
been treated with contempt and transform themselves in expression, gesture
and passion from a spectator into an enemy.395

One reaction when spectators were upset, was to throw objects. In the late
Republic, the crowd threw stones at Vatinius, an unpopular politician, when
he entered the amphitheatre. Later, when Vatinius was about to give a
munus, he got the aediles to issue an edict that spectators could throw only
fruit into the arena. A waggish jurisconsult named Cascellius, when asked
whether a pine cone was a fruit answered: ‘If you are going to throw it at
Vatinius, it’s a fruit!’396
The passions stirred up in the crowd were powerful. Seneca reports that
whenever he was a part of a large throng at a spectacle, he returned ‘more
greedy, more ambitious, and more pleasure-seeking. No, I should say rather
crueler and more inhumane, because I was among human beings.’397 The
philosopher is talking about the noonday spectacle in which convicts were
executed, but it is also relevant to the reaction of Augustine’s young friend,
Alypius, to his first experience of gladiatorial combat. Previously, Alypius had
expressed only hostility and contempt for this spectacle, but was dragged into
the amphitheatre by his friends. Here is Augustine’s complete account of
Alypius’ first experience of the amphitheatre, which gives a vivid impression
of the noise and sights of the arena. Augustine locates the amphitheatre at
Rome, no doubt the Colosseum with as many as 50,000 spectators at full

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capacity. It is no wonder that the attention of the young provincial Alypius

was usurped by the overwhelming noise of the crowd.398

When they arrived there and occupied whatever seats they could, the whole
amphitheatre was seething with monstrous delights. Alypius closed his eyes so
that the awful goings-on might not enter his consciousness, but if only he
had stopped up his ears! For when one of the gladiators fell in combat, and
a huge shout of all the spectators had powerfully resounded in his ears, he
was overcome by curiosity, and as it were prepared to see whatever had hap-
pened and once it had been seen to disdain it. He opened his eyes and was
struck with a greater wound in his soul than the gladiator whom he desired
to see had received in his body. He fell more wretchedly than that gladiator
whose fall had provoked the shout that entered through his ears and opened
up his eyes with the result that his mind, still bold rather than brave and
much weaker due to its greater reliance on itself than on you [i.e., Christ],
was struck and thrown down. As soon as he saw blood, he drank in the sav-
agery; and not turning away, kept his gaze fixed and absorbed the madness
and delighted in the criminal combat, and was made drunk with bloody
delight. Now he was not the same person that he was when he had first ar-
rived, but one of the crowd which he had joined and a true companion of his
friends who brought him there. Need I say more? He watched, shouted, be-
came excited, and took away from the amphitheatre a madness, which
would bring him back not only with those friends who dragged him there in
the first place, but also without them as he dragged others to the spectacle.399

Tertullian also warns his Christian readers of the powerful emotional influ-
ence that the crowd in the amphitheatre can wield over the individual:
‘What will you do once you are caught in that floodtide of wicked applause?’
Tertullian’s recommendation is that Christians stay away from the am-
phitheatre.400 Many Christians, however, did not heed Tertullian’s advice.
Some even attended the executions of their fellow-believers.401 The allure of
gladiator shows for Christians is evident in Jerome’s Life of St Hilarion.402
The saint was tormented by regularly recurring temptations that appeared to
him in visions: a naked woman, a sumptuous feast, and a gladiator show,
including a recently killed gladiator, who begged Hilarion for burial.
Like modern young men who are attracted to violence in films and on
the television, ancient youths like Alypius were particularly vulnerable to the
violent attractions of the gladiator games. A young man in a declamation

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describes his own behaviour as he watches his friend fighting in his stead in
the arena. As he watches, he ‘fights’ the match along with his friend, mim-
icking the movements of his friend by ducking the attacks of an imaginary
opponent and standing up straight when his friend went on the offen-
sive.403 This kind of behaviour also took place at the chariot races. Silius
Italicus in his Punica, no doubt inspired by his first-hand observation of
crowd behaviour in the Circus Maximus, presents his spectators imitating
the prone position of the charioteers leaning over the reins as they drive
their horses, and shouting the same commands to the horses as the dri-
vers.404 It should be also noted that women could be similarly affected by
action in the arena. The Christian poet Prudentius writes of a rather overen-
thusiastic Vestal Virgin who jumps out of her seat when a blow is delivered
by one of the gladiators, and votes with her ‘[up]turned thumb’ for the
death of the loser. In addition to this passion for bloody violence, she pro-
claims her lust for the victorious gladiator, whom she calls her ‘darling’
every time he stabs his opponent in the throat.405 Not all female spectators,
however, were as fiercely involved in the matches as this Vestal Virgin. Con-
sider the woman named Martha who sat at the feet of the wife of the famous
general Marius and correctly predicted the winner of each match.406 Spec-
tators were capable of gentler emotions. They sometimes formed an emo-
tional bond with certain arena performers, which was evident when they
mourned their deaths, as in the case of a favourite gladiator or even a wild
animal.407 This emotional engagement could also consist of fierce hatred, as
is demonstrated by curse tablets (tabellae defixionum), on which they in-
scribed prayers to various deities to take action against a performer they dis-
liked. The prayers on these tablets were most commonly directed at chariot
drivers, but were also used to wish harm to gladiators and animal fighters.
Here follows a defixio wishing injury and failure to a venator named Gallicus
inscribed on a lead tablet and found in the amphitheatre at Carthage.408
The repetitions in the Gallicus curse are indications of the intense hatred
that the writer feels for the venator and, moreover, are an attempt to per-
suade the divinity addressed to grant the wishes expressed in the defixio.
Depicted on the tablet is an image of a god with the head of a serpent, hold-
ing a spear in his right hand and a lightning bolt in his left.409

Kill, destroy, wound Gallicus, the son of Prima, at this hour in the ring of
the amphitheatre . . . bind [with a spell] his feet, his limbs, his mind, the

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very marrow of his bones. Bind Gallicus, the son of Prima, so that he cannot
kill a bear or a bull with one or two blows, or kill a bull [and] a bear with
three blows. In the name of the living omnipotent [god] bring this about
now; now, quickly, quickly; let a bear crush and wound him.410

Despite the emotional involvement of the crowd in the violent action of

gladiatorial combat and the venationes, crowd control was never a major
problem in the amphitheatre at Rome. Although we do hear of factionalism
among fans of gladiator games (parmularii versus scutarii), this partisan-
ship lacked the emotional power of the circus factions designated by colours
(Reds, Blues, Greens and Whites) and never resulted in more than verbal
abuse among fans. At least, at Rome, rioting did not occur in the amphithe-
atre, as it did in the theatre and the circus. We do not hear of any distur-
bance comparable to the catastrophic Nika riot (AD 532) involving fans of
the Blue and the Green chariot racing factions at Constantinople, which
began in the hippodrome and spread to the streets, resulting in the destruc-
tion of a large part of the city and 30,000 deaths (probably somewhat exag-
gerated by the sources).411 A cohort of soldiers (milites stationarii) was
stationed in the amphitheatre, circus and theatre, but there is no record of
their having to deal with serious disorder at gladiator games.412 As Alex
Scobie explains:

It seems, then, that spectator violence at the three main forms of public
entertainment in the Roman world [gladiator shows, circus games, and
dramatic presentations] . . . was inversely proportionate to the degree of
violence inherent in each of the three types of spectacle.413

It is not clear in the sources who these milites stationarii were: members of
the Praetorian Guard or soldiers from the urban cohorts led by the city
prefect.414 Sandra Bingham argues persuasively that, at least through the
Julio-Claudians, the soldiers providing security at spectacles were members
of the Praetorian Guard. She traces the development from a personal body-
guard of the emperor at the games to ‘a regularized security detail of guard
members . . . as an extension of this bodyguard’. The urban cohorts, having
half as many men as the Praetorian Guard, would have had enough to do to
perform their primary task: keeping order in the streets.415 In AD 56, Nero
briefly removed this military guard from the various entertainment sites on
the pretext that watching over spectators was not a proper military duty.

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Cassius Dio tells us that Nero, who loved the violent disturbances that took
place occasionally at theatres and racetracks, hoped that the absence of sol-
diers would encourage more riots, but even the lack of guards does not
seem to have promoted rioting in the amphitheatre.416
Outside of Rome, the story was rather different. At a munus in Pompeii
(AD 59). Pompeians clashed with spectators from the neighbouring town
of Nuceria. Tacitus, our only source for this riot, does not say how many
people were killed and wounded in this melée, but the number must have
been significant, with the Nucerians getting the worst of it. In all likelihood,
there was no military guard stationed in the Pompeian amphitheatre, but
even soldiers might not have been able to quell this disturbance.417 Tacitus
never explains clearly the specific reason for the riot, but it obviously was
rooted in a pre-existing animosity between the citizens of the two towns.
For hostility among the spectators to percolate to this degree, the two
groups cannot have been sitting intermingled with each other, as they
would have been at Rome where seating was assigned according to class.
Solidarity of cause could only have developed if each side in the conflict was
sitting with their own partisans. The violence was prefaced with verbal abuse
between citizens of both towns and quickly escalated to the throwing of
stones and the wielding of weapons and even spread outside the amphithe-
atre. This incident was serious enough to require the attention of the Roman
Senate. Its decision was, first, to ban munera at Pompeii for a ten-year
period; second, to dissolve illegal social clubs called collegia; and, third, to
exile the munerarius Livienus Regulus, for his role in inciting the riot.418
As in modern sports, ancient arena sports had fan clubs, which pro-
claimed their enthusiasm for gladiator games and the venatio and rooted for
specific arena performers. These fan clubs were no doubt offshoots of youth
organizations (collegia iuvenum) mentioned earlier, which were dedicated
to sports. We hear of these fan clubs both in the Greek east and in the west.
In Termessus, Miletus and Ephesus, the clubs have the name Philoploi
(‘Lovers of Arms’). There were also fan clubs devoted to the venatio, for
example, Philokunēgoi (‘Lovers of the Hunt’). In Verona, the fan club of a
retiarius named Glaucus, in conjunction with his wife Aurelia, paid for a
funerary inscription honouring him. The name of the club was Amatores
(‘Lovers’, i.e., ‘fans’ [of Glaucus]). An honourable burial was a real concern
of gladiators, many of whom did not have a family or fans (like Glaucus)
financially able to pay. The fate of many gladiators was an anonymous mass

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grave. We hear of a collegium (‘club’) devoted to the god Silvanus, consist-

ing of a gladiatorial troupe belonging to the emperor Commodus and vari-
ous arena functionaries, one purpose of which was no doubt to provide
proper burial for its members. The collegium consisted of twenty-three glad-
iators, one manica maker, one masseur and seven men designated as pagani
(meaning uncertain). The administrators of the club were a freedman of the
emperor and a cryptiarius, a custodian of the crypt, where, according to
Hermann Dessau, gladiators often practised.419
Fan enthusiasm for gladiatorial combat was also evident outside the am-
phitheatre. When there was no live action to enjoy in person, Romans liked
being reminded of the action of the arena by pictorial representations in
various artistic media, both public and private. Gladiators in action were a
favourite subject for paintings, which were displayed by munerarii in public
places in commemoration of munera they had sponsored. These paintings
attracted the attention of the public, reminding them of the munerarius’
generosity to them. This practice had been begun in 132 BC by a certain
C. Terentius Lucanus, who commissioned paintings of gladiators in action
in commemoration of a funeral munus he had given in the Roman Forum
in honour of his grandfather. He exhibited these paintings in the Grove of
Diana, an important centre of the worship of that goddess in central
Italy.420 A freedman of Nero who had given a gladiator show in the town of
Antium (modern Anzio) had paintings of gladiators displayed in public
porticos there.421 Petronius’ Trimalchio expresses the desire to have his
tomb decorated with paintings of the great gladiator Petraites. Domestic
art, such as decorated cups, lamps and mosaics, commonly featured gladia-
tors. Trimalchio had silver cups adorned with a combat scene involving
Hermeros and Petraites.422 Although Horace in one of his Satires has a
slave confess his addiction to paintings of gladiators, it is likely that many a
master felt the same thrill in viewing them.

. . . I gaze at the fights of [the famous gladiators] Fulvius, Rutuba and

Pacideianus with their straining leg muscles. Painted with red chalk or
with charcoal, they appear to be really fighting: brandishing their weapons,
they attack and parry . . . 423

Modern fans are clearly not alone in indulging their fascination with their
favourite sport through the medium of pictorial representations.

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Chapter 4

A Brief History
of Gladiator Games


The Republic

A fter the first munus in honour of Junius Pera in 264 BC, the next
munus mentioned in the historical record took place in 215 BC. This
munus was given in connection with the funeral of M. Aemilius Lepidus,
who had twice been elected consul and held the prestigious office of augur.1
Could forty-nine years actually have passed between the first and second
munus at Rome? Perhaps the custom of giving a gladiator show at a funeral
did not catch on immediately after its first occurrence in 264 BC and
Lepidus’ family revived it. Indeed, one could argue that there might have
been initial resistance to the bloody violence of gladiatorial combat, but it is
doubtful that a martial people like the Romans would have had such tender
sensibilities. After all, gladiator shows found acceptance rather quickly even
among the Greeks, who were more culturally refined than the Romans. In
175 BC, when the Greek king Antiochus Epiphanes imported gladiator
games from Rome and presented them at Antioch, his subjects were
shocked at first but it did not take them long to change their minds. Soon
gladiator games were all the rage.2 Another possible explanation for this

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gap is that Rome was too busy with the first Punic War (against Carthage,
264–241 BC) and the beginning of the second Punic War (218–215 BC).
This interpretation, however, does not take into consideration the twenty-
three year gap between these two wars, nor the fact that the munus for
Lepidus was in the year following perhaps the worst Roman military disaster
in their history: Hannibal’s overwhelming victory at Cannae in 216 BC. In
fact, Donald Kyle argues compellingly that Cannae provided a strong impe-
tus to the growth of gladiatorial combat by reassuring insecure Romans
with demonstrations of brutal violence. This message was strengthened by
the fact that slaves were recruited to fight as soldiers for Rome, men of the
same status as gladiators.3 Another possibility is that munera were given
during this period, but none was of sufficient note to find its way into the
historical record. The historian Livy tells us that for the year 174 BC many
munera were given, but all of them were insignificant except for one, which
he describes.4 As a general principle, it should be remembered that the
munera mentioned in literary sources and inscriptions are no doubt only a
small percentage of those actually given in ancient Rome. Unless a munus
was of significant size and given by a person of consequence, it was unlikely
to attract the attention of ancient historians. No doubt there were countless
munera given at Rome and throughout Italy by magistrates and private
citizens that were almost immediately forgotten.5
Livy tells us that Lepidus’ munus consisted of twenty-two pairs of gladi-
ators, a significant leap from the three pairs of 264 BC. In addition, the
length of the munus was extended to three days from the presumably one-
day munus of Junius Pera. The matches were probably distributed more or
less evenly over the three-day period. Perhaps the most significant change is
that of location from the Cattle Market (Forum Boarium) to the Roman
Forum (hereafter referred to simply as ‘the Forum’), the social, political,
juridical and religious centre of the city. This change seems to indicate a full
acceptance of the idea that gladiatorial combat was a proper Roman way to
honour a deceased relative. Another consideration would be the growth in
popularity of gladiatorial combat. The planners of the munus obviously an-
ticipated that twenty-two pairs of gladiators over a three-day period would
attract a sizeable audience requiring the large open space of the Forum. It
should be noted, however, that we cannot automatically assume that the
heirs were always free to do what they pleased. The decision to give a
munus, number of gladiator pairs, date and the place of the munus, all could

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have been dictated by the terms of the will of the deceased.6 In one case, the
requirement in a will that offspring give a munus was used as a threat. The
poet Horace tells us of a miser named Staberius, who in his will ordered his
heirs to inscribe on his tomb the amount of their inheritance, requiring
them to give a munus consisting of one hundred pairs of gladiators (a large
show for a private sponsor and extremely expensive) if they disobeyed his
order.7 Apparently, Staberius wanted his posthumous generosity to his
descendants to be advertised publicly.8 Other examples of testamentary
munera will be discussed later in this chapter.
The dramatic increase in pairs of gladiators over the modest three in
264 BC suggests that by 215 BC the three sons of Lepidus saw the munus as
an opportunity not just to venerate their father but also to enhance family
reputation and honour (and specifically their own) by a public display of
conspicuous consumption at the symbolic heart of Rome. Here we see an
early example of the competition among aristocrats to give bigger and
better spectacles. Roman nobles now had another outlet for their desire to
distinguish themselves: the munus. It is apparent that to give a munus with
the same or smaller number of gladiators might constitute an embarrass-
ment for the giver of the spectacle. The growth in number of gladiators and
overall magnificence would continue through the rest of the Republic and
into the imperial period when emperors, with their unlimited resources,
gave gargantuan munera that dwarfed any presented in the Republic.
Immediately following his brief account of the munus for Lepidus, Livy
reports the celebration of the Ludi Romani of 215 BC:

The curule aediles, C. Laetorius and Ti. Sempronius Gracchus, consul

designate . . . gave the ludi Romani, which were repeated over a three-day
period.9

Ludi were religious festivals that offered entertainment in honour of the

gods, such as chariot racing, often referred to as ‘circus games’ (ludi circenses,
because they took place at racetracks (circi) such as the Circus Maximus),
and dramatic presentations (ludi scaenici), usually presented in the Forum.
The reference to the three-day length of the ludi Romani is notable here.
The extension of Lepidus’ munus to a three-day show made it as long as the
ludi Romani in honour of Jupiter, the most prestigious of annual ludi.10
This is not to suggest, however, that mere length could give a privately

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sponsored munus the stature of the venerable ludi Romani or any other
ludi. After all, the munus was in honour of a human being, albeit an import-
ant member of the Roman aristocracy, while the ludi were in honour of the
gods. It does, however, suggest the growing importance of the munus in
competition with the entertainments given in the ludi. It seems probable
that Lepidus’ sons were responding to a public demand for a kind of show
that the Roman people had found especially entertaining.
The next recorded munus was given by the sons of M. Valerius Laevinus,
a prominent general who had served as first commander in the Macedonian
War against Philip V and had succeeded the great M. Claudius Marcellus
(popularly called ‘the sword of Rome’) as general in Sicily. In the view of the
Romans, however, Laevinus’ greatest honour was probably his leadership of
the embassy that brought the cult of the Magna Mater, otherwise known as
Cybele, to Rome from Pessinus (now the town of Balhisar, in central
Turkey) in 205 BC. The transfer of Cybele (represented by a simple stone)
and her cult to Rome had been ordered by a Sybilline oracle as necessary for
the expulsion of the Carthaginian general Hannibal from Italy. Two years
later Hannibal was forced out of Italy back to Africa and Rome eventually
won the war. The goddess had rewarded Roman hospitality with victory and
Laevinus had played a significant role in achieving that result.
When Laevinus died in 200 BC, his two sons gave a munus in honour
of their father consisting of twenty-five pairs of gladiators.11 This represents
only a small increase over the twenty-two pairs presented at Lepidus’
funeral, which may have been due to limited funds. The next recorded
munus was in honour of P. Licinius Crassus (183 BC), whose most notable
achievement was his election to the position of pontifex, one of a college of
pontifices which supervised the Roman state religion.12 Livy does not give
us the identity of the sponsor(s) of this munus, but undoubtedly it was
given by his son(s) or some other close male relative. After a period of sev-
enteen years, twenty-five pairs of gladiators were no longer thought an im-
pressive number and the sponsor of Crassus’ munus upped the ante to sixty
pairs, more than doubling the size of Laevinus’ show. Although Livy does
not specify the duration of Crassus’ munus, we can make an educated guess
about its length. We know that at Lepidus’ munus, twenty-two matches
required three days to complete, an average of slightly more than seven
contests a day, but this must have been a leisurely pace. A munus given for
Flamininus (discussed below) presented thirty-seven matches in a three-day

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period, which (if distributed evenly) probably meant twelve on each of two
days and thirteen on the third day. By this standard, the sixty matches of
Crassus’ munus would require about five, or at most six, days to complete,
although we must consider the possibility of a more rushed schedule.13
The sponsor of Crassus’ munus added a three-day ludi funebres (‘funeral
games’), which, like the state ludi in honour of the gods, no doubt included
chariot races and dramatic shows. These entertainments were enhanced
further by the addition of a distribution of meat (visceratio) and a public
banquet, which were to become frequent features of aristocratic funerals.
What is most significant here is the prominence given to the gladiatorial
games, which in their length overshadowed all other events associated with
Crassus’ munus.
The steady increase in numbers of gladiatorial pairs since 264 BC
was suddenly interrupted by the munus (174 BC) for the famous general
T. Quinctius Flamininus, conqueror of the Macedonian king Philip V and
an important agent in the growth of Roman dominance in the Greek east.14
Livy notes that there were several munera given in this year of no special
importance. Flamininus’ munus stood out among them, but the thirty-
seven pairs of gladiators presented represented a significant decrease of
twenty-three pairs in comparison with the grand show for Crassus. The
relatively small number of combats in Flamininus’ munus can be better
appreciated by comparing it with a munus consisting of thirty pairs given
in 132 BC by a certain C. Terentius Lucanus for his grandfather, a person of
little note as indicated by the fact that his full name has not even been
recorded.15 The decrease is especially surprising because of the stature of
Flamininus. The sources give no reason for this comparatively small show.
Perhaps it was purely a matter of the personal preference of Flamininius’
son, who decided to cut the budget for gladiators in order to spend more
lavishly on other popular enhancements such as a visceratio, a public ban-
quet (epulum) and stage plays.16 On the other hand, the rising costs of a
munus in this period may have been a factor in the son’s decision. After all,
Livy points out other contemporary munera were even smaller.
There is evidence that by the middle of the second century the cost of a
munus spectacular enough to honour the memory of a great Roman was
soaring into the stratosphere. A good indication of the spiralling costs of
the munus is the funeral of L. Aemilius Paullus, who defeated Perseus, the
son of Philip V, at Pydna in 168 BC and died in 160 BC. Since the books of

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Livy that deal with this period are not extant, we must rely on the Greek
historian Polybius, who shows no interest at all in the number of gladiator
pairs that are an important detail in Roman accounts, but does give us evi-
dence of the cost of a large-scale gladiator show in this era. Polybius reports
that when Fabius, one of Paullus’ sons, found that the cost of financing a
munus prevented him from honouring his father in this way, his brother
Scipio (who had been adopted into the Scipionic family), and later was com-
mander of the Roman army that defeated Carthage in the third Punic War,
contributed half the expenses.17 The Greek historian adds that a magnifi-
cent munus that would befit a great conqueror cost a minimum of 30 tal-
ents.18 It is impossible to estimate with any confidence the modern value of
a sum of money in the ancient world. Polybius, however, gives us a general
idea of the value of 30 talents when he describes the amount as a ‘great sum
of money’ (plēthos). Paul Veyne estimates that this sum would suffice for
the pay of 1,500 soldiers for one year.19 In Roman terms, this amount
would be around 720,000 sesterces. An even more specific indication of the
value of 30 talents is the fact that Paullus’ whole estate was worth a little
over 60 talents.20 Paullus was not a hugely wealthy man, but still very well
off.21 Thus, the cost of the munus would have been half the total worth of
the estate of an at least moderately wealthy man. And this for a one-time
event, lasting for, at most, six days. No doubt the cost of munera had been
driven up by the burgeoning popularity of gladiatorial combat, which is
illustrated by the following incident during Paullus’ munus. The playwright
Terence had first presented his play Hecyra (‘The Mother-in-law’) at the
Ludi Megalenses in 165 BC but the play was brought to a complete halt by
noisy people drawn to other events such as rope dancing (tightrope walk-
ing) and boxing. Undeterred by this fiasco, Terence presented the play at
the munus in honour of Paullus in 160 BC. There was trouble again. Dur-
ing the second act, a rumour circulated outside the theatre (a temporary
wooden structure in the Forum) that there was going to be a gladiator show
in the theatre.22 In later times, gladiator combat was advertised publicly
well before the show, but in these early days, scheduling and advertisement
were doubtless somewhat haphazard. The reaction of the crowd outside the
theatre was to rush in and fight with the audience of the play for seats for
the gladiator show.23 There is no better evidence of the Roman people’s
feeling regarding gladiator combat. No other entertainment could compete
with the munus in attracting an audience.

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The munus and late Republican politics

The trend of spending greater and greater sums of money on the munus
and associated events continued unabated into the first century BC. Cicero
disliked this expenditure. He criticizes those who lavish money on public
banquets, distributions of meat, munera, ludi and wild-beast fights as
‘wasteful’ and urges that money would be better spent on ransoming cap-
tives from kidnappers and helping friends in various ways, such as paying off
their debts, giving them dowries for their daughters, and assisting them in
the acquisition of assets. He claims that people remembered spectacles for
only a short time or soon forgot them.24 Cicero’s claim, however, is exag-
gerated and true only of unexceptionable gladiator shows. Grand munera
were well remembered and, as we will see, not only honoured the deceased
and his family but redounded greatly to the political profit of a giver of
a munus. Cicero disagrees with the Greek philosopher Theophrastus’
(370 – c. 285 BC) who had a positive view of such spectacles:

[Theophrastus] goes too far in praising the magnificent outfitting of popu-

lar spectacles and believes that ability to spend money in this way is the
reward of wealth.25

Cicero, however, was fighting a losing battle here; the ancient world in gen-
eral agreed with Theophrastus. The wealthy in both Greece and Rome were
under great social pressure to spend their money on spectacles to entertain
their fellow citizens, and in Rome this was especially true of gladiator shows.
The pressure was difficult to resist. The benefits of such a spectacle, how-
ever, did not flow down a one-way street. The editor received the gratitude
and goodwill of his fellow citizens. The rewards for an editor are specified in
the letter written by Pliny the Younger to Maximus quoted earlier: a repu-
tation for generosity and general magnanimity.26 A speaker in a rhetorical
exercise, who has been condemned to fight as a gladiator, bitterly complains
that the editor gains popular favour at the cost of his, the speaker’s, blood.27
A reputation for generosity of spirit could greatly benefit an editor on elec-
tion day. Julius Caesar is a prime example of the influence that spectacles in
general and a lavish munus in particular could have on the Roman people’s
political decisions. As Plutarch writes:

While he was aedile, [Caesar] presented three hundred and twenty pairs of
gladiators and with other expenditures and extravagances such as plays

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and processions and public banquets, he made the people forget the am-
bitious presentations of those before him. Thus he disposed the people to seek
new offices and new honours with which to repay him.28

Cicero characteristically downplays the importance of the munus to a politi-

cal career. In a letter to C. Scribonius Curio, quaestor in the province of
Asia, Cicero tried to convince the young man not to lock himself into an
enormously expensive gladiatorial show. Cicero urges that a candidate seek-
ing political office should rely on his own ‘nature, study and fortune’ rather
than gladiatorial contests.29 No doubt a political candidate should ideally
be judged by these criteria, and not according to his ability to finance ex-
tremely expensive spectacles, but to say, as Cicero does, that everyone is ‘fed
up’ with these entertainments is simply not true. Cicero is speaking here
more as a philosopher than a politician. Curio was caught up in the political
competition involved in the offering of a munus and other spectacles. He
had already sent an agent to Rome to announce a munus in honour of his
father, an important first step in the giving of a munus. Once the announce-
ment of the munus had been made, there was no turning back, without a
backlash of resentment from the people. It would have been political sui-
cide, after having announced the spectacle, not to carry through with the
show. Unfortunately, we do not know how many pairs of gladiators took
part in Curio’s munus; presumably, it was a decent number, neither excess-
ively large nor embarrassingly small. In either case, the number would likely
have been recorded. He did introduce, however, an innovation that seems
never to have been repeated. On the last day of the munus, Curio presented
combats between gladiators who were victorious in the first day of the
munus (as noted earlier, it was unusual for a gladiator to fight more than
once in a munus).30 Apparently, Curio’s munus bankrupted him, with the
result that Caesar was later able buy his political support.31 Bankruptcy was
not an unusual consequence of giving a munus in the late Republic. Indeed,
Caesar had also experienced insolvency as a result of his lavish munus in
65 BC. As we shall see in Chapter 6, Curio’s munus was one of Rome’s most
memorable, but not for the number or quality of gladiators involved.
It was the duty of the magistrates called curule aediles to organize the
annually celebrated ludi with financial help from the state treasury, but by
the late Republic it was expected that these magistrates should contribute
any expenses for further enhancements of the ludi from their own pocket.

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Although this financial responsibility was extremely burdensome, for the

most part Roman nobles accepted this duty because it was essential to their
political careers.32 If an aedile impressed the Roman people with his ludi, he
greatly increased his chances of being elected to the next higher magistracy,
the praetorship, which was the gateway to the consulship, the crowning
achievement of a politician’s career.33 An even better strategy was to spon-
sor a private munus in addition to the public ludi. It is due to the over-
whelming popularity of gladiatorial combat in comparison with the public
ludi that ambitious aediles put enormous sums of money into their munera.
The popularity of the munus extended beyond the city of Rome throughout
the towns of Italy where pressure was often applied by citizens to force the
presentation of a munus. For example, the behaviour of the citizens of
Pollentia (modern Pollenzo) shows the lengths to which the people, desper-
ate for the opportunity to enjoy a munus, were prepared to go. When a cen-
turion died in the town of Pollentia, the citizens, with the assent of some
magistrates, refused to allow the body to be removed from the forum (where
the funeral took place) until his heirs agreed to contribute money for a
munus. The emperor Tiberius reacted quickly with military force and a large
number of citizens and magistrates were imprisoned for life, a rare punish-
ment among the Romans.34 As W. Nippel has pointed out, a disturbance like
this was rare at Rome because of the great number of gladiator games given
there.35 This was not the case in towns of relatively meagre means outside
Rome. There were, however, limits to the people’s desire to enjoy a munus.
Nicolaus of Damascus reports a will that stipulated that the deceased’s boy
lovers fight each other as gladiators. The reaction of the people (location
unknown) was so negative that the man’s will was annulled.36
It is often assumed that the munera at Rome were popular primarily
among the common people and less loved by the elites, but this is a misper-
ception. The wealthy upper classes were an even more important target
group for aspiring politicians giving munera. The Roman poor were not
the only audience for gladiator shows. The two upper classes, the senators
and knights, were equally enthusiastic spectators, who enjoyed preferred
seating with the best view of the arena. In fact, a much larger percentage of
the elite classes attended munera than of the much more populous lower
classes. Their political support was much more valuable for political candi-
dates.37 The reason for this was the manner in which elections to the two
highest magistracies were conducted. In elections to the praetorship and

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consulship, the wealthier you were, the more your vote influenced the
outcome. The elections were held in the centuriate assembly, in which the
Roman people were divided into voting units called ‘centuries’ because they
(nominally) contained one hundred voters. In practice, these units some-
times contained fewer voters and often more. Each century had one vote
determined by the will of the majority within that century. The order of
voting was determined by property census, that is, the richer you were
the earlier you voted. The wealthiest citizens, a small minority in the state,
were spread out among the greatest number of centuries, which voted
before those of lesser wealth. For example, the poorest citizens greatly out-
numbered the wealthier classes, but were placed in one century, which voted
last. In the Roman mind, this arrangement was justified by the principle that
the two magistracies that held the power of life and death over their fellow
citizens should be elected by those with the greatest financial stake in the
administration of the state. Thus, if the centuries containing the wealthiest
citizens were unanimous in their choice, winners in the races for the praetor-
ship and the consulship could be declared after only 197 of the 373 cen-
turies had voted. The poorest citizens might not even have the opportunity
to cast a vote. There was one other safeguard in place to increase the influence
of the rich in this voting assembly. One century from among the wealthiest
citizens was chosen by lot to vote first to give a signal to the other centuries as
to how they should vote (centuria praerogativa, literally, ‘the century that
was asked first [for their vote]’). Since the selection of the century by lot was
deemed the will of the gods, this practice was believed to give the state a bet-
ter chance of electing magistrates who enjoyed divine approval.38 It should
be noted, however, that the wealthiest Romans were not always unanimous
in their choice of candidates, and on those occasions, poorer citizens got an
opportunity to influence the election. Nonetheless, even in this case, the
goodwill of the elites was still important to a candidate, because their depen-
dants (clientes) would routinely vote for the candidates their wealthy patrons
endorsed. Although the editor no doubt wanted to please all who attended
his munus, it is clear that the satisfaction of the upper classes was even more
politically important than that of the lower.
To be sure, successful spectacles given in one’s aedileship by no means
guaranteed high political office.39 For example, M. Aemilius Scaurus during
his aedileship (58 BC) used up all his personal financial resources and also
incurred great debt, won the praetorship, but failed in his bid for the

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consulship. In contrast, Cicero as aedile avoided excessive expense for

spectacles and did not give a munus, but was still able to attain the praetor-
ship and consulship.40 Ignoring the Romans’ enthusiasm for shows, how-
ever, could be politically disastrous. Sulla, later dictator of Rome, lost his
run for the praetorship because he had chosen not to stand for the aedile-
ship and therefore had not given any games. His friendship with the king of
Mauretania in North Africa had created the expectation in the Roman
people that, as aedile, he would present outstanding venationes with large
North African cats, which were immensely popular at Rome. In revenge,
the voters rejected his bid for the praetorship.41
More than any other politician, Julius Caesar embraced the strategy of
using entertainments to advance his political career. In 65 BC, he, along with
his colleague in the aedileship, Marcus Bibulus, presented both the ludi
Romani and the ludi Megalenses on a lavish scale, but Caesar in the same
year chose to sponsor an optional munus in honour of his father, in which
he presented 320 pairs of gladiators, a munus of unparalleled numbers and
length.42 Ville suggests 15–20 days.43 Plutarch believes that Caesar’s munus
along with other spectacles such as plays, processions and banquets was the
most costly set of shows that had ever been presented up to that time.44
Caesar’s grand munus of 65 BC must have accounted for a large part of
the enormous debt that he had accumulated when he was about to set
out to govern the province of Spain in the year after his praetorship (ex-
consuls and ex-praetors usually governed provinces in the year after their
magistracy).45 Caesar had borrowed heavily to finance his various spectacles
and his creditors prevented him from leaving until he paid his debt. Crassus,
one of the richest men in Rome at the time, co-signed the debt to allow
Caesar to set out to his province.46
We find out from Suetonius that Caesar in 65 BC had planned to present
more than the 320 pairs he actually presented.47 The biographer does not
say what the number originally was, but it was enough to frighten his politi-
cal enemies, who suspected that Caesar had marked these gladiators for rev-
olutionary activities in addition to the munus.48 After all, it had been only
six years since the defeat of Spartacus and his fellow gladiators, who had
moulded an army of 120,000 slaves and peasant farmers into an effective
fighting machine, imposing a number of surprising defeats on Roman
armies. In the 60s BC, Caesar was viewed as a revolutionary, a possible
supporter of Catiline, whose conspiracy would be revealed by Cicero and

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defeated in 63 BC. Caesar’s political enemies believed that he might use this
large group of gladiators to silence them with a show of force or even to
overthrow the government. In any case, in the face of the outcry and a pro-
hibition by the authorities limiting the number of gladiators that could be
kept in Rome at one time, Caesar backed down and agreed to the smaller
(but still imposing) number of 320 pairs. Two years later, there was still
concern in the Senate not only with the large number of gladiators in
Caesar’s school in Capua, but also with the large concentration of gladiators
in Rome with its various schools. A senatorial decree ordered that the glad-
iator troupes in Rome should be distributed among Capua and neighbour-
ing towns.49 Cicero, who was consul at the time (63 BC), sent an army to
Capua under the command of a quaestor, his friend Sestius, who drove out
of the city a certain C. Marcellus for having paid frequent visits to a very
large troupe of gladiators, probably those belonging to Caesar.50 Caesar’s
gladiators were still perceived as a possible threat to peace fourteen years
later, on the eve of the civil war between Caesar and Pompey, when the
consul Lentulus, a Pompeian, gathered together gladiators from Caesar’s
school into Capua’s forum and gave them horses with the intention of using
them as a cavalry force against Caesar. Lentulus’ fellow Pompeians, how-
ever, warned him against this plan, so instead he used them as a garrison
elsewhere in Campania.51 During the Republic, gladiators, because of
the infamia of their profession, were not thought worthy to fight in the
Roman army but in the imperial period were allowed to serve as soldiers
in times of emergency.52 The rest of Caesar’s gladiators, who seemed to
be on the point of making an escape from their barracks, were billeted by
Pompey with local families, two to each house, thus diffusing the heavy
concentration of gladiators in one school.53 Caesar’s gladiators were a
hot issue at the time. Cicero had discussed this matter with Caesar in an
exchange of letters and had given him some friendly advice, probably to
disband them.54

Gladiators and political violence

The fears aroused by Caesar’s gladiators were not unfounded. In the chaos of
the last years of the Republic, politicians used gladiators both to advance their
political designs and to protect themselves against their political enemies.

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Politician-owners found it convenient and cost effective to purchase gladia-

tors rather than just rent them from lanistae. Thus, after the show, poli-
ticians could use their gladiators as bodyguards and/or as fighters in their
small private armies. How prevalent this political use of gladiators was is
indicated by Varro’s mention of five gladiatorial troupes: Cascelliani,
Caeciliani, Aquiliani, Faustiani, Scipionarii, each of which was named after a
prominent politician of the first half of the first century BC: A. Cascellius,
M. Caecilius Metellus or Q. Caecilius Metellus Nepos, Aquilius Gallus,
Faustus Sulla, and Metellus Scipio.55 Although there is no specific evidence
that Cascellius and Gallus used gladiators for political purposes, in all prob-
ability just the fact of their ownership indicates that they did. The Caeciliani
could have belonged to either of two politicians, both of whom were associ-
ated with gladiators: M. Caecilius Metellus or Q. Caecilius Metellus Nepos.
The former gave a munus in 60 BC.56 The latter in 62 BC used a gang con-
sisting of gladiators and other ruffians in his attempt to force passage of
a law that would have made Pompey commander against the Catilinarian
conspirators, which, according to Plutarch, would have given him supreme
power at Rome. Metellus brought his gang of gladiators into the Forum and
stationed them on the steps of the temple of Castor and Pollux to intimidate
his political enemies.57 Faustus Sulla had an armed bodyguard consisting of
three hundred gladiators (faustiani), which he was ready to use if necessary,
and Asconius notes that Q. Metellus Scipio surrounded himself with ‘armed
men’, most likely the scipionarii.58 Even Cicero, who consistently de-
nounced gang violence, had a group of young men from Reate armed with
swords, whom he used during the Catilinarian conspiracy. It is unlikely,
however, that any of them were professional gladiators.59
Gladiators played a significant role in the gang warfare in Rome during
the 50s BC.60 These gangs were used by both sides in the political conflict
of the last days of the Republic between the optimates (‘the best people’)
and the populares (‘champions of the people’), the revolutionary party. In
57 BC, the infamous popularis enemy of Cicero, P. Clodius, used gladiators
to break up an assembly that was going to vote on the recall of Cicero from
exile (which Clodius himself had engineered), by wounding and killing
some of the participants.61 He had obtained these gladiators from his older
brother, Ap. Claudius, who had purchased them in anticipation of a munus
for their deceased father.62 Cicero gives a second-hand report of this event

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in his Defence of Sestius, describing this gladiatorial attack in somewhat

exaggerated, but generally accurate, terms:

You remember then, jurors, that the Tiber was filled with the bodies of citi-
zens, the Forum was cleansed of blood by sponges, with the result that all
thought that such a great number and display [of gladiators] was not spon-
sored by a private citizen or plebeian [i.e., Clodius], but by a praetor of
patrician rank [i.e., Ap. Claudius].63

Cicero casts this event in the image of a munus with Ap. Claudius as the
editor and the man behind this attack carried out by his brother. Later in the
same speech, Cicero, says that these gladiators were apprentices that Clodius
was trying to pass off as veterans (much more desirable for a successful glad-
iatorial show) to use for his father’s munus during his aedileship.64 Cicero
was recalled from exile by the passage of a law soon thereafter.65 After his
return, Cicero tells how he had thwarted a violent incident planned by
Clodius, aided by gladiators:

I stayed home as long as things were in chaos when it became known that
your slaves, who had long been prepared by you to kill good men, along with
your gang of wicked and incorrigible men had come to the Capitolium
[area on Capitoline Hill where the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus
was located]. When this was reported to me, be informed that I stayed at
home and had not given you and your gladiators the opportunity to renew
the slaughter. After I received the news that the Roman people had gathered
on the Capitolium . . . and that some of your henchman having thrown
away their swords and others having them snatched from them had fled in
terror, I came not only unsupported by the force of any troops, but with just
a few friends.66

T. Annius Milo, a friend of Cicero, who employed gang violence in support

of Cicero’s return from exile, was not loath to use gladiators. Milo was very
much man of the arena, who, Cicero said, ‘had squandered [the equivalent
of] three patrimonies’ on spectacles, including a gladiatorial munus, in his
successful pursuit of the praetorship.67 Thus, it is not surprising that he
began to incorporate gladiators into his political gang, including two of the
best-known gladiators of the day, Eudamus and Birria.68 He also purchased
a troupe of gladiators and wild-beast fighters (bestiarii), which in the late
Republic were virtually indistinguishable from gladiators, to use as a private

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army against Clodius and his followers.69 The purchase had to be arranged
through a third party because the owner of the troupe was a political enemy.
The ruse worked much to the embarrassment of the seller when he found
out the real identity of the buyer.
Gladiators had a minor role to play in the circumstances surrounding the
assassination of Julius Caesar. Cassius Dio writes that the assassins of Julius
Caesar had placed gladiators in Pompey’s theatre, where the fateful meeting
of the Senate took place at which Caesar was murdered. The pretext was
that the gladiators were going to participate in a show in the theatre, but
the real purpose of their presence was to back up the assassins.70 These glad-
iators belonged to D. Junius Brutus Albinus, who was anticipating his spon-
sorship of a munus.71 Plutarch says that one of the reasons that D. Brutus
was invited to join the conspiracy was because he owned a gladiator
troupe.72 These gladiators played no role in the assassination, but Velleius
Paterculus tells us that they afterwards accompanied the conspirators when
they occupied the Capitoline Hill, giving them an aura of power.73

Scheduling the funeral munus

In the last years of the Republic, the sole reason for giving a munus ostensi-
bly remained the same as it had been since its inception at Rome: to pay
tribute to a dead male relative, but the reality was that most editores were
as much concerned with winning votes as with honouring the dead. For
example, Julius Caesar gave his famous munus for his father twenty years
after his father’s death. This delay was not entirely unreasonable since
Caesar was only 14 or 15 when his father died. Something similar occurred
in the case of Faustus Sulla, the son of the dictator Sulla. Faustus was only
8 years old when his father died, so it is not surprising that he waited eigh-
teen years to honour his father with a munus. Also like Caesar, there was
suspicion by his political enemies that the gladiatorial troupe Sulla had pur-
chased was really to be used for ‘murder and political disturbance’ because
he had acquired it such long a time before giving the munus.74 But there
was a difference between the two cases. Caesar, like many other politicians,
offered his delayed munus during his aedileship, when it could be combined
with the ludi that the aediles were legally bound to give and thus have the
maximum positive effect on his political career. Faustus, on the other hand,
gave his munus before he was of an age to hold a major political office.

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Since his father had ordered in his will that Faustus give a munus in his
honour, it may have been that a date had been fixed by the will, which
Faustus was duty-bound to honour.75 It is clear that the motivating force
behind Faustus’ munus was pietas: devotion to his father. Conversely,
Caesar’s motive was obviously his desire for political advancement. He was
35 years old when he gave his munus in 65 BC and he could have easily done
it ten years earlier at an age similar to that of Faustus. The munus, which
had started out as a gift to the deceased, had now become primarily a gift to
the people to influence their votes.

The munus as bribery

In the final years of the Republic, bribery of voters and jurors became
more and more common and the aedile’s use of the munus began to be con-
sidered just a more subtle form of corruption. There were two laws that
sought to lessen the powerful effect of the munus on the electorate: the Lex
Calpurnia, and the later Lex Tullia, sponsored by Cicero.76 We do not
know much about the Lex Calpurnia except that one of its provisions
forbade a candidate to distribute seats at a munus by tribes.77 The ‘tribes’ re-
ferred to here were thirty-five political divisions of the Roman people form-
ing the basis of the centuriate assembly that elected consuls and praetors.78
The Lex Calpurnia recognized the profound influence that gladiator shows
had on the elections of the most powerful magistrates, but banning the dis-
tribution of seats was only a superficial cure for the problem. The real issue
was the giving of these shows by politicians who intended to become candi-
dates for the highest magistracies. The Lex Tullia was more ambitious. We
get a sense of the wording of the law from a reference that Cicero makes to
it in his Defence of Sestius: ‘[my law] expressly forbids anyone to give a glad-
iatorial show within a two-year period in which he has stood or is about
to stand for office’.79 (Elections took place in July of the year before the
successful candidate took office in January.) In his Against Vatinius, Cicero
describes the law in almost exactly in the same words, but adds: ‘unless the
day [for a munus] has been prescribed in a will’.80 This exception takes
care of the situation in which a son (or some other male relative) is required
by the deceased’s will to give a munus within this two-year period. For
the Romans, filial devotion to one’s paternal ancestors took precedence
over political matters. An example of the testamentary exception in the

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Lex Tullia is the munus that C. Scribonius Curio gave in 52 BC for his father
who died in 53 BC, leaving a will that ordered his son to give a munus in his
honour. The munus could not be given as a part of Curio the elder’s funer-
al because his son was away in the province of Asia serving as quaestor and
could not legally return to Rome until 52 BC. The testamentary exception
of the lex Tullia, however, allowed him to give the munus in 52 BC and run
in 51 BC for the aedileship he hoped to hold in 50 BC.81 It would seem that
the elder Curio’s will had specified that his munus must be given within
twelve months of his death, because Curio, like most other politicians, must
have preferred to delay the munus until he was curule aedile, when he could
get the greatest political benefit.
Here is how Georges Ville interprets the terms of the Lex Tullia.82 The
two-year period begins on January 1 of the year preceding the year in which
the election takes place and ends once the election has taken place.83 How
does this work in practice? In effect, the terms of the Lex Tullia made it
legally impossible for a politically ambitious aedile to give a munus. Before
the Lex Tullia, an aedile would have given his munus during his year of ser-
vice and declared his intention to stand for the praetorship early in the year
after his aedileship with the memory of his munus still fresh in the mind of
the voters. (A candidate could not run for office while holding another
office.) The election would have taken place in July of that year, and, if suc-
cessful, he would have assumed the praetorship in the second year after his
aedileship. In order to observe the ‘two-year rule’ of the Lex Tullia, how-
ever, if an aedile of the year 60 BC gave a munus in that year, he would not
be able to run for the praetorship in 59 BC. He would have to wait until
58 BC to declare himself a candidate for the praetorship of 57 BC. Note that
the Lex Tullia presumes that the positive effect of giving a munus in one’s
aedileship would be greatly diminished by waiting an extra year before run-
ning for the praetorship.
We hear of one case in which the Lex Tullia was ignored, apparently with
impunity. Cicero accused P. Vatinius of breaking the lex Tullia by giving a
gladiator show while running for the praetorship of 55 BC in the previous
year.84 In his own defence, Vatinius claimed that he had presented not glad-
iators, but bestiarii in a venatio, taking advantage of the fact that both
bestiarii and gladiators used swords and wore similar armour. Vatinius some-
how escaped prosecution on this charge and his campaign for the praetor-
ship, aided by significant bribery, was ultimately successful.85

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Caesar’s last munus

Julius Caesar gave another munus on a lavish scale in 46 BC, a forerunner of
the grandiose imperial munera, as part of his triumphal celebrations. He
had announced in 52 BC that he would give a munus in honour of his
daughter Julia, who had died in 54 BC, the first known munus in honour of
a woman. This show must have aroused incredible excitement, especially
among those who remembered the great munus of his aedileship in 65 BC.
In 46 BC, Caesar celebrated four triumphs on four separate days for his
victories in Gaul, Egypt, Pontus (north central Turkey) and North Africa.
Caesar promised a munus and a banquet (epulum) in memory of Julia such
as had never been seen before.86 It would seem that Caesar was acting like a
candidate for office, but he was now in effect the ruler of Rome, having
been appointed dictator for life in the same year. His munus, however, still
had a political purpose. Despite his overwhelming power, he still needed the
support of the people to counter the ill will that he had stirred up among
aristocratic defenders of the Republic. After all, he had come to power
through his opposition to conservative elements among the senatorial aris-
tocracy of which he himself was a member.87 He also had to overcome the
fear that his recent victories over Pompey and other political rivals in the
civil wars had inspired in the people. Many Romans remembered what had
happened when Sulla achieved his dictatorship after numerous military
victories. Sulla published proscription lists of political enemies, which led to
the deaths of thousands of Romans. The people’s fears were exacerbated
during the triumphal procession honouring his victory over Egypt, when
they saw Arsinoe, a member of the Egyptian royal family and sister of
Cleopatra. The sight of a famous woman like Arsinoe, who had once even
been proclaimed queen, now a slave, aroused their pity and, despite their
admiration of Caesar, made them think they too might become slaves of
Caesar. Although the Roman people admired Caesar for his achievements,
his demonstration of his personal power in these triumphal celebrations was
alarming, as in the case of the unprecedented number of his official body-
guards (lictores).88 On the other hand, the effect of the lavish entertain-
ments was overall more comforting than alarming to the people. At the
height of his political power, he had decided to spend vast amounts of
money on the people rather than on himself. As Nero did a century later,
Caesar could have used this money to build a vast palace that proclaimed his

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despotic power over his subjects. Instead, he tried to win (and in good part
succeeded in winning) the hearts and minds of the people, setting an
example followed by future good emperors, who preferred to be considered
patrons of the people, rather than an autocratic ruler.89 Caesar understood
well the principle later formulated by Fronto: ‘the Roman people are preoc-
cupied by two things especially, grain and spectacles; rule is judged not less
by trivial things than by serious things’.90
The number of pairs of gladiators presented in Caesar’s munus was not
recorded, but undoubtedly it was significantly large. After his grand show of
65 BC in which 640 gladiators took part, Caesar would not have presented a
smaller number in a munus for his daughter given in connection with his
triumphal games. Cassius Dio, the only source to bring up the topic of
number, begs off giving a figure because of the difficulty of finding the
truth among the grossly exaggerated estimates.91 Caesar was determined to
produce a gladiator show that satisfied the spectators. In pursuit of this
objective, he ordered that the famous gladiators he planned to present in
his munus be removed immediately from a match if the spectators were
not pleased by their efforts and held in reserve for future contests.92 Caesar
proved a good psychologist in this matter. The prospect of suffering the
humiliation of disqualification for a poor performance would encourage
these proud veterans to give their all. It was not enough just to present glad-
iatorial combat; the crowd expected good matches and Caesar did not want
his munus to be ruined by the inadequate effort of the combatants. Caesar
also required that all apprentice gladiators (tirones) fighting their first match
in his munus be instructed by members of the equestrian and senatorial
classes skilled in the use of arms.93 Caesar was apparently trying to give a
more dignified aura to his munus by associating at least some of his gladia-
tors with upper-class Romans who had gained their martial expertise as offi-
cers in the Roman army.94
Caesar’s upcoming munus must have aroused enthusiasm among the
aristocracy because a senator named Fulvius Sepinus wanted to fight in full
armour. Caesar, however, did not indulge his desire. A senator fighting as a
gladiator could only bring shame to himself and his class. Caesar rejected
the request, but did allow a former senator named Q. Calpenus to fight.95
The fact that Calpenus was no longer a senator, a position normally held
for life, meant that he had been removed from the Senate, probably because
of some scandal. Thus, there was no reason why he, already disgraced,

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should not take up a disgraced profession. Caesar, however, had no com-

punctions about allowing equestrians to fight, among whom was the son of
a praetor.96
Caesar issued a ban on senators fighting in the arena, a decree that was
formalized by a decree of the Senate in 38 BC, six years after his assassin-
ation.97 Even so, less than ten years after this decree of the Senate, Octavian,
Caesar’s adopted son, although he was staunch supporter of senatorial
dignity, allowed a senator named Q. Vitellius to fight in the arena.98 There
is no evidence that the ban was removed. Augustus probably just granted an
exemption for the occasion, as seems to be implied by Augustus’ later ex-
tension of Caesar’s ban to include equestrians and descendants of senators
(22 BC).99 In AD 11, equestrians were allowed to fight as gladiators without
incurring disgrace. Cassius Dio comments that the ban on equestrians fight-
ing in the arena was useless since it could not prevent them from engaging
in this activity.100 Law enforcement was always a problem in Rome. The
appearance of equestrians in the arena was overwhelmingly popular and
attracted a great deal of interest.101 Augustus went so far as to show his ap-
proval of this practice with his attendance at munera featuring equestrian
gladiators.102 His flexibility in these matters was no doubt influenced by his
desire to please the crowd. In the imperial period, Roman spectators cared
about the status of gladiators: they preferred a free gladiator to a slave, and
an upper-class gladiator to a lower-class freeman.103 This preference was
based on the belief that the higher a volunteer gladiator was on the social
scale, the more heart and desire he had for fighting, since he was doing it
voluntarily. Perhaps Roman spectators had seen too many slave gladiators
who were reluctant fighters. The prejudice against slave gladiators is evident
in a passage from Petronius’ Satyricon. Petronius has one of his plebeian
characters tell his friends that

We are about to enjoy an excellent munus in three days on a holiday;

the gladiator troupe is not owned by a lanista, but consists of numerous
freedmen.104

These freedmen had apparently taken up the career of a gladiator as an inde-

pendent business enterprise and, as their own bosses, were willing to risk life
and limb to entertain the crowd, thereby ensuring further employment.105
Despite Augustus’ leniency in the matter of equestrians, the Senate again
banned their participation in gladiatorial shows, probably in the last years of

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Augustus’ life.106 Despite this ban, knights appeared occasionally in the

arena during the reigns of Caligula and Claudius, because of special exemp-
tions, but under Nero the appearance in the arena of not only knights but
also senators became epidemic.107 Nero himself, who, as emperor, had no
worry about being tainted by infamia, had set an example for the senators
and equestrians by appearing in Rome as a singer and musician and even
acting in plays, professions, like that of gladiator, that would have disgraced
any Roman citizen.108 Thus, it is not surprising that the two upper orders in
large numbers, in some cases to please their increasingly tyrannical emperor,
were willing to fly in the face of social disapproval by fighting as gladiators
in the arena.
The emperor Vitellius banned the participation of the two upper classes
as combatants in munera in AD 69.109 His decree, however, did not survive
his brief reign (less than three months). Roman elites continued to fight in
the arena at least until the late second century AD. When the emperor
Marcus Aurelius (AD 161–180) was dubious about the candidacy for public
office of a former gladiator, the candidate pointed out that he saw many
praetors in the Senate who had fought in the arena during his career as a
gladiator.110

The transition from Republic to empire

The revolution that ended with the replacement of Republican government
with imperial rule had a profound effect on the giving of munera. The civil
wars that took place after the assassination of Julius Caesar led to a final con-
frontation between Octavian, the adopted son and heir of Caesar, and Marc
Antony, who had allied himself with the Egyptian queen Cleopatra. There
was a naval battle off the coast of Actium (31 BC) on the western coast of
mainland Greece, in which Octavian and his military adviser Agrippa were
the victors over Antony and Cleopatra. As a result, Octavian was left as the
sole ruler of the Roman world. He chose to cloak his absolute rule behind
the appearance of Republican government and to pretend to be only a
princeps, ‘the leading man’ of the state.111 In 27 BC, the Senate honoured
Octavian with the honorific title of ‘Augustus’. He controlled the armies of
Rome and the treasury, previously under the control of the Senate, whose
power had been greatly diminished. Most of the old Republican magistra-
cies still existed, but they were on their way to becoming honorary rather

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than a locus of power for their holders. No one was nominated for office or
did anything significant once in office without the approval of Augustus.112
Popular elections, undermined by Julius Caesar and Augustus, disappeared
during the reign of Tiberius, Augustus’ adopted son and successor. Elec-
tions now took place in the Senate, which was not eager to counteract the
emperor’s wishes. Thus, there was the appearance of constitutionality, but
in reality Roman government had become a monarchy.
With these changes, the politics of the munus could not help but be
transformed. During the Republic, the munus was entirely a private affair, at
least nominally a duty performed by sons in honour of their fathers.113 The
only interest in gladiatorial combat that the Roman government demon-
strated during the Republic was in 105 BC, when the Romans, at a time of
military crisis (the terrible defeat by Germanic invaders at Arausio, modern
Orange), sought the help of instructors from a gladiator school. The
historian Valerius Maximus tells us that the consuls of that year, P. Rutilius
and Cn. Mallius, hired teachers from the ludus of C. Aurelius Scaurus to
train their soldiers in offensive and defensive manoeuvres, hoping to bolster
their courage with better technique.114 The consuls of 105 BC undoubtedly
used state money to pay for this training, but there was no attempt to take
control of the munus, as is sometimes claimed. No precedent had been
established for governmental financing of munera.
Munera financed at least partially by public funds were known elsewhere
in the empire before they existed at Rome. The charter of Urso (44 BC), a
Caesarian colony in Spain, specifies that the duoviri were required to give a
munus or theatrical entertainments for a four-day period during their magis-
tracy. They had to pay a minimum of 2,000 sesterces out their own pocket
and receive no more than the same amount from the public treasury.115 By
the first century AD, publicly financed munera were common throughout
the towns of Italy. An inscription from Pompeii (AD 55) implies that public
funds were used for munera when it praises an honoured magistrate for
giving a munus ‘without public expense’.116 Later in the imperial period, we
hear of the position of ‘superintendent of the public munus’ (procurator
muneris publici) in the Italian town of Praeneste, where there was an import-
ant gladiator school.117 In the same era, the term ‘public munus’ appears in
two inscriptions from Fundi (modern Fondi).118
The first appearance of regularly scheduled state-sponsored munera
at Rome was in the late first century BC. As we have seen, only in the last

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decades of the Republic did the government begin to appreciate fully the
political dangers inherent in these shows and attempt to eliminate them
through legislation (lex Tullia). Augustus’ legislation of 22 BC effectively
put the regulation of the munus into the hands of the emperor, to be used
in whatever way he saw fit. Given the history of the munus during the last
decades of the Republic, it is not surprising that Augustus early in his reign
decided to establish more stringent controls over its offering. Perhaps
Augustus was alarmed by the grand success of a venatio, given in 25 BC by a
praetor named P. Servilius, in which three hundred bears and a like number
of African beasts were slaughtered. As Cassius Dio notes, Servilius ‘made his
name’ with this spectacle, just as many politically ambitious men had done
during the Republic.119 Just three years later, Augustus introduced legis-
lation that made it difficult for anyone to use spectacles for political gain.
He gave responsibility for all spectacles, including the venatio and gladiato-
rial combat, to the board of praetors.120 Two praetors were chosen annually
by lot from the whole college of praetors to undertake this task and were
given a stipend from the public treasury for this purpose.121 Any extra
spending by one of the praetors on these spectacles from their own personal
funds must not be greater than that of his colleague.122 This spending limit
no doubt was meant to stop any praetor from claiming greater credit for the
show than the other praetor. There must have also been a restriction on
the amount the praetors could spend out of their own pockets (perhaps
the same amount as the governmental stipend?) because four years later
Augustus permitted them to spend up to three times the amount they had
received from the treasury, if they so wished.123 Apparently, Augustus was
feeling more secure in his position and saw less danger in the praetors’
political ambitions than he had originally.
Like the ludi throughout the Republic and empire, the munus given by
the praetors was an annual event, sponsored by the state. Remember that in
the Republic, all munera and animal hunts were optional spectacles not
legally required of the aediles (as were the ludi) but privately funded by
them as an enhancement of the ludi. It is clear that in the matter of popu-
larity, the relationship between the ludi and the munus was an example of
the tail wagging the dog. Although the ludi were time-honoured ritual
entertainments in honour of various gods, it is clear that they could not
generate the same enthusiasm as gladiator shows, which became the pri-
mary instrument of the politically ambitious during the Republic.

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Bad emperors like Caligula were especially suspicious of the private

ambition that might lie behind the offering of a munus. As we have seen
earlier, Caligula, desperate to refill an empty treasury, decided to sell gladia-
tors from his imperial school at outrageous prices. He sold them not only
to the two praetors who gave the annual munus, but even to private citi-
zens, allowing them to ignore the law limiting the number of gladiators in a
show. Some of the purchasers bought the gladiators willingly, while others
did so out fear of offending the emperor. Caligula quickly had second
thoughts about the sale and realized the threat the buyers might pose to
his rule. Thus, he had the best gladiators of the group he had just sold
poisoned.124 A similar suspicion may have been behind Claudius’ replac-
ing the praetors with quaestors as managers of the anual munus and
refusing to allow privately sponsored munera to be reported as given on
behalf of his well-being.125 By the time of Domitian, munera in Rome
were given only by the emperor himself, a relative, or a magistrate as his
representative.126
Despite the political changes at Rome, the changeover from Republican
to imperial government had virtually no effect on the politics of towns in
Italy. Politics in these towns was conducted as it had been in Rome under
the Republic. Local aristocrats contended for offices with real power, to
which they were elected by the people with no interference from the
emperor. As in Republican Rome, the munus played an important role in
getting candidates for public office elected. Munera continued to be given
by candidates striving for political office. There is a passage in Petronius’
Satyricon in which, Echion, a rag dealer, talks about an upcoming munus in
a town in southern Italy. Echion is a fictional character but his comments no
doubt accurately reflect the relationship between the munus and campaign-
ing for public office. He expresses confidence that a munus to be given by
a certain Titus, undoubtedly a candidate for public office, will be of excel-
lent quality. On the other hand, Echion talks about a cheap munus given
by one Norbanus and the harm that it will do to his campaign for an un-
specified office. Echion imagines Norbanus’ reply to his criticism: ‘Never-
theless,’ Norbanus said, ‘I have given you a gladiator show.’ Echion’s
responds: ‘And I applaud you, but if you think about it, I gave more to you
than I received. One hand washes the other’.127 A disappointed spectator at
a munus was a liability for a politically ambitious munerarius. Local political
activity also persisted in the empire outside of Italy. The only interference in

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provincial affairs by the emperor we hear of concerns Roman provincial

officials and not local politicians. For example, Nero issued a decree ban-
ning munera given by provincial magistrates and other officials, branding
these shows as an attempt to distract the provincials from governmental
abuses.128 Wiedemann suggests that Nero’s real motive for this decree was
his fear that the popularity gained by giving munera might create rivals to
his rule.129 This ban does not seem to have survived Nero’s death.
The annual state-sponsored munus stood as a guarantee that there
would be at least one gladiatorial event a year to entertain the people.
(Augustus had stated that he would allow two, if requested.) With strict
governmental control of the munus, however, there must have been a steep
decline in munera given by private individuals on their own initiative.
Augustus had stipulated three requirements for the giver of an optional
munus: permission from the Senate, the limit of two munera per year and a
cap on the number of gladiators of sixty pairs.130 No doubt the Roman
people looked to the emperor to take up the slack. Some emperors re-
sponded more favourably than others in accordance with their personal like
or dislike of gladiatorial combat. Augustus’ record for sponsoring munera is
instructive. Although fond of spectacle generally, and of gladiator games in
particular, he was not a very active editor of munera. He tells us in his sum-
mary of his life’s achievements (Res Gestae) that he gave gladiatorial munera
three times in his own name and five times in the name of his sons and
grandsons.131 That amounts to only eight munera over a forty-five year
reign, although it must be said that when he did sponsor a munus, it was of
epic proportions. Augustus also mentions that he presented approximately
10,000 gladiators in these eight munera, an average of 1,250 gladiators per
munus, almost twice the number of gladiators that Julius Caesar presented
in 65 BC.132
The funeral munus was still in vogue in Rome of the early empire, but,
like other munera, more and more limited to the emperor and imperial
family. While Augustus was emperor, he gave two munera in memory of his
chief general, Agrippa.133 Funeral munera were also given during Augustus’
reign by Tiberius for his biological father (Tiberius Nero) and grandfather
(Drusus Claudius Nero) and by Augustus’ step-grandchildren, Germanicus
and Claudius (the future emperor), for their father Drusus (son of Livia,
Augustus’ wife, and brother of Tiberius).134 Nero gave the last recorded
munus of this type at Rome, for his mother Agrippina. The participants in

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this munus, however, were not trained professionals, but male and female
members of the equestrian and senatorial orders.135 There is no record at all
of a funeral munus for a private citizen at Rome after the time of Augustus,
although they continued to be given elsewhere in Italy, as Maximus’ munus
for his wife in Verona, discussed in Chapter 1.
Difficult times were coming for the munus. In AD 7, a budget squeeze
led Augustus to discontinue the funding of the annual praetorian munus,
which was not restored until thirty-two years later, under Caligula.136 But
why had the annual praetorian munus lain dormant so long? The responsi-
bility for this dormancy can be laid at the feet of Tiberius, Augustus’
adopted son and successor, who did not have the social skills needed for an
editor of a munus. As Tacitus explains:

[Tiberius’] distaste for gladiatorial games is explained variously. Some say

that crowds made him uncomfortable; others say that it was due to his
melancholy personality and fear of comparison with Augustus’ affable in-
teraction with the crowd.137

Perhaps it was during two funeral munera, one for his father and the other
for his grandfather Tiberius (mentioned above), when he was for the first
time the centre of attention as editor, that he learned to dislike the sponsor-
ship of spectacles.138 Moreover, in lines immediately preceding those
quoted above, Tacitus gives a hint that Tiberius was troubled by gladiator
games per se. In the first year of his reign, he rebuked his son Drusus, the
editor of his own munus, for delighting too much in the spilling of
blood.139 In Cassius Dio, we read of Tiberius’ dissatisfaction with another
aspect of this same munus.140 He refused to watch a gladiatorial duel be-
tween two knights, objecting no doubt to the degradation of their elite
status by fighting as gladiators. Tiberius also banned the winner of this duel
from fighting as a gladiator again.141 After the munus given by Drusus
mentioned above, there are no recorded munera given by the emperor or
his family for the rest of Tiberius’ reign.142 There may have been munera
given by private citizens, but they would have been too inconsequential to
attract the attention of historians. This was a trying time for gladiators and
their fans. As noted earlier, Seneca reports hearing a famous gladiator of
that era named Triumphus complaining of the infrequency of munera
under Tiberius: ‘How our beautiful age perishes!’143 Roman fans of the
munus must have even been suffering as least as much. The combination of

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pent-up demand with the scarcity of gladiatorial combat at Rome at this

time led to a terrible man-made disaster. A freedman named Atilius decided
to take financial advantage of this situation by offering a gladiator show and
charging admission (munus assiforanum). As a freedman, he probably had
little chance of getting permission to give a munus in Rome, especially
under Tiberius, so he constructed a temporary amphitheatre in the town of
Fidenae, a little over two miles north of Rome. Unfortunately, his ‘quick
buck’ philosophy led him to ignore proper building procedure. He built an
amphitheatre that was not able to support the weight of a large crowd.
Roman fans, consisting of men and women of all ages, came in large num-
bers, making the disaster even worse. The whole amphitheatre collapsed
killing or seriously injuring 50,000 spectators. Atilius was exiled and the
Roman Senate reacted with a decree that a property rating of 400,000 ses-
terces (the property qualification for membership in the equestrian class)
was required for anyone giving a munus, along with an inspection of the
foundation.144 Tacitus ultimately blames Tiberius for the disaster, who ‘had
kept [the people] from their pleasures’.145
The munus, however, was an institution too deeply ingrained in Roman
life and character to disappear completely. What Cicero (in a more positive
mood about spectacles) wrote about games in the Republic was still just as
true under the emperors:

The Roman people must not be deprived of the enjoyment of ludi, glad-
iatorial shows, and banquets . . . which signify generosity more than self-
interested hand-outs.146

The emperors were fully aware of the popularity of the munus among the
people and its value to the political health of the state. Most emperors found
the munus a valuable opportunity to display their ‘wealth, power, and pres-
tige’ and even more importantly, to establish a firm bond between them-
selves and their subjects.147 The munus was also a stabilizing force for the
state by providing a ‘safety-valve’ for public discontent.148 Public gatherings
at Rome had long been opportunities for the Roman people to make their
political opinions and complaints known. Cicero lists three kinds of gather-
ings where this was the case. The first two are specifically political meetings:
the comitia (the centuriate and tribal assemblies) in which magistrates during
the Republic were elected and legislation was voted upon, and the contio, a
meeting in which magistrates gave information to voters and answered their

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questions before they cast their votes in the comitia.149 Under Augustus,
these political meetings were moribund. The comitia, having lost the func-
tion of electing magistrates early in the first century AD, passed their last bit
of legislation at the end of the same century, and without them there was no
need for the contio. The third public gathering mentioned by Cicero is the
spectacle: the munus and the ludi.150 In his speech In Defence of Sestius,
Cicero provides an example of a munus used as a political forum. When
Sestius, a tribune of the people and an advocate of Cicero’s return from
exile, made an entrance into the crowd attending a munus in the Forum, he
was greeted with the applause of just about every person in attendance.
Since the crowd at the munus consisted of men of all classes, from high to
low, Cicero understood this greeting as a sign that the Roman people were
unanimously in favour of his return from exile.151 Another example of
the people’s support for Cicero was their hostility to Ap. Claudius, the
brother of P. Clodius, who was behind Cicero’s exile. On his arrival at a
munus, Appius tried to avoid being seen by the crowd by crawling under
the benches to reach his seat and was hissed by the spectators when he was
finally sighted.152 As noted earlier, the hissing was so loud that it startled
both the horsemen gladiators (equites) and their horses.153
With the loss of formal opportunities for political expression, gladiator
shows and other spectacles became even more important as an opportunity
for the people to see and communicate with their emperor. Spectators could
take the opportunity to make known to the emperor their desires with
regard to certain issues. Josephus describes the ideal interaction between
spectators and the emperor:

. . . with regard to things they need, [the Roman people], coming together
in a large crowd ask their emperors, who, judging their requests legitimate,
do not treat them with contempt.154

Even Tiberius, despite his dislike of spectacles of any kind, at least early in
his reign attended the ludi regularly ‘for the sake of the good conduct of
the crowd and of seeming to share their pleasure in the show’.155 The pop-
ulace liked an emperor who attended shows and shared their interest in
what was going on. Julius Caesar was criticized for paying more attention to
his business papers than the show when present at a spectacle. Augustus
learned his lesson from the experience of his adoptive father and paid care-
ful attention to the show, no doubt to the great delight of the crowd.156

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Claudius was an expert at showing the spectators that he was having a good
time at the games.157
The people responded well to the generosity of an emperor, when, as a
munerarius, he gave a lavish show.158 Having a good time, however, was
not the only product of a munus. The people’s sense of general well-being
was boosted by the munus, which delivered a powerful message about the
strict administration of justice and Rome’s domination of their empire. The
spectators could not help but be reassured when convicted criminals and
prisoners of war served as gladiators or were thrown to wild beasts during
the venatio, or executed at the noon event.159

The imperial munus

After the neglect of Tiberius, all that was needed for a restoration of the
munus to its former glory was a more sympathetic emperor, and the next
two emperors, Caligula and Claudius, filled that role well. Under these two
emperors the munus was restored to former availability and underwent a
change that gave it its now classic form. As we have seen, the imperial
munus was a three-fold, all-day event, which began in the morning with a
venatio followed by noontime executions and the afternoon gladiatorial
combat, the main event of the day. It is impossible to pinpoint the exact
time that this format came into being. It was probably a gradual process.
The triumphal munus of Julius Caesar in 46 BC, however, must have been
influential in this regard. This munus was transitional in at least two ways.
Ostensibly, it was a traditional funeral munus in honour of his deceased
daughter Julia, but at the same time it was part of a triumphal celebration,
which set a precedent for future triumphing emperors such as Augustus and
Trajan. Cassius Dio tells us that the temporary amphitheatre Caesar built for
the munus was the site of both a gladiator show and a venatio, the first time
we hear of these two entertainments being held in the same venue.160
The venatio, or staged animal hunt with other associated events, re-
mained primarily a separate event in the early empire. Although Augustus,
in the listing of entertainments that he gave during his reign in his Res
Gestae, keeps his listing of his munera and venationes separate, there is evi-
dence that in the last years of his rule the association between gladiatorial
games and the venatio was becoming stronger and more popular.161 In
AD 6, the brothers Germanicus and Claudius, the future emperor, gave a

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funeral munus for their father Drusus. Part of this munus was a presentation
of trained elephants. As we have seen, the performance of tricks by trained
animals was a typical feature of the venatio.162 There is no mention of a
hunt, but that may be because the sources found it less interesting than the
performances by the elephants. One wonders if one of the tricks performed
by the elephants at this event, the imitation of the movements of gladiators,
was designed to call attention to a new link between the venatio and gladia-
torial games. Although the independent venatio continued to be given
under Caligula and Claudius, at some point, perhaps in the latter’s reign,
a link between the venatio and gladiatorial combat had been forged. As
Suetonius reports:

[Claudius] gave numerous gladiator shows in different places:

[for example] one in the Praetorian Camp to celebrate the anniversary
of his accession without a venatio and the usual equipment and a
right and proper one [iustum atque legitimum i.e., with a venatio] in the
Saepta [‘Voting Enclosure’].163

New functions of the munus

The munus had been acquiring new functions since the beginning of
imperial period, some of which can be attributed to Augustus. During the
Republic, the only acceptable reason for giving a munus, political consider-
ations aside, was the commemoration of the dead. By the middle of the first
century AD, however, the funeral munus was virtually obsolete, at least in
the city of Rome. Augustus seems to have attempted to turn the munus into
a religious rite. In 12 BC, Augustus presented gladiatorial combat as the
primary feature of a festival called the Quinquatrus (‘Five-day festival’,
19–23 March). These games were in honour of Minerva, whose martial
character was inherited from her Greek counterpart, Athena.164 Ovid says
that the last four days of the festival were devoted to gladiator games de-
signed to please the ‘war-like goddess’.165 In the same year, Augustus spon-
sored a contest of armed warriors in Athens during the Panathenaic
festival.166 The source (Cassius Dio), however, does not refer to these
warriors as monomachoi (Greek for ‘gladiators’) in reference to the event
in Athens. He instead calls these competitions ‘heavy armed contests’
(hoplomachias agonas), which probably involved only blunted weapons. The
most likely reason for this harmless substitution is that Augustus did not

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want to offend the Athenians. It is likely that Greeks in this period had not
yet accepted gladiator games.167 There had been an earlier attempt to con-
nect the munus with a divinity. In 42 BC, the plebeian aediles, who were in
charge of the games for Ceres (Ludi Cereales), substituted gladiatorial com-
bat for the traditional chariot races (circenses).168 Since the munus had never
been associated with a divinity, the Roman public must have found this reli-
gious innovation too radical. It was not repeated. The munus in honour of
Minerva seems to have suffered the same fate.
Augustus’ creation of an annually recurring munus given by praetors
represents a public admission of the real reason for gladiatorial combat:
entertainment.169 We do not know whether the praetorian munus was as-
signed to a specific time of the year under Augustus, but towards the middle
of the first century AD, perhaps during the reign of Caligula, it was given in
December. Under Claudius, the organization of the annual munus was
transferred from the praetors to the quaestors.170 The annual munus was
still being given by the quaestors in December in the time of Domitian and
continued on, with some interruptions, at least into the fourth century
171
AD. The calendar of Philocalus (AD 354) gives its specific dates in
December: 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24.172 Note that these gladiator
games were interrupted for the celebration of the Saturnalia on December
17. As far as the Romans were concerned, the munus was not a proper way
to worship the gods.173
There was, however, a popular innovation involving the munus that had
a religious dimension involving prayer. This was the practice of giving a
munus for the welfare (pro salute) of the emperor and his family. Ville notes
that the offering of the munus pro salute presumes the striking of a bargain
with a god or gods (although no gods are ever mentioned either individu-
ally or as a group) in which the lives of gladiators are exchanged for life of
the dedicatee(s) of the munus.174 One of the earliest recorded examples of
this munus took place in the reign of Tiberius, when gladiator games were
given in Pompeii for the welfare (pro salute) of Livia (Tiberius’ mother and
wife of Augustus) and the imperial family.175 The munus pro salute was
especially popular during the Neronian era. On at least one occasion, a
stand-alone venatio was used for this purpose, which the future emperor
Nero sponsored on behalf of his stepfather Claudius.176 Nero as emperor
was a recipient of munera pro salute given in Pompeii.177 There were
numerous munera pro salute given for Vespasian, no doubt during his final

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illness in AD 79.178 At Pompeii, Nigidius Maius gave a munus for the dedi-
cation of an altar that was linked with the welfare of the emperor and his
family.179 The inscription that proclaims this dedication implies that sacri-
fices would be made on this altar for the welfare of Vespasian and his chil-
dren. At Venafrum (modern Venafro) in Campania, a munus was given by
certain Q. Vibius Rusticus ‘for the well-being of the imperial household’
sometime in the first century AD.180
Analogous to the munus pro salute was the vow made by individuals to
fight in the arena as a sacrifice for the welfare of the emperor. When Caligula
became seriously ill early in his reign, two men swore under oath to incur
or risk death if the emperor should recover. A lower-class citizen named
Afranius Potitus apparently promised to commit suicide, while an equestrian
named Atanius Secundus, perhaps as an act of one-upmanship, announced
that he would fight as a gladiator. When Caligula recovered, both men
broke their promises, but the emperor forced them to keep their vows.
Atanius died fighting in the arena.181 Cassius Dio brands their behaviour as
a servile attempt to win the goodwill of the emperor and a cash reward. The
historian is probably right in not seeing any altruism in these vows. Atanius
was not the only one to make such a vow. Suetonius describes a scene
early in Caligula’s reign on the Palatine Hill, where people, alarmed by the
emperor’s illness, kept a vigil. A number of these persons vowed that they
would fight in the arena if he recovered.182 The logic of this vow is perhaps
rooted in an ancient religious practice in time of war, the devotio (discussed
in Chapter 1), which was believed to be a means of saving the many by the
voluntary death in battle of one man. A late biographer suggests that gladi-
atorial games (and the venatio) given by emperors going to war could be a
kind of devotio in which the deaths of gladiators (and beast fighters) in the
arena could satisfy the goddess Nemesis in exchange for the survival of citi-
zens in battle. The biographer does not put much stock in this theory, but it
provides an interesting parallel to similar thinking in Caligula’s day.183
Munerarii found other occasions appropriate to be celebrated with a
munus. Dedication of a building was often commemorated with a gladiator
show. For example, Augustus gave munera to celebrate the dedications
of the Shrine of Julius Caesar, the temple of Quirinus and the temple of
Mars.184 Nero inaugurated his famous wooden amphitheatre with a munus,
as did Titus with the Flavian amphitheatre (Colosseum).185 As we have
seen above, munerarii in Italy followed their example. Another common

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occasion for a munus in the towns of Italy was to thank the electorate for
election to a magistracy. The munus was also deemed an appropriate cel-
ebration for anniversaries. For example, Claudius gave a special munus in
the Praetorian camp to celebrate the anniversary of his accession to the
throne.186 The consuls celebrated the birthday of the emperor Vitellius with
a huge munus that took place at multiple sites throughout Rome.187
Triumphs were another popular excuse for a munus. Before the Battle of
Actium, Antony, confident of victory, gathered a group of gladiators for his
post-victory munus. Of course, Antony never got a chance to use them in
a show, and his conqueror, Octavian celebrated his victory at Actium with
his own munus.188 Victorious emperors in the imperial period who gave
munera as triumphal celebrations include Domitian and Trajan, both for
their victories over the Dacians.189

Notable imperial munera

Nero (AD 57)
Nero gave a munus to celebrate the dedication of his new wooden am-
phitheatre that was remembered for the high social status of its gladiators.
His gladiators consisted of six hundred members of the senatorial order and
four hundred equestrians who fought as gladiators and another group from
the same two classes who served as beast fighters in a venatio. Members of
these two elite classes even served as arena attendants.190 As we have seen,
by the mid first century AD it was not unusual to find aristocratic Romans
fighting in the arena, some forced to make a living because they had lost
their fortunes or were disgraced because of involvement in a scandal. Sueto-
nius, however, notes that this was not true of all the participants in Nero’s
munus. At least some of the aristocratic gladiators in Nero’s munus fought
voluntarily, with both their fortunes and reputations intact.
No doubt in keeping with the status and dignity of his upper-class glad-
iators, Nero ordered that no deaths should take place at this munus.191
These gladiators from the highest echelons of Roman society probably
fought with wooden training swords or blunted metal swords.192 Nero
might have hoped to appeal to the spectators’ better instincts by focusing
their attention on the technical skills of the fighters rather than on the sight
of fighters wounded and dying. Oddly, Nero’s rule of no death also applied
to a third component of this munus: the meridianum spectaculum in which

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convicts and prisoners of war were usually executed. Although their life was
spared, the damnati of this munus were not given their freedom, but per-
haps given some non-capital penalty such as working on public projects. We
know that Nero later had a policy of not executing prisoners of war and
damnati in the munus because he needed them to work on his Golden
House and other large projects such as a canal in southern Italy.193
One is struck by the novelty of this munus, which must have appealed to
Nero, whose interest in entertainment was second to no other emperor.
There may have been, however, more to this munus that just its novelty.
One could view this munus as a daring experiment on Nero’s part, an
attempt to reinvent the munus. Ville called this munus ‘one of the most
extraordinary in the history of gladiatorial combat’.194 Nero seems to be
attempting to remove the munus, at least temporarily, from its degrading
association with professional gladiators and beast fighters and the bloody
violence they practised in the arena. His munus is reminiscent of one given
by Scipio Africanus in 206 BC at Nova Carthago (modern Cartagena) in
Spain in honour of his father and uncle, who had been killed fighting the
Carthaginians. Livy comments on the unusual nature of the show, in which
aristocratic Spaniards participated in the combat voluntarily and out of
noble motives:

The gladiatorial spectacle did not consist of the kind of men whom lanistae
were accustomed to purchase, slaves from the slave market and freemen who
put up their blood for sale. All the services of the fighters were voluntary
and free. For some were sent by their chieftains to display an example of in-
nate martial virtue of their tribe, while others proclaimed that they would
fight out of regard for their leader [Scipio] . . . 195

Gunderson’s explanation of the popularity of Scipio’s munus could also be

applied to Nero’s show:

Indeed the [gladiator] show is a better show because the better sort of men
are participating; and the fighters’ volition is likewise testimony to their
true valor.196

The question might be asked, why were the members of Rome’s two upper
classes in Rome in good standing willing to participate in Nero’s elitist
munus? Gunderson suggests three plausible factors: (1) the avoidance of
infamia for those upper-class gladiators who did not receive financial

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compensation, (2) participation in bloodless combat with social equals, and

(3) the opportunity to display one’s virtus in public.197 We have to be care-
ful, however, not to make too much of an idealist out of Nero. He might
have had an additional motive: the humiliation of the upper classes, which
was a particular attraction for the common people.198 Some of these aristo-
crats in Nero’s munus were no doubt happy to fight in the arena for the
money and/or the glory, but there must have been an element of coercion
in their decision to fight. After Tacitus reports that Nero bribed prominent
equestrians to fight in the arena, he comments that ‘pay from a man who
has the power to command applies the force of compulsion’.199

Titus (AD 80)

Two memorable munera were given by the emperor Titus for the dedica-
tion of the Colosseum. Both munera were enhanced by a naumachia
(‘staged sea battle), one in the Colosseum and another at the stagnum
Augusti in the Grove of the Caesars (Nemus Caesarum). The celebration
was spread out over a period of 100 days, but we only know a few details of
this schedule.200 The munus in the Colosseum was iustum et legitimum
with the traditional sequence of events: venatio, which included damnati
thrown to the beasts, and gladiatorial combat. There is just one detail that is
out of the ordinary. Martial, in one of his poems from his Book of Spectacles,
places the parading of political informers in the arena before the morning
venatio, rather than at its usual noontime slot.201 This schedule is suggested
by the position of this poem before those on the venatio. (The sequence of
the poems is thought more or less to depict the original succession of
events.202) It is clear that Titus was making a political statement by putting
these informers on display right at the opening of the inaugural games of
the Colosseum, indicating that he is making a fresh start by rejecting the use
of informers.203 Under bad emperors like Nero, informers (delatores) were
encouraged by pecuniary rewards (a substantial portion of the condemned
person’s property) to give information that led to the conviction of wrong-
doers. These rewards, however, fostered greed and led to many false charges
and wrongful convictions, a practice that Titus was trying to discourage
with this public humiliation and the penalty of exile. The gladiatorial show
included the usual duels, but also staged infantry battles in the tradition of
Julius Caesar, Augustus and Claudius.204 The only thing specific we know

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about the gladiator show is the epic fight between Priscus and Verus, dis-
cussed in the previous chapter.

Domitian (AD 89)

Domitian was a prolific giver of munera and restored the annual quaestori-
an munus, which had fallen into disuse since the reign of his father,
Vespasian. We do not have evidence of any single outstanding munus,
except perhaps for one given in celebration of his Dacian victory, which
included traditional infantry and cavalry fights in the Circus Maximus. We
do know, however, that Domitian, like Nero, was fond of novelty. He pre-
sented gladiatorial combat at night in which upper-class women and sena-
tors fought as gladiators. As we have seen in the previous chapter, another
innovation consisted of dwarf gladiators who fought each other, female
gladiators, and cranes.205 The fight between dwarves and cranes apparently
was an enactment of the legendary battle between pygmies and cranes.

Trajan (AD 106)

Trajan gave a memorable munus in celebration of his victory over the
Dacians. It was a gargantuan event requiring 123 days (probably non-
consecutive) for completion, and involving 10,000 gladiators and the
slaughter of 11,000 wild and tame animals.206 Unfortunately, the sources
provide no further details of this munus.

Commodus (AD 192)

The last imperial munus to be treated in this chapter was chosen because of
its bizarre nature and the pathological personality of its editor and partici-
pant, the emperor Commodus. This munus took place not long before his
assassination in AD 192 and probably hastened it. Commodus was the son of
the philosopher-emperor Marcus Aurelius, who perhaps overindulged his
son because of his long absences from Rome (totalling eight years) while
he was fighting Germanic tribes harassing Rome’s northern frontier along
the Danube. For example, Aurelius made Commodus co-ruler when the
boy was only 16. Although Aurelius was one of the most militarily active
emperors, his son did not follow his example, preferring to make peace or to
entrust military operations to someone else. Despite this distaste for real
warfare, Commodus from an early age was utterly fascinated with the arena,

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rejecting his father’s intense aversion to gladiatorial combat. Commodus’

adolescent fantasies led him to fight as a gladiator, mostly in private, but he
did appear in this particular munus as both a venator and a gladiator. Com-
modus was the only emperor to appear before the public as a professional
performer in the arena. A number of emperors enjoyed practising with glad-
iatorial weapons, but only in private.207 Nero apparently intended to appear
in the arena as a venator against a lion, but it is not clear whether he actually
did. The ‘contest’ between the lion and a naked Nero was supposed to be
an enactment of Hercules’ fight with the Nemean lion in which, like
Hercules, the emperor would wrestle and club the animal to death. Sueto-
nius only says that a lion was ‘prepared’ (drugged?) to face Nero in the
arena, but does not say whether or not Nero actually carried through on his
intention.208 It would have been for the best, if he had not.
We have an eyewitness account of the events of Commodus’ munus,
faithfully recorded by Cassius Dio, an historian and a Roman senator. The
munus was fourteen days long and each day was structured like the typical
imperial munus iustum et legitimum with a venatio in the morning and glad-
iatorial combat in the afternoon.209 There is no mention of a noontime
spectacle. Commodus’ exploits as an animal hunter in this munus will be
discussed in the next chapter on the venatio. In the afternoons, Commodus
fought both professional gladiators and athletes whom he challenged or the
crowd chose. These combats were ‘safety first’ duels. When he fought real
gladiators in the arena, he wielded a wooden sword, while his opponents
had what Dio calls a narthex, a word which can mean ‘cane’, or ‘stick’, sug-
gesting something much less substantial than the emperor’s weapon.210
Naturally, Commodus won every match because his opponents realized that
it was the smarter course of action to allow him to win. One opponent,
however, apparently intended to give Commodus a real fight and paid for
this decision with his life. A gladiator named Scaeva (‘Lefty’), when offered
a dagger with a dulled point, rejected it and told the emperor that he would
fight him unarmed. Commodus, fearing that Scaeva would wrest away his
dagger and kill him, had him put to death. After this incident, he continued
to fight gladiators in the same safe manner as before, but satisfied his
penchant for real violence and bloodshed by killing wild animals in the
morning venatio.211
We know that Commodus fought as a secutor and, if he followed nor-
mal practice, his opponents would have been retiarii. Not surprisingly,

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Commodus won all these duels (Cassius Dio scornfully calls then ‘shadow
matches’) and awarded himself 1 million sesterces as a prize each day, a huge
monetary prize much greater than professional gladiators received. In these
duels, the emperor also enjoyed the moral support of his chamberlain and
his praetorian prefect, giving each man a kiss in celebration of victory. In
private, Commodus was a more daring fighter, no doubt encouraged by the
meagre fighting ability of his chosen opponents, who were chamber ser-
vants. In these ‘gladiatorial duels’ with real swords, he cut off a nose or an
ear here and there and even killed some.212 After his part of the afternoon
show was over, Commodus took on the role of a munerarius, sitting in his
usual spot on the podium dressed as Mercury, and pairing all the gladiators
on the first day. These gladiatorial duels were bloodbaths with many deaths.
He seems to have required that all duels, unlike his own matches, be to the
death. When some victors refused to slay their opponents, Commodus or-
dered all the remaining gladiators to be chained together and forced to fight
in a group, as noted in the previous chapter.213
This munus, however, ended rather strangely. After having required the
senators to dress as they customarily did when an emperor had died, his
helmet was taken out of the arena by way of the Porta Libitiensis (‘the
Gateway of Death’).214 Perhaps Commodus, realizing the hatred that the
senators had for him, was taunting them with the hope that their desire for
his death might come true. In any case, the omen was fulfilled. Commodus
had planned to kill the new consuls on the day they took office (January 1
AD 193) and to assume that office dressed as a secutor. He, however, was pre-
vented from putting this plan into action. His praetorian prefect, a chamber
servant and his mistress conspired against him. He was strangled to death in
his bath by an athlete.215 His gladiatorial fantasy had finally proved fatal.

Paragladiatorial events
Staged infantry battles
As part of his celebratory games in 46 BC, Julius Caesar, ever the astute im-
presario, introduced two notable innovations: staged infantry battles and
the naumachia (‘staged sea battle’). According to Suetonius, on the fifth
and final day, the programme of events was completed with a large-scale
battle involving two armies, each consisting of 500 foot soldiers, 30 horse-
men and 20 elephants.216 The display of small armies engaged in battle, as

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K. M. Coleman has written, is ‘a predictable extension’ of gladiatorial com-

bat.217 The accounts of Cassius Dio and Pliny the Elder supply details that
are omitted by Suetonius. Dio mentions four separate battles: cavalry versus
cavalry, infantry, two companies consisting of both cavalry and infantrymen
fighting each other, and a fight between men on elephants.218 Pliny says
there were two battles: 20 elephants versus 500 infantrymen, and 20 tur-
reted elephants with 60 foot soldiers (?) versus 500 infantrymen and 500
cavalry.219 Pliny’s account is probably more selective, concentrating on
specific details that caught his interest. Dio and Pliny seem to agree on the
elephants carrying towers filled with soldiers. Dio does not specifically men-
tion the towers, but only that ‘men fought from elephants’, which seems to
refer to this typical form of military combat employing elephants, well
known to the Romans.220 Caesar had to alter the Circus Maximus to accom-
modate these battles. The turning posts at either end of the infield of the
racetrack were removed to clear space for the two camps of soldiers engaged
in these battles.221 This was an opportunity for most Romans to experience
first hand such warfare as had made Rome the mistress of a far-flung empire.
These battles were not like modern bloodless re-creations of famous battles
in which the participants pretend to be wounded or dead. The participants
in these ancient battles for entertainment were prisoners of war and con-
victed criminals who inflicted real wounds and death on each other.
Octavian continued this tradition of mass engagement as spectacle
begun by his adoptive father. In 29 BC at the dedication of the shrine of
Julius Caesar, Octavian gave a two-part munus: one part consisting of the
usual gladiator duels and the other, a battle involving a large number of men
on each side. The two sides in this battle were prisoners of war from two dif-
ferent tribes: the Suebi and the Dacians. This battle was not an historical en-
actment; the wide geographical separation of these tribes made any
engagement in one of their homelands unlikely. What united them in this
munus was their involvement with Rome and, more specifically, with the
Julian family. Julius Caesar had defeated the Suebi in 58 BC, who were de-
feated again by a Roman army in 29 BC, the same year as this munus. The
Dacians had sided with Antony against Octavian in the recent civil war and
were brought to Rome as prisoners of war.222 This staged battle vividly
demonstrated to the Roman public the success of the Julian family against
both external and internal enemies. It is also a good example of Roman con-
querors forcing prisoners of war to fight for their entertainment, a practice

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which in earlier centuries had led to the development of ethnic gladiatorial

types such as the Samnite, Gaul and Thracian.
Claudius, following in the footsteps of Caesar and Octavian, gave a dis-
play of a mass engagement in the Campus Martius in a triumphal cel-
ebration of his victory in Britain, which took place some time soon after
Claudius’ return from Britain in AD 44.223 What makes this spectacle un-
usual is that it depicted a Roman army storming a town. Special care had to
be taken to ensure that there was no embarrassing reversal of history, an
outcome that would ruin the triumphal celebration. Neither the emperor
nor the spectators would have been pleased by a staged battle that the
Romans lost.224 There is, however, an interesting question: who were these
‘Roman soldiers’ in this battle? Were they actual legionnaires or a combi-
nation of prisoners of war and convicts, the usual candidates for spectacles
of this kind? I would opt for the former. The idea of dressing up prisoners of
war or convicted criminals as Roman soldiers would have been distasteful to
the Romans. Making sure that real Roman soldiers would end up victors in
this display was not difficult; overwhelming numbers could help ensure suc-
cess. Other measures like giving blunt weapons to the Britons could be
taken to minimize any risk to life and limb for the Romans. The spectacle
ended with a re-enactment of the surrender of British kings, brought to
Rome for the occasion to play their roles again for the benefit of the Roman
people. Claudius must have provided to his fellow Romans a vivid example
of Roman military might under the leadership of their emperor.

Naumachia
The other paragladiatorial event that Caesar added to his triumphal cel-
ebration in 46 BC was a naumachia (‘staged naval battle’), a popular inno-
vation and a natural partner of the infantry engagements in the Circus
Maximus. The difficulty of staging a naumachia meant that it would never
become a frequently given spectacle; instead, it was reserved for truly special
occasions and given at Rome (or environs) by the emperor. The only infor-
mation we have about Caesar’s naumachia was that it was given in an arti-
ficial lake, either in the Campus Martius or on the other side of the Tiber,
and involved two fleets of ships representing a naval battle between
‘Tyrians’ (⫽ Phoenicians) and ‘Egyptians’.225 Although Caesar tried to give
this naumachia an historical context with these names, there is no recorded
sea battle between these two peoples. Historical accuracy, however, was not

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the point here. What does matter is the historical fantasy that the names of
these opponents from exotic lands evoke.226 No matter who were the oppo-
nents, however, there was one important requirement of this or any
naumachia. The spectators had to be able to distinguish between both sides
in the battle. Coleman suggests two ways in which this might have been
accomplished. Affiliation could be designated either by contrasting colours
for ships and participants’ dress, or, more expensively, with the fighters’
gear and ships representing more or less accurately what these opponents
would actually have used in battle.227 The crowd could have been informed
regarding how to identify each side in the battle by means of placards and
heralds.
The warships, consisting of biremes, triremes and quadririmes (ships
with two, three and four banks of oars, respectively), had large numbers of
armed fighters aboard.228 The naumachia was conducted like a real naval
battle. Although the skill of the ship’s captain and oarsmen played a role in
attempts to ram an opposing ship, the battle consisted primarily of fights on
board ship between men armed with swords, but no doubt, as in the later
noonday spectacle, without defensive armour. The naumachia served the
same practical purpose as staged infantry battles: the deaths of all con-
demned criminals and prisoners of war participating as marines and oarsmen
in the spectacle.229 The naumachia provided a sensationally dramatic set-
ting for their deaths, as they killed each other or were drowned when their
ships sank. As in staged infantry and cavalry engagements, professionally
trained gladiators did not participate in spectacles like these, whether on
land or water, because their expertise would have been lost in the chaos of
these battles, not to mention the tremendous expense due to the large num-
bers required. The point of these battles was not the individual display of
skill, but the scale of the fighting. There must have been a large number of
men who participated in Caesar’s naumachia, but unfortunately no extant
source attempted an estimate of the figure. Whatever its size, Caesar’s
naumachia must have contributed significantly to the immense crowd that
filled Rome to bursting for Caesar’s gala spectacles of 46 BC.230 It is clear
that Caesar had set an example for later emperors giving shows in cel-
ebrations of important occasions. The naumachia continued to be offered
into the third century AD.
Augustus gave a naumachia that was part of a munus he presented for
the dedication of the temple of Mars Ultor (‘Mars the Avenger’) in 2 BC.

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This temple had been vowed to Mars by Augustus at the battle of Philippi in
42 BC, in which he avenged the death of his adoptive father by defeating his
chief assassins, Brutus and Cassius. There are no details available about the
gladiatorial combat, except that it took place in the Saepta, a voting enclo-
sure in the Campus Martius. The historian Velleius Paterculus, however,
praises not only the gladiatorial munus but also the naumachia as ‘most
magnificent spectacles’.231 The naumachia took place on an artificial lake
built by Augustus (stagnum Augusti) across the Tiber covering approxi-
mately 47 acres, probably elliptical in shape.232 Altogether, three thousand
fighters participated in this battle on thirty biremes and triremes, along with
a large number of smaller vessels.233 Given the amount of space available
in the stagnum Augusti, the larger vessels were no doubt full size. This
naumachia represented an historical naval battle between the ‘Athenians’
and ‘Persians’, the famous Battle of Salamis.234 The ‘Athenians’ won on this
occasion as they did in 480 BC, and perhaps there was some kind of manage-
ment of the battle to make sure that history was not contradicted.235 On
the other hand, perhaps the outcome did not matter so much after all, since
Roman forces were not involved.236 Paul Zanker makes an interesting sug-
gestion about the ‘hidden meaning’ of this naumachia. Just as the victories
of the Athenians over the Persians in the fifth century BC had been inter-
preted in the Greek world as a victory of the civilized west over the barbar-
ian east, Augustus’ victory at Actium over Antony and the Egyptian queen
Cleopatra had been viewed by the Romans in the same light.237 If Zanker is
right, the outcome of the battle would have had to be carefully managed in
favour of the Athenians. This naumachia probably served as a substitute for
a triumph over Antony, which could not be celebrated because the defeated
enemy was a Roman.238
The most memorable of all naumachiae was given by Claudius in AD 52
as a completely independent event, which carried on the tradition of plac-
ing the opponents in a pseudo-historical context.239 The opponents were
the ‘Sicilians’ and the ‘Rhodians’, most likely an unhistorical conflict. This
naumachia was given in a natural setting on the Fucine Lake (about 50 miles
east of Rome), with the spectators sitting on the shores of the lake and on
the mountainside, which served as a natural theatre. Presiding over this mili-
tary occasion was Claudius in a general’s cloak. He had won the right to
wear this attire because he had led Roman forces to victory in Britain, but
the reason for this naumachia was not a victory celebration. The naumachia

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was intended to celebrate an anticipated technological achievement: the

draining of the very lake on which the naumachia took place. The purpose
of this drainage was to make the area less subject to floods and to increase
the availability of arable land. The eventual draining of the lake failed to
achieve either of these goals.240
There are a number of reasons for the fame of this naumachia. The bat-
tle was given a mythical dimension by a ‘Triton’ who, raised by a mechanical
device, emerged from the middle of the lake blowing a curved war trumpet
as a starting signal.241 (Triton was a minor sea divinity, often portrayed
blowing a conch shell.) Then there was the matter of its scale. As Tacitus
notes, Claudius’ spectacle outdid Augustus’ naumachia with larger and
more numerous ships.242 The sources differ on the number of ships that
took part in this spectacle. Suetonius’ numbers make the least sense:
twenty-four triremes in total compared with Augustus’ thirty biremes and
triremes.243 Since Augustus’ naumachia consisted of thirty large ships on
an artificial lake of limited dimensions, it does not seem reasonable that
Claudius, undoubtedly eager to give an epic naumachia that would outdo
past staged sea battles, would use six fewer large vessels on a much bigger
natural lake. Cassius Dio and Tacitus give different kinds of information
about the naumachia, but taken together their numbers make more sense
than Suetonius’. Tacitus says that the ships were triremes and quadriremes,
but gives no number. He is, however, the only source to give the number of
participants: nineteen thousand, which must have included marines and
oarsmen.244 Cassius Dio does not give the number of participants, but says
that the number of ships in the battle totalled one hundred.245 If Tacitus
is right about the number of fighters, there would certainly have to be a
number of vessels significantly larger than the twenty-four mentioned by
Suetonius to accommodate this many sailors. Cassius Dio’s one hundred
ships makes sense. Triremes required one hundred and seventy rowers and
could hold up to forty marines.246 If all these ships were triremes, one hun-
dred ships and nineteen thousand participants means an average of one
hundred and ninety rowers and fighters per ship. Since the quadriremes
would have required more rowers, this average would have to be raised
somewhat, but still seems within the realm of possibility.
It was at this naumachia that the fighters on shipboard addressed
Claudius with the words that have been made famous by gladiator films:
‘Hail, emperor, we who are about to die salute you’.247 When what must

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have been a representative group of the nineteen thousand damnati spoke

these words, they were probably on shipboard close to the shore with
Claudius sitting on a chair on the shore. Film scriptwriters have been assign-
ing these words to gladiators for so long now that they have been ingrained
in the minds of the public as the formulaic opening of a gladiator show. It is
clear, however, that gladiators never spoke these words. There is no record
in the sources of gladiators speaking these words to a munerarius, and more
significantly, competitive professional gladiators would never have gone into
battle with such a defeatist attitude. These words, however, are appropriate
to the damnati before a naumachia. They were about to enter a battle in
which the emperor and everyone else expected them to die in fulfilment of
the death penalty that had been imposed upon them. Their words appear to
be an appeal for pity. Claudius, who was a bit of a jokester, answered: ‘Or
not’, seemingly holding out some hope to the damnati that they might be
allowed to survive if they fought well, as in fact turned out to be the case.
The damnati, however, took Claudius’ answer as a pardon and thought that
they no longer had to fight. Claudius’ first thought was to have them all
killed on the spot, but that would have ruined his spectacle and would have
been a difficult task, given that the damnati were armed. Instead, he ran
along the shore, shouting threats and promises to get them to fight. When
the battle finally started, the damnati at first made only a half-hearted at-
tempt at fighting, but were eventually forced to fight to the death.248 The
force was applied by units of praetorian infantry and cavalry stationed on
rafts, who had been given the task of preventing this large number of the
armed damnati from escaping.249 The praetorians also had some kind of
fortified wall in front of them, from behind which they could employ ar-
tillery, shooting arrows and stones, while ships filled with Roman marines
patrolled the lake. Claudius was taking no chances. The escape of a large
number of these men could result in a disaster reminiscent of Spartacus’ re-
volt in the prior century. Once the battle had begun in earnest, the damnati
fought magnificently beyond all expectations. Tacitus comments that ‘the
convicts fought with the spirit of brave of men . . .’. This is strong praise
from an historian who is usually contemptuous of all forms of spectacles and
considers them not worthy of a place in the historical record.250 In the end,
the surviving damnati won release from the emperor in recognition of their
ferocious fighting, unexpectedly fulfilling his tentative prediction.251

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Nero included a naumachia as part of his munus of AD 57 in his new

wooden amphitheatre, following the example of Augustus with a battle be-
tween ‘Athenians’ and ‘Persians’. We have no details about the sea battle,
such as the number of ships and of fighters. The only notable feature of this
naumachia was the technology used in the production of the naumachia.
Cassius Dio writes of a sudden influx of water into the arena, which suggests
that it was supposed to surprise the spectators.252 We can imagine the un-
suspecting spectators being astonished by the rush of water into the arena.
The surprise was heightened by the fish and other large marine creatures
that were seen swimming in it.253 Once the naumachia was over, the water
was quickly drained and men fought duels (Cassius Dio does not call them
gladiators), and participated in a massed infantry skirmish.254 Thus Nero,
within the space of one afternoon, had presented a naumachia and land bat-
tles in the same location, a spectacular technological achievement for the
times.255 Coleman comments:

The emphasis on the speed and suddenness of these engineering feats

contributes to the impression that the emperors who commissioned them
possessed superhuman powers.256

What was certainly less spectacular was the naumachia itself, especially in
comparison with that of Claudius. The arena of Nero’s amphitheatre, even
if it were approximately the same size as the arena of the later Colosseum,
at best could have accommodated only a pint-sized naumachia with a few
downsized ships and small number of combatants and rowers. It is obvious
that the main point of Nero’s naumachia was not its overall realism but its
adaptation to the amphitheatre. The success of this display of technology
led to a more complicated reprise seven years later. Cassius Dio reports that
it took place in a ‘theatre’ (by which he means amphitheatre), no doubt in
the same wooden amphitheatre as his first naumachia.257 This time the
show started with a venatio instead of a naumachia. Perhaps Nero changed
the order of events in order to make the naumachia a surprise again, as
on the previous occasion. After the naumachia (for which no details are
given), the water was drained and gladiatorial combat was presented at
the same location. What must have been the biggest surprise of all, after the
combat, the area was flooded again for a public banquet on the water,
hosted by Tigellinus, Nero’s prefect of the Praetorian Guard, with the din-
ers on what amounted to a large raft. While Nero and his guests dined on

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the middle of the raft, along its edges were taverns for unlimited drinking
and brothels where sex was available on demand from women from all levels
of Roman society.258 A floating orgy!
As a climax of the dedication ceremonies for the Colosseum in AD 80,
Titus presented a naumachia, representing a battle between the ‘Corcyre-
ans’ and the ‘Corinthians’, a naval conflict that actually took place just
before the beginning of the Peloponnesian War and was won by Corcyra.
The location of the spectacle was the arena of the Colosseum. The flooding
of the Colosseum for naumachiae was the subject of acrimonious contro-
versy among scholars in the early nineteenth century.259 Modern scholarly
opinion seems to be in favour of the possibility of this practice. Coleman
points out that the Colosseum was built on the site of Nero’s artificial lake
on his storied estate in the middle of the city, which presumed the ability to
deliver water in large quantity into this area. She also asks that we imagine a
shallow basin under the arena floor, like the ones in the Julio-Claudian am-
phitheatres in Mérida (Spain) and Verona, since the subterranean area (two
stories deep) that is now visible in the Colosseum was probably not installed
until at least the reign of Domitian.260 We do not know which side won, or
the number of vessels. As noted earlier, it would not have been difficult to
ensure that the ‘Corcyreans’ won. As in Nero’s two naumachiae, the ships
undoubtedly were downsized vessels with a capacity of only a few marines
and oarsmen. The elliptical arena of the Colosseum could have accommo-
dated only two full-sized triremes, but there was no way that ships of this
size could have been brought into the amphitheater through the regular en-
trances.261 As with Nero’s naumachia in AD 57, the battle itself and its scale
were not the main point of the spectacle. In fact, it seems clear that Titus
wanted to outdo Nero. Cassius Dio tells us that, after the venatio and the
gladiatorial combat, there was a sudden influx of water into the arena.262
Terrestrial combat was abruptly changed into aquatic conflict. Martial’s
comment on this spectacle focuses precisely on this mechanical reversal of
nature and predicts the ultimate undoing of this exchange:

If you are a spectator who has just arrived from faraway shores, who is seeing
his first Roman spectacle, so that this naval battle with its ships and the
water that resembles the sea may not deceive you, this area was recently dry
ground. You don’t believe it? Watch while the waters are tiring out Mars; it
will happen so quickly that you will say: ‘here recently there was a sea’.263

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This trick could have only been possible with the use of a wooden floor
that was taken apart and removed for the naumachia and reassembled when
it was over. This may also have been the case with Nero’s munera in his
wooden amphitheatre. Titus’ spectacle, however, introduced a new reversal.
Dio tells us, somewhat imprecisely, that trained horses, bulls and other
animals conducted themselves in the flooded arena as if they were on land.
Performances of trained animals were a standard part of the venatio, but
Titus had the honour of being the first to present a venatio in water. Two
more aquatic shows followed the naumachia: one an enactment of the
Hero and Leander legend and the other a water ballet featuring the Nereids
(sea goddesses).264 Since Hero and Leander both died by drowning, they
were likely impersonated by damnati who were drowned in the course of
the performance.
The land/water exchange was also the theme of Titus’ second munus
that took place on Augustus’ artificial lake across the Tiber (stagnum
Augusti). This munus repeats the events of the previous one in the Colosse-
um. Again there was a venatio, gladiatorial combat and a naumachia. The
main point of this repetition is revealed by Martial’s comment that ‘what-
ever is seen in the circus and in the amphitheatre, the rich water presents to
you, Caesar [i.e. Titus]’.265 What was difficult to do in the amphitheatre
was even more difficult to do on the water of the stagnum Augusti. Just as
the Colosseum had to be modified to accommodate a naumachia, the
stagnum Augusti had to be adapted for terrestrial events. Augustus’ lake was
partially covered over with a wooden platform in front of temporary stands,
on which there was presented on the first day gladiatorial combat and a
venatio and on the second day a chariot race (note Martial’s reference to a
circus). On the third day, a naumachia between ‘the Athenians’ and ‘the
Syracusans’, an historical incident in the Peloponnesian War, took place on
the lake. Three thousand fighters (again damnati) participated. This
naumachia, however, did not end as it had begun, on the water. Its climax
was an infantry battle on a small island in the lake, in which the ‘Athenians’,
contrary to history, defeated the ‘Syracusans’ by capturing a wall con-
structed around a monument.266 Obviously, the Romans were not sticklers
for historical accuracy, but then again, during the imperial period they were
more likely to identify themselves with the Athenians.
It is clear that Titus had taken Nero’s similar spectacles in AD 57 and
64 as a challenge. Titus’ show in the Colosseum (venatio and gladiatorial

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combat, climaxed by a naumachia and other aquatic events) at best only

shows that Titus’ powers were at least equal to those of Nero. What sets
Titus apart from Nero was his imaginative spectacle at the stagnum Augusti.
Titus had attempted a more difficult task. He adapted a lake created for the
presentation of a naumachia so that land events could be held with little or
no interruption.267 Titus used the wooden platform that covered a portion
of the lake to great effect. Perhaps most impressive to the spectators was the
chariot race, which may have been run with the platform slightly submerged
to give the impression that the chariots were riding on top of the water just
as Neptune’s chariot was supposed to have done. This seems to be what
Martial is suggesting when he wrote in regard to Titus’ munus: ‘Triton saw
the speeding chariots in the sea-dust [i.e., the spray] and thought that the
horse of his master [i.e., Neptune] had gone by’.268 Titus also went one
better than Nero by having his naumachia turn seamlessly and surprisingly
into a land battle on the lake. Spectacles like these by Nero and Titus were
designed not just as entertainments for the people but also as demonstra-
tions of the god-like powers of the emperor. Martial reinforces this im-
pression by stressing the amazed reaction of the gods to Titus’ venatio.
Thetis and Galataea, two sea divinities, were startled by the presence of ter-
restrial animals in the water (perhaps pushed off the platform by attacking
venatores) and Triton’s astonishment at chariots running on top of the
water. Martial gives the highest praise to Titus’ naumachia on Augustus’
lake: ‘Let the Fucine Lake and the basin of Nero be long forgotten: future
generations will know only this one naumachia’.269
Domitian also gave a naumachia in the Colosseum but we know
nothing more of this spectacle beyond Suetonius’ bare notice.270 The biog-
rapher is much more enthusiastic about the multiple naumachiae Domitian
presented on an artificial lake surrounded by seats that he had constructed
on the other side of the Tiber in the area of the modern Piazza di Spagna
(Spanish Steps). He claims that it was large enough to accommodate the
number of vessels that would take part in a real sea battle.271 We have evi-
dence regarding only one of these naumachiae. Almost all the combatants
were killed, but the only other notable thing about this spectacle was that
many spectators died. This was the work of Domitian, one of Rome’s cru-
elest emperors. While the sea battle was going on, there was a torrential
rainstorm with high winds. Domitian immediately wrapped himself up in a
number of woollen cloaks, but he would not allow the spectators to put on

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warmer clothing, thus causing many spectators literally to catch their death
of cold.
An unusual naumachia was given by Sextus Pompey, the son of Pompey,
in a natural setting on the open sea in the Straits of Messina between the toe
of Italy and Sicily. This spectacle was given not as entertainment but to
deliver a direct insult to Octavian. The naumachia celebrated Sextus’ two
naval victories over Octavian in 37 and 36 BC. Sextus, who had taken con-
trol of Sicily, presented his naumachia in sight of Octavian at Rhegium on
the Italian coast with the purpose of mocking his defeated enemy.272 Obvi-
ously, the battle was ‘fixed’ in favour of Sextus’ fleet. Another curious
example of a naumachia was a bloodless exhibition representing the Battle
of Actium given privately by a friend of the poet Horace, Lollius Maximus,
on his own lake. Lollius played the role of Octavian while his brother was
Antony. Horace describes the boats used in this exercise as rowboats
manned by slaves.273 Lollius’ re-enactment, like modern re-enactments of
battles, was undoubtedly only harmless fun, with only pretend violence.
The last recorded naumachia was given by the emperor known as Philip
the Arab in the celebration of Rome’s millennium (AD 248), perhaps on
Augustus’ artificial lake.274

The end of gladiatorial combat

It would seem natural that the Christianization of the Roman empire played
a major role in the decline and disappearance of gladiator games. Church
Fathers were unrelenting in their attacks on this time-honoured spectacle.
Their criticism focused on two aspects of these games: their idolatry and
their cruelty. As for their idolatry, Christian polemicists believed that the
munus, like all other spectacles, were closely associated with the pagan gods.
Tertullian specifically condemns the munus because he believed that its ori-
gin was as a religious ritual of human sacrifice dedicated to the dead.275 By
the time Tertullian expressed this condemnation, however, the munus was
no longer associated with funerals. Christian writers also linked gladiator
games with the worship of Jupiter Latiaris, in which the statue of the god
was washed in blood from the arena, and the cult of Saturn, a god often
connected with human sacrifice. The cult of Jupiter Latiaris, however, had
disappeared before the polemicists had begun to complain about it. The
connection of gladiatorial combat with Saturn was either non-existent or at

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best tenuous.276 The Christian poet Prudentius does not even mention
Saturn in his passionate plea to the emperor Honorius to abolish gladiator
games.277 The Calendar of Philocalus (AD 354), which is careful to identify
the gods connected with the various ludi throughout the year, does not
mention Saturn or any other god when it lists the annual quaestorian
munera given in December. As we have seen, the series of munera given
by the quaestors in December was interrupted for the celebration of the
Saturnalia in honour of Saturn on December 17. The distinction between
the religious ludi and the secular munus is perhaps most evident in the fact
that, during the Republic, the state financed the former and not the latter.
The ludi which annually honoured the gods who protected Rome were in-
dispensable to the survival of the state, whereas the munus was in essence an
adjunct of funeral ritual that honoured deceased Roman nobles and their
family. Although the state eventually subsidized the annual munus, the main
consideration was political and not religious. The Roman people’s hunger
for gladiator games had to be satisfied to maintain the equilibrium of the
state. The average Christian must have viewed the denunciations of the
munus by writers like Tertullian with some scepticism.
The Christian accusation of cruelty of gladiatorial combat seems to be
on more solid ground, but even here one must be careful not to view it
anachronistically. Our concern about any sport that involved armed violence
and a serious risk of death would be based on humanitarian values and focus
on the welfare of the participants.278 This is not the case with Christian at-
tacks on gladiatorial combat. The focus is on the bad effects on the specta-
tors watching these games. Augustine says that ‘demons delight . . . in the
cruelty of the amphitheatre’.279 Therefore, attendance at a munus degrades
the spectator to the level of a demon. This is most apparent in the effect that
gladiatorial combat had on Augustine’s young friend Alypius’ quoted in
Chapter 3.280 Alypius comes away from the amphitheatre insensitive to the
suffering of the gladiators and with a fanatical desire to come back and view
more of the same, a virtual accomplice to murder. What we miss in these
Christian denunciations is an expression of concern for the gladiators. The
reason for this omission is that Christians were not very different from the
pagans in their view of gladiators: their lives counted for nothing.281 Actu-
ally, there is little particularly Christian about Augustine’s overheated ac-
count of Alypius’ experience. It is clearly in the tradition of Seneca’s claim

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that bloody spectacles made him ‘crueler and more inhumane’ without any
concern for the participants in the show.282 Moreover, Christians were just
as inured as pagans to public cruelty, which Wiedemann describes as ‘a time-
honored way of upholding justice and public order’.283
Christian polemicists, notwithstanding their passion and eloquence, had
little negative effect on gladiator games. The average Christian took very
little (or no) notice of critics of the games. Christians attended the games
and took pleasure in them despite admonitions not to attend.284 Moreover,
wealthy Christians sponsored gladiator games. Even Christian emperors,
despite their misgivings, were, as a rule, tolerant of the munus. A notable
example is the emperor Theodosius (AD 379–395), a pious Christian. He
was a defender of Christian orthodoxy, and fervent enemy of paganism, yet
did not attempt to abolish gladiator games.285 Constantine’s edict of AD 325
in which he forbade the practice of condemning convicts to gladiator
schools, is often cited as evidence of his intention to do away with gladiato-
rial combat. Constantine bases his explanation of this edict on a humani-
tarian premise, his objection to convicts spilling their blood in the arena:

Bloody spectacles in time of civil peace and domestic quiet displease me . . .

it is better that they slave in a mine, so that they may experience the punish-
ment of their crimes bloodlessly.286

Since convicts had always been a major source of professional gladiators,

this decree was a serious blow to the recruitment of gladiators and threat-
ened the continued existence of the munus.287 If this decree, however, was
designed to close all gladiatorial schools and end gladiatorial combat, it did
not achieve its purpose. Gladiator schools were still in existence at least
in the first few years of the fifth century and, naturally, gladiator shows
continued to be given in Italy and the Greek east.288 It should also be noted
that if Constantine really was opposed to gladiatorial combat, his opposition
in this edict was clearly not absolute. His decree seems to imply that he finds
the munus appropriate in times of war.289 He certainly was willing enough
to grant permission to the people of Hispello (modern Spello in central
Italy) to offer gladiatorial games in their town.290
If Constantine’s policy with regard to gladiatorial combat seems incon-
sistent for a Christian emperor, it is paralleled closely by the conduct of an
earlier pagan emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Like Constantine, Aurelius disliked

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the sight of bloodshed, but never even attempted to abolish gladiatorial

combat. That would have been unthinkable, just as it was in the time of
Constantine. An emperor, notwithstanding his own personal inclinations,
could not ignore the pleasures of the people without risking the loss of their
support. Aurelius, a man of philosophical temperament, from his youth
took no interest in gladiator games, finding them tedious and trivial.291 As
noted earlier, when Aurelius attended gladiator games, the combatants were
only allowed to fight with blunted swords.292 He, however, realized the im-
portance of munera to the Roman people. When he augmented his army by
taking gladiators from Rome to fight the Germans and the Marcomanni, he
calmed the fears of the people that there would be no munera during these
wars by directing the wealthiest editores to give shows in his absence.293
If Ramsay MacMullen was right when he wrote that ‘Christianity made
no difference’ in the demise of gladiatorial combat, what was the cause of its
decline and disappearance from the Roman empire?294 Although Ward-
Perkins warns against overemphasis on economic crisis in explaining the
disappearance of gladiatorial combat, it is clear that it was one of the con-
tributing factors.295 Michael Carter, pointing to the disappearance of the
banker (argentarius) from the sources in the late third century AD, argues:

The relative inaccessibility of credit my have contributed more than any

other single factor to the gradual disappearance of gladiatorial munera in
the fourth and fifth centuries A.D.296

In all probability, the combination of the high expense of putting on a

munus with the unavailability of credit led to infrequent optional shows.
The plan of emperor Alexander Severus (AD 222–235) to replace the annual
quaestorian munus given in December, with a munus given once every
month suggests that there were not very many optional munera during
the rest of the year.297 This plan never came to fruition, but Gordian I, dur-
ing his aedileship under Alexander, presented munera according to this
schedule.298 Could it be, as some have claimed, that the annual quaestorian
munus, which was still being given in the middle of the fourth century, was
the only gladiator show given through the whole year?299 It is significant
that when the historian Ammianus Marcellinus in the late fourth century
lists the primary participants in Roman spectacles, he does not mention
gladiators.300 Throughout the fourth century, Germanic invasions brought

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economic disaster to many provinces, which led to the cessation of gladia-

tor games in these areas. Rome suffered its first Germanic invasion in
AD 410, when Alaric sacked the city. This was the beginning of the end for
gladiatorial combat in the city. We hear of an attempt to revive the munus in
Rome after 410, but it was only a desperate endeavour to revitalize a dying
institution ultimately doomed to failure.301 It is sometimes claimed that the
emperor Honorius published a ban on gladiator games in the first years of
the fifth century because of the violent death of a monk named Telemachus
in an amphitheatre, most likely the Colosseum. Theodoret says that
Telemachus tried to stop a gladiator duel as thousands of spectators
watched. The crowd, upset by the monk’s interference, stoned him to
death.302 Ville, however, has cast some doubt on the authenticity of this
story. He sees this story as a popular legendary version of the death of
St Almachius, who was slain by gladiators at the order of the city prefect.
The reason for his execution was his protest of pagan superstitions and
idolatry and not his demand for the end of gladiator shows.303 The only
gladiatorial legislation with Honorius’ name on it exiled gladiators who had
passed from gladiator schools into the households of senators.304 Some
have assigned responsibility for the apparent cessation of gladiatorial com-
bat c. 440 to a decree of Valentinian III.305 There is, however, no record of
such a decree. Ville argues that Valentinian’s ban on gladiatorial combat
was published at the same time as the Theodosian Code (AD 438) and thus
it was not felt necessary to include it in the Code.306 It would seem, how-
ever, that if such a momentous decree had been issued, a mention of it
would certainly have been recorded somewhere.307 It is most likely that
gladiatorial combat did not need an official ban to bring about its demise.
The increasingly sporadic presentations of munera in late antiquity must
be at least in part an indication of a declining public interest in them, but
what would have led to this decline? Official Christian hostility to the
munus may not have brought the munus to an abrupt end, but it probably
did contribute to a change of attitude in the people. As the wealthy elite
were increasingly converted to Christianity, potential munerarii may have
found a different purpose for their money, which they diverted from extrav-
agantly expensive munera to acts of Christian charity. A patron was more
likely give to the poor or other charitable causes than spend a fortune on a
gladiator show and to build or restore a church rather than restore or build

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an amphitheatre.308 Moreover, constant complaints from the pulpit about

the pagan atmosphere of munera may have finally begun to strike a respon-
sive chord in the hearts of Christians, resulting in falling attendance. Most
significantly, gladiatorial combat, which was perhaps the most important
public symbol of Roman paganism, might have seemed outdated, an
anachronism in a burgeoning Christian era. Alan Cameron is certainly not
too far off the mark when he writes of ‘a genuine change of popular
taste’.309 This change was no doubt a slow process. Perhaps it is best to
think of a gradual decline of the munus until this popular institution finally
disappeared after a life of nearly seven centuries.

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Chapter 5

A Brief History of the

Arena Hunt


The Republican venatio

T he earliest recorded venatio was given in 186 BC by the general

M. Fulvius Nobilior, who had vowed to the gods that he would give
ludi in return for victory in the Aetolian war. The ludi consisted of dramatic
presentations (by Greek actors, a special treat), an entertainment typical of
ludi, and two innovations. The first was athletic contests in the Greek style
(most likely the combat sports: boxing, wrestling and pankration) and the
second, a venatio. Livy merely says: ‘a venatio of lions and leopards was
given’.1 He does not elaborate on what exactly went on in this spectacle.
Were they for display or slaughter? Most likely, they were for both. Lions
and leopards were probably enough of a novelty in Rome in the early second
century that just their appearance was something of a sensation. Although
Livy does not include the number of animals involved in these games, the
quantity of animals eventually became a crucial piece of information in the
reporting of venationes, like the number of gladiators in a munus. This can
be seen in Livy’s report of ludi given by the aediles in 169 BC, in which sixty-
three lions and leopards, forty bears and an unspecified number of elephants

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appeared.2 Despite Livy’s reference to ‘the appearance’ of these animals, the

large number of the animals suggest that they were killed by venatores and
bestiarii. Livy also points out that this venatio was presented ‘with growing
magnificence’, that is, surpassing previous venationes in the variety and in
number of exotic wild animals. Already in the first half of the second cen-
tury BC, the venatio had achieved considerable popularity in Rome. When
the Senate issued a ban in 170 BC on the importation of African wild ani-
mals, the Roman people led by a people’s tribune quickly reacted with a
plebiscite that counteracted the ban, but only in the case of venationes.3
In the first century BC, the venatio reached even more impressive
heights. In 58 BC, M. Aemilius Scaurus during his aedileship gave ludi that
were a tremendous success and were long remembered. Cicero, who was a
hard man to impress, praised Scaurus for giving ‘the most elaborate and
magnificent ludi’.4 Writing in the first century AD, Pliny the Elder raved
about the splendour of Scaurus’ temporary theatre that he had con-
structed for his theatrical presentations (ludi scaenici).5 Three and a half
centuries later, the historian Ammianus Marcellinus mentioned Scaurus’
presentation of wild animals never before seen at Rome.6 The venatio, like
gladiator games, had become a regular enhancement of ludi as an optional
but not required entertainment, financed by the curule aedile as editor.
Since Scaurus did not present a gladiator show, it would seem that his
venatio was the real highlight of his ludi, featuring African animals, which
were an absolute requirement for a high quality venatio. After Rome’s
victory over Carthage in the third Punic War (149–146 BC), the city and the
coastal area (modern Tunisia) surrounding it became the Roman province
of Africa, giving Rome control of an area rich in wildlife to exploit as a
source for the venatio.7 In the same venatio Scaurus presented for the first
time at Rome a hippopotamus and five crocodiles. To exhibit these water
animals in their element, Scaurus built in the Circus Maximus a temporary
moat called a euripus.8 A first-time appearance of an animal was a feather in
the cap of the editor, making his venatio a greater attraction. It is easy for us,
to whom these animals are familiar, to forget how exciting a novelty they
must have been to the Romans, who had never seen their like before.
Another feature of Scaurus’ venatio aroused archeological interest among
the Romans. The bones of an extremely large animal were brought from
Joppa (modern Jaffa) in Judaea. Pliny the Elder describes these bones as
almost 40 feet in length and taller than an Indian elephant (a dinosaur?).9

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The size of the bones, however, was not the only point of interest; they were
purported to be the remains of the sea monster that threatened the life of
the mythical princess Andromeda, whose mother had offended Poseidon
when she claimed that her daughter was more beautiful than the Nereids
(sea nymphs). The flying hero Perseus rescued the princess from the mon-
ster. The combination of what most Romans took as ‘history’ and archeol-
ogy must have been quite fascinating for the spectators. Greek myth would
later play an even more significant role in the imperial venatio of the first
century AD, as we shall see later in this chapter.
Strabo describes in some detail the presentation of the crocodiles at
Scaurus’ show, providing a good example of how new animals were
exhibited in Rome.10 There is no mention of the euripus, but only of a
‘tank’ and a device called a pegma, a moveable platform supported by scaf-
folding that could be raised and lowered mechanically.11 The Tentyritae, the
Egyptian crocodile-hunters who came along as keepers, used nets to move
the crocodiles from the water to the platform, which Strabo describes as ‘a
basking place’ for the animals. Presumably, the hot Italian sun would
quickly calm down the crocodiles that had been so roughly displaced from
the water. Their display on the pegma gave the spectators in the Circus
Maximus a good view of the creatures as the platform was moved up and
down. When the display was finished, the Tentyritae brought them back to
the tank.
One of the most notable venationes of the late Republic was that given
by Pompey for the dedication of his magnificent theatre in 55 BC, Rome’s
first permanent stone theatre. To match the grandeur of the new theatre
Pompey chose to feature in his venatio the two most popular species known
to the Romans: lions and elephants. Pompey presented 600 lions, no doubt
the largest number of lions to take part in a venatio up to that time.12
Although there is no historical record of what happened to them, we must
presume that, like the elephants, they were killed. The choice of elephants
by Pompey, Rome’s greatest general at that time, was predictable, not just
because of their size but also because of what the animals symbolized. Ele-
phants had historical significance for the Roman people, who associated
these huge beasts with warfare. Elephants were first introduced into Italy
by the Greek general Pyrrhus (281 BC) who used them in his invasion of
the peninsula. Quite naturally they served as a symbol of Pyrrhus’ defeat
when M. Curius Dentatus presented them in his triumph after his victory

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over Pyrrhus (275 BC). Twenty-three years later, around 142 elephants
which had been taken from the Carthaginians in Sicily in the first Punic
War, were brought to Rome. Pliny says that, according to one of his sources,
they were killed in the Circus Maximus in order to dispose of them, while
another source reports that they were driven around the racetrack with
blunt spears in order to help the Romans overcome their fear of these huge
animals.13 This latter claim seems more plausible, because this exercise,
showing that the Romans could control these huge, fearsome beasts, would
go a long way towards exorcising whatever demons had troubled the
Romans since they had first encountered them. Of course, the possibility
remains that they were killed after they had served their purpose. During the
second Punic war (218–201 BC), Hannibal presided over what turned out
to be a foreshadowing of the Roman venatio. After forcing Roman prisoners
to fight each other, he compelled the sole survivor of this tournament to
fight an elephant. If he should survive this contest, he would be given his
freedom. The Roman succeeded in killing the elephant, but Hannibal, fear-
ing that news of this outcome would spread contempt for the military
capability of his elephants, had the man killed on his way home. Pliny the
Elder, who records this story, also mentions that the Romans had earlier
found it easy to cut off the trunks of elephants in their war with Pyrrhus.14
Pompey in his African triumph in 81 BC had already shown an interest
in the use of elephants to promote his career. Pliny the Elder tells us that it
was on this occasion that the first harnessed elephants were seen at Rome,
which drew Pompey’s chariot in the triumph. Pliny also reports the belief
that this manner of transportation was inspired by the story of the triumph
of the god Liber Pater (a Roman name for Bacchus) in his conquest of
India.15 Thus, when it came to celebrating the dedication of his lavish
theatre, it is not surprising that Pompey turned again to elephants for a
grand finale on the last day of a five-day venatio.16 Twenty elephants fought
against Gaetulian hunters from North Africa in the Circus Maximus, the
usual location for venationes during the Republic and the early empire.17
Seneca differs with Pliny on the identity of the human fighters, assuming
that they were condemned criminals.18 It is more likely that Pliny is correct.
Pompey would have wanted expert hunters for the grandest show he
had ever given. The battle featured bloody action that the Roman crowd
found tremendously exciting. One elephant which had been disabled by
spears piercing its feet was still able to move slowly on its knees and grab the

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shields of its opponents, tossing them high into the air, almost as if it was
performing a skilful trick. One elephant was killed by a single spear, which
fatally wounded the animal just below the eye. The crowd’s excitement,
however, became terror when the elephants tried in concert to break down
an iron fence that protected the spectators from the animals. The plaintive
trumpeting of these animals when they could not break through the railing
(which Pliny the Elder anthropomorphizes as an appeal for pity from
the crowd) greatly troubled the spectators and led them to turn against
Pompey, tearfully cursing their benefactor.19 Cassius Dio’s account of this
incident tells of an anthropomorphizing claim that the elephants’ trumpet-
ing was a protest against the violation of an oath that African drivers had
made to them that they would suffer no harm if they boarded the ships that
would take them to Rome.20
It is interesting that the Roman spectators on this occasion showed some
sympathy for the fate of these elephants, but we must not forget that it was
only because of the extraordinary behaviour of these animals, which, as
Cicero, an eyewitness, points out, the crowd saw as almost human.21 Cicero
indicates that the pleasure the crowd normally would have experienced at
viewing the battle between men and elephants was spoiled by the danger
that the wounded elephants posed for them and the impulse of pity evoked
by the elephants’ behaviour. This feeling of sympathy for the elephants,
however, was only temporary. As J. M. C. Toynbee has pointed out, the
crowd reaction in Pompey’s venatio was the only ancient objection to the
cruelty of the venationes.22 Without a twinge of conscience, the Roman
audience expected to see all the animals die in the venatio and occasionally a
bestiarius or venator. Their expectations were usually realized.23
Even Cicero and Seneca, men of refined sensibilities, showed little con-
cern for the elephants in this venatio. Cicero only complains of the sameness
of even Pompey’s grandiose venatio:

What delight can there be for a refined gentleman when either a relatively
weak man is torn to pieces by an incredibly powerful beast or a magnificent
beast is pierced by a hunting spear? . . . we did not see anything new.24

Cicero acknowledges that the purpose of the venatio, like any other
spectacle, is ‘delight’, which in this case was ruined by the monotony of
events: a man is killed by a beast and a beast is killed by a man. On the other
hand, Seneca, over a century later, sees a novelty in Pompey’s venatio, but

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an unappealing one. Typically, the emphasis is on the suffering of human

beings rather than of animals:

Did a leading man of the state and among leading men of the past, as tra-
dition has it, of outstanding goodness [i.e., Pompey] think it would be a
memorable spectacle to cause the deaths of men in a new way? Do they fight?
That’s not enough. Are they mangled? That is not enough. Therefore, let
them be crushed by the huge weight of animals.25

Seneca ignores the suffering of the elephants and only criticizes Pompey’s
obeisance to the Roman desire for novelty: his introduction of a new way of
killing men. Seneca goes on to express distress about the quantity of human
blood spilled at Pompey’s venatio, which he takes as an omen of the blood
shed later by Roman citizens in the civil war between Pompey and Caesar
and by Pompey himself, when he was assassinated in Egypt.26
The Romans admired the great wild beasts that had become an increas-
ingly common sight in the arena, but for the most part were not sentimen-
tal about them. The elephant continued to have a featured role in the
munus in imperial times. Pliny the Elder says that during the reigns of
Claudius and Nero, combats between individual fighters and elephants took
place at the ‘climax’ of the munus, which Ville understands to mean the
morning of the last day of the spectacle.27 The honour of appearing on the
last day was appropriate for the elephant, which was considered an ‘imperial’
animal in the sense of belonging to the emperor alone. Juvenal refers to ele-
phants as ‘the herd unwilling to serve any private citizen’.28 In fact, the
Historia Augusta identifies Aurelian (before he became emperor in AD 270)
as the only private citizen to own an elephant, which he had been given by
the Persian king. Aurelian, realizing the impropriety of his owning an ele-
phant, gave it to the emperor.29
The venatio that Caesar gave as part of his triumphal games in 46 BC was
one of the most varied of this kind of event that had been given at Rome up
to that time. The events of the first four days took place in Caesar’s tempor-
ary amphitheatre in the Forum, but the large number of participants in-
volved in final day of the venatio required the space available in the more
roomy Circus Maximus. The main attraction of the venatio was combat
between men and lions. During the first four days of the venatio, four hun-
dred lions were killed.30 This number of lions quadruples the number pre-
sented by Sulla as praetor in 92 BC, but surprisingly is less than the number

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presented by Pompey in 55 BC.31 Caesar, who had defeated Pompey at

Pharsalia in northern Greece in 48 BC, no doubt would have wanted to
outdo his dead rival by presenting a much larger number of lions. Circum-
stances, however, may have worked against Caesar in this matter. In the
years before Pharsalia, Caesar had been collecting beasts in anticipation of
giving a spectacle at Rome, but they had been killed by Lucius Caesar, prob-
ably a distant relative but a supporter of Pompey. Lucius’ slaughter of these
beasts along with his killing of the dictator’s slaves and freedmen was why
Caesar, despite his famous clemency, later ordered Lucius’ death.32 Caesar’s
loss of these beasts may explain why he, during his campaign against
Pompey in 48 BC, confiscated lions belonging to C. Cassius, which he had
procured and deposited in the Greek city of Megara in anticipation of his
aedileship. The loss of these lions to Caesar was one of the reasons behind
Cassius’ hatred of the dictator, which led him to join with M. Brutus and
other conspirators in the assassination. These lions, however, did not remain
long in the possession of Caesar. Soon after Megara was captured by one of
Caesar’s subordinates, the citizens released the lions in the hope that they
would attack the invaders. Instead, they turned against the Megarians and
killed many of them.33 Presumably, the lions disappeared into the surround-
ing countryside.
The Roman fascination with the slaughter of lions is easy to understand.
In the mind of the Romans, what better way to demonstrate the mastery of
wild nature than by killing these majestic animals? In the venatio, the lion
was one of the greatest attractions and inspired great awe in the spectators.
This is evident in Aulus Gellius’ comment on lions that appeared in the
Circus Maximus:

There were many savage wild animals that appeared there, large beasts
whose beauty and ferocity had never been seen before. The surpassing fierce-
ness of lions was a source of wonder . . . 34

Ever cognizant of the Roman spectators’ desire for novelty, Caesar pre-
sented an event and an animal that the Romans had never seen before. The
event, Greek in origin (from Thessaly, specifically), was the taurokathapsia
(‘bullfight’). Pliny the Elder’s description of this event reminds us of the
modern rodeo, although the purpose of the ancient contest was to kill the
bull: ‘It was the Thessalians who discovered how to kill a bull [by jumping]
from horseback [and] twisting its neck’.35 The taurokathapsia turned out to

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be a big hit. The event was revived in the first century AD by both Claudius
and Nero.36 The other featured novelty was the exhibition of a strange
African animal that in its first appearance at Rome must have amazed the
Roman audience. Here is Cassius Dio’s description of this animal, which
he calls a ‘camelopard’:

I will give an account of the so-called camelopard, because it was then in-
troduced into Rome by Caesar for the first time and exhibited to all. This
animal is like a camel in all respects except that its legs are not all of the
same length, the hind legs being the shorter. Beginning from the rump it
grows gradually higher, which gives it the appearance of mounting some
elevation; and towering high aloft, it supports the rest of its body on its front
legs and lifts its neck in turn to an unusual height. Its skin is spotted like a
leopard, and for this reason it bears the joint name of both animals. Such is
the appearance of this beast.37

If you have not guessed it yet, Cassius Dio is describing a giraffe.

Performing animals
There was a lighter side to the venatio: trained animals performing tricks. Ele-
phants were also stars in this feature of the venatio. Martial, with his charac-
teristic hyperbole, reports that an elephant without any training knelt before
the emperor Titus before a fight with a bull.38 Although we may doubt
Martial’s claim about a lack of training, there is no question about the intelli-
gence of elephants as was amply demonstrated in a venatio given in AD 6 by
Germanicus, the nephew and adopted son of the future emperor Tiberius.
He presented elephants dancing in costume. The presentation of performing
animals might at first seem out of place in the venatio, which otherwise com-
prises violence and bloodshed, but performing animals well suited the over-
arching theme of the venatio: the human mastery of wild nature.
The primary effect of this performance by such large animals must have
been comic. Aelian in his On the Characteristics of Animals gives a detailed
account of the elephants’ training and of their routine in the venatio.39 We
will be concerned with the latter here. Twelve elephants entered the am-
phitheatre divided into two groups of six each, each group on opposite
sides, consisting of six males and six females. Each elephant was dressed in a
costume typical of dancers and appropriate to the elephant’s gender. All

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were decorated with flowers and performed steps that Aelian describes as
dainty and feminine.40 At the command of their trainer, they formed a line
and then a circle, dancing to music while they sprinkled flowers on the
ground with their trunks. According to Aelian, the next part of the show
drove the spectators into a frenzy of appreciation. As if for a banquet, couches
with cushions and luxurious coverlets were placed on the sand of the arena
with large gold and silver bowls containing water next to the couches. Next
to them were tables made of citrus wood and ivory, on which there were
large amounts of meat and bread. The elephants, separated into male–
female pairs, reclined at each couch and ate the food with the greatest refine-
ment and restraint. This part of the show ended with a comic surprise. After
draining the water bowls with their trunks as daintily as they had eaten the
food, they squirted the water from their trunks, presumably at the crowd.
Pliny the Elder’s account of the same venatio differs from that found in
Aelian and may refer to another part of the performance.41 The ballet per-
formed by elephants in Pliny’s account is a manly dance, not feminine like
Aelian’s. It began with the animals throwing arrows with their trunks. Then
some of the elephants imitated the movements of gladiators while others did
a pyrrhic dance (‘war dance’). Next, elephants did some tightrope walking and
four of them carried on a litter another elephant, which mimicked a woman in
the throes of childbirth.42 Finally, Pliny mentions the banquet scene dis-
cussed above, which must have been the climax of the performance. His de-
scription is general without Aelian’s details. He only says that the elephants
came to the banquet couches that already had some people reclining on them
and were able to take their places without disturbing any of them.

Damnatio ad bestias
Another feature of the venatio was the use of wild animals for executing
convicts and prisoners of war, a punishment which the Romans called
damnatio ad bestias (‘condemnation to wild beasts’). The ad bestias penalty
was one of the harshest sentences handed out by Roman judges, and could
only be carried out in the context of the venatio. This restriction is evident
in an account of the martyrdom of the Christian bishop Polycarp. At the
public trial of Polycarp (c. AD 155), the Christian bishop of the province of
Asia, the crowd demanded that he be placed in the arena with a lion. Philip
the Asiarch, the judge at Polycarp’s trial, was able to deny their request by

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explaining that since the venationes were over, the law prevented him from
imposing the ad bestias penalty.43 The crowd had to settle for Polycarp
being burned alive.44 Roman punishments for the most serious crimes strike
the modern reader as incredibly severe, but their harshness and attendant
public humiliation were meant to provide the greatest possible deterrence
to crime. The damnatio ad bestias was, the Romans believed, one of the
strongest deterrents. Being thrown to wild beasts involved slow torture for
the victims as the animals tore their bodies to pieces before death came.
This mode of execution turned the victim into animal food, a death that was
arguably the most ignominious of all forms of Roman capital punishment.
Although the ad bestias punishment is often associated in the popular mind
only with Roman persecutions of Christians, the latter were never singled
out as a group for this penalty. The Roman authorities also meted out this
punishment to countless non-Christians. The reason for the association
with Christianity is that Christian writers produced a significant body of
literature on martyrs, who, as serious offenders in the eyes of the Romans,
were often subject to this harsh penalty. Christian readers were fascinated by
martyrs’ willingness to suffer for their faith and took guilty pleasure in the
gruesome details of their horrible deaths. The experience of thousands of
non-Christians who were also executed in this manner did not arouse the
same interest among pagan authors and thus were not recorded. As far they
were concerned, all damnati, no matter what their religion, richly deserved
their punishment. There was no reason to write a detailed account of any
one person’s execution by wild animals.
We first hear of the ad bestias penalty as military discipline incorporated
into triumphal celebrations. L. Aemilius Paullus, after his victory over
Perseus, gave triumphal ludi at the Macedonian city of Amphipolis (168 BC)
and executed deserters by having elephants trample them as they lay on the
ground.45 Livy tells us that Paullus’ son Scipio Aemilianus, celebrating his
victory over Carthage in 146 BC, ‘followed his father’s example, giving
games and throwing deserters to the beasts’.46 This penalty was eventually
extended to prisoners of war and criminals, probably in the first century BC.
Although wild animals were not always effective agents of execution, any
survivors among the victims would be held over for another show or ex-
ecuted by other means. For example, in the first century AD, Mariccus, a
Gallic rebel, fell into the hands of the Romans and was condemned ad
bestias. He was thrown to the beasts but because they showed little interest

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in him, his claim of divinity gained further credence among his supporters.
His claim was ultimately proved false when he was put to death by other
means in the presence of the emperor Vitellius.47
The jurist Ulpian tells us that young men usually received the ad bestias
penalty.48 This was not just because young men in ancient Rome were, as
a group, more often guilty of serious crimes than any other segment of
society. There was another consideration: their performance against wild
animals. Young men could be relied on to make a better fight of it, resisting
the animals to the very end, thereby providing a better show.49 In Smyrna, a
young Christian named Germanicus, having rejected a provincial governor’s
request that he deny his faith, provoked a beast by pulling it on top of him-
self. The crowd was mightily impressed by his courage.50 The silence of the
source on his ultimate fate probably means that he was killed.
Crimes that were punished by the ad bestias penalty included counter-
feiting, temple robbing, and homicide in the course of a robbery.51 At first,
even freeborn men guilty of counterfeiting received this penalty.52 By late
antiquity, however, the ad bestias penalty was not considered appropriate for
freeborn criminals. The Codex Theodosianus includes a decree of the emper-
or Constantine that, for the crime of kidnapping a son, slaves and freedmen
be thrown to the beasts, while a freeman should suffer decapitation in a
gladiator school, a more dignified and less painful death.53 The following
passage ascribed to Ulpian gives us an idea of where the ad bestias penalty
stood in the hierarchy of punishments.

The proconsul [provincial governor] will have to decide the penalty for
temple-robbery in accordance with the quality of the person and with the
circumstances of the affair and of the time and of the age and sex [of the
offender] either more severely or more mercifully. I also know that many
[proconsuls] have condemned temple-robbers to the beasts; some even have
burned them alive, while others have hanged them. But the penalty must be
moderated to ad bestias for those who as a member of a gang have broken
into a temple and carried away the [valuable] gifts given to the god at
night. But if anyone has stolen something of medium value during the day,
the penalty must be labour in the mines . . . 54

Note that the ad bestias penalty is considered a mitigation of what the some
Romans felt were the two harshest punishments: burning alive and hanging.
Condemnation to the mines (ad metalla), a penalty assigned here to a thief

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whose culpability was shared by the other members of a gang, was deemed
a lesser penalty than ad bestias. The reason for this is that it did not involve
immediate death, although that was usually the eventual result because of
the back-breaking labour and the unhealthy conditions. Exile, as the least
harsh of all the penalties, was reserved for freeborn citizens.55 Judges, how-
ever, had wide latitude in assigning penalties, and sometimes freeborn citi-
zens of the lower classes received one of the harsher penalties generally
reserved for slaves.
Justinian’s Digest mentions that notorious bandits were often hanged in
the locale where they had committed murder. The reason for this practice
was twofold: to deter others from the same crime and to provide comfort
to the relatives of the murder victim. The Digest goes on to say that the
ad bestias penalty could achieve the same results.56 It was carried out in an
even more public area (amphitheatre) and was widely advertised. As we have
seen, sometimes the penalty had to be postponed until the next venatio,
which could involve a delay of months.57 The condemned would have to
wait in prison for what must have seemed an interminable period. The
prospect of being torn apart by wild animals must have evoked in its victims
fearful anticipation of the pain and humiliation of such a degrading death.
This prospect seems to have caused the suicides of two bestiarii (here ⫽
damnati ad bestias) slated to be executed in a venatio given by Nero (briefly
alluded to in Chapter 3). Both examples illustrate the lengths to which
some were willing to go to avoid this horrible fate. In the first case, a German,
who was probably a prisoner of war, took advantage of the one weak point
in the Roman security for prisoners: a prisoner was allowed to be alone
when relieving his bowels. The German, having been given permission to
take care of a sudden need, used a stick with a sponge attached, a device that
Roman used as we use toilet paper, to suffocate himself by stuffing it into
his mouth. Seneca comments with admiration that with this suicide the
German ‘insulted death’ rather than become a recipient of the insult of this
punishment. As Seneca remarks: ‘the basest death is to be preferred to the
foulest slavery’.58 Another bestiarius, perhaps in the same venatio, while he
was being conveyed in a cart to the arena, pretended to fall asleep and let his
head fall between the spokes of one of the cart’s wheels.59
There is evidence that slaves frequently suffered the ad bestias penalty
unjustly. In the reign of Tiberius, the Lex petronia was passed, which
took away the power of a master to condemn his slaves ad bestias without

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sufficient reason and required that the master first submit his reason to a
judge for approval.60 Ville sees this approval as a mere formality, but at least
some judges must have taken the time to assess the reasons given by mas-
ters.61 The abuse that this law tried to stop was the attempt by masters to
make money from the sale of unwanted slaves, who were often guilty of
little or no wrong, to lanistae or directly to editores for execution during the
venatio. An illustrative example is the case of a fictional steward (slave) from
Petronius, condemned ad bestias for having slept with his mistress discussed
in Chapter 3.62 The speaker points out that Glyco’s wife was really at fault
here, having forced the steward to have sex with her. He goes so far as to
suggest that she should suffer the same penalty in the venatio, except in a
form that was thought appropriate for an adulterous woman: to be tossed
by a bull. Tertullian saw a similar abuse in the ‘recruitment’ of gladiators:
‘To be sure, innocent men are sold into gladiatorial schools so that they may
become victims of public pleasure’.63
Some provincial officials were not above ignoring the law to provide ad
bestias victims for spectacles. Roman provincial officials had virtually absolute
power; distance from Rome probably made some of them feel they could
ignore the law with impunity. In 43 BC, a quaestor named L. Cornelius
Balbus, apparently in charge of giving games in the province of Baetica
(southern Spain), threw Roman citizens to the wild beasts in Hispalis (mod-
ern Seville), one of whom seems to have been condemned to suffer this
penalty only because he was deformed.64 Cicero accuses L. Piso Caesoninus,
governor of Macedonia, of sending six hundred innocent men (probably
not Roman citizens) to Rome to be thrown to the beasts in a show given
by Clodius.65 Although the number is probably exaggerated, Piso no doubt
had sent a considerable group of unfortunates. It should be noted, however,
that there were provincial officials who obeyed the law, as in the case of
Philip the Asiarch, mentioned above. At Rome, only the emperor could get
away with ignoring the law protecting freeborn Roman citizens from this
penalty. On one occasion, Caligula, lacking convicts for execution in the
venatio, arbitrarily chose members of the crowd to expose to the wild
animals in a venatio. He cut out their tongues to prevent them from protest-
ing.66 At a time between venationes when the price of meat was high, he
fed convicts to the beasts. Suetonius reports that Caligula gave no thought
to his choice of victims, capriciously selecting groups of them to be fed to
the animals.67

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The reason that the Romans so often applied ad bestias penalty to Chris-
tians was their belief that this religious group threatened the very foun-
dations of the Roman state with their unwillingness to recognize the state
gods. The Romans had very strong feelings about this religious group. For
example, Tacitus condemns them with the strongest possible language, call-
ing them ‘the object of hatred because of their disgraceful behaviour’ and
describing their religion as ‘a destructive superstition’ and ‘hideous and
shameful’. On the other hand, the Romans also had a strong sense of justice.
Tacitus, in the same passage in which he condemns Christianity, reports that
Nero used the Christians as scapegoats to distract his people from the
rumour that he was behind the great fire of AD 64. In a private spectacle in
his gardens, Nero applied the ad bestias penalty and other extreme punish-
ments (crematio and crucifixion) to a large group of Christians who were
implicated in the arson by informers. Some Christians wearing the hides of
wild animals were torn apart by dogs, while others were crucified or burned
alive at a spectacular night show. The crowd normally enjoyed the punish-
ment of wrongdoers, but was aroused to pity by these horrible punishments,
which they believed only satisfied Nero’s cruelty and did not promote the
welfare of Rome.68
A detailed contemporary account of ad bestias executions can be found
in the Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicitas, discussed in Chapter 1. The
Passion nowhere names the geographical location of these executions, but
there is general agreement that it must have been Carthage in North
Africa.69 The Passion does mention that the executions took place in a
military amphitheatre.70 The presentation of this venatio in a military
amphitheatre makes perfect sense in that it was given by the procurator of
the province to celebrate the birthday of Geta, the younger son of the
emperor Septimius Severus.71 Severus was a great champion of the army,
realizing that his position as emperor depended on the support of his
soldiers. His deathbed advice to his sons is famous: ‘Enrich the soldiers;
forget about everyone else’.72 The celebration of the birthday of the
emperor’s son no doubt had special meaning in Carthage because Severus’
family was of Punic origin. The Christians were from Thuburbo, about
40 miles west of Carthage, but it was only natural that they were brought to
the city to be tried by the procurator of the province (a deputy for the gov-
ernor who had died). Their punishment was carried out on March 7 203.

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The group of Christians consisted of Vibia Perpetua, a young matron of

a good family in her early twenties who had recently given birth; four
teenage catechumens: Revocatus and his fellow slave Felicitas, Saturninus
and Secundulus; and Saturus, probably an adult.73 Despite the title of the
work, Perpetua is the central character, with Felicitas playing only a minor
role.74 After their arrest, Perpetua and her colleagues were baptized and a
few days later taken to the military camp prison, no doubt near the am-
phitheatre.75 Perpetua describes her reaction to the prison:

I was terrified, because I had never experienced such darkness. What a

cruel day: overpowering heat because of the overcrowding and the extortions
of the soldiers. Lastly, I was worried sick about my baby.76

Two Christian deacons, using bribery, arranged for Perpetua’s group to be

moved into a cooler area of the prison. There, Perpetua breastfed her baby,
which was nearly starving, and was allowed to take the baby with her when
she returned to her area of confinement.77 Perpetua and her group also suf-
fered at the hands of a military tribune who believed rumours that the
Christians would escape from the prison by means of magic incantations. As
a result, they were put on a very meagre diet. Perpetua, not one to be quiet
in the face of injustice, complained to the tribune, asking:

Why at any rate do you not permit us, who are well-known convicts, the
property of Caesar, and about to fight [wild animals] on his birthday, to be
fed adequately? Would it not add to your glory if we are led forth on that
day with more flesh on our bones?

The tribune, taken aback by her complaint, made sure that they were treated
more humanely and given more food.78
One day during the morning meal, Perpetua and her group were sud-
denly rushed to the place of their trial in Carthage’s forum. The news of the
trial spread throughout the city and attracted a large crowd. These specta-
tors were no doubt curiosity seekers out for a good time. The interrogation
of the defendants took place on a platform, probably erected specifically for
this trial. Perpetua’s fellow defendants confessed their guilt immediately.
Their desire was to be convicted and sentenced to death as quickly as
possible. Perpetua was the last to be questioned. When it was her turn,
her father, carrying her baby on the steps leading up to the platform, drew

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Perpetua aside and begged her to pity her baby by rejecting Christianity.79
Perpetua did not get a chance to answer because the deputy governor
Hilarianus immediately made the same plea.80 Like many a provincial gov-
ernor, Hilarianus was not eager to sentence Christians to death, especially
when one of them was young woman like Perpetua from a good family,
married and with a baby.81 He must have thought that his request would
be effective. It was not unusual for Christians to recant when faced with
trial that could lead to their death. Eusebius points out that there were
Christians who were not strong enough in their faith to disobey a provincial
governor and could be intimidated to the point of recanting their faith.82
On the other hand, there were some Christians, who actively embraced
martyrdom, aggressively forcing the authorities to condemn them to death.
Execution by wild beasts was a favoured penalty, which in the minds of
many Christians brought a certain flair to the act of martyrdom. In AD 305,
when eight Christian men demanded of the governor of Caesarea that
they be thrown to the beasts, he frustrated their desire by having them
beheaded.83
Like most Romans, Hilarianus was tolerant of other religions, but as a
polytheist did not understand the unwillingness of Christians to worship
the gods of the state. The emperor Marcus Aurelius had criticized the
behaviour of Christians as ‘mere obstinate opposition’ and more appropri-
ate to the tragic stage.84 For pagan Romans, however, there was another
and more serious consideration. Since Roman paganism was a state religion,
the Romans looked upon any refusal to worship the gods of the state as an
act of treason, which threatened to destroy the harmonious relationship
between men and gods (pax deorum or ‘peace of the gods’). This concern is
illustrated by the fourth century AD controversy about the presence of an
altar bearing a statue of the goddess of victory in the Senate house, which
had been first installed by Augustus to celebrate his victory over Antony.
Christians wanted it removed, while pagans were afraid that removal of the
statue would lead to disastrous defeats in battle.85 Leonard Thompson
identifies other catastrophes that the Romans believed could be caused by
Christian refusal to worship the state gods: natural disasters, social conflict
and plague.86
Hilarianus then proposed what amounted to a test of Perpetua’s loyalty
to the emperor: he ordered her to sacrifice for the welfare of the emperor
Severus and his two sons.87 Perpetua, however, was unwilling to practise a

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ritual that was in essence a prayer to the pagan gods. When the deputy
governor asked if she was a Christian, she uttered the self-damning words:
‘I am a Christian.’ At these words, her father again attempted to make her
change her mind, but it was too late. Perpetua had confessed. Hilarianus, no
doubt enraged by Perpetua’s rejection of what he considered a reasonable
request, ordered her father thrown down and beaten with rods. David
Potter comments that a trial of Christians could become a ‘contest of
power’ between the defendants and the magistrate, given a strong commit-
ment to martyrdom on the part of the former. If the Christians recanted,
he won; if they remained steadfast, he lost.88 In this case, Hilarianus lost.
He condemned her and her friends ad bestias, exactly what they all wanted.
The new Christians joyfully returned to the prison.89 James Rives points out
that Hilarianus acted with a greater severity than necessary, because he
could have refused to hear the charge and, once it was heard, was not bound
by any law or decree to impose this aggravated penalty. He was in fact free
to impose a lighter penalty, especially since Perpetua was in all probability an
upper-class woman. Hilarianus’ frustration aside, Perpetua’s social standing
was likely the most important factor leading to the more serious sentence.
A respectable woman rejecting the values of her class and joining a cult
believed dangerous to the Roman state set a bad example for her fellow
citizens.90
As the day for the venatio approached, Perpetua’s young slave friend
Felicitas found herself in a dilemma. She was pregnant (in the eighth
month) and there was a law against the public punishment of pregnant
women. She desperately wanted to experience martyrdom with her fellow
Christians and not with a group of real criminals, as might happen later
after the birth of her baby. Three days before the munus, her colleagues,
agreeing with her fears, prayed that she might give birth right away. Their
prayers were answered and Felicitas gave birth, but suffered a very painful
delivery. Her expressions of discomfort at the pain caused some attendants
at the prison to taunt her. They asked her how she would deal with the pain
of being torn apart by the beasts if she could not tolerate the pain of child-
birth. Her reply was: ‘Now I suffer what I suffer; then, however, there will
be another [Jesus] in me who will suffer for me, because I will also suffer
for him’.91
On the night before the venatio, the customary cena libera was held,
which, as we have seen, was a public dinner for the participants in the next

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day’s munus. The annoyance caused by curiosity seekers led to these chiding
words from Saturus:

Is tomorrow not enough for you? Why do you gladly see what you hate [i.e.,
condemned Christians]? Today you are friendly, tomorrow you will be
hostile. Take careful note of our faces, so that you may recognize us on
that day.92

The next day, when the condemned reached the amphitheatre, they were
ordered to put on pagan religious dress: the men, the clothing of priests of
Saturn, and the women, of priestesses of Ceres.93 Like other aspects of their
punishment, the purpose of this order was humiliation. Perpetua protested
this order vigorously, pointing out that the condemned had cooperated as
much as they could to avoid being subjected to this degradation and refers
to an agreement that had been made earlier. The tribune was convinced by
her arguments and they were allowed to come into the arena in their own
clothing. While Perpetua entered the arena singing psalms, the three men,
Revocatus, Saturninus and Saturus, took a more aggressive stance. They
uttered threats in response to the rude gaze of the crowd and, through
gestures, let it be known to the munerarius (Hilarianus again) that God
would avenge the injustice they were about to suffer. The spectators were
aroused to fury by this behaviour and demanded that they be made to pass
through a gauntlet of venatores using whips. The Christians were pleased to
suffer the same punishment that Jesus did. By this time, Hilarianus was no
doubt only too glad to oblige them.94
Then began the main show. The men and women were dealt with separ-
ately.95 The men went first. Saturninus and Revocatus were exposed to a
leopard and apparently were able to fend off the animal, even though they
apparently had been given no weapons. They were next placed on a plat-
form, perhaps tied to stakes, and set upon by a bear. The purpose of this
platform was to frustrate the bear temporarily in its desire to get at his
human prey, making him even more eager for the kill. The bear finally
found its way up a ramp attached to the platform where it attacked and ap-
parently killed them, since we hear no more of them in the narrative.96
Next came Saturus’ turn. Apparently, before the munus Saturus had
mentioned what animal he preferred to face. With good reason, his greatest
fear was to be attacked by a bear, which usually dreadfully mangled its vic-
tims before they died. His preference was for a leopard because he believed

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that this animal could kill a man with one bite. If the authorities knew of
this preference, they ignored it, because the animal he had to face first was a
wild boar to which he was tied so that the boar would be certain to attack
him. There were, however, always surprises in the arena when wild animals
were involved. The boar turned on the venator who tied the animal to
Saturus and gored him to death.97 Next, Saturus’ greatest fear was realized.
He faced the same situation as Saturninus and Revocatus had faced earlier:
he was put bound on a platform near a caged bear.98 Again, Saturus had
incredibly good fortune. The bear refused to come out of his cage when it
was opened.99 Wild beasts could be unreliable executioners.100 The famous
martyr Blandina (Lyons, AD 177), a Christian slave, was tied to a stake and
exposed to wild animals, which showed no interest at all in her. As noted
earlier, wild animals were often intimidated by the strangeness of their sur-
roundings as they were released into the arena and did not display the feroc-
ity that the crowd expected.101 Later, she survived being tossed by a bull
and had to be put to death by the sword.102 Thus, Saturus enjoyed a second
reprieve, but, like the first one, it was only temporary.
Then came the women’s turn. The instrument of their punishment was
a wild cow.103 The choice of a cow was not haphazard. Women were often
forced to confront animals of the same gender.104 The text says rather enig-
matically that the Devil (i.e., the Roman authorities) used the wild cow to
punish the female victims to ‘rival their gender with the beast’. Shaw plausi-
bly suggests that the cow was intended to mock the victim’s gender and
might even imply sexual wrongdoing, possibly lesbianism.105 Perpetua and
Felicitas were stripped of their clothes, wrapped in nets, and presented to
the crowd.106 At this point the spectators revealed their unpredictability.
They were shocked and dismayed by the sight of the two women, especially
because Perpetua’s breasts were dripping with milk after the recent birth of
her baby. The crowd’s reaction seems to have had little effect on Hilarianus.
His only concession was to send them out again without the nets and
dressed more modestly in tunics. Perpetua faced the cow first and was tossed
into the air, landing on her back. Her first thought was her modesty; she
pulled what was left of her torn tunic over her thighs. Felicitas then rejoined
Perpetua and they faced the cow together.107 The cow knocked Felicitas
down and Perpetua helped her to her feet. At this point, the spectators
seemed to have had enough of the suffering of the two women, who were
allowed to exit the arena through the Porta Sanavivaria (‘Gate of Life’) as

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a symbol of their temporary survival.108 As in the case of Saturus, failure of

an animal to kill was not grounds for exempting the two women from their
death penalty. All the damnati would be killed one way or the other and, if
not in this venatio, then in the next one.
Saturus, who had survived confrontations with a leopard, bear and wild
boar, was then ordered to face a leopard for a second time. Saturus went to
meet his fate with confidence that he would die quickly. The leopard
administered a bite, but all it did was produce a great amount of blood and
not death. As Saturus left the arena for a second time, the crowd began to
chant ‘salvum, lotum’, a phrase hard to translate idiomatically, but which
means literally ‘healthy, washed’. This chant, which used the words of a for-
mulaic greeting of those exiting the public baths, was a mockery of Saturus’
bloody appearance. The author of the narrative, however, interprets this as
reference to the salvation of Saturus by a baptism of blood (the Christian
meaning of salvus is ‘saved’). Then the almost lifeless body of Saturus was
taken ‘to the usual place’, a reference to the spoliarium, either a room in the
amphitheatre or a small separate building. There, damnati who had sur-
vived the ordeal in the arena were dispatched by a confector. Hilarianus must
have felt that the Christians, having survived the attacks of the beasts,
earned a more private death away from the hostile eyes of the mocking spec-
tators. The crowd, however, felt cheated of the pleasure of seeing the faces
of the dying at the moment of death.109 The narrator explains their wish:
‘the people demanded that they come into the middle of the arena, so that
they might join their eyes to the sword penetrating their body as comrades
of homicide’. As we saw in Chapter 1, Perpetua and her friends, more than
glad to accommodate them, were killed in the middle of the arena by an
apprentice gladiator (tirunculus).110
A more upbeat example of the ad bestias penalty is the story of Andro-
clus (Latin form of Greek name Androcles) and the lion. The tale is an illus-
trative example not only of the ad bestias punishment but also of the
Romans’ occasionally sentimental attitude towards animals. The story of
Androclus is a variation of a popular story pattern (or what today we might
call an ‘urban legend’) that has a large cat (lion or a leopard) shedding its
ferocity and, through its demeanour, begging a man for help with a prob-
lem. The man overcomes his fear, helps the animal and earns the beast’s
gratitude. Pliny the Elder gives three versions of this story as examples of
the gentleness of these animals. In the first example, the Syracusan Mentor

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in Syria finds his way blocked by a lion rolling on the ground and licking his
feet. Mentor observes a wound in one of the animal’s paws and removes a
splinter to the great relief of the lion. Next, the Samian Elpis, after disem-
barking from his ship on to the coast of North Africa sees a lion with a wide-
open mouth, which he perceives as a threat. When he climbs a tree, the lion
does not follow him but lies down at the foot of the tree, constantly looking
at Elpis with his mouth still open. Eventually, Elpis realizes that the lion has
a problem, climbs down and removes a bone stuck in the lion’s mouth that
was preventing him from eating. The story ends with Pliny’s comment that
as long as Elpis stayed in Africa, the lion shared his prey with him. The third
example has a philosopher named Demetrius (in an unnamed location),
whose way, like Mentor, was blocked by a female leopard rolling on the
ground and displaying great anguish. The leopard then leads Demetrius to
a pit into which her cubs had fallen. He rescues them and the leopard
demonstrates her gratitude by her playful behaviour.111 This story pattern
has been called ‘the grateful lion’.112
The most famous version of this story is found in Aulus Gellius’ (second
century AD) Attic Nights. Gellius attributes this version to the first century
AD scholar Apion, who told the story in his book The Wonders of Egypt (no
longer extant). Apion’s story takes place in the Circus Maximus in Rome,
where, as part of a venatio, Androclus, a slave of the powerful governor of
North Africa, is about to be thrown to the lions as a punishment for having
run away from his cruel master. When a ferocious lion comes towards him,
Androclus suffers the panic of man about to be torn to pieces. The lion,
however, recognizes Androclus as the man who had removed a painful splin-
ter from his paw in Africa and, in return had enjoyed the hospitality of the
lion in his cave for three days, sharing the prey that the lion brought back
from his hunts.113 Androclus and the lion have a joyful reunion in the middle
of the arena. Aelian, a contemporary of Gellius, adds the detail that the lion
saved Androclus from being attacked by a leopard in the arena.114
Androclus, summoned by the (unnamed) emperor, tells him of the
meeting with the lion in Africa. At the order of the emperor, Androclus’
story was written down and shared with the spectators through the medium
of placards carried around the amphitheatre by arena attendants.115 The
crowd’s reaction was to demand missio for both Androclus and the lion. The
emperor grants their request and orders that Androclus be given the lion.
The story ends happily with Androclus leading the lion on a leash through

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the shops of Rome, where he is given money and the lion is showered with
flowers, as those present say: ‘This is the lion who is the host of a man; this
is the man who is the doctor of a lion’.116
The events in the arena described in Gellius are credible. Although the
story of the removal of the splinter is the stuff of legend, we have seen that
it was not be unusual for a wild animal to refuse to attack a noxius in the
arena. It is not even impossible that it chase away other animals to protect
him. Seneca, a reliable reporter of events in the arena, tells such a story, in
which a lion in the arena recognizes his former trainer, now an intended
victim of the ad bestias penalty, and saves him from the other animals.117
The reason for the lion not attacking is much more plausible in Seneca’s
anecdote. Seneca’s lion is a trained animal, which for some reason had been
transferred to a new role in the venatio. The recognition of his former
trainer and the saving of his life, although unusual, do not overly strain
credulity. Wild animals are known to develop strong bonds with their train-
ers and carers.118 In fact, it is not impossible that Apion’s story was based
on the event described by Seneca, which Apion attached to the legend of
the grateful lion. If this was the case, Apion created a satisfying and impress-
ive conclusion to an already popular legend.119 Almost two thousand years
later, George Bernard Shaw turned the story into a play, Androcles and the
Lion (1913).120

Dramatization of the ad bestias penalty

During the last years of the Republic, a variation in the ad bestias penalty
was devised that made the process more entertaining to the Roman audi-
ence while at the same time providing a greater deterrent to crime. This
innovation was in the form of a dramatic scene in which the damnatus was
forced to play the central role. The purpose of the scene was to mock the
condemned man and set up his death. As Coleman explains: ‘the deterrent
factor was the assumption . . . that no one would want to suffer such physi-
cal torture, nor to provoke such humiliating Schadenfreude’.121 Although
there is no direct evidence, these ‘playlets’ were probably the innovation of
Augustus. Towards the end of the civil wars there were serious problems
with the maintenance of public order in Rome and Italy. Octavian dealt with
them aggressively. For example, he ordered that the large numbers of
runaway slaves that had joined the armies of his enemy, Sextus Pompey, be

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returned to the masters or their heirs or, if unclaimed, be put to death.122

An even worse threat to public order were bandits who were plying their
trade in large numbers. Augustus quickly eliminated this problem by exe-
cuting many of these highwaymen.123 Thus, it is not hard to see his hand
behind the unusual execution of a famous criminal named Selurus, leader of
a small army of bandits which had been terrorizing the area around Mount
Aetna in Sicily.124 His fame earned him the nickname of ‘son of Aetna’.
After his capture, Selurus, rather than being executed in the area where he
had committed his crimes, was brought to Rome to provide an example to
the whole empire. His execution was designed to mock him and single him
out as a memorable example of how Romans deal with hardened criminals.
Here is my attempt to reconstruct what happened by filling in the gaps in
Strabo’s description.125 First, Selurus was placed on a pegma and tied up to
prevent his jumping off. Then the platform was raised in the air to its full
height to represent Mount Aetna and, metaphorically, the heights of crimi-
nality that Selurus had reached in his heyday, which were the cause of his
imminent fall.126 Compare Juvenal’s metaphorical comment on the fall of
Sejanus, Tiberius’ praetorian prefect:

. . . the man [Sejanus] who hoped for excessive honours and strove for excess-
ive wealth, was constructing a high building, whence his fall would be from
a greater height . . . 127

For Selurus, the metaphor became reality. The pegma began to collapse
upon itself until it reached its lowest level. At the bottom of the pegma were
placed cages containing wild animals, which were designed to break apart
under the pressure of its contraction. Once released, the animals killed
Selurus. Apuleius (second century AD) mentions what appears to be a simi-
lar device, which he describes it as a kind of ‘house’ of several stories con-
taining the wild animals.128 Apuleius does not explain how this device
accomplished the execution of those condemned to the beasts, but perhaps
it worked in somewhat the same way as the pegma did in the execution of
Selurus.129
Figures from history and myth sometimes provided dramatic settings
for the execution of damnati ad bestias. One of these little dramas was based
on Laureolus, a notorious bandit who had terrorized Rome.130 He was
caught and put to death (probably by crucifixion). His story became the
basis of a well-known mime during the reign of Caligula.131 The play seems

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to have been a morality tale depicting the triumph of ‘authority over law-
lessness’.132 The story of Laureolus eventually found its way into the arena,
enacted by a damnatus during the dedication of the Colosseum in AD 80.
The punishment was crucifixion, which, however, lacked the timing and
dramatic intensity required for an arena show. It was a slow method of
execution that could take hours or even days, depending on various factors.
Spectators at these events expected to see criminals die before their eyes, not
a slowly languishing victim who might not die before they left the am-
phitheatre. Therefore, a wild animal was introduced to this scene, which
provided a quicker and more violent end to the damnatus. The animal in
this case was a bear imported from Scotland, which shredded the con-
demned’s body as he hung on the cross.133 The combination of crucifixion
and wild animal attack seems new but it is only a variation of the common
practice of tying a man to a stake and exposing him to a wild animal.
As for enactments based upon myth, one involved a noxius playing the
role of the great mythical musician Orpheus whose music had the power
to move all nature. Martial describes a forest scene in the arena in which
Orpheus’ music causes trees and rocks to move and charms wild animals. All
this required a great deal of artifice: a mechanical device to put the artificial
trees and rocks in motion and different species of animals trained not to
attack each other and to appear to be listening to music. The ending of the
episode, however, abruptly departs from the myth. Instead of ‘Orpheus’
being dismembered by a group of Thracian women, as in the myth, a bear
tears him to pieces.134 There are other examples of surprise endings to these
mythical enactments. A noxius impersonating Daedalus, the mythical inven-
tor of flight, suffered a death that had no connection at all with Daedalus’
story. Like the ‘Orpheus’ above, he was killed by a bear.135 Martial mentions
that when ‘Daedalus’ was torn apart by the bear, he wished that he still had
his wings. This suggests that the noxius was somehow flying before he was
killed. Here is a possible scenario: the noxius wearing wings made an en-
trance from the air by means of some device like a crane with a cable at-
tached.136 He was set down in the arena and, once his wings were removed,
a bear was released to dispatch him. In an enactment of the story of Hercules
and the Bull of Marathon there was another surprise ending. ‘Hercules’ did
not kill the bull as in the legend, but instead was tossed high into the air by
his opponent.137 These ‘revisions’ of the original stories were obviously re-
quired in order to give the wild beasts a central role in the execution.

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The enactment of another myth added bestiality to the usual violence:

Pasiphae’s love for a bull with which she had sexual intercourse.138 This per-
formance took place as part of the dedication celebration of the Colosseum
in AD 80. Part of its attraction was the novelty of a female victim, a depar-
ture from the more usual male convict and of the punishment. In his poem
on this performance, Martial assures the emperor Titus that what took place
in the arena was a real coupling of ‘Pasiphae’ and a bull.139 The question
arises: how was this accomplished? Perhaps it was, as Coleman suggests,
simply a matter of ‘Pasiphae’ being covered with cowhide and having
discharge from a cow in heat rubbed on her sexual organs. If penetration
by the bull did not kill her, she, like Perpetua, would have been dispatched
by the sword.140 Another example of a punishment involving bestiality is
found in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses. A woman convicted of murder by poison
incurred the ad bestias penalty, which involved sexual intercourse with an
ass.141 Clement of Rome notes that Christian women were sometimes
forced to play mythical roles in the execution of their punishment, for
example as Dirce, a queen of Thebes, who was tied to the horns of a bull
and gored to death.142 The enactment of the Dirce story was suitable to a
venatio setting, and it provided a spectacular and grisly ending. Clement
also mentions the Danaids, but their punishment for killing their husbands,
carrying leaky water vessels for eternity in the underworld, hardly suits
the needs of the arena. In this case, it is likely that a more sensational pun-
ishment was found for the Danaids, since, as we have seen, there was no
requirement that the enactment follow the myth closely.143
There were other enactments that did not involve animals but may have
been included in the venatio anyway. This seems to have been the case on at
least one occasion in the punishment of a convict playing the role of Mucius
Scaevola, the sixth century BC Roman hero who defied the Etruscan king
by holding his hand in fire.144 Martial says that a punishment of ‘Scaevola’
took place ‘on the morning sand’, the normal time for the venatio.145
Martial wrote two poems about this punishment. The first one praises the
noxius for being brave enough to put his hand into the fire.146 The poet
seems to have written the second one after he found out what really lay
behind this act. The poet now says that the noxius only seemed to be cour-
ageous.147 The noxius apparently had been offered a choice between being
burned alive wearing the tunica molesta and putting his hand in the fire,
and cravenly chose the latter. Coleman calls the less severe alternative

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punishment ‘a mitigated penalty’.148 Another example of the mitigated

penalty can be found in the enactments of the myth of Attis, who castrated
himself.149 The criminal who was forced to play this role must have been
given the choice of self-castration or death, since he would not have cas-
trated himself if he was going to die anyway. Naturally the noxius chose the
former.150
The legend of Hercules perfectly suited a spectacular execution by fire in
the arena. His wife Deianeira had unwittingly given him a toxic piece of
clothing that had the effect of fire on Hercules’ body, leading to his conse-
quent suicide on a pyre on Mount Oeta. During the reign of Nero, a crimi-
nal named Meniscus was burned alive (no doubt wearing the tunica
molesta), for having stolen three apples from the grounds of the emperor’s
Golden House. The execution of Meniscus joins two events that are uncon-
nected in myth to fit Meniscus’ crime and punishment: Hercules’ theft of
the golden apples of the Hesperides and his fiery death on Mount Oeta:

Like Hercules before him, Meniscus stole three golden apples from the gar-
den of the Hesperides belonging to Zeus [⫽ Nero]. What does this mean?
When he was caught, he became a great spectacle for everyone. Like Hercules
before him, he was burned alive.151

Why did Meniscus receive so severe a punishment for stealing these apples?
One suggestion is that trespassing on the grounds of Nero’s famous Golden
House may have been considered an act of treason, which warranted the
penalty of being burned alive (crematio).152
On one occasion, Commodus took part in an enactment that ranks
with the cruelest of all discussed so far. Believing himself to be a second
Hercules, he enacted in the arena the myth of the battle between the gods
and the giants, in which the club-bearing Hercules fought on the side of the
gods. He collected all the men he could find who had lost their feet through
disease or accident. He had their lower extremities covered in such a way
that they appeared to be half-human and half-snake, thus resembling the
depiction of giants in ancient art. Commodus clubbed them all to death.153

The venatio and politics

Like gladiatorial combat and other spectacles, the venatio had political
implications. Perhaps the best illustration of the connection between the

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venatio and politics is the exchange of letters between Cicero, who at the
time (51–50 BC) was governor of the province of Cilicia (south-west
Turkey) and M. Caelius Rufus, his ambitious protégé in Rome. In 51 BC,
Caelius had made up his mind to run for the curule aedileship, which would
give him the responsibility of organizing the solemn games for the Ludi
Megalenses (in honour of the goddess Cybele) and the Ludi Romani. As we
have seen earlier, the curule aediles were allotted a sum of money to help
defray expenses, but an ambitious aedile, looking forward to higher offices
such as the praetorship and consulship, would want to make the greatest
impression possible, which meant paying from his own funds for attractive
extras such as a gladiatorial show or a venatio or perhaps even both. In June
of 51 BC, just before Caelius’ election to the aedileship, he reminds Cicero
of an appeal for leopards that he had made earlier.154 The request was not
unusual. Roman politicians used networking with allies in the provinces to
obtain animals. Cicero’s presence as governor in Cilicia with a small army at
his command put him in ideal position to help Caelius obtain leopards from
a province that was a significant source of these animals. There was no ex-
pense on Cicero’s part since he could use his soldiers to do the tracking and
capturing.155 If Cicero carried through on his promise, he would greatly re-
duce Caelius’ expenses, leaving him to pay only the cost of shipment and
feeding of the animals. In August of 51 BC, Caelius writes again, renewing
his request with greater urgency, underlining its importance.156
By September, Caelius seems exasperated by Cicero’s unwillingness or
inability to provide him with leopards. He tries to shame Cicero by pointing
out that a Roman businessman named Patiscus in Cilicia had come through
for his friend C. Scribonius Curio by sending him ten leopards and that
Cicero should have provided Caelius with many times more. Curio’s success
in acquiring leopards actually turned out later to be boon for Caelius. Curio
had intended to run for the curule aedileship of 50 BC, but suddenly
changed his mind and ran for the tribunate of the plebs, a magistracy that
did not involve giving games, therefore eliminating his need for the animals.
Thus, he gave Caelius these Asiatic leopards plus ten more leopards from
Africa. Curio’s thirteen leopards were a generous gift, although Caelius
probably had in mind a more impressive number of leopards for his venatio.
In another letter, he urges Cicero to have his men search for these animals
in areas adjacent to Cilicia, especially Pamphylia, where leopards were most
frequently captured.157

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The last letter we have from Caelius to Cicero on this matter was written
in February of 50 BC, after Caelius had assumed the curule aedileship.
Caelius seems bitter and at the end of his tether. The only mention of the
leopards is in the very last line of the letter: ‘It will be a disgrace for you that
I do not have any Greek leopards’.158 In early April, Cicero responds to
Caelius with assurance that hunters are under to his orders to capture leop-
ards, but they are now scarce in Cilicia. Cicero ends with a weak joke that
leopards have decided to leave Cilicia for Caria, because so many traps have
been laid for them. This letter was written on the first day of the Megalen-
sian games, one of the ludi that Caelius as curule aedile had to organize.159
He could have given a venatio with the animals that Curio had given him,
but there is no evidence that he did. Since Caelius was also required to or-
ganize the Ludi Romani in September, he had one more opportunity to
present a venatio. Unfortunately, we do not know whether any leopards
from Cicero ever arrived at Rome before the Ludi Romani and we hear
nothing more of Caelius’ venatio.
In this correspondence between Caelius and Cicero, we get a sense of
the problems of getting animals from their native habitat to Rome. Caelius
writes that a group of men whom he had sent to Cilicia on another matter
can be trusted to supervise the feeding and transport of the animals to
Rome. Caelius even volunteers to send more men from Rome if necess-
ary.160 The shipment of animals was a precarious process, because, having
suffered the trauma of capture, the beasts were prone to sickness and even
death while being transported long distances from the frontiers of the em-
pire to various urban centres in Italy and the provinces. They had to be care-
fully watched lest they escape and threaten the lives of the inhabitants of the
region. Delays had to be kept to a minimum to make sure that they arrived
on time for the spectacle. Nothing could be more devastating for an editor,
who, having advertised the venatio, had to cancel it at the last minute.161 As
late as the fifth century AD, a law found in the Codex Theodosianus stipulates
that the animals be transported under the management of escorts and that
there be no more than a seven-day stopover in any city along the way. The
statute imposes a hefty fine for violators.162 A good example of what could
happen to animals intended for a venatio is the case of a well-to-do man in
Apuleius’ Metamorphoses who was planning an elaborate venatio in Plataea
in Greece. He spent a great deal of money on wild animals of various types,
but most of this money went on bears, after large cats the most popular

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killers in the arena. In addition, he caught some bears himself and was given
some by friends. In anticipation of his venatio, he maintained these bears at
great cost to himself, but almost none of these bears survived to participate
in the venatio. There were various causes of their deaths: being tied up in
the hot sun, inactivity, disease, etc. The starving population of Plataea took
advantage of the prospective editor’s misfortune to gorge themselves on
bear meat.163
After the assassination of Julius Caesar in March, 44 BC, M. Junius Brutus,
the leader of the conspiracy, tried to use a venatio to win the support of
the people. He had discovered that the citizenry had not reacted favourably
to the killing of Caesar. Brutus feared that he himself might be killed by
Caesar’s veterans, so, shortly after the assassination, he and his colleague
Cassius left Rome for southern Italy. At the time, Brutus was urban praetor,
an office that required him to be absent from the city for no more than ten
days at a time. There was, however, one pressing duty as urban praetor that
he did not ignore: the organization of the Ludi Apollinares in July, which
might help him win back the favour of the Roman people and even cause
him and his associate Cassius to be recalled to Rome.164 Since Brutus be-
lieved it was too dangerous to re-enter Rome to organize these games in
person, he got Cicero’s friend Atticus and C. Antonius, Marc Antony’s
brother, to help him with this task.165 Although we hear of dramatic presen-
tations and Greek athletic contests, typical fare of the sacred ludi, the cen-
tral feature of this festival was a venatio.166 It would appear that Brutus had
already purchased animals, all of which he intended to present in his
venatio. He was willing to give up whatever profit he might have made by
holding back some animals and selling them, a frequent practice among
organizers of venationes.167
Brutus earnestly entreated Cicero to attend these games to show the
spectators that he had the political support of the great orator. Cicero prob-
ably fulfilled Brutus’ request because the orator’s reports of the ludi seem to
be first hand. Cicero, in his public statements about these games, had to
make the best of a bad situation. First, he had to explain and defend the
absence of Brutus, passing over the real reason for it, that is, the prevailing
attitude in Rome that Brutus and his conspirators were murderers and not
liberators.168 The spectators showed by their applause that they were
pleased by most of the ludi. In his public statements, Cicero, a supporter of
Brutus, however, found it necessary to interpret all applause as not what it

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was, a positive response to the show, but a political statement of support for
Brutus.169 In private, however, he dismisses the political significance of this
applause.170 According to the historian Appian, hired agitators aroused a
feeling of pity for Brutus and Cassius and started a groundswell movement
in favour of their recall, but an anti-Brutus group was able quash this
demonstration of support by stopping the games.171 Although the ludi in
general, and no doubt the venatio in particular, did have its effect on the
crowd it was not impressive enough to erase from their minds the gen-
erosity of the man who had won their hearts through his lavish shows and to
induce them to embrace his assassins. Brutus, having failed to achieve his
purpose with his venatio, left Rome with Cassius for the Greek east.

Some notable imperial venationes

Nero’s venatio (AD 57)
A venatio was part of the munus that Nero gave for the dedication of his
new wooden amphitheatre. An impressive variety of exotic animals was pre-
sented: arctic hares, horned boar, bulls, seals, bears and hippopotami. The
only reference to the action of the venatio in Calpurnius Siculus’ account of
the spectacle reports that seals and bears were matched against each
other.172 Most likely, this battle took place in a flooded arena to give the
seals some chance of escape from the bears. Although the Latin word for
bears (ursi) has no modifier to indicate the animals’ region of origin, it is
certainly possible that these bears could have been polar bears, since they are
the natural enemies of seals.173 In this venatio, we first hear of a device that
caused a sensation among the crowd: trapdoors which allowed animals and
scenery to appear suddenly on the floor of the arena. The crowd felt a fris-
son of terror when they saw wild beasts burst into the sunlight through the
trapdoors and were awed by the appearance of artificial strawberry trees
(arbuta) through the sand in a cloud of saffron spray.174 This scenery was
intended to provide a proper forest setting for the animals in this venatio.
Martial describes a venatio mentioned earlier that required similar scenery:
rocks that crawled and trees that moved in response to the song of
Orpheus.175 Two centuries later, the emperor Probus (AD 276–282 ) gave a
venatio in the Circus Maximus, for which he turned a large part of the rac-
ing area into a forest by setting up uprooted trees on a wooden platform

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piled up with dirt.176 The association of venationes with forests consisting of

real or artificial trees was such that the Latin word for ‘forest’ (silva) could
serve as a synonym for venatio.177

Titus (AD 80)

The most detailed evidence we have about the venatio in all its variety and
colour comes from Martial’s Book of Spectacles written to commemorate the
shows given by the emperor Titus in AD 80 on the occasion of the dedication
of the Colosseum. Of the thirty-seven brief poems of this book, twenty-one
are concerned with venationes that were part of this celebration.178 The
poems comment upon events that caught the poet’s attention over a period of
one hundred days.179 We should not assume that Martial’s poems touch
upon all the events of the various venationes that took place in the celebration.
For example, Cassius Dio mentions two pairings: cranes fighting cranes and
elephants fighting elephants, about which we hear nothing from Martial or
any other source.180 What one author found notable was not always interest-
ing to another.
Listed below are episodes with my commentary from the assorted
venationes memorialized in his Book of Spectacles. Seven of Martial’s poems
deal with enactments of history and myth discussed above.181 Six of these
were discussed earlier and will be listed with minimal further comment,
except for poem 19, which is mentioned for the first time. All these episodes
are presented in the order in which they appear in Martial, which may rep-
resent the chronological order in which they actually took place during the
dedication. In these poems, we are able to catch the flavour of the Roman
venatio.
1. Sexual intercourse of ‘Pasiphae’ with a bull. (6)182
2. Martial notes the achievements of women as venatores. Martial claims
that their exploits in Titus’ animal hunts (the killing of lions) have
overshadowed Hercules’ killing of the Nemean Lion (one of his twelve
labours). (7,8)
3. The crimes of the man playing the role of Laureolus surpassed those of
the bandit of old. Owing to these crimes, the play (the mime in which
Laureolus is executed) has become a reality. (9)
4. ‘Daedalus’ is killed by a bear (10).
5. A rhinoceros treats a bull as if it were a straw dummy. (11)

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6. A lion, apparently in the middle of a routine, bites his trainer and in turn
is killed by order of the emperor Titus. An important theme of this book
appears here: the power of the emperor over savage nature. The poem
ends with the question: ‘How should men behave under such an emper-
or, who orders wild beasts to have a gentler disposition?’ (12)
7. Martial points out the irony of a bear being stopped not by weapons,
but by getting stuck in bird lime, a sticky substance put on branches to
catch birds. Although Martial does not mention what happened after
this, the bear was no doubt killed. (13)
8. In three poems, Martial writes about a pregnant sow killed by a hunt-
ing spear. The sow gave birth through the wound to piglets which ran
from their dead mother. Martial seems to have found the paradox of
simultaneous birth and death fascinating, but why he wrote three
poems on this incident is difficult for the modern reader to fathom. It
is a stark example of how different the ancient attitude towards these
matters was from the modern.183 (14,15,16)
9. The great hunter Carpophorus kills a boar, a polar bear, a lion and a
leopard. Carpophorus is one of the few famous arena hunters we hear
of (for two others, see item 14 below.) He is favourably compared to
the legendary Meleager, killer of the monstrous Calydonian boar, be-
cause he killed four great animals to Meleager’s one. (17)
10. A victim of the ad bestias penalty plays the role of Alcides (Hercules)
and is tossed by a bull. Martial says sardonically that the ‘bull carried
Alcides to the stars’, usually a metaphor for making someone famous,
but here to be taken more literally. The poet uses this as an excuse to
compare Titus favourably to Jupiter, whose bull carried Europa not as
high as Titus’ bull carried Alcides (Hercules).184 The theme here is the
divinity of the emperor. (18,19)
11. An elephant, which had just fought a bull, without a command wor-
ships Titus. The voluntary worship of the emperor here is no doubt the
product of Martial’s tendency towards fawning hyperbole. Again, the
power of the emperor over nature. (20)
12. A tiger kills a lion. Martial notes that the tiger would have never done
so in her native habitat on the southern shores of the Caspian Sea, but
has become more ferocious in captivity. It would be impossible today
for a tiger and a lion to run across each other in the wild, but in ancient

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times, lions and tigers did share the same habitat in what today would
be northern Iran. (21)
13. A bull that had tossed the straw dummies into the air, found that he
could not do the same with an elephant and was killed. (22)
14. Before one venatio, Titus proves his generosity to the crowd by his re-
sponse to a disagreement among the spectators about which venator
they wanted to see. One group requested Myrinus, another Trium-
phus. Titus gave them both. This favour of Titus to the crowd is remi-
niscent of the practice in a munus of allowing the crowd to request
gladiators in addition to the regularly scheduled pairings, although
these requests were usually made at the end of the event. (23)
15. Orpheus (played by a noxius) who was able to move cliffs and forests
with his song (this scenery was made to move mechanically) and so
mesmerized animals that the wild mixed with the tame, is torn to pieces
by a bear. Orpheus’ ultimate submission to nature in this episode high-
lights by contrast Titus’ power over savage nature, and his ability to
mimic nature with his marvellous mechanical devices. Note that Titus
as editor gets all the credit rather than the actual inventor of these
devices. (24,25)
16. A rhinoceros tosses a bear, resists the attack of a pair of young bulls,
and puts to flight a buffalo, bison and a lion, which fled right into the
spears of venatores. (26)
17. Carpophorus, the great venator, appears again. This time he is compared
favourably to four mythical figures: Hercules, Medea, Theseus and
Perseus, who either killed monstrous beasts or, in the case of Medea,
helped Jason yoke fire-breathing bulls. The reason for this favourable
comparison is that Carpophorus killed twenty beasts in one venatio. (32)
18. A wily doe, pursued by hounds, stops in front of the emperor, behaving
like a suppliant. The emperor, displaying his clemency, grants her
request and with his divine power turns the hounds away. (33)

Commodus (AD 192)

On the mornings of the fourteen-day munus discussed in the previous chap-
ter, Commodus participated in a number of venationes that took place in the
Colosseum. Unlike his play–acting as a gladiator, Commodus had the skills
of a professional venator. Herodian tells us that Mauretanian spearmen and

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Parthian archers, generally considered the finest in the world, trained him.
Commodus was reputed to have surpassed his teachers in these skills.185 His
hunting skills, however, far surpassed his courage. In the morning of the
first day, he did not go into the arena with his feral opponents, but instead
took a ‘shooting fish in a barrel’ approach. The arena of the Colosseum was
divided by two intersecting walls into four ‘pens’ which contained altogether
one hundred bears and prevented them from getting out of range of
Commodus’ spears. He took his position on a narrow platform with a rail-
ing that was connected to the arena wall and went around the whole arena.
Thus, he was easily able to spear all one hundred bears at close range.186
When Commodus stopped in the midst of all this carnage to take a drink of
wine, the people and the senators, cowed by his psychopathic cruelty,
shouted ‘may you live [a long time]’, the very opposite of what they were
thinking.187 At other times, the senators and the equestrians frequently
shouted on command this obsequious jingle: ‘You are lord, and you are first
and most successful of all. You are a winner, you will be a winner. You are a
perpetual winner, Amazonian’. Commodus received this epithet because he
had been so taken with a portrait of his mistress Marcia dressed as an
Amazon that he too wanted to appear in the arena dressed as an Amazon.188
By the time of this venatio, all Rome had become disgusted with Com-
modus’ erratic behaviour, but the senators and the equestrians, unlike the
anonymous common people, had no choice but to attend. All realized that
Commodus could have them killed for their absence. The plebs, who at
least enjoyed anonymity, mostly chose not to be present.189
During the rest of the fourteen-day munus, Commodus continued to
perform in the venatio. There is almost a sneer in Cassius Dio’s eyewitness
account of Commodus going down into the arena and killing domestic ani-
mals, which the emperor-venator did not have to pursue. Some came up to
him willingly or if unwilling, were either led to him or brought in nets. On
other occasions, Commodus killed a tiger, a hippopotamus and an ele-
phant.190 Given his concern with safety, one wonders how much help the
emperor had in performing these usually extremely dangerous tasks.
Herodian, another eyewitness, gives a vivid account of a more impressive
performance by Commodus as an arena hunter.

Animals from all over the empire were collected for him and beasts un-
known before, which we wondered at in pictures from India and Ethiopia,

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from the south and the north, [Commodus] displayed to the Romans and
then killed. All were astounded by his hand’s accuracy. Taking arrows, the
tips of which were crescent-shaped and shooting them at Mauretanian
ostriches, quick-moving birds, both because of the speed of their feet and the
arching of their wings. He decapitated them at the top of their necks and
headless because of the force of the arrows, they still kept running around as
if nothing had happened to them. When a leopard running at full speed
seized upon a man summoned [into the arena], [Commodus], spearing the
animal just before it was about to sink his teeth into the man, killed it and
rescued him, striking the leopard’s teeth. On another occasion, when a hun-
dred lions were released into the arena from the subterranean area, he killed
all of them with an equal number of spears.191

Commodus used one of the decapitated ostrich heads to deliver an ominous

wordless message to his senators. Grinning, he held up to the senators the
head of an ostrich he had just killed and with his other hand lifted his
bloody sword as a warning. Some senators were on the verge of laughter
(perhaps, a nervous reaction). Cassius Dio, a senator, was one of this group.
He tells us that he helped his fellow senators to avoid offending Commodus
by telling them to chew laurel leaves from the garlands they were wearing
on their heads to suppress their laughter.192

The venatio in late antiquity

The venatio continued to be popular in Rome and elsewhere for a long
time, outlasting gladiatorial combat. Even in the politically chaotic third
century AD with twenty-three changes of emperor, venationes were still
being given regularly. Gordian I (AD 238), when he served as an aedile, gave
one munus per month, in each of which he included a spectacular animal
hunt. Although the Historia Augusta, our source for the following
venationes, has a tendency to exaggerate, even discounted figures would be
impressive. The Historia says that at one of Gordian’s venationes one hun-
dred ‘Libyan wild beasts’ (large cats) participated, while at another show,
one thousand bears.193 The emperor Probus (AD 276–82) at one show
presented one hundred lions, whose ‘roars sounded like thunder’. Despite
the large number of lions, this show was almost a failure. Probus ran into a
typical problem. The male lions, when released from their cages, did not

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rush forward to meet their human opponents. Many were killed by arrows
near their cages, rather than by hunters at close range with spears, a disap-
pointing show for the spectators. Fortunately for Probus, he had a large re-
serve of more aggressive predators: one hundred Libyan leopards, one
hundred Syrian leopards, one hundred lionesses and three hundred bears.194
More notable was the show that Philip the Arab (AD 244–249), presented for
Rome’s millennium celebration of its founding in AD 248. In addition to one
thousand pairs of gladiators, Philip’s animal show included thirty-two ele-
phants, ten elk ten tigers, sixty tame leopards, ten hyenas, six hippopotami,
one rhinoceros, ten lions, ten giraffes, twenty wild asses, forty wild horses
and numberless assorted (and unnamed) animals. All were slain.195
During the third century, an unusual feature was added to the venatio, a
sort of do-it-yourself event in which wild and tame animals were released
into the arena and spectators were allowed to kill them in any way they
could. The reward for these amateur ‘hunters’ was not the glory of a pro-
fessional arena hunter, but the animal meat which they could take home and
feast upon. Julius Capitolinus, the author of the biography of Gordian I in
the Historia Augusta, describes a painting he saw in the emperor’s house
depicting a venatio given by Gordian. In the painting were depicted two
hundred stags, some identified as palmati (‘having antlers shaped like the
palm of a hand’) and others as ‘British’. In addition, there were thirty wild
horses, one hundred wild sheep, ten elk, one hundred Cyprian bulls, three
hundred Mauretanian red ostriches, thirty wild asses, one hundred and fifty
wild boar, two hundred chamois (a type of mountain goat) and two hun-
dred fallow deer. Capitolinus says Gordian ‘handed over all these animals to
the people to be seized [and killed]’.196 Given the large numbers of animals,
this event could have only been managed by releasing each group of animals
to the crowd in the arena consecutively. Probus presented a similar event
but with many more animals: one thousand ostriches, one thousand stags,
one thousand wild boar, and a large unspecified number of deer, ibexes,
wild sheep and other herbivores. The people were admitted to the arena
and ‘each seized whatever he wanted’.197 In a venatio given by Elagabalus
(AD 218–222) spectators ‘seized’ fatted cattle, camels and asses.198
This new feature of the venatio was actually only a variation of a practice
that went back at least to the first century AD, in which tokens were thrown
to the crowd, with which they could redeem valuable gifts, including meat

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from animals slain in the venatio (sparsio, discussed in Chapter 3). When, in
the late first century AD, Martial writes that ‘the generous token gives [to
the people] wild animals watched in the arena’, he does not mean that live
wild animals were given to holders of these tokens, but that the holders re-
ceived butchered meat.199 Live birds, however, could be redeemed by those
who had the proper token and taken home to be eaten. The birds were
awarded by token because the previous practice of throwing the birds them-
selves (with their wings clipped) to the crowd resulted in their being torn to
pieces.200 Whenever gifts or tokens for redeeming gifts were thrown into
the crowd, there was also danger that the scramble this created could result
in injury among the spectators.201 One wonders what injuries and even
deaths occurred among the crowd when they were attempting to seize and
kill large wild animals in the arena, as in the venationes of Gordian I and
Probus, especially when many spectators in the arena must have been
armed.
Christianity had no serious objections to animal hunts, and in times of
economic crisis they were perhaps conducted on a smaller scale.202 The last
venationes ever given may have been the shows presented by Eutaricus
Cillica, in AD 519, and by Anicius Maximus, in AD 523, to celebrate their
accession to the consulship. Cillica was the son-in-law of Theodoric, the
Christian king of Italy, who must have granted permission to give these
shows. When these venationes were presented, over three-quarters of cen-
tury had passed since the last gladiator combat had been given. There is no
doubt that Theodoric found the venatio objectionable. In a letter to the
consul Maximus, he calls the spectacle ‘an abominable performance’, ‘a
wretched contest’, ‘the worst in its action’, ‘a cruel game’ and ‘a bloody
pleasure’, but even Theodoric recognized that the great popularity of this
spectacle among the people made its presentation mandatory. He tells
Maximus that it is his duty to present these shows and to reward the vena-
tores for the risks they incur more generously than other entertainers such
as wrestlers, singers and organ-players.203 One can detect in Theodoric’s
ambivalent attitude towards the venatio a hint of the admiration that had
long ago been expressed for the courage of gladiators.
Although the venatio as a regular popular entertainment seems to have
ceased in the sixth century, it seems never to have been forgotten com-
pletely. Bomgardner points out that in the sixteenth century the Sultan of

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Fez put on a show that can only be described as a venatio. The Sultan’s
spectacle included the slaughter of a lion by venatores and a fight between
a lion and bull. The venatores used the same technique of provoking the
lion that was discussed in Chapter 3: hunters standing in open doorways
that tease the animal into a furious charge and are closed at the last minute.
The tradition of the venatio is also evident in European circuses that
featured bear-baiting and trained animal acts, and even in the modern
bullfight.204

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Chapter 6

The Roman Amphitheatre

and the Colosseum


The amphitheatre

A s an architectural form, the Roman amphitheatre is one of the most

influential buildings from antiquity. With its seating in the form of
an ellipse surrounding an arena, it is the inspiration (with variations) for
European and American football stadia.
Perhaps the oldest surviving permanent stone structure for the presen-
tation of gladiators is the amphitheatre at Pompeii (c. 70 BC) (Figure 26).1
Other amphitheatres in Italy may be older but cannot be reliably dated. The
following inscription reveals the details of its origin:

C. Quinctius Valgus, son of C. [and] M. Porcius, son of M., fifth-year dual

magistrates [duoviri quinquennales] were responsible for the building of
this structure for public entertainment [spectacula] at their own expense in
honour of the colony [i.e., Pompeii, which was a Roman colony] and gave
the place in perpetuity to the colonists.2

Valgus and Porcius were no doubt following the custom of thanking their
fellow citizens for electing them to high office by giving a spectacle such as

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Figure 26 Amphitheatre at Pompeii. Vince Streano/Corbis

gladiatorial combat and/or a venatio or, as in this case, erecting a public

building. The impetus for building a permanent amphitheatre is connected
with the fact that P. Sulla directed the foundation of Pompeii as a colony for
his uncle’s veterans, who no doubt were enthusiastic about a site for the
paramilitary violence of gladiatorial combat.3 Note that the building is called
a spectacula (literally, ‘seats for viewing a spectacle’); the Greek-derived
word amphitheatrum (‘structure for viewing in the round’) was not used
until the Augustan period. It is not freestanding like later amphitheatres.
The arena was created by excavating earth, which was then heaped up as a
support for the upper seating. The façade wall, which serves as a retaining
wall for the excavated earth, has a blind arcade and staircases leading to a
walkway and access to the seating.4
The city of Rome did not have a permanent stone amphitheatre until
29 BC, 235 years after the first appearance of gladiatorial combat in the city.
Why this delay? Rome before 29 BC certainly did not lack generous patrons
like the ones at Pompeii, who would have been glad to provide a permanent
amphitheatre to their fellow citizens. The reason lies in the conservatism of

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the Roman authorities, who objected to permanent buildings dedicated to

entertainment.5 A permanent stone theatre was begun in 155 BC, but was
met with opposition by the consul, Scipio Nasica.6 The reasons for this re-
sistance given by ancient authors (long after the fact) arose from various
moral and political concerns. Tacitus mentions the danger of corruption of
the Roman people, who might be tempted by the existence of a permanent
theatre to waste day after day in idleness.7 Valerius Maximus cites the
diminution of Roman manhood that would be the result of sitting (like the
Greeks) instead of standing at the ludi.8 At the order of Nasica, the con-
struction of the theatre was halted and the incipient structure demolished.
In explaining his action, Nasica expressed two concerns: that the Roman
people might be infected with Greek hedonism and that large gatherings of
people in a compact area might lead to seditious rioting.9 At the same time,
there was a decree of the Senate forbidding the building of a theatre within
a mile of the city.10 By the middle of the first century BC, objections to a
permanent stone theatre seem to have softened because Pompey built such
a theatre, which was dedicated in 55 BC, but apparently even the great
Pompey felt obliged to make obeisance to Roman scruples. In order to fore-
stall objections, he employed the transparent charade of putting a small
temple of Venus Victrix (‘Venus the Conqueror’) at the top of the seating
area.11 Thus, the seating area of the theatre could be said to be nothing but
stairs ascending to Venus’ temple. All the considerations that postponed the
construction of a permanent stone theatre at Rome also delayed the build-
ing of a permanent amphitheatre.
Without a permanent structure, gladiator shows were given in available
open areas. As we saw in Chapter 4, the first gladiator combat at Rome in
264 BC took place in the Cattle Market and later munera were moved to
Forum, where there was a large open area, trapezoidal in shape. This area
was approximately 320 feet long and 164 feet wide.12 In the beginning,
most spectators most probably stood around the action in accordance with
Roman custom. There were, however, special places available that had been
first used to view ludi.13 These places were balconies projecting from the
roofs of the buildings surrounding the Forum plaza and were no doubt
reserved for upper-class Romans. The balconies were called maeniana,
the name being derived from that of the censor C. Maenius, who first in-
stalled them in 318 BC. The term was later applied to the different levels of
seating in the amphitheatre.14 There would not have been an opportunity

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to view gladiators from these vantage points until the munus in honour of
M. Aemilius Lepidus (216 BC), the first recorded gladiator show in the
Forum. In the fourth and third centuries BC, the balconies must have been
attached to the upper façade of houses that lined the Forum. Welch suggests
that owners of the houses could have used the balconies themselves along
with friends and clients or even rented them out to editores. In the early sec-
ond century, shops and monumental basilicas replaced the houses, but this
was not the end of the maeniana.15 Balconies were attached to the second
storey of the shops and were extended over the second-storey columns of
the basilicas.16 In accordance with the objection of Roman authorities to
sitting while viewing entertainments, spectators stood on these balconies.17
At least by the middle of the second century BC (but probably much
earlier), the objection of moralists to sitting at entertainment seems to have
been overcome and it became the practice to erect temporary wooden seat-
ing for ludi and gladiatorial events in the Forum. The fight over seats be-
tween theatregoers and gladiator fans at the funeral games for L. Aemilius
Paullus in 160 BC (described in Chapter 4) presumes the existence of tem-
porary seating. It also reveals that the Romans presented gladiatorial com-
bat in the theatre, as the Greeks did later.18 The first we hear of seating in
the elliptical form of an amphitheatre is from Plutarch in his report of an in-
cident in 122 BC. Magistrates built seating ‘in a circular form’ (en kulōi) for
a munus in the Forum, which they planned to sell to spectators.19 We know
that Plutarch does not mean a real circle but an oval because Cassius Dio
uses the same word (kuklos) to describe the oval arena of the Colosseum.20
The elliptical shape of these stands was designed to take advantage of the
irregular space available in the Forum in order to accommodate as many
spectators as possible and provide them with the best possible vantage
points for viewing the action.21 C. Gracchus, a tribune of the people, strongly
objected to the lower classes having to pay for their seats, which went
against the tradition of free seating at spectacles. Gracchus therefore or-
dered the seating to be taken down ‘so that the poor could watch the spec-
tacle for free’. There is no mention of the possibility of the poor watching
the spectacle while standing, so the oval seating must have been uninter-
rupted with no gaps. After the magistrates ignored his order, Gracchus had
the seating torn down the night before the show. By the middle of the next
century, these elliptical stands seem to have had gaps that provided space for
standing room behind fencing. Cicero speaks of his client Sestius receiving

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applause at a munus in the Forum from the seats and from spectators
behind ‘barriers’.22
By the 50s BC, architectural display had become another mode of com-
petition available to givers of spectacles. In 58 BC the aedile M. Aemilius
Scaurus organized ludi for which he built a fabulous wooden theatre. What
was notable about Scaurus’ temporary theatre was its scale and capacity. The
elaborately decorated stage building which formed the backdrop of the
action onstage was three stories high with 360 columns. The first storey
was of marble, the second of glass and the third of gilded wood. Placed be-
tween the columns were 3,000 bronze statues. Pliny the Elder claims that
its capacity was 80,000 people (a gross exaggeration, but its capacity must
have been unusually large).23 Pliny adds that Scaurus’ dazzling building
made the aspiring politician C. Scribonius Curio despair of ever surpassing
Scaurus’ achievement and making a lasting impression on the Roman
people. Curio, however, used his own ingenuity and that of his architects to
great effect. In 52 BC he presented a munus in honour of his father in a
wooden amphitheatre that caused a great sensation. Curio’s amphitheatre,
like all preceding wooden entertainment venues in the Forum, was clearly
temporary, but it was not taken down immediately after the munus, no
doubt because of its special character. It was still in use in June, 51 BC, when
a hostile crowd hissed the great orator Hortensius there.24 (We do not
know when it was finally dismantled.) By contrast, Scaurus’ theatre, like
most other temporary structures, was dismantled less than a month after its
construction.25 Curio had two semicircular wooden theatres built on a
pivot. In the morning, two different dramatic presentations were given in
these theatres positioned back to back. In the afternoon, the two sets of
stands were swivelled about so that when they came together, they formed
an oval surrounding a sandy central area (arena) for the gladiatorial combat.26
Thus, the two theatres had been miraculously transformed in a matter of
minutes into an amphitheatre. It would seem that this wondrous theatre/
amphitheatre was as much part of the show as the gladiators. It was no
doubt designed to surprise the spectators when the two theatres began to
pivot. Pliny mentions that the pivoting began all of a sudden. The effect
must have been like that of a thrill ride in a modern amusement park.

The people displayed the greatest madness of all in sitting on such an

untrustworthy and unstable structure . . . hanging on a machine and

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GLADIATORS

applauding its own danger. Behold the whole Roman people, as if placed on
two ships, is supported by two hinges and sees itself struggling, about to per-
ish at any moment on machines that have fallen apart.27

Some spectators even continued to enjoy the ride after the first days of the
munus, remaining in their seats as the device went through its scary trans-
formation. The Roman people were enjoying their own fear. Curio had
achieved his goal: a munus that would be long remembered, even longer
than Scaurus’ theatre.
In 46 BC, Julius Caesar built a temporary wooden structure for the
venatio and gladiatorial combat he presented as part of his triumphal games.
It was located in the Forum, like its many predecessors. Cassius Dio identi-
fies it clearly as an amphitheatre.

He erected a hunting-theatre, which was also called an amphitheatre from

its continuous seating all around without a stage. Both in honour of this
[building] and his daughter [Julia], he presented the slaughters of wild
animals and gladiator combats.28

Caesar was probably the author of the underground corridors dating from
the first century BC, which have been discovered in the Forum with evi-
dence of what may have been hoists to lift gladiators and animals from the
subterranean area on to the Forum floor.29 In this way, Caesar was able to
avoid the dangerous risk of having gladiators and caged animals wait their
turn outside the amphitheatre in the Forum.30 An escape by armed gladia-
tors and/or wild beasts would pose a serious threat to the safety of Roman
citizens. Tertullian, in listing typical misfortunes experienced by mankind,
mentions being killed by wild animals which have escaped from their cages
in the midst of the city.31 This underground area (hypogeum) remained in
use until the Forum was repaved during the reign of Augustus and served
as a storage area for the presentation of munera, just as they did later in am-
phitheatres.32 The hypogeum was also a feature of amphitheatres in Italy
(Capua and Puozzoli) and in the provinces (Trier in Germany, El Djem in
Tunisia and Pula in Croatia). Trapdoors can still be seen in the surviving
concrete floors of these amphitheatres.33
During the Republic and the early empire, the Circus Maximus, Rome’s
oldest and largest racetrack, was occasionally used for gladiator shows, but,
after chariot racing for which it was originally designed, its most common

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use was for venationes.34 It was not well suited for viewing gladiatorial duels
because a pair of gladiators tended to be swallowed up by its vastness cover-
ing a rectangular space of approximately 10.7 acres. Venationes were better
served because of the large number of animals often in action at the same
time, but the site was still not ideal for that entertainment. As we have seen,
Julius Caesar used the Circus Maximus for staged infantry battles during
his triumphal games in 46 BC for which the site was more suitable.35
The Forum, however, remained the primary site for gladiatorial combat
throughout the Republic into the early empire both in Rome and in the rest
of Italy in towns that lacked a permanent stone amphitheatre.36 The last re-
ported munus presented in the Forum was given by the future emperor
Tiberius to honour his father in the 20s BC.37
While Romans were still watching gladiator shows in temporary am-
phitheatres in the Forum, permanent stone amphitheatres continued to be
built outside of Rome, especially in Campania, the major centre in Italy for
gladiatorial combat. Bomgardner lists ten amphitheatres built in Campania
during the last century of the Republic. In this same period, there were also
two amphitheatres built within a 60 mile radius north of Rome, two in
Spain and one in Antioch (Syria).38 Welch has plausibly argued that the
architectural form of these Campanian permanent amphitheatres was derived
from the temporary wooden stands in the Roman Forum. She also points
out that the building of these permanent amphitheatres in Campanian cities
was an architectural demonstration of their Roman sympathies.39 The same
could be said of the permanent amphitheatres that were built in the early
imperial period throughout the western provinces, where the remains of
252 amphitheatres have been discovered.40 Amphitheatres were also built in
the eastern provinces but in much smaller numbers, perhaps twenty at the
most.41 For example, there was an amphitheatre at Corinth, whose origin
can likely be traced to the re-foundation of the famous old Greek city as a
Roman colony by Julius Caesar in 44 BC.42 Caesar may have also been re-
sponsible for the amphitheatre at Antioch, which had a Roman garrison in
the late Republic.43 In general, however, the Greeks found it more conve-
nient to use pre-existing stadia (originally built as sites of athletic games) and
remodelled theatres for gladiator games and venationes.44 In the theatre, the
gladiators fought either on the stage or in the orchestra.45 The Athenians
held gladiatorial shows in the famous theatre of Dionysus where the plays of
Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and Aristophanes had been presented in

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the fifth century BC. The philosopher Apollonius (first century AD) warned
the Athenians that they were alienating both Dionysus and Athena with the
human slaughter that took place in the theatre.46 Apollonius’ contemporary
Dio Chrysostom condemns the sacrilege of having gladiators fight in the
orchestra where the Athenians placed a statue of Dionysus during his festi-
val. He notes that there are even times when the fight reached the lowest
rows of the theatre, splattering with blood the priest of Dionysus and other
religious officials sitting in honorary seats.47 The proximity of spectators to
the fighting in the theatre could be dangerous for them. In Syracuse (Greek
Sicily), a retiarius accidentally killed a spectator, a Roman equestrian. When
the retiarius forced his opponent into the crowd in the lowest rows of the
theatre, he missed with a thrust of his weapon and stabbed the equestrian
instead.48 Spectators in an amphitheatre enjoyed the protection of a high
wall around the arena.
Statilius Taurus built Rome’s stone amphitheatre in 30 BC in the
Campus Martius as part of Augustus’ building programme.49 (There are no
extant remains.) Welch speculates that, since the amphitheatre was com-
pletely destroyed in the great fire of AD 64, a good part of its interior was
made of wood, the combination of wood and stone being a common con-
struction technique of the late Republic and early empire.50 Taurus, one of
Augustus’ most trusted generals, used the spoils of war from his victories in
Africa (for which he received a triumph) to build the amphitheatre.51 We do
know some details about its maintenance staff. An inscription on the tomb
of the Statilii announces that Charito, a custodian of the amphitheatre, was
buried there.52 Another inscription on the same tomb proclaims the pres-
ence of Menander, a doorkeeper of the amphitheatre.53 Both of these men
were likely Greek freedmen. (It was common for prominent families to
make room in their monumental tombs for their freedmen and freed-
women.) In return for Statilius’ generous gift to the Roman people, he re-
ceived the honour of choosing one of the praetors each year.54 Augustus
must have been certain of his loyalty because the popularity that such a gift
would bring to the donor could be a dangerous instrument in the hands
of an ambitious man. Statilius’ amphitheatre, however, failed to become a
favoured site for munera. Imperial munera were only occasionally given
there.55 Cassius Dio tells us that Caligula did not like this amphitheatre,
although he does not say why.56 Welch suggests that the grand amphithe-
atre at Verona (still standing), perhaps built during the reign of Claudius,

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may have made the Roman amphitheatre look ‘small and old fashioned’.57
Caligula had just begun the construction of a new amphitheatre near the
Saepta but it was not finished when he was assassinated. Claudius aban-
doned the project.58
From the time of Augustus until the dedication of the Colosseum in
AD 80, a building in the Campus Martius called the Saepta served as a site
for munera. The Saepta or, as it was sometimes called, the Ovile (‘sheep
corral’), was an unroofed enclosure in which Romans voted during the
Republic. In 54 BC, Julius Caesar had planned to rebuild it, but we are not
sure that he ever began the reconstruction.59 In any case, its rebuilding was
finished with surrounding porticos by the triumvir M. Aemilius Lepidus and
later dedicated by Maecenas (26 BC), who decorated it with ‘marble slabs
and paintings’.60 Its new official title was the Saepta Julia, in honour of
Augustus. Even before popular elections were transferred to the Senate, the
Saepta began to be used for spectacles, especially gladiator games and animal
hunts. It was used for this purpose quite regularly during the reigns of
Augustus, Claudius and Caligula. Its enormous size (covering about 8 acres)
made it suitable for accommodating large crowds.61 Seating must have
been added to the Saepta Julia, but no remains of the building or seating
have survived.
The Saepta remained the primary site for munera until the construction
of a large wooden amphitheatre by Nero (dedicated in AD 57) in the Campus
Martius. Neither the rectangular Saepta nor Taurus’ undersized stone am-
phitheatre served the presentation of munera well. It is not certain whether
Nero’s amphitheatre, despite its wooden construction, was intended as a
permanent amphitheatre or just a stopgap. Its magnificence, however,
might argue for the former. Nero’s amphitheatre was impressive enough to
inspire a contemporary poet to write a description of it. That poet was
Calpurnius Siculus, who incorporated into one of his Bucolics a description
of a venatio given by Nero at the dedication of the new amphitheatre. The
poet’s theme is not just the venatio but the amphitheatre itself with its
newly devised equipment. We see this new building through the eyes of a
rustic named Corydon, who attended this venatio and upon his return
home reports to his friend that Nero’s amphitheatre was the most impress-
ive thing he had seen in the big city. He mentions a conversation he had
with an old man who sat next to him in the amphitheatre and the compari-
son the old man had made with past sites of spectacles: ‘Whatever we have

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seen in prior years was cheap and tacky’.62 Tacitus gives a backhanded com-
pliment to Nero’s amphitheatre, citing its massiveness:

[At this time] few things happened worthy of mention unless one likes fill-
ing volumes with praise of the foundations and wooden beams, with which
Nero had constructed his huge amphitheatre in the Campus Martius.63

Corydon is overwhelmed by the great height of the amphitheatre, noting

that it ‘almost looks down on the Tarpeian summit (the highest point of the
Capitoline Hill)’.64 Of course, one must allow for poetic hyperbole, but even
so its height must have been impressive. The Capitoline Hill at its greatest
height rises approximately 165 feet above the Forum; the Colosseum is
157.5 feet high.65 Thus, even if Nero’s amphitheatre was somewhat lower
than the peak of the Capitoline Hill, it still would have been close to the
height of the Colosseum.
There was, however, more to this amphitheatre than just its massive size.
The old man sitting next to him points out to Corydon the luxurious
adornments of the building: ‘Look at how the gems decorating the wall
(balteus) and the porticos adorned with gold compete with each other as
they gleam in the sunlight’.66 We know something about these ‘gems’ from
another source. Pliny the Elder tells us that a certain Julianus, Nero’s man
in charge (curator) of gladiator games, sent a Roman equestrian in search of
amber from Pannonia (modern western Hungary) to Germany’s Baltic
coast. This man was quite successful in his search and returned to Rome
with large amounts, which were used to decorate the knots in the nets pro-
tecting the crowd from wild beasts, weapons, the stretchers for the dead and
wounded, and other apparatus. There appears to be a small discrepancy
when the old man refers to the knots in the nets as decorated with gold, but
Pliny also mentions that amber was used on only one day of the spectacle;
other valuable ornaments were used on other days.67
Other striking features of Nero’s amphitheatre pointed out by Corydon
were two devices to protect spectators from large predators, which might be
able to climb the arena wall. Staged animal hunts could prove a danger to
spectators as was demonstrated in a venatio given by Pompey in the Circus
Maximus in 55 BC, when frenzied elephants almost broke down an iron
fence that protected the spectators. This incident led Julius Caesar in 46 BC
to have a circular trench (euripus) filled with water dug in the Circus

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Maximus to keep dangerous large animals away from the crowd.68 The
most innovative safety device in Nero’s amphitheatre was a large ivory cylin-
der (rotulus) that was attached horizontally to the wall surrounding the
arena. With its revolving motion and slippery surface, it would have frus-
trated attempts of large cats to reach spectators sitting closest to the arena.69
Corydon also mentions nets extending into the arena that were attached to
elephant tusks projecting from the arena wall.70 If, as it would seem, the
nets were also intended as a safety device, the poet’s use of rotulus in the sin-
gular and retia (‘nets’) in the plural may suggest an explanation of the re-
dundancy. Since there apparently was only one rotulus, it would seem
logical that this cylinder was attached to the arena wall immediately in front
of the emperor’s box for extra protection. Then one could assume that the
nets extended around the rest of the arena wall to protect the other specta-
tors. In fact, there might have been nets in front of the emperor’s box in ad-
dition to the rotulus. Nero may have seen this device as a necessary security
measure.71 There is, however, a possibility that the nets served another pur-
pose: to keep the animals, overwhelmed by the bright sun and the noisy
crowd, from cowering against the wall where some spectators could not see
them.72 Scobie notes that there are stone sockets for fence posts in the arena
of the Colosseum, 4 metres from the arena wall and 43⁄4 metres from each
other, most likely for the purpose of spectator security.73 He also points out
that although some scholars have assumed that this fence had a rotulus and
was attached to nets suspended from elephant tusks, there is no reason to
believe that these features of Nero’s amphitheatre ever appeared in the
Colosseum.74
During the inaugural games of the Nero’s amphitheatre, however, dan-
ger to the emperor came from a source other than wild animals. One of the
features of these games was the enactment of the stories of Pasiphae and
Icarus, but not as a means of executing criminals, as discussed earlier.75
Nero had hired Greek youths to play the roles of Pasiphae and Icarus and
promised them Roman citizenship in return for their work in the spectacle.
After the enactment of Pasiphae’s penetration by the bull came a represen-
tation of the fate of Icarus: the loss in mid-flight of the artificial wings made
by his father Daedalus and his fall into the sea. When the actor playing
Icarus was released from whatever device was keeping him airborne (per-
haps a crane with a cable), it was no doubt intended that he would fall into
a net or into a tank of water. Instead, he was released at the wrong time, and

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landed close enough to Nero to spatter him with blood. Suetonius seems to
imply that this incident led Nero to preside over spectacles rarely, and when
he did, to watch through small openings from a completely enclosed box.
Only later, perhaps when he had regained his courage, did he sit on the
open podium. Suetonius, however, does not clearly indicate that safety was
the purpose of the enclosed box.76
Nero’s amphitheatre had an underground storage area (hypogeum),
which allowed animals to be released from their underground cages onto
the arena floor through trap doors, as we have seen, a feature associated
with gladiatorial combat and the venatio since the late first century BC. As
noted in the previous chapter, Corydon notes the employment of trap doors
through which trees were pushed up through the sand in a cloud of saffron
spray to create an appropriately rustic setting for the animal hunt.77

Colosseum
When Martial composed his Book of Spectacles, he chose to open it with a
paean to the grand new amphitheatre, known today as the Colosseum, com-
paring it favourably to the other wonders of the ancient world.

Let Memphis be silent about the barbarian splendour of the pyramids,

And let Assyrian labour not boast of Babylon;
Let the effeminate Ionians not be praised because of the temple of Diana,
Let the altar crowded with horns allow Delos to exist in obscurity;
Let the Carians not glorify Mausolus’ tomb hanging in empty air.
Let all work yield to Caesar’s amphitheatre,
Fame will speak of one work in preference to all of the above.78

To be sure, Martial is guilty of poetic hyperbole, but his enthusiasm for

the Colosseum is not unjustified. The structure was a marvel to all who saw
it in its original state. When the eastern emperor, Constantius II (son of
Constantine), first visited Rome in AD 358, he too was led to overstatement,
awed by the monumental size of the Colosseum. He referred to ‘the solid
massiveness of the amphitheatre constructed of travertine from Tibur,
whose summit human eyesight had to strain to see’.79 The exaggeration rep-
resents well the emotional impact that the Colosseum must have had on
those who saw it for the first time. Note that Martial refers to this building as
‘Caesar’s [i.e., the emperor’s] amphitheatre’ and not the ‘Colosseum’, a

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Figure 27 Reconstruction of Colosseum with colossal statue of Nero on the far left and the
Meta Sudans (fountain) in foreground right. Note the statues framed by the arches on the sec-
ond and third levels and the masts for the awnings in their sockets. © Bettmann/Corbis

name unknown until the early Middle Ages. Its official name was the
‘Flavian Amphitheatre’ because it was built by the Flavian emperors,
Vespasian and his two sons Titus and Domitian, but in practice it was re-
ferred to simply as ‘the amphitheatre’. This is not surprising since it was the
only amphitheatre in Rome and was unique in size and beauty throughout
the whole empire. The later name ‘Colosseum’ has two possible origins: the
colossal size of the structure itself or a colossal bronze statue (colossus) of
Nero (Figure 27), estimated to be between 99 and 116 feet tall, that had
stood near it in ancient times. This statue had originally stood by the en-
trance to Nero’s Golden House (Domus Aurea).80 After the great fire of AD
64, Nero appropriated the land on which he built his palace and installed a
large artificial lake, which later would become the site of the Colosseum.81
After the Golden House had been demolished and the lake drained and
filled in, the colossal statue of Nero remained in place, but soon found itself
in proximity to the new amphitheatre. It has been claimed that a famous
poem attributed (wrongly) to the Venerable Bede dating from the eighth
century AD may refer to the Flavian Amphitheatre under the name
‘Colisaeus’ (the colossal building).82

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As long as the Colisaeus will stand,

Rome will also stand;
When the Colisaeus will fall,
Rome will also fall . . .

It is more likely, however, that Colisaeus refers to the statue and not the
building. The word colosseus is in origin an adjective that adjusts its form to
colosseum when it modifies a neuter noun such as amphitheatrum. The
masculine noun Colisaeus of the ‘Bede’ poem, therefore, might better be
interpreted as a medieval variant of colossus, classical Latin for ‘a huge statue’.
More recent opinion favors this interpretation.83 Rossella Rea argues per-
suasively that the Colosseum was not referred to as the Ampitheatrum
Colosseum until the tenth century AD.84
Once Vespasian had come to power after the civil wars that followed
Nero’s suicide, he decided to restore the land that Nero had appropriated to
the rightful owners, the Roman people. Martial expresses his gratitude to
Vespasian’s son Titus for this dramatic change in Rome’s landscape by com-
paring the glorious present with the terrible Neronian past:

Here where the gleaming colossus sees the stars from a closer distance
And high scaffolding increases in the middle of the road,
The hateful halls of the savage king [Nero] used to radiate light and
One home [the Golden House] then was occupying the whole city.
Here where the venerable mass of the remarkable amphitheatre
Is being erected, was the artificial lake.
Here where we wonder at the quickly built gift of bath buildings,
The haughty estate had taken away homes from the poor.
Where the Claudian portico unfolds extensive shadows,
Was the very edge of [Nero’s] Palace.
Rome has been restored to itself and under your leadership, Caesar [Titus],
This area is now the delight of the people, which had been the private
pleasure of the tyrant.85

Nero had taken the path of the tyrant, making his extravagant home with its
colossal statue an expression of his egotism and power, whereas Vespasian
and Titus had followed the example of Julius Caesar, spending vast amounts
of money for the benefit of the Roman people. Vespasian’s generosity to
the people is even more remarkable because of his well-known aversion to

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gladiator games.86 The Colosseum, a structure for all the Roman people to
enjoy, replaced Nero’s Golden House, a blatant symbol of Nero’s tyranny.
Just as was the case with Statilius Taurus’ stone amphitheatre, the
Colosseum was financed from the spoils of war. Considerable plunder had
been taken by Vespasian and Titus from the Jewish war. A relief on the
inside of Titus’ triumphal arch shows numerous valuable objects taken from
the temple of Jerusalem (for example, the great menorah). Vespasian dedi-
cated much of this plunder to the goddess of Peace and deposited it in
her new temple, which he had built. There were, however, many other
valuable spoils of war that were awarded to Vespasian personally, which it
was his right to sell for profit. The phrase ex manubis in the reconstructed
inscription below refers to those spoils that he could have used to enrich
himself but instead used to finance the building of the Colosseum, prefer-
ring the glory and the gratitude of the people.87 No greater individual gift
had been given to the Roman people either before or after the building of
the Colosseum.

IMP CAES VESPASIANUS AVG

AMPHITHEATRUM NOVVUM
EX MANVBIS FIERI IVSSIT

The emperor Caesar Vespasian Augustus

ordered that a new amphitheatre be constructed
from the spoils [of the Jewish War]88

The bronze letters of this inscription were originally attached to a block of

marble found in the Colosseum. The letters were later removed and replaced
in the fifth century AD with another inscription incised in the marble. The
nails holding the original bronze letters left holes that, in their arrangement,
gave clues to the words of the original inscription.89 An interpretation of
these holes suggests that a ‘T’, an abbreviation for Titus, was squeezed later
into a separating space in the first line of the above inscription between the
abbreviations meaning ‘the emperor Caesar’ (IMPTCAES VESPASIANUS
AVG) after Vespasian’s death to give his son Titus credit for his completion
of the Colosseum.90
At just about the same time as the construction of the Colosseum,
another amphitheatre of significantly smaller scale was built in a small town
in central Italy called Urbs Salvia (modern Urbisaglia) by a certain L. Flavius

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GLADIATORS

Silva Nonius Bassus, no doubt also from the spoils of the Jewish war. Silva,
during his governorship of Judaea, was the commander of a Roman army
that besieged and took Masada. An inscription details his distinguished
career, ending with the consulship and his service as a pontifex, one of a
board of the chief religious officials at Rome, and credits him with the
building of the town’s amphitheatre on his own property and at his own
expense.91 It must have been quite small. Only 650 seats were allocated to
the common people of the town, who must have been considerably more
numerous than the elites.92 Nonetheless, it must have been received with
great enthusiasm in Urbs Salvia. It was a sign of the town’s Romanness, in
the way that a gymnasium was essential to the identity of a Greek city. The
Romans valued the amphitheatre at least as much as any other public build-
ing, and perhaps even more. Coleman calls attention to an inscription
praising a wealthy patroness that puts building an amphitheatre on the
same level as constructing a temple: ‘Ummidia Quartilla, daughter of Gaius,
built an amphitheatre and a temple for the citizens of Casinum (near modern
Cassino) at her own expense’.93
In addition to its overwhelming size, the Colosseum was an artistic suc-
cess: a marriage of outer graceful beauty and symmetry with inner order and
functionality. The exterior façade consists of three stories of superimposed
arcades with each storey consisting of eighty arches, and a fourth storey at
the top with windows instead of arches. Engaged columns (pilasters) with
capitals of three different architectural orders divide the arches from each
other. On the bottom level, the columns have Tuscan capitals (an Italic ver-
sion of the Greek Doric order), on the second, Ionic capitals, and the third,
Corinthian capitals. The arches on the second and third stories served as
frames for statues, which have long disappeared, removed by looters over
the centuries. On the fourth storey, the windows are framed by pilasters of
the Corinthian order and are positioned over every other arch on the third
level (Figure 27).
When the Colosseum was dedicated in AD 80, it most likely did not have
this fourth storey, which was a later addition, probably during the reign of
Domitian.94 The fourth storey appears on a coin of Titus, but this may just
represent what the Colosseum was supposed to look like when it was finally
finished. The eighty arches on the ground floor served as entrances.95
Seventy-six of these arches had numbers inscribed above them, which were
essential for helping spectators to find their seats. The four entrances

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6: THE ROMAN AMPHITHEATRE AND COLOSSEUM

Figure 28 Bas-relief (detail) from the tomb of the Haterii in Rome depicting the Colosseum
with three stories of arcades without the windowed fourth storey added later. Vatican, Museo
Gregoriano Profano/Scala London

without a number were special points of entry, each at the ends of the am-
phitheatre’s major east/west and minor north/south, axes. Seats at both
ends of the minor axis provided the best vantage points in the amphithe-
atre.96 In a bas-relief on the tomb of the Haterii from the late first century
AD depicting the Colosseum (Figure 28), we see at ground level a monu-
mental entrance shaded by a porch with a pediment surmounted by four
horses, which were no doubt pulling a chariot with a driver (not visible).
The bas-relief gives us no idea on which end of the north/south axis this en-
trance was, but the coin of Gordian III (Figure 29) shows the entrance por-
tico (on the right) and gives two reference points, Domitian’s Meta Sudans,
a monumental fountain, and Nero’s colossal statue. We know that these two
monuments were located at the west end of the Colosseum.97 Since, on the
coin, the fountain and the colossus are to the left of the entrance portico,
the porch and pediment must have been on the south end of the minor axis
of the amphitheatre. The presence of an underground tunnel near the south
entrance leading into the lowest seating of the Colosseum confirms that this
was the side on which the emperor entered the building, at first through the
above-ground access and then later (perhaps beginning with the reign of
Domitian) through the tunnel.98 His final destination would have been his
box on the podium, of which there are no surviving remains. This under-
ground passageway may have been the place where Commodus was almost

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GLADIATORS

Figure 29 Coin of Gordian III depicting the Colosseum with fourth level. Note also the Meta
Sudans (fountain) and the colossal statue of Nero on the far left and the monumental entrance
on the far right. In the arena, a bull fights an elephant. The large human figure opposite the
fighting animals represents Gordian. © The Trustees of the British Museum

assassinated on his way into the Colosseum, for which reason the tunnel is
popularly called ‘Commodus’ passageway’ (cryptoporticus).99 The north en-
trance may have been for other important personages such as the praetors
and (later) quaestors who sponsored the annual munus. Suetonius tells us that
Augustus had assigned reserved seats to the Vestal Virgins on the other side
of the arena from the ‘praetor’s tribunal’. This tribunal may be the box in
which the presiding magistrates sat.100 The question is, where is this tribunal
in reference to the emperor’s box? Is it opposite the emperor’s box or on the
same side? Sorry to say, there is no definitive evidence of the tribunal’s exact
location. I would opt for the tribunal being opposite the emperor’s box,
which would put the Vestal Virgins on the south side somewhere near the
emperor, as in Gérôme’s painting. My feeling is that Augustus would have
wanted to give at least the appearance of the praetors’ independence by
placing them on the other side of the arena from himself. Intuition, however,
is not a very strong argument.

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Although there is no evidence, it is likely that the entrances on the east/

west major axis were the points of access for gladiators, venatores and wild
animals, at least until the Colosseum was connected with the Ludus Magnus
by an underground passageway.101 Rossella Rea and Silvia Orlandi claim
that the pompa, which began the gladiator show, entered through the en-
trance of the western end of the major axis. This is certainly possible, but
cannot be proved or disproved.102

Seating assignments
The seating assignments for the upper classes in the Colosseum, or, for that
matter, any other amphitheatre or theatre in Rome, Italy or the provinces,
were the result of practices that began to be formulated in the early second
century BC. Not surprisingly, senators, the most prestigious class of citizens
at Rome, were first to be singled out for priority seating at spectacles.
P. Scipio Africanus, the conqueror of Hannibal, had set the precedent at
ludi he sponsored in 194 BC during his second consulship.103 From that
time, senators had the best seats, closest to the action, in the orchestra of
the theatre or in lowest part of the amphitheatre. In 67 BC, a law of Roscius
Otho, a tribune of the people, confirmed the right of the equestrians, the
other elite class in Rome, to sit in the first fourteen rows above the orches-
tra of the theatre or immediately behind the senators in the amphithe-
atre.104 The seating privilege for the equestrians may have been customary
(not legally prescribed) prior to Roscius’ law, but it had been disregarded
since Sulla’s rise to power (late 80s BC).105 (Sulla was a notorious enemy of
the equestrian class.) A seat, however, was not guaranteed to every eques-
trian at every show. The equestrians were a much larger class than the
senators. Seneca, an equestrian, points out that if all the places were taken
when he arrived, he was out of luck. He had the right to sit in the equestri-
an section, but only if space was available.106 A famous anecdote confirms
the problem of overcrowding in the equestrian section. Augustus, annoyed
by an equestrian drinking in his seat, sent him a message: ‘If I want to have
lunch, I go home’. The quick-witted equestrian retorted: ‘You are not
afraid of losing your seat’.107 The problem of overcrowding in the eques-
trian section was occasionally exacerbated by unauthorized people sitting in
this section. This was a problem that did not plague the senators’ section.
Most likely any interloper would have been prevented from even entering

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GLADIATORS

the senatorial seating area (cavea) by ushers who could recognize sena-
tors at sight. No doubt many Romans envied the senators their seats, but
also realized that sitting in their section was an unrealizable dream.108
There is only one recorded example of what may have been unauthorized
sitting in the senators’ section. In the early 20s AD, there was an unpleasant
incident at a munus, in which a young noble named L. Sulla refused to give
up his place to a certain Domitius Corbulo, who was an ex-praetor and
therefore a senator of note.109 As E. Rawson points out, it is not clear what
Sulla’s status was.110 If he had not yet been elected to the quaestorship,
which was the qualification for entry into the Senate, he was indeed a tres-
passer. But since the quaestorship was held early in a man’s political career
(early 30s, which still might be called ‘young’), Sulla might have held this
office and therefore had a right to his seat. In this case, it would have been
just a matter of a younger man not giving due respect to an older and more
distinguished man. Another possibility is that the seating regulations for
some special reason were not in effect for this show. Even when Roscius’ law
of the fourteen rows was enforced, interlopers found it easier get into the
equestrian section. In 41 BC, Octavian, fresh from his victory the previous
year over Brutus and Cassius at Philippi, ordered a soldier removed from the
equestrian rows. A nasty rumour circulated that Octavian had this soldier
tortured and put to death, outraging soldiers present at the show. They
threatened Octavian’s life, but he was saved by the sudden appearance of
the soldier, who showed no evidence of physical injury.111
At some point between the death of Augustus (AD 14) and the reign of
Domitian (AD 81–96), the Roscian law stopped being enforced and it was
every man for himself, with equestrians competing with the common
people. As part of his policy of improving public manners, Domitian de-
cided to enforce the Roscian law again and banned the common people
from sitting among the equestrians.112 A favourite topos of Martial was the
attempt of various lower-class persons to circumvent Domitian’s decree.
Martial makes fun of the dogged attempts of a certain Nanneius, who got
used to sitting in the first row of the equestrian section when the law was in
abeyance. After having been chased out of his seat twice by an usher, he hid
behind two spectators by crouching down between two rows and watched
the show with a hood over his head. Soon he was discovered again by the
usher and made his way out into the aisle where he half sat on the very end
of the bench, trying to convince the annoyed equestrians he was sitting (and

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therefore belonged in their section) and the usher that he was only standing
in the aisle.113 Martial credits another usher with removing the haughty
Naevolus from a seat immediately behind the equestrian seating where
Martial was entitled to sit because of his position as a ‘tribune’.114 ‘Tribune’
here probably refers to the position of viator tribunicius (‘a tribunicial
messenger’), whose primary duty was to summon people to appear before a
magistrate. The viator tribunicius was one of the public servants (apparitores)
who, like scribes and lictors, were assistants to magistrates or performed
other public duties. Another interloper named Bassus proudly wore green
garments as he sat in the equestrian section in the pre-Domitianic era, but as
soon as the equestrian seating regulations were enforced again, he began to
wear cloaks richly dyed with aristocratic colours (scarlet and purple) to make
the usher think that he was rich enough to be an equestrian. Martial tells
Bassus in a poem that there is no cloak that would qualify him for equestrian
seating.115 The ushers were no doubt slaves, but citizens were expected to
obey their orders and could be penalized for occupying an unauthorized
seat, perhaps with a fine.116
An incident that occurred outside Rome spurred Augustus to affirm
clearly the order of seating that would apply in all theatres and amphithe-
atres.117 A senator was unable to find a seat at a show in Puteoli and no
one was willing to give up his place to this eminent visitor. Augustus there-
fore decided to restore the privileges of rank in the theatre and amphithe-
atre that had ceased to be observed in the late Republic. In the late 20s BC
he issued his famous Lex Iulia Theatralis that guaranteed senators priority
seating anywhere in the empire and added seat assignments for other
groups.118 Interestingly, Suetonius, our primary source for the lex, does not
mention reserved seating for equestrians, but his account probably was not
meant to be exhaustive, because we know of other seating assignments that are
not mentioned by the biographer (see below). Augustus’ seating divisions
were meant to reflect the various social segments of the Roman people
arranged in hierarchical order. In this way, Augustus tried to remedy the first-
come, first-served seating policy that apparently had prevailed since the chaot-
ic times of the civil wars: ‘[Augustus] reformed and regulated the [Romans’]
disorderly and haphazard manner of watching a spectacle’.119 The rest of his
reforms listed by Suetonius have to do with the seating of soldiers, plebeian
husbands, boys and their pedagogues, and women of all classes.120 The poet
Statius sums up the Augustan seating hierarchy succinctly from the highest

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GLADIATORS

part of the theatre or amphitheatre to the lowest: ‘small boys, women, ple-
beians, equestrians, senators’ (parvi, femina, plebs, eques, senatus).121 In all
likelihood, the small boys and women were together in the same (highest)
level, which they shared with the poorest citizens. As we shall see below,
well-off plebeians sat in the middle level. The equestrians sat in the lowest
section of the amphitheatre proper, just above the senators, who sat on a
podium, a platform that extended out into the arena and encircled it.
Each of the three levels of the amphitheatre was divided into wedges
(cunei), blocks of seating bordered vertically by staircases and horizontally
by walkways.122 For example, one wedge was for plebeian husbands. Un-
married men (and women) may have been banned from spectacles, at least
during the reign of Augustus.123 Another wedge consisted of young boys
wearing the toga praetexta, a white garment with a broad purple border that
was also the official dress of the senatorial class.124 Immediately adjacent to
this section of young boys was another wedge filled with their paedagogi,
slaves who took care of their young charges, serving as a protective escort
outside the home and as a teacher inside. These paedagogi were the only
slaves who, because of their important duties, had special seating.125 The
fact that the fathers of these boys could afford to provide them with a per-
sonal slave indicates that these boys were children of the upper classes and of
well-to-do plebeians. The plebeian fathers of these boys sat on the same
level as their sons in different wedges, wearing the toga virilis (‘a man’s
toga’, white with no stripe). Male children of the poorest citizens sat with
their fathers, whom Augustus excluded from the middle level because they
wore a dark-coloured cloak or tunic, the characteristic clothing of the
poor.126 Thus, the podium where the senators sat, wearing white togas with
broad purple stripe, the first seating level reserved for equestrians clad in
white togas with narrow purple stripe, and the next level up where plebeians
sat wearing the white toga virilis, would have presented a sea of white-clad
Romans. This is exactly what Siculus’ Corydon, whose first visit to Nero’s
famous wooden amphitheatre was discussed earlier in this chapter, saw as he
walked up past the sections reserved for the equestrians and plebs on his way
to the highest seating level.127 This sight must have pleased Augustus im-
mensely, especially when one considers Augustus’ sarcastic reference to
Roman citizens dressed in dark clothing at a political meeting as ‘the togaed
race’, a quote from Virgil.128 Augustus believed that the proper dress for a

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Roman citizen at a public function was the toga. Not every successor to
Augustus agreed with this policy. Claudius allowed senators to dress as ordi-
nary citizens and to sit where they liked, although the podium was still re-
served for them.129 By the beginning of the second century AD, Romans
seem to be abandoning the toga. Juvenal complains that ‘in a great part of
Italy, if we admit the truth, no one wears the toga except a corpse’.130 The
annual December munus posed a dress problem for those spectators who
were sufficiently well off to own a toga. The toga, not a very substantial gar-
ment, was quite adequate in warm weather, but something more was re-
quired in December, when, in Italy, the weather could turn cold and it
could even snow. In such weather, the equestrians often wore a scarlet or
purple cloak, but these colours violated Augustus’ ‘all-white’ rule. Martial
recommends that the civic-minded thing to do would be to wear a white
cloak.131 On one occasion a certain Horatius showed up at the amphithe-
atre wearing a black cloak, while all the plebs, equestrians, senators and the
emperor himself (Domitian) were wearing white. Martial points out that
during the show Horatius’ cloak became white when it snowed.132
During the Republic and the early part of Augustus’ reign, the ability of
women to sit wherever they pleased amid the male spectators is a good
example of what Augustus called the Romans’ ‘disorderly and haphazard
manner of watching a spectacle’. Thus, Augustus restricted seating at
munera for women (probably upper class) ‘to a higher place’, no doubt
wedges of the highest level of the amphitheatre, where they sat on chairs or
benches with backs (cathedrae), perhaps as compensation for their remote
location.133 Calpurnius’ Corydon, as a poor man (possibly a slave) and an
out-of-towner, had to climb to the highest part of the cavea where he found
himself sitting near the women’s section.134 Before the Augustan seating re-
form, the presence of women among men certainly encouraged flirtation,
which may have concerned Augustus, who was very much concerned with
the sexual behaviour of his subjects, issuing stern legislation on adultery in
18 BC. He exiled both his daughter and granddaughter (both named Julia)
for adulterous behaviour and the poet Ovid, probably for the loose sexual
behaviour he condoned in his poetry. Plutarch includes an anecdote about
Sulla in his biography of the dictator, demonstrating how his interest was
piqued by the flirtatious behaviour of a woman sitting near him at a munus.
Her name was Valeria, a beautiful divorced woman, whose father and

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GLADIATORS

brother were members of the senatorial class. She decided to take the in-
itiative with the great man, and as she moved along a row to reach her seat,
put her hand on his shoulder and ‘innocently’ picked a tuft of material off
his cloak. She then said to the dictator: ‘It’s no big deal, dictator, but I
wanted to share in your success’. Sulla was left speechless but not offended
by her behaviour. After investigating her background and character, he mar-
ried her.135 Naturally, young men used the opportunity provided by the
presence of women nearby to take the initiative. As we had seen earlier,
Ovid in his advice to male readers on how to meet girls, advises them to ask
to borrow a programme from a girl and then to touch her hand as she gives
it to him.136 Ovid reveals the romantic atmosphere of the amphitheatre
with his poetic imagery:

The boy Cupid has often fought in that arena and the man who has
watched the infliction of [real] wounds is himself wounded [by love] . . ..
Wounded he moaned and felt the winged arrow and becomes part of the
munus he is watching.137

Augustus’ placement of women in the upper part of the amphitheatre,

however, did not stop flirtations. Men in the lower part of the auditorium
could still make eye contact with women at the top. Girlfriends in the
women’s section kept an eye on their lovers below and were moved to jeal-
ousy when they caught them eyeing another woman. Propertius’ beloved
Cynthia, outraged by his unfaithfulness, requires that he stop looking back
at the highest part of the amphitheatre as a condition of reconciliation.138
Ovid complains that he is so tired of his girlfriend’s jealous accusations that
he, in order to antagonize her, turns his head to exchange silent but
provocative glances with another woman in the highest part of the am-
phitheatre.139 Perhaps Ovid and Propertius on these occasions were sitting
in the small amphitheatre of Statilius Taurus, in which it might have been
possible for someone sitting in a lower part of the structure to catch the eye
of a spectator in the upper levels. In the huge Colosseum, however, inter-
changes at a distance between male and female spectators would have been
much more difficult, if not impossible.
Not all women sat in these upper reaches. As we saw earlier in this chap-
ter, Augustus provided reserved seating to the Vestal Virgins, probably
on the podium. After the reign of Augustus, other prominent women joined
the Vestals in this special seating. Tiberius decreed that his mother Livia,

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now enjoying the title of Augusta, sit with the Vestals whenever she chose to
attend a spectacle.140 Caligula gave the same privilege to his grandmother
Antonia (the younger daughter of Marc Antony and niece of Augustus) and
to his sisters, while Claudius did the same for his wife Messalina.141
The Vestals were not the only religious officials to have preferred seat-
ing. That privilege was also enjoyed by a college of twelve priests called the
Arval Brothers (‘Brothers of the Field’) who had charge of the cult of
Dea Dia, a goddess who presided over the fertility of the fields. An inscrip-
tion entitled Public Transactions of the Arval Brothers, dating from AD 80,
the very year in which the Colosseum was dedicated, contains a record
of the spaces reserved for this religious college in the three seating levels of
the Colosseum above the podium.142 The inscription mentions three levels
of seating in which the Arval Brothers were given seats and gives the levels
the following names: maenianum primum (‘first level’), the maenianum
summum secundum (‘the highest part of the second level’) and the maeni-
anum summum in ligneis (‘the highest level in wood’). The name mae-
nianum summum secundum must presume the existence of a maenianum
imum secundum (‘the lowest part of the second level’), which is not men-
tioned because the Brothers were not assigned seats there.143 These four
levels will be discussed further below.
The Arval Brothers were granted space in the lowest level (maenianum
primum) where the equestrians sat (just behind the podium), totalling a
length of 42.5 Roman feet (approximately 41.8 modern feet) in eight con-
tiguous rows. (Note that seats in the Colosseum were not numbered, so
that seating was assigned by overall space rather than by individual seats).
Perhaps space was reserved in this level for Brothers who were members of
the equestrian order to make sure that seats were always available. Evidence
from other amphitheatres in which individual seats are marked by lines
etched in the stone enables us to estimate how many persons would have
been accommodated in 42.5 Roman feet of seating. The average space allo-
cated per person in these other amphitheatres is 15.7 inches, which
means that the 42.5 feet would have held about 32 jam-packed persons. If
15.7 inches sounds too small, one must remember that the average height
of an adult male in ancient Rome was only 5.5 feet. The larger average size
of modern men and women requires wider seats.144 Other seats reserved
in the name of the Arval Brothers were in the maenianum summum secun-
dum, consisting of 22.5 Roman feet (21.12 modern feet) in one row of

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one wedge and in the maenianum summum in ligneis, 63.5 Roman feet
(62.4 modern feet) in four rows of one wedge. With this amount of space
reserved, it is evident that the allotted seats were occupied by more than just
the twelve Arvals. Obviously, the best seats in the maenianum primum
would be occupied by Arval Brothers themselves, perhaps along with other
male members of their families.145 Their various assistants (attendants,
servants, scribes and so on) would no doubt have sat in the maenianam
summums secundum, while the large amount of space reserved in the
maenianum summum in ligneis in the upper reaches of the Colosseum
might accommodate the college’s slaves and wives.146 It should also be
noted that just about every religious college enjoyed reserved seating in the
maenianum primum.147 Moreover, inscriptions inside the Colosseum on
the anterior facing of rows give evidence of reserved seating for other
groups such as the citizens of Gades (Cadiz) in Spain, and in the late empire
even for specific senators and their families.148
Access to the Colosseum and other entertainment venues was not
limited to Roman citizens. The Romans wanted to impress foreign digni-
taries with their various spectacles, especially gladiatorial games. Augustus
did not allow foreign ambassadors of independent and allied nations to sit
among the senators because they were sometimes freedmen, probably
banishing them to sit in the upper reaches of the cavea.149 After his death,
however, that policy changed. When Frisian ambassadors came to Rome
during Nero’s reign, the Roman authorities, wanting to impress them ‘with
the greatness of the Roman people’, invited them to attend a spectacle at
Pompey’s theatre.150 When the Frisians noticed men in foreign dress sitting
in the senators’ section, their Roman hosts explained that only ambassadors
from nations noted for their courage and friendship to Rome were given
this honour. The naïve Frisians announced that no nation surpassed them in
war or in loyalty to the Romans, entered the senatorial area, and sat down.
The Roman spectators were charmed by the Frisians’ impulsive and unso-
phisticated behaviour.151
Martial in his Book of Spectacles pointed out to the emperor Titus
some representative foreign nationals present at the grand opening of the
Colosseum, sporting their native dress and speaking their strange-sounding
languages: Thracians, nomadic Sarmatians famous for drinking horses’ blood
(the northern Black Sea and Danube areas), Egyptians, Britons, Arabs,
Sabaeans (modern Yemen), Cilicians (modern southern Turkey), Sygambrians

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(a Germanic people) and Ethiopians, the last two groups with dramatically
contrasting hairdos.152 The poet gives us no clue as to the status of the
peoples he mentions here. They could be either foreign envoys who
were sitting with the senators or ordinary foreign visitors in the upper
reaches of the cavea. In any case, Martial uses the exotic names and cus-
toms of these visitors to this new architectural symbol of Roman greatness
to highlight the vastness of the Roman empire.153 Cassius Dio adds
Macedonians, Greeks, Sicilians, Epirots, Asiatics, Iberians and Carthaginians
to Martial’s list.154
Individual Romans such as winners of the corona civica (‘civic crown’)
were honoured with special seating in the theatre and the amphitheatre.
These men were war heroes who had saved the life of a fellow Roman citi-
zen while killing an enemy.155 As they entered the theatre or amphitheatre,
the senators rose in their honour and they took their place immediately
behind the senators.156 In the late Republic, one example of honorary seat-
ing was actually outside the temporary amphitheatres built in the Forum! A
statue of the Republican hero Ser. Sulpicius Rufus was placed on the Rostra
(speaker’s platform) in the Forum and his descendants were given seats in
perpetuity within a circle of diameter of 10 feet around the statue.157 It
would seem impossible that these honorary seats outside the tiered stands
could provide a good view of the action in the arena. At the time this
honour was decreed, a new Rostra had been built by Julius Caesar (11.5 feet
high as preserved today) just before his assassination. Although we do not
know how high the seating was in these temporary structures, it must have
been higher than 11.5 feet. Welch suggests two possibilities: (1) seating of
irregular heights at various points in the oval, which would allow the
Sulpicii sitting on the Rostra to look into the arena at the same level as the
best seats, or (2) only the long sides of the oval had high seating (perhaps as
much as 33 feet high), while the short ends had low stands which would
have given the Sulpicii a good view of the arena.158 An even earlier award
of honorary seating took place in the early second century (184 BC). A
member of the Maenian family sold his house, which looked down into the
Forum (with a good view of any entertainment given there) to make way for
the building of the Basilica Porcia. In compensation for having lost an ex-
cellent vantage point, he and his descendants received the right to special
seating in a balcony attached to the Maenian Column, a Forum landmark,
which honoured his famous ancestor C. Maenius (fourth century BC), from

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whose name was derived the word maenianum (‘seating level’).159 The
sources point out that the main purpose of this seating was a good view of
gladiator shows in the Forum.160 The seating must have been high enough
to overlook temporary wooden stands. Outside of Rome, a more typical
example of honorary seating is that of Cupiennius Satrius, who had the
right to sit opposite the box of the editor on the other side of the arena in
the amphitheatre at Cumae.161

Distribution of seats
Tickets were required for access to the Colosseum. These tickets were small
pieces of lead, wood or bone called tesserae, which were distributed free of
charge, probably by means of the patron/client system.162 None of these
tesserae have survived. Incised on each ticket must have been a number from
I to LXXVI corresponding to one of the seventy-six entrance arches avail-
able to the public. The ticket also must have specified level, wedge and row
number. It seems logical that munerarii (including the emperor) were sig-
nificant distributors of blocks of seats to their friends and supporters. The
recipients of these seats no doubt shared their bounty with their friends,
supporters and dependants, resulting in a ‘trickle-down effect’ to the lowest
members of society.163 As Rawson has shown, an important source of these
tickets during the Republic was the magistrates and members of important
religious boards.164 Cicero reports a conversation he had with Clodius
about the allocation of tickets to clients. Cicero had not been in the habit of
distributing tickets, even to the Sicilians, his clients, on whose behalf he had
prosecuted their infamous governor Verres for extortion. Clodius, who, like
Cicero, had served as a quaestor in Sicily, announced his intention as their
new patron to do so. His only problem was that his source of tickets, his sis-
ter Clodia, had been stingy with them, although she had a large allocation
from her husband, the consul Metellus Celer. Clodius complains that she
gave him ‘only one foot of space’.165 In his Defence of Murena, Cicero men-
tions that a client of his had received space (locus, literally ‘a place’) from
one of the Vestal Virgins, a relative.166 Rawson convincingly argues that the
locus given by the Vestal Virgin to Cicero’s client (like the locus desired by
Clodius) is actually a block of seats, which he will in turn distribute to
others.167 Ticket brokers called locarii (from locus) also played a role in the
distribution of tickets, but at a cost. They probably bought seats directly

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from the editor and from those who had received them without cost, and
resold them.168 Martial calls the famous gladiator Hermes ‘the wealth of
ticket brokers’ because people were willing to pay the locarii large amounts
of money to see him in action.169 It should also be noted that the average
citizen could not count on being able to attend shows in the Colosseum on
a regular basis. Without a connection to an important person, tickets must
have been quite hard to get. They must have been relatively scarce when one
takes into account the amount of space reserved for the upper classes and
the competition for the rest of the seats among a population of approxi-
mately 1 million people.170 The average citizen had a much better chance of
getting into the Circus Maximus, the enormous confines of which could
accommodate 25 per cent of the city’s populace, whereas the Colosseum
could hold only 5 per cent.171

Entry and exit

Most important in the construction of any entertainment venue, whether
ancient or modern, are provisions for allowing spectators to get to their
seats and back to the exits as easily and quickly as possible. It is not difficult
to see how crucial a problem this is in a building like the Colosseum, which
had a capacity most realistically estimated at 50,000 spectators. This prob-
lem was solved by a system of circuit corridors intersected by radial pas-
sageways under the seating area (cavea). There were concentric corridors
that made a circuit around the whole arena (indicated by A, B, C and D in
Figure 30), leading spectators to their seats. Since all the seating has long
since vanished from the Colosseum, the reconstructions of the cavea that
appear in various modern texts are really educated guesses that are more or
less convincing. The senators had the best seats closest to the action and sat
on a podium, a platform interrupted on the opposite sides of the minor axis
by the emperor’s and the editor’s boxes.172 Suetonius identifies the podium
as the location of Nero’s box in his wooden amphitheatre.173 The Colosseum
as a successor to Nero’s structure no doubt would have had one too.
Juvenal also mentions a podium in an unidentified amphitheatre, which, it
would be safe to assume, was the Colosseum. The senators and other distin-
guished spectators, as suited their status, had easy access to their seats on the
podium. They could walk straight from their assigned entrance through a
radial corridor to the innermost circuit corridor A and then up a short

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Podium Maenianum primum Maenianum Maenianum Maenianum summum in ligneis

imum summum
secundum secundum

Emperor Equestrians Plebeians dressed Plebeians Foreigners Women 4

Magistrates in togas dressed Freedman
Senators in pullus Slaves
Vestal Virgins

A B C D

Figure 30 Cutaway of Colosseum

number of steps through an entrance (vomitorium) on to the podium. Seat-

ing for the senators consisted of moveable wooden benches without arms or
backs called subsellia.174 These benches were made more comfortable by
the use of cushions.175 The next level up was assigned to the equestrians,
who proceeded straight from their assigned entrance through a radial pas-
sageway to circuit corridor B and used stairs to reach the their part of the

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cavea.176 In order to reach the next level, which was assigned to plebeians
wearing the toga (maenianum imum secundum), spectators had to go to
the second floor of the amphitheatre, accessed by stairs which connected
with circuit corridors B and C on the ground floor. The maenianum sum-
mum secundum was likely the seating assigned to citizens of lower status
who wore a dark cloak called the pullus. The next section up (maenianum
summum in ligneis) was cut off from the lower part of the cavea by a wall
nearly 16.5 feet high by means of which the spectators in this section were
literally and figuratively kept in their place.177 These two maeniana could
only be reached from the outer corridors on the second floor.178 Who sat in
the maenianum summum in ligneis ? Given the lack of definitive evidence,
scholars have had to resort to informed conjecture. Connolly and Rea assign
it to the lowest elements of Roman society, a plausible suggestion.179 This
group would have included freedmen and slaves, but foreign tourists prob-
ably also sat in this area. On the other hand, Bomgardner reserves this
section for women, arguing that ‘respectable wives and daughters of Roman
citizens’ sat on this level, protected by a portico from a working-class
woman’s telltale suntan.180 Although nothing of the portico has survived,
there is reliable evidence of its existence. It is evident on a coin depicting
the Colosseum and Cassius Dio vaguely reports that the ‘uppermost cir-
cumference’ (i.e., the portico) of the amphitheatre was hit by lightning and
caught fire. It does seem reasonable to place women at the highest part of
the Colosseum, since Augustus had ordered women to sit in ‘a higher
location’.181 On the other hand, they probably would not have needed a
portico to avoid a suntan. The awnings would have kept them well shaded.
Bomgardner’s other argument, however, is more compelling. He talks of
the more effective segregation of ‘ladies of quality’ in the colonnade. In-
deed, if Augustus’ main concern in moving women to the higher regions of
the amphitheatre was, in Bomgardner’s words, ‘purdah’, the colonnade
would have been the best way of accomplishing that purpose. A colonnade
would have provided the most privacy and perhaps better accommodated
the special chairs (cathedrae) that women enjoyed in the amphitheatre.182
Moreover, the colonnade would seem to be too impressive a structure for
the common people, slaves and foreigners some scholars place there. It
would seem logical to identify this colonnade with the maenianum
summum in ligneis, mentioned only in the Arval Brothers inscription dis-
cussed earlier, which dates from the opening of the Colosseum in AD 80. If,

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however, the Chronography of 354 is correct that the attic storey was built
under Domitian (AD 81–96), then it would seem that colonnade had been
built after AD 80. What, then, did maenianum summum in ligneis refer
to in the year of the Colosseum’s dedication? Here is a possible answer.
Without the colonnade, the original maenianum summum in ligneis would
have been the highest seating area in the cavea of the newly dedicated
Colosseum, made of wood in contrast with the marble seating below
(maenianum primum, maenianum imum secundum, maenianum summum
secundum). Women, fulfilling the order of Augustus, would have sat in this
area among their social inferiors. When Domitian added the attic storey
sometime later, it took the form of a wooden colonnade, reserved for
women and sharing the same name with their pre-Domitianic location.
While women enjoyed the covered portico, their former seating compan-
ions remained in the uncovered section immediately below.

Awnings
One very important feature, not just of the Colosseum but of all Roman
amphitheatres (and theatres) was the use of awnings (vela) to protect the
spectators from the hot Italian sun, especially during the late spring and
summer. When Caligula was in a particularly vile mood and the sun was
burning with special intensity, he would order the awnings rolled back and
not allow any spectator to leave the amphitheatre (perhaps that of Statilius
Taurus).183 The very fact that Caligula chose this particular punishment
shows how important awnings were to the enjoyment of the show. As we
have seen, the promise of awnings was frequently a feature of the advertise-
ment of a munus. Awnings were first employed by Q. Lutatius Catulus in
his dedication of the Capitolium in 69 BC.184 Julius Caesar made spectacular
use of vela for a munus during his triumphal games in the Forum in 46 BC.
Caesar completely covered with a silk awning the open plaza of the Forum
and the Via Sacra (‘Sacred Way’) from his house all the way up the Capitoline
Hill.185 It was reported that the crowd seemed to have enjoyed the awnings
more than the gladiator show.186 Augustus followed the example of his
adoptive father when he covered the whole Forum with awnings for a show
given by his nephew Marcellus as aedile. These awnings were left in place
for the whole summer.187 The first century BC poet Lucretius describes the
colourful effects of awnings.

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. . . awnings yellow, red, and purple [cast colours]; when stretched over great
theatres, they flap and flutter, hanging from masts and beams. For they
cover the audience in the tiers beneath with colourful shadows . . . and
make them seem to vibrate as they are bathed in colours.188

These effects must have contributed greatly to the holiday atmosphere of

the spectacle. Nero was in the habit of using awnings whose colour imitated
that of a dark blue sky with stars. These awnings were decorated all over with
stars that stood out against the azure background.189 Nero’s megalomania
was evident in the decoration of the awnings for Tiridates’ coronation as
king of Armenia. He had a figure representing himself riding in a chariot
embroidered in the centre of the awning, identifying himself with the sun
god (Sol ), who in myth rode a chariot across the sky during the day. This
identification served as a reminder to Tiridates and the Roman people of
Nero’s overwhelming power. This theme seems also to have been prominent
in Nero’s Colossus, which wore the radiate crown of the Sun god.190
On the fourth storey’s outer wall, behind the seating for women, were
positioned the poles that supported the awnings of the Colosseum. These
masts were held in place by sockets between the windows in the outer
wall (Figure 27). There is evidence of stairs on the inside of the north-
west outer wall to the top of the Colosseum. They were likely used by the
sailors from the imperial fleet at Misenum on the Bay of Naples, who were
responsible for setting up and taking down these massive awnings. They
were quartered near the Colosseum in the Castra Misenatium (‘Camp of
Misenates’). Their experience with ship sails naturally qualified them for
this job.191 It is estimated that as many as a thousand men were required to
take care of the task of furling and unfurling the awnings. The task cannot
have been easy, and must have required great effort and cooperation. There
were occasions when it was impossible to set up the awnings. Wind, snow
and probably rain were factors that could cause the sailors to leave the
awnings furled. Even after the awnings had been spread out, it must have
been necessary on some occasions to draw them back quickly when winds
arose suddenly or it began to rain or snow.192 This would have had to be
done relatively quickly before the awnings were damaged. Norma Goldman
posits that the ‘quick maneuverability’ of the awnings would have saved the
day in such circumstances.193 On one occasion, the sailors were given
another task to perform by Commodus, which they fortunately never had

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to carry out. Commodus, who was used to fawning applause for his per-
formances as a gladiator, suddenly had an attack of paranoia that made him
think that the crowd’s tepid response indicated their contempt. He immedi-
ately commanded the sailors to kill the spectators and ordered the city of
Rome to be burned, but was eventually convinced by his praetorian prefect
to rescind both orders.194
In the absence of awnings, Martial urges spectators to use umbrellas to
protect themselves.195 Even when the awnings were unfurled, at midday
they protected only the higher seats, while the senators on the podium were
exposed to an unfiltered blazing sun that made enjoyment of the show all
but impossible.196 This may have not been a serious problem, since it is
likely that most senators left the amphitheatre at noon to take lunch. For
those who stayed to watch the meridianum spectaculum, broad-brimmed
hats allowed comfortable viewing.197
Most likely the awnings of the Colosseum were supported by radial
ropes coming from the 240 vertical masts that crowned the amphitheatre.
These ropes would have been attached to an elliptical rope high above the
centre of the arena, forming a circular opening (oculus, ‘eye’) through which
the sun shone.198 Pliny the Elder mentions that Nero’s awnings were held
in place by ropes.199 Another method of rigging was used in the amphithe-
atre in Pompeii. The awnings were supported by poles projecting horizon-
tally from the rim of the amphitheatre.200

Hypogeum
The subterranean area of the Colosseum (hypogeum, ‘underground’) is a
two-storey structure which is actually a bit larger than the arena. It is difficult
to generalize about this area because of the regular changes it underwent
throughout its history. Some of what we see today dates from late antiquity
(as late as the fifth century AD).201 An underground tunnel from the Ludus
Magnus provided access to the hypogeum from the east side of the amphithe-
atre. Also connecting with the hypogeum are two staircases leading down
from the west entrance and two passageways that led to the podium, one on
each end of the minor north/south axis.202 The hypogeum was used as a
staging area for gladiators, hunters and animals before their entry into the
arena. Scenery and other stage properties were also kept there. It is generally
assumed that this area did not exist when the Colosseum was inaugurated in

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AD 80 and was added later by Domitian.203 One reason for this assumption
is that during the inauguration of the building, the emperor Titus flooded
the arena for a naumachia and other water displays. The existence of a
hypogeum at this time would have made the water shows impossible, because
the basin could not be kept watertight.204 What can be seen today are thirty-
two vaulted hollow spaces arranged around the edge of the ellipse, three cir-
cuit corridors adjacent to the ringside of the arena, and two straight parallel
walls on either side of a wide central corridor. The vaulted cavities were likely
temporary storage pens for animals. The vertical shafts attached to the four
straight walls flanking the central corridor must have housed elevators to
raise gladiators and/or animals to the arena floor. Caged animals were raised
to a space just below the arena floor and then released to be driven up small
ramps by men with torches through trapdoors into the arena.205 Since the
arena floor of the Colosseum no longer exists, there are obviously no indi-
cations of the locations of the trapdoors. There is, however, a well-preserved
system of trapdoors in the amphitheatre in Capua Vetere, which has a sub-
structure similar to that of the Colosseum. This system has a total of sixty-
two trapdoors, including six of double size. The larger Colosseum would
have had even more.206 The narrowness of the shafts, however, poses a
puzzling problem, as yet unsolved. They could only have accommodated
smaller animals such as boar, dogs and medium-sized cats. Large beasts
would have had to be brought into the arena in some other way.207

The Colosseum from late antiquity to the present

The Colosseum served Rome uninterruptedly for 137 years before there
was a break in service. In AD 217, lightning struck the Colosseum causing a
fire that left the building in need of extensive repairs. The natural disaster
was itself a spectacle worthy of the Colosseum. Cassius Dio, who most
probably viewed at least the results of the disaster, gives his description of
the event:

The hunting theatre [Dio’s term for the Colosseum] on the very day of the
Vulcanalia [the festival of Vulcan, the fire god] having been struck by light-
ning was engulfed in such a conflagration that the circumference of the top
of the building and the arena floor were completely destroyed by fire and as
a result of this the rest of the building was ravaged by fire nor could human
effort fight it although the city used all of its water resources, nor was a very

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heavy and violent downpour able to have any effect. Thus both sources of
water could not counteract the power of the thunderbolts and to a degree
also caused a significant amount of damage. As a result gladiatorial shows
were held for many years in the stadium.208

The lightning must have first struck the wooden colonnaded seating,
which, having caught fire, fell down over the lower seating area of the audi-
torium, finally reaching and setting fire to the wooden arena floor. The
superheated stone of the structure and marble covered seating in the audi-
torium also suffered damage, being converted by the process of calcination
into granulated bits and pieces.209 Once the fire ravaged the wooden arena
floor, it must have raged through all the wooden equipment in the sub-
structure under the arena. The Colosseum was not reopened and rededi-
cated until AD 222 under Alexander Severus, but the restoration was by no
means complete and would not be finished for another fifteen years.210 In
the fifth century, there were three earthquakes that did serious damage to
the Colosseum (AD 429, 443, and 484 or 508). The first two caused block-
age in the sewers, thereby flooding the hypogeum. The third was disastrous.
Besides dangerously weakening the whole structure, the earthquake
brought down the colonnade at the top of the amphitheatre again (no
doubt the most vulnerable part of the seating area), which caused grave
damage to various parts of the cavea.211 The debris from the colonnade was
moved into the hypogeum, no doubt making it difficult, if not impossible, to
take advantage of this underground chamber in the presentation of shows.
With the disappearance of gladiatorial combat in the fifth century and
the venatio in the sixth, the Colosseum ceased to be a site for public enter-
tainment, with one notable exception. In 1332, a bullfight was given in
honour of Ludwig the Bavarian, who was visiting Rome.212 The bullfight
was very similar to the venatio, with the human participants carrying a
single spear much like the ancient venator. Gibbon gives the final score of
this contest. It was a clear-cut victory for the bulls, which had killed eigh-
teen of their human opponents and wounded nine. In contrast, humans had
killed only eleven bulls.213 Although it would be easy to suppose that this
bullfight was an attempt to restore the Colosseum to one of its original
functions, such an assumption would be incorrect. In the fourteenth
century, it was not known that the Colosseum in antiquity had been the
venue for bloody spectacles. In fact, it was not until the next century that

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scholars such as Flavio Biondo and Poggio Bracciolini finally discovered the
Colosseum’s original raison d’être. The only reason that the amphitheatre
had been chosen for this bullfight was the availability of space and seating.
Left without a purpose and having suffered structural damage from
earthquakes, the Colosseum became an abandoned building subject to the
depredations of all those who sought to use it for their own purposes. From
the sixth to the ninth century, craftsmen had shops in the seating area and
people lived either inside the building or in shacks built against the outer
walls. Beginning in the twelfth century, the Frangipane family appropriated
part of the Colosseum for use as a fortress during civil wars for the better
part of a century. The Colosseum was also a valuable source of raw materials.
There were 100,000 cubic feet of travertine stone in the Colosseum, which
could be reused in construction or converted to quicklime, a hardening
agent in plaster and mortar. There were also large amounts of marble and
tufa, two other valuable stones. Moreover, there was a great deal of metal, a
scarce resource in the Middle Ages, to be salvaged from the Colosseum.
Already in the fourth century, lead pipes were being taken from the building,
cutting off water from the latrines and fountains.214 The greatest amount of
metal in the Colosseum was in the form of 300 tons of iron clamps that held
blocks of stone together.215 The holes that these clamps made in the stone
are still evident on the outer façade of the Colosseum. The recycling of stone
and metal from the Colosseum, however, was not just the result of informal
looting; permissions to take building materials from the amphitheatre were
sometimes given, sometimes sold, to builders by the authorities. The earliest
record we have of this practice is an inscription dating from the late fourth
century that was found in the Colosseum in which the emperor Theodosius
I granted permission to a senator named Gerontius to take stone from the
amphitheatre.216 The Romans were very practical and quite unsentimental in
this matter. For them, the past should serve present needs. This attitude can
be seen in a letter from the ruler Theodoric in response to a request that the
city of Catania (Sicily) be allowed to use stones from an amphitheatre to for-
tify the city walls:

The stones from the amphitheatre in ruins because of its antiquity, which
you suggest contributes nothing to the beauty of the city except to display ugly
ruins, we grant you permission to put to public use, so that which cannot be
of any use if it lies on the ground may be incorporated into the city walls.

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Therefore, confidently do whatever is necessary to strengthen and beautify

the walls and be assured that whatever you do will be pleasing to us if the
charm of your city is more evident.217

Once the Church became one of three primary owners of the Colosseum in
the fourteenth century, popes were not reluctant to make a tidy profit by
selling these permissions.218 In spite of the protests of scholars, popes them-
selves engaged in wholesale quarrying of the Colosseum for their pet
projects. For example, Pope Nicholas V (1447–1455) took huge amounts
of stone from the amphitheatre to construct St Peter’s Basilica. Pope Pius II
(1458–1464) recycled tons of stone for the building of the Palazzo di
Venezia, the first of the great renaissance palazzi, and the restoration of
the Basilica of San Marco, which was incorporated into the palazzo.219
Other popes saw additional uses of the Colosseum. Sistus V (1585–1590)
planned to build a spinning mill in the amphitheatre, but that project fell
through. Instead, some workers installed a glue factory in the second level
of seats. Clement XI in 1700 ordered that a manure dump be created in the
Colosseum, which was used to produce saltpetre (potassium nitrate), the
primary ingredient in gunpowder. This dung heap, the corrosiveness of
which did great damage to the travertine pillars on the first level, was still in
place at the beginning of the nineteenth century.220 The smell must have
been horrendous.
In the Middle Ages, legends developed around the Colosseum that were
a jumble of misinformation. The main source of these legends was a
medieval guide for pilgrims called The Wonders of the City of Rome (Mirabilia
Urbis Romae) written in the eleventh century. The Mirabilia claims that
the Colosseum in ancient times was a round temple with a domed roof.
In the centre of the arena stood a colossal statue of Apollo holding a sphere
as a symbol of Rome’s domination of the world. This statue seems to be a
distorted memory of Nero’s colossal statue depicting him as the Sun god
that in ancient times had stood just outside the Colosseum. The author of
the Mirabilia, undoubtedly concerned that this information contradicted
what medieval pilgrims actually saw when they visited the Colosseum,
added the explanation that Pope Sylvester (314–335), a zealous enemy of
paganism, destroyed the temple and put the head and hand of the statue in
front of the Basilica of St John Lateran.221 The Colosseum also acquired in
the popular mind an otherworldly aspect that made it into a magical and

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sinister building in which demons regularly gathered, especially at night.

Among these demons were the pagan gods whom Christians associated with
ancient Roman spectacles.222 As late as the sixteenth century, the Florentine
artist Benvenuto Cellini, along with some friends and a priest expert in
necromancy, went to the Colosseum on two occasions to use sorcery to win
back his girlfriend. On the second occasion, the necromancer was appar-
ently so successful in summoning thousands of demons from hell that
Cellini’s friends were panic stricken. The demons, however, were put to im-
mediate flight when one of Cellini’s group suffered a huge intestinal explo-
sion.223 The otherworldly character of the Colosseum is also reflected in the
medieval legend of Virgil as its architect, an anachronism since the poet died
almost a full century before the building of the Flavian Amphitheatre. In the
Middle Ages, however, Virgil was better known as a great magician, necro-
mancer and prophet than as a poet. The powers of this fanciful ‘Virgil’ were
great and were used against the forces of darkness.224
In the sixteenth century, the Church began to see the Colosseum in a
different light as a sacred place where martyrs had provided their fellow
Christians with edifying examples of religious belief. Pius V (1566–1572)
decided not to demolish the Colosseum so that pilgrims could take home as
a relic earth that, as it was believed, had absorbed the blood of martyrs.225
The problem with this belief is the lack of any substantial evidence that
Christians had been martyred in the Colosseum. The Christian conviction
that St Peter had been executed in the Colosseum is contradicted by the fact
that Peter had been martyred over a decade before the amphitheatre was
built. The tradition that Ignatius of Antioch was the first Christian martyred
in the Colosseum during the reign of Trajan is not supported by any reliable
evidence. On the other hand, despite the lack of evidence, it seems logical
that at least some Christians were martyred in the Colosseum’s arena.226
Historical accuracy mattered little to devout Christians. Many an amphithe-
atre throughout the Roman world had witnessed the ultimate testimony of
Christian martyrs to the strength of their faith. Since the Colosseum was the
largest and most famous amphitheatre in the empire, it was a convenient
symbol, not only of Roman persecution but also of the defeat of paganism.
The earliest reliable connection between Christianity and the Colosseum
was in the late fifteenth century when a passion play began to be presented
annually in the arena on Good Friday, a tradition which continued until the
middle of the next century.227 In the early sixteenth century, a small chapel

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of Santa Maria della Pietà was built in the eastern part of the arena. Pope
Clement X (1670–1676) planned a more ambitious church in honour of
the martyrs to be built in the middle of the arena. It was to be designed by
the famous architect Gian Lorenzo Bernini, the designer of the piazza and
colonnades of St Peter’s, but Clement’s plan was never realized.228 He,
however, was still determined to proclaim the Colosseum a Christian shrine.
He installed a cross at the top of the Colosseum and dedicated the am-
phitheatre to the martyrs that purportedly had died there. This dedication
was proclaimed by a painted announcement that was eventually replaced a
century later, when Pope Benedict XIV set up an inscription in marble on the
western exterior wall of the Colosseum, which can still be seen today.

The Flavian Amphitheatre renowned for its triumphs and spectacles, dedi-
cated to the gods impiously worshipped by the pagans, rescued from vile
superstition by the blood of martyrs. Lest their courage be forgotten, Pope
Benedict XIV in the jubilee year of 1750 in his tenth year as Pope had
rendered in marble the notice painted on the whitewashed walls [of the
Colosseum] by Pope Clement in the jubilee year of 1675 but made illegible
by the ravages of time.

Benedict placed a large cross in the centre of the arena, which became a
huge tourist attraction.229 Clement XI in 1720 installed Stations of the
Cross around the edge of the arena in the form of small shrines.230 The
cross and Stations of the Cross remained in place until the last quarter of
the nineteenth century when they were removed to allow archeological
excavation.231
Popes occasionally sponsored efforts to clean up the Colosseum with a
view to the restoration of the structure. For example, under Pope Pius VII
(1800–1823), the manure pile, which had been in the Colosseum since the
seventeenth century, was finally removed. There was also papal concern
about the northern exterior wall, which was in danger of collapsing after
an earthquake in 1803. The southern section of the exterior wall had
already collapsed in an earthquake in 1349. Thus, a brick buttress was built
to support the east side of the wall, and was finished in 1820. Under Pope
Leo XII, a second buttress on the west side was completed in 1826.232 Both
buttresses are still visible today. Moreover, the use of the Colosseum as a
quarry for building materials was no longer tolerated. Clement XI
(1700–1721) was the last pope to remove stone from the Colosseum.233

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The Colosseum remained primarily a religious shrine until the second

half of the nineteenth century, when the general view of the building went
through a significant change. The amphitheatre was now generally con-
sidered an archeological site important to the understanding the history and
culture of ancient Rome. In 1870 the Office of the Superintendent of the
Excavation and Preservation of Monuments was created, which supervised
archeological efforts in the Colosseum with varying results until 1968,
when the Office of Archaeological Superintendency of Rome took over,
ushering in an era of scientific archaeological research.234
The Colosseum, a great tourist attraction since the Middle Ages, became
even more popular in the nineteenth century, due in great part to Lord
Byron’s impassioned description of the amphitheatre in the moonlight in his
Manfred. This passage inspired many a tourist to experience the Colosseum
as he had described it. It became almost mandatory for nineteenth and early
twentieth century tourists to visit the Colosseum at night. In the Marble
Faun, Nathaniel Hawthorne comments on the influence of this passage:

[A light] indicated a party of English or Americans paying the inevitable

visit by moonlight, and exalting themselves with raptures that were Byron’s,
not their own.

In Manfred, Lord Byron created a romantic vision of the Colosseum, re-

vealing a mysterious beauty in ruin and decay. Note Byron’s reference to the
Colosseum as ‘the gladiators’ bloody Circus’, which confuses the amphithe-
atre with the Circus Maximus:

I do remember me, that in my youth,

When I was wandering, – upon such a night
I stood within the Coloseum’s wall,
Midst the chief relics of almighty Rome.
The trees which grew along the broken arches
Waved dark in the blue midnight, and the stars
Shone through the rents of ruin; from afar
The watchdog bay’d beyond the Tiber; and
More near from out the Caesars’ palace came
The owl’s long cry, and, interruptedly,
Of distant sentinels the fitful song
Begun and died upon the gentle wind.

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Some cypresses beyond the time-worn breach

Appear’d to skirt the horizon, yet they stood
Within a bowshot. Where the Caesars dwelt,
And dwell the tuneless birds of night, amidst
A grove which springs through levell’d battlements,
And twines its roots with the imperial hearths,
Ivy usurps the laurel’s place of growth; –
But the gladiators’ bloody Circus stands,
A noble wreck in ruinous perfection!
While Caesar’s chambers, and the Augustan halls
Grovel on earth in indistinct decay. –
And thou didst shine, thou rolling moon, upon
All this, and cast a wide and tender light,
Which soften’d down the hoar austerity
Of rugged desolation, and fill’d up,
As ’twere anew, the gaps of centuries;
Leaving that beautiful which still was so,
And making that which was not, till the place
Became religion, and the heart ran o’er
With silent worship of the great of old, –
The dead, but sceptred sovereigns, who still rule
Our spirits from their urns. –
’Twas such a night!
’Tis strange that I recall it at this time;
But I have found our thoughts take wildest flight
Even at the moment when they should array
Themselves in pensive order.

Hawthorne recognized the difference between the real Colosseum and

Byron’s vision and preferred the well-defined grandeur of the former to the
vagueness of the latter:

Within, the moonlight filled and flooded the great empty space; it glowed
upon tier above tier of ruined, grass-grown arches, and made them even too
distinctly visible. The splendor of the revelation took away that inestimable
effect of dimness and mystery by which the imagination might be assisted to
build a grander structure than the Coliseum, and to shatter it with a more
picturesque decay. Byron’s celebrated description is better than the reality.

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It should also be noted that Byron’s description inspired a scene in which

Hawthorne’s characters paid a nocturnal visit to the Colosseum, an episode
also found in Henry James’ Daisy Miller and Edith Wharton’s Roman
Fever.235
In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, the Colosseum has remained
an object of archaeological research and the most popular of all ancient
tourist attractions in Rome. Its only deviation from these functions was its
use as a place of political assembly and as a shelter and arms depot by
German paratroopers during the Second World War. Ironically, in 1999, the
Colosseum, a place of violence and death in the ancient world, became a
symbol of mercy and life. Amnesty International with the support of the
Pope has instituted the practice of lighting up the Colosseum whenever a
country decides to suspend or abolish the death penalty.236

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Chapter 7

Gladiators in Film


W ith the appearance of Ridley Scott’s Gladiator (2000), the topic of

gladiators in film has evoked a lively interest among scholars. For
example, just after the release of the film, Marcus Junkelmann wrote a short
but penetrating appraisal of the film’s portrayal of gladiators and gladiatorial
combat in his Das Spiel mit dem Tod (Death Game) along with a few para-
graphs on Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus (1960). Four years later, Gladiator:
Film and History, edited by Martin Winkler, was published. The book is de-
voted entirely to Scott’s Gladiator, examining and evaluating not only the
film’s depiction of gladiatorial combat but also the representation of the his-
tory of the period in which it is set. Other parts of the book investigate the
meaning of the film for twenty-first century America. Most recently, Fik
Meijer, in his book The Gladiators (2005), included a brief chapter on the
same two films as Junkelmann. This chapter will revisit these two films, but
will also include a discussion of major Hollywood films that contain gladia-
torial scenes made before Spartacus and Gladiator, beginning with Cecil B.
DeMille’s The Sign of the Cross (1932). It is my intention to examine how
these films have influenced each other and to estimate how accurately their
creators have represented gladiatorial combat. There are, however, limits to
the historical criticism that one can apply to ‘sword and sandal’ films. In

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general, film makers can be credited with getting the large picture right and
occasionally showing concern for accuracy in details. One cannot expect an
entertainment medium, which above all aims at commercial success, to
maintain a scrupulous adherence to historical authenticity, especially when it
comes to finer points. After all, these films are not scholarly documentaries.
It would be a mistake to probe too far into historical minutiae in judging
them. On the other hand, there is a point at which the accumulation of his-
torical errors begins to diminish the re-creation of the spirit of any past era.
Films with an historical setting have a responsibility to represent the past as
accurately as possible, and when they insert fictional events and characters,
to do it at least plausibly.1 After all, film has the power to bring history to
life and thus to convince. Historical accuracy is especially important for a
film like Gladiator, whose director, although he warned that his intention
was to represent the spirit of the times rather than the letter, promised a
scrupulous concern for historical truth.2 Moreover, the avoidance of histori-
cal errors is not incompatible with the creation of a dramatically interesting
and enjoyable film. Film makers must remember that they have a special
responsibility when they undertake historical subject matter, especially
because the average cinemagoer generally assumes that what appears on the
screen is at least a reasonable approximation of the period it represents. His-
torical accuracy in films is not an impossible ideal to attain, but it does
require attention to the recommendations of a knowledgeable consultant.
Unfortunately, this is an area where film makers often fall short, as in the
case of Gladiator. It is a disservice to the viewer of a film to flout flagrantly
the expectation of historical accuracy. As Kathleen Coleman points out:

. . . for those viewers whose reception of history begins and ends with the
version presented on screen, Hollywood’s Rome is not a palimpsest but an
original and ineradicable document.3

Moreover, historical errors in films mislead not only the average cinema-
goer but also other film makers, who often naïvely repeat them in their
own films.4
I will attempt to judge these films fairly, but I have no doubt that at least
some of my criticisms will strike the reader as nitpicking, an activity scholars
find hard to resist.

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The Sign of the Cross (dir. DeMille, 1932)

The Sign of the Cross, the earliest of the films discussed in this chapter, ap-
parently had ambitions of historical authenticity and in fact succeeds in this
area to a certain degree. Before the film’s depiction of a munus sponsored
by Nero, it displays an advertisement (edictum) for the show in the style of
real edicta, written in (mostly) grammatical Latin and, with a fade to
English, translates it for the audience. This promising beginning seems
to augur further historical accuracy, but some confusion follows. The adver-
tisement promises overall sixty pairs of gladiators, thirty ‘of the Thracian
School’ and thirty ‘of the School of Murranus’. When these gladiators
appear in the arena, we see helmeted gladiators who must be the gladiators
from the Thracian school mentioned in the edictum. The helmetless gladia-
tors carrying a trident and a net, whom we clearly recognize as retiarii,
must belong to ‘Murranus’ School’. We then hear two voices from the
crowd, one announcing a bet on a particular thraex, and the other, on his
opponent, whom he wrongly calls a Gaul. As we have seen, the Gaul had
long disappeared from the arena by the reign of Nero (the period of this
film) and, although we know almost nothing about this gladiatorial type, he
certainly would not have been similar to retiarius, the most distinctive of all
gladiators. The two spectators are wrong on both counts. The prominent
angular crest on the helmets of the ‘thraeces’ indicates that they are really
murmillones; as we have seen, the helmet of the thraex had a projecting
finial representing a griffin. The mention of a ‘Thracian school’ is also mis-
leading because gladiatorial schools did not teach just one style of fighting,
but all the major styles. The makers of Sign had probably chosen these two
types of gladiator because of Gérôme’s famous painting Pollice Verso, which
shows a murmillo standing over the body of a retiarius (Figure 24), but
they apparently did not know their correct names. In fact, the choice of the
murmillo as an opponent of the retiarius is not historically incorrect, but in
this film, and even in the painting, the murmillo fighting a retiarius is an
anachronism. By the reign of Nero, the murmillo had been replaced as the
regular opponent of the retiarius by the secutor, whose head was completely
covered by a bowl-like helmet. The murmillo/retiarius pairing is even more
anachronistic in Gérôme’s painting, the setting of which is the Colosseum
(dedicated in AD 80).5 The secutor has been consistently ignored by film
makers in favour of the murmillo. The cause of this omission is not that the

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secutor was unknown outside of scholarly circles. As early as 1913, George

Bernard Shaw’s play Androcles and the Lion, set in the mid-first century AD,
included a retiarius and a secutor as characters and paired them in a match.6
Chester Erskine’s film adaptation of the play (1952), set in the reign of
Antoninus Pius (AD 138–161), pays lip service to the pairing of the retiarius
and the secutor, but inexplicably, when these secutores appear on screen, their
helmets clearly identify them as murmillones. There is, however, more at
stake here than just historical accuracy. The secutor, whose face, with the ex-
ception of his eyes, was completely hidden by his helmet, was an ominous,
almost inhuman figure, whose presence in film could have significantly en-
hanced the drama of duels with the retiarius.
Beginning Nero’s munus with gladiatorial combat and not the usual
morning venatio is another error. Whoever recommended that the film’s
munus should begin with gladiators may have been misled by the order of
events given in surviving edicta, which is not chronological, but according
to importance. Edicta mention the number of gladiator pairs first, while
the venatio appears along with mention of awnings: venatio et vela erunt
(‘there will be a venatio and awnings’).7 Of course, DeMille probably
wanted the gladiators to appear first for effect, notwithstanding the require-
ments of history. The gladiators, represented by the voice of one man, give
the famous, but, as we have seen, erroneous, greeting to the emperor: ‘Hail,
Caesar, we who are about to die, salute thee’. This error ranks in popularity
and frequency with the use of the thumbs-up gesture for approval and
thumbs-down for disapproval. These misrepresentations, however, seem to
be impervious to criticism. No gladiator film has been able to avoid them.
In the mind of film makers, and therefore of cinemagoers, they have
achieved the status of unassailable truth.
When combat starts, all sixty pairs fight at the same time. Group fights
did take place in the arena on occasion but never in these large numbers.8
One hundred and twenty combatants are more appropriate to a staged
infantry skirmish, but, as we have seen, valuable professional gladiators
never took part in these battles, for which editores used convicts and pris-
oners of war. The largest group fight involving gladiators we hear of
consisted of ten gladiators: five pairs of retiarii and secutores.9 Although
Suetonius and Cassius Dio mention large-scale group fights among gladia-
tors involving even larger numbers than the group fight that appears in
Sign, these combats consisted not of professionally trained fighters, but of

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amateurs.10 Sixty pairs would normally have been presented in individual

duels and probably spread out over a five-day period. No editor would have
wanted to waste his money by presenting so large a number of professional
fighters at once in a chaotic situation where the skills of the fighters and the
drama of each match could not be fully appreciated. This is especially true of
a contest between a sword fighter and a retiarius, which had the possibility
of a greater variety of action than any other gladiator combination. It is not
hard to explain why DeMille substituted group fights for individual duels.
For the opening of the munus, he must have wanted as much action as poss-
ible crammed into the arena, preferring a motion-filled frame to the delib-
erate movements of one duelling pair.
The rest of the amphitheatre scene involves a venatio with ad bestias
executions and men fighting animals interlarded with two athletic events
(boxing and wrestling). In the film’s venatio, there is nothing that did not,
or could not, have taken place in ancient times, except for a nearly naked
girl tied to a herm with a Pan’s head who is approached threateningly by a
gorilla, an ape unknown in Roman times.11 Unfortunately, the unconvinc-
ing gorilla suit makes the scene more laughable than scary. The next event,
a gregatim gladiatorial combat between women dressed as Amazons and
dwarf gladiators (they are called ‘barbarian women’ and ‘pygmies’ in the
edictum), is anachronistic in a film set in the reign of Nero, but forgivably
so (this novelty was a creation of the later emperor Domitian). The film
captures well the grotesque quality of this fight, although one might ques-
tion why it is presented during the venatio. The end of the film brings us
back to the venatio when one hundred Christians, including the converted
hero (Frederic March) and the heroine (Elissa Landi), enter the arena to
face the lions.

The Last Days of Pompeii (dir. Schoedsack, 1935)

The Last Days of Pompeii demonstrates the same predilection for group
combat as Sign. Combat scenes in the arena start with a gregatim fight,
in which the hero, Marcus (Preston Foster), participates. He sufficiently
distinguishes himself to be promoted to fighting individual duels, but the
film shows little interest in this format and presents only brief snippets of
duels. In these the hero distinguishes himself as a skilled gladiator. The film
uses the format of ancient programmes (libelli) listing the gladiator pairs by

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name (a nice touch) to introduce each stage of Marcus’ rise to prominence

in the arena. The libelli in Last Days put to shame the curious representation
of a libellus in Ridley Scott’s Gladiator. In Scott’s film, a man looks at a pro-
gramme that has a picture of two fighting gladiators with the title
Gladiatores at the top and the word violentia at the bottom. What use such
a ‘programme’ could have been to any spectator is beyond me. Demetrius
and the Gladiators does not display a libellus on screen, but one of the char-
acters shows a libellus to another as proof that Demetrius will fight the next
day, an accurate representation of its purpose. Last Days also presents an
advertisement (edictum) for a gladiator show in Latin, but does Sign one
better by using a real edictum (in its original Latin and not translated),
appropriately for this film, from Pompeii.12
It is clear that the makers of Last Days naïvely assumed that gladiatorial
combat in ancient Rome was conducted organizationally just like modern
boxing. In Marcus’ first appearance in an individual bout, he and his op-
ponent are listed as the first fight or, as it would be called in today’s boxing
vernacular, ‘a preliminary bout’. In the next munus, Marcus and his op-
ponent are placed at the top of the ‘undercard’, fighting just before the ‘main
event’. Marcus’ next bout is ‘the main event’, and after his victory in this
fight he is hailed as a ‘champion’. After his victory, a munerarius throws him
a crown, which, as we have seen, was a special prize added to the palm branch
and cash, rewarding an outstanding performance. It was not, however, sym-
bolic of winning a championship, like a boxing champion’s belt. When he is
defeated in his next fight, his opponent, Murmex of Carthage, is hailed as the
new ‘champion’. The idea of a gladiator ‘champion’ is of course an anachro-
nism, but the idea has had a long life in gladiator films, as we shall see later.
In gladiatorial combat, one gladiator did not reign as champion over all the
rest until he was defeated, as in modern boxing. The Romans kept won–lost
records, but not to establish an overall ranking system.
The last combat scene in the film returns to the mêlée format, but ap-
propriately so, since it is no doubt intended as a mass capital punishment in
which the participants execute each other in the course of the fight. The
combat is at least plausible, if unusual, in which a ragtag group of barbarian
cavalrymen (Germanic warriors?) fight Christians armed with shields and
spears. In this scene, the film commits its worst solecism, although it has
nothing to do with gladiatorial combat. The cavalrymen enter the arena
between the legs of a colossal statue of a naked gladiator wearing a helmet

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and modestly holding a sword in front of his crotch. This statue vies in its
absurdity with the crouching gargoyle-like statue at one end of the racetrack
infield in William Wyler’s Ben Hur (1959). Both of these ridiculous repre-
sentations have nothing to do with real Roman art. Last Days, however, is to
be praised for its depiction of a poor man who, having lost his wife and
child, decides that money is the key to happiness and becomes a volunteer
gladiator (auctoratus) to make his fortune as did so many bankrupts in
antiquity. The film emphasizes his growing wealth by showing his accumu-
lation of gold coins (aurei), the currency with which real gladiators were
rewarded.13

Demetrius and the Gladiators (dir. Daves, 1954)

One of the most accurate portrayals of gladiatorial combat can be found in
Delmer Daves’ Demetrius and the Gladiators (1954), a film that was not a
great dramatic success. Perhaps the film is almost too determined to provide
an historically accurate depiction of gladiators to its audience. In this mission
at least, it succeeds admirably. Early in the movie, we see the Christian
Demetrius (Victor Mature) in court where he is condemned to a gladiator-
ial school (ad ludum) for assaulting a decurion of the Praetorian Guard. As
we have seen, those who incurred this penalty were an important source of
gladiators in ancient times. Demetrius, along with other convicts, is wel-
comed to the gladiatorial school by its gruff chief doctor, Strabo (Ernest
Borgnine), who tells them how lucky they are to have been enrolled in the
school of Claudius (the future emperor).14 The reasons for their good luck
provide an opportunity to give some information about gladiators to the
audience: the excellent quality of their medical care, good nutrition, the
admiration of young women, and the possibility of winning fame, fortune
and even freedom by excellent performances. The training at the school it-
self is accurately depicted. Some trainees practise their sword strokes on the
palus, while other more experienced gladiators engage in practice duels with
wooden or real swords. Action in the arena comes when Claudius (Barry
Jones) presents a birthday munus for his nephew, the wonderfully evil
emperor Caligula (Jay Robinson). The munus takes place in an impressive
amphitheatre, but the makers of this film avoid the anachronism of suggest-
ing that it was the Colosseum, which was not built until thirty years later.
The amphitheatre is identified as a private arena that is part of Caligula’s

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palace complex. There is no record of such an amphitheatre, but it is a

plausible invention given Caligula’s predilection for gladiators.15
On the night before each of the two days of the munus, Messalina,
Claudius’ wife (Susan Hayward), sponsors a cena libera (in the film simply
referred to as ‘a special entertainment’) with gourmet foods, the finest wine,
prostitutes and gambling. On the first day of the munus, there is an im-
pressive procession (pompa) of the gladiators (certainly the best in film) into
the arena accompanied by musicians playing various kinds of horns. The
only blemish is the absence of the sponsor of the show (Claudius) from the
parade. As in Sign and Last Days, the combat begins with a group gladiato-
rial fight. Demetrius, however, avoids creating a large crowd scene of gladi-
atorial pairs in the arena in the manner of the two earlier films. The gregatim
fight consists of six pairs of murmillones and retiarii, only one more pair
than the historical group fight mentioned earlier. The only misrepresenta-
tion in this combat is that the retiarii wear metal caps, whereas real retiarii
did not wear a helmet.
The next event is a duel between Demetrius and the Nubian Glycon
(William Marshall).16 They both wear a murmillo’s helmet, although the
murmillo was not one of those gladiators who fought an opponent of the
same category. The choice of pairing two murmillones was probably forced
on the film by the desire for variety, since Demetrius as a murmillo will later
fight a retiarius. One, however, should not press this issue too far. As far as
‘sword and sandal’ films are concerned, there are only two types of gladia-
tor: the murmillo and the retiarius. The existence of the thraex is sometimes
acknowledged, but this gladiator type is rarely represented. The film maker’s
concern for authenticity of pairing in any of these films seems to be satisfied
if they follow the example of Gérôme’s painting.
Demetrius defeats Glycon, but refuses to obey Caligula’s decision to kill
his opponent, explaining that he, as a Christian, cannot kill another human
being. Caligula releases Glycon, but angered by Demetrius’ disobedience,
requires that Demetrius fight tigers, all of which he kills. The Romans did
not mix gladiatorial combat with the venatio and killing tigers was a
venator’s job, but this abnormality is at least plausible, given Caligula’s
quirky character and the fact that this was a private performance. On the
next day, although Demetrius was not scheduled to fight, he rushes out
against Strabo’s orders to fight the famous retiarius Dardanius (Richard
Eagan), who the night before at the cena libera, had accidentally killed

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Demetrius’ girlfriend (Debra Paget). After Demetrius kills Dardanius, events

depart even further from historical precedent. Strabo, urged on by Glycon,
sends out four more gladiators to fight Demetrius, three of whom fight him
all at once.17 Demetrius kills all of them. The obvious purpose of this dis-
play of slaughter is to show graphically how much he now enjoys combat
and killing. It also emphatically demonstrates his rejection of Christianity, a
renunciation that he declares openly to Caligula in the arena after his victo-
ries. This contest between one gladiator and a group of gladiators is the one
significant mistake that this film makes. There is no evidence for such a con-
test and it does not seem possible that one gladiator could defeat three fully
armed opponents who attack him at the same time. At least the film sug-
gests to the audience that such a fight is unusual, when one of the gladiators
sent out to fight Demetrius protests to Strabo: ‘You can’t get me out there.
You know the rules!’ Strabo answers: ‘We’ve changed the rules!’

Spartacus (dir. Kubrick, 1960)

Six years later, Kubrick’s Spartacus admirably follows in the footsteps of
Demetrius in its concern for historical accuracy. The film starts by explaining
Spartacus’ path to the gladiatorial school. After having been sold into
slavery in the mines of Libya, he was purchased by the owner of a Capuan
gladiator school, Lentulus Batiatus (Peter Ustinov). Spartacus’ slavery in
the mines is an invention of the screenwriters, but perfectly legitimate in this
historical context. With few exceptions, the Capuan scenes at Battiatus’
gladiator school show an acute awareness of the historical sources. Like
Strabo, the trainer in Demetrius, Batiatus delivers a speech to the newly
arrived slaves (including Spartacus) that accurately outlines the advantages
of becoming a gladiator (sex, massages, decent chance of survival, possible
freedom, and so on). Admittedly, the training scenes in the school are over-
done, especially in comparison with the simpler and more realistic render-
ing of a school in Demetrius. Oddly, the training scene at the ludus omits
practice at the palus, which was appropriately included in Demetrius.
The makers of Spartacus apparently wanted something more exciting and
eye-catching. What we see are elaborate training machines, for which there
is no historical evidence. These machines give the impression of noisy and
frenetic activity, heightened by similar qualities in Alex North’s musical
score. For example, there is a revolving dummy head and torso with shield

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on one arm and a ball and chain attached to the other, and a rotating pole
with a bar at shin level and another at head level. The apparent purpose of
both machines is to practise the timing of ducking quickly under an op-
ponent’s sword swings. On the other hand, the practice matches with
wooden swords and the offensive and defensive exercises by the numbers
are on a solid historical footing. Best of all, the training scenes, like those in
Demetrius, give a good overall impression of the professionalism of the
gladiators. As Batiatus’ chief magister says: ‘We expect more than simple
butchery’.
Visitors to the school from Rome provide an excuse to show gladiators
in action. M. Licinius Crassus (Laurence Olivier), accompanied by a female
friend, her brother and his fiancée, requests a private display of two gladia-
tor pairs fighting to the death to celebrate the couple’s upcoming marriage.
Both Crassus and Batiatus are historical personages, but there is no evi-
dence that Crassus ever made such a visit. It is, however, a perfectly plaus-
ible fiction. Batiatus, ever concerned with his profits, characteristically
objects to the cost of losing two gladiators whom he has trained and main-
tained. When Crassus, the richest man in Rome, immediately overwhelms
Batiatus’ objection with his extravagant offer of 25,000 sesterces, the audi-
ence realizes what big business the gladiator industry was. The scene in
which the two women pick out four gladiators for the two contests empha-
sizes the powerful sexual attraction of gladiators that is so well attested in
the sources. As they look over the various gladiators, the women behave like
children in a candy store, leering and whispering in each other’s ear, with
one woman requesting that the gladiators they choose wear no more than
modesty requires.
When it is announced that there will be a fight to the death, Crixus
(John Ireland), Spartacus’ (Kirk Douglas) closest friend, expresses his fear
that he might be matched against him, a real problem that gladiators in the
same troupe had to face frequently. Spartacus’ response is a reiteration of
the gladiator code: if they are paired, they will both try to kill one another.
As it turns out, Spartacus is paired not with Crixus but with an Ethiopian
retiarius named Draba (Woody Strode).18 It is easy to criticize the pairing
of these two gladiators. It is not clear what kind of gladiator Douglas is sup-
posed to represent because he lacks most of the typical gladiatorial armour
(except for a small circular shield and a manica) that would help us identify
the type. Junkelmann is no doubt correct when he suggests that Douglas

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was intended to represent a thraex, since he was an ethnic Thracian.19 Fik

Meijer agrees, but also rightly points out that Spartacus’ small round shield
and straight sword were not typical implements of the thraex.20 Junkelmann
concludes that Douglas should have been outfitted as a murmillo, an early
opponent of the retiarius, but even this adjustment would not have solved
the problem entirely. The retiarius as a gladiator type did not exist in the
period in which this contest is depicted as taking place (73 BC), but only first
appeared in the early empire. Douglas’ lack of a helmet is also a problem;
only the retiarius fought without a helmet. The historical inaccuracy here,
however, can be forgiven. Kirk Douglas is the star of the film and the drama
of the fight would have been lessened if his expressive face had been ob-
scured by a helmet.21 Actually, since the two duels are part of a private
show, perhaps one should not expect the participants to follow the regular
practices of the public arena. The fight between Draba and Spartacus is one
of the best representations of gladiatorial combat available in any gladiator
film. In this combat, we get the sense of two trained professionals applying
offensive and defensive techniques in their quest for victory. Despite its
small mistakes, Spartacus in its gladiatorial scenes has come close to the
ideal of historical films: historical accuracy combined with impressive dra-
matic power.

Barabbas (dir. Fleischer, 1962)

The best candidate as the film with the least historically informed gladiator
scenes is Richard Fleischer’s Barabbas. The first glimpse we get of a gladia-
torial show is a chaotic scene in a large arena jam-packed with participants of
indeterminate types.22 The influence of Sign’s sixty pairs of gladiators is evi-
dent, but Barabbas goes one better with what looks like a hundred or more
pairs of gladiators fighting on what can only be described as a trident-shaped
bridge, partly over burning liquid (probably flaming oil on water) and partly
over a den of lions. Gladiators push each other off the bridge into the fire or
into the midst of hungry lions. It seems safe to assert that a munus even
remotely like this one never took place in ancient times. If the gladiatorial
combat on the bridge were not enough, there is also a battle going between
a much smaller number of dwarfs and female gladiators (also undoubtedly
inspired by Sign) on what appears to be a representation of a hillside village.
Finally, there is a modern circus ring with six elephants going through their

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paces! This awkward combination of an absurdly massive group combat

with the venatio is a real distortion of the historical munus.
In the gladiator school, there is the normal swordplay practice, but
no hint of a palus. The film makes much of the revolving dummy torso
taken from Spartacus. Other unhistorical training machines concocted for
Barabbas show little relevance to gladiatorial combat beyond general physi-
cal conditioning. The training of the retiarii, who practise the net-throw
with both hands, is a notable howler. The real retiarius threw the net with
his right hand while he held the trident in his left. Later, the film reveals the
impossibility of this technique in what is the most accurately depicted glad-
iatorial scene in the film: a fight between the popular pairing of murmillo
and the retiarius Sahak (Vittorio Gassman), who properly fights with the
trident in his left hand and the net in his right. This duel is part of a
gregatim fight on a smaller scale than the first group combat. The film,
however, ignores the role that the editor (Nero) should play in the life or
death decision for a losing gladiator, only to acknowledge it later in the film.
In this group combat, a gladiator, not waiting for the decision of the em-
peror, dispatches his opponent as soon as the crowd gives the thumbs-down
signal. Also with no signal from the emperor, Sahak ignores the demand of
death for his opponent from the crowd and simply walks out of the arena
with impunity.
On the second day of the show, there is a showdown in the arena be-
tween Barabbas (Anthony Quinn) and his nemesis, the famous gladiator
Torvald (Jack Palance).23 The confrontation, however, is a bizarre concoc-
tion that has nothing to do with real gladiatorial combat, departing com-
pletely from historical precedent.24 In this contest, Torvald, driving a
chariot and carrying a net, faces three men (the third of whom is Barabbas),
each with a spear, one at a time. The first two miss Torvald with their spear-
throw as he charges at full speed at them. He catches both in his net, drag-
ging one to his death and running over the other. Barabbas, however, is
more successful. He uses his spear to get the net away from Torvald and
captures him in it. Torvald is injured badly as his own chariot drags him in
the net. Barabbas at least avoids gross errors at the end of this climactic
scene. Barabbas looks to the crowd which gives the thumbs-down signal
and then to the emperor, who does the same. Barabbas kills Torvald with a
sword, and as a result, receives the rudis, released from his obligation to
fight the arena ever again.

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Gladiator (dir. Scott, 2000)

Ridley Scott’s Gladiator seemed poised to redeem the historical inaccura-
cies of previous gladiator films. The digital re-creation of the Colosseum in
fact is a great success, showing the result of careful research and presen-
tation. The makers of the film initially showed such concern for historical
correctness that they hired one of the best available consultants, Kathleen
Coleman of Harvard University. Unfortunately, they did not take advantage
of her expert services.25 The result is numerous errors that could easily
have easily been avoided with Coleman’s help. One prominent mistake is
the claim by one of the characters in the film that Marcus Aurelius had
banned gladiatorial combat. As we have seen, when Aurelius served as
editor, he did require that gladiators fight with blunted weapons, but any
objection that Aurelius had to this kind of spectacle did not prevent his
making sure that munera would be given at Rome during his absence on
the Danube frontier.26
There are five arena scenes in Gladiator, two in Zucchabar, a non-existent
Roman ‘province’ in North Africa, and three in the Colosseum in Rome.27
From the beginning the film reveals itself incapable of avoiding the tra-
ditional cinematic preference for group fighting, dating back to the Sign of
the Cross. The first three combat scenes in Gladiator involve gregatim fight-
ing. We do not see a gladiatorial duel until the last two events. In the first
North African episode, things seem to get off to a good start. We see three
gladiators warming up, an historical practice of gladiators before combat
(prolusio), but the film’s problems with historical accuracy quickly come to
the fore. Junkelmann’s characterization of the armour in Gladiator as ‘pure
fantasy à la Conan the Barbarian’ is blatantly evident in this scene.28 The
first gladiator, wearing a steer’s head instead of a helmet, waves a sword
while the two other helmeted gladiators brandish medieval weapons: one
wields a mace and the other a flail.29 These three are part of a group of glad-
iators who will take on the hero Maximus (Russell Crowe) and his com-
rades, who are given weapons but not gladiatorial armour. They are chained
together, which suggests that they are damnati, but they do not fight each
other as damnati normally do. Instead they find themselves required to
fight a group of professional gladiators, including the three mentioned
above and a retiarius, who wrongly wears a helmet. Professional gladiators
would have never been required to fight a group of untrained damnati.

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The second combat in Zucchabar is even odder. Maximus, outfitted not

as a gladiator but as a soldier with a corselet, is matched against five gladia-
tors, who do not attack as a group, but one at a time. Their good manners
allow Maximus to kill all five. This fight is a familiar staple of many a martial
arts movie, and utterly alien to the Roman arena.30 This scene is reminiscent
of the one discussed earlier in Demetrius, in which the hero kills five oppo-
nents one after the other. The important difference is that Gladiator offers
this scene without comment, giving the false impression that a contest of one
gladiator against multiple opponents is a normal practice in the arena.31
The next arena event is the re-creation of the battle of Zama, the decis-
ive contest in the second Punic War, which takes place in the Colosseum.
Battle re-creations were popular as the film suggests, but, as mentioned
earlier, trained gladiators did not take part in them. The film at least recog-
nizes the problem. When Proximo (Oliver Reed), Maximus’ lanista, com-
ments on this misuse of his men, the film attempts a plausible explanation.32
A representative of the emperor points out to Proximo that they are needed
because of a scarcity of convicts. The substitution of gladiators for convicts
in this case is not that objectionable because the actual battle is not on the
scale of the massed infantry skirmishes given by Julius Caesar, Augustus and
Claudius, but a relatively small fight on the dimensions of the typical gladi-
ator gregatim contest.
Another problem is the involvement of the Roman army in this spec-
tacle. Generally, staged battle enactments were between armies about whom
the Roman audience could be neutral, probably because spectators un-
doubtedly would be displeased to see fighters representing the Romans
lose a battle to an enemy. There is a comment from Commodus (Joaquin
Phoenix) on this second oddity, when the ‘Romans’ lose the battle to the
Carthaginians. Could the makers of this film be indulging in an in-joke,
anticipating pedantic concerns about historical accuracy? Among all record-
ed battle re-creations, there was only one that involved the Roman army:
Claudius’ troops storming a British town. On that occasion, history was
repeated with a Roman victory. No emperor, not even Commodus, would
have tolerated even the possibility of a Roman loss. The film descends into
complete nonsense when ‘the Roman legionnaires’ come into the arena to
face Maximus and his men portraying ‘the barbarian horde’ (i.e., the
Carthaginians). The Roman army turns out to be what appears to be female
chariot fighters (essedariae) using bow and arrows and spears), a form of

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warfare that was used by the Britons against the Romans in Caesar’s day but
never employed by the Romans. The armament of the Maximus’ comrades
with their pointed helmets and chain mail seems acceptable as a generic rep-
resentation of the Cartagians, but Maximus’ armor vaguely suggests that of
a Roman soldier.
Another problem in this scene is the apparent confusion of the am-
phitheatre with the Roman circus (racetrack). For this skirmish, the arena is
set up almost as a racetrack outlined by bullet-shaped pillars on which char-
iots run circling Maximus and his men who are located in the ‘infield’.
These pillars resemble metae or ‘goals’, which did not outline the ancient
racetrack as here, but in groups of three marked both ends of the infield of
a Roman racetrack. Of course, the biggest mistake is placing the metae in
the amphitheatre at all.33 Chariot racing took place in a structure called a
circus (for example, the Circus Maximus), not in an amphitheatre. This con-
fusion perhaps can be traced back to the arena scene in Mervyn Leroy’s Quo
Vadis? (1951), which, for some unfathomable reason, merges the amphithe-
atre and the Circus Maximus into one structure. In that film, Nero has
Christians thrown to the lions in the arena of a huge stone amphitheatre
that has a vast built-up infield, suggesting a racetrack. The viewer can see
only one end of the infield, on which are clearly visible three conical pillars
topped with egg-like objects, an excellent representation of the metae. Pre-
sumably, three more metae would have been located at the other (unseen)
end of the infield.
The final two gladiatorial events in the Colosseum at last present
Maximus in a duel, but even these two contests are marred by historical
inaccuracy. The first duel is between Maximus and Tigris of Gaul, who is
announced as ‘the only undefeated champion in Roman history’, returning
after five years in retirement. The return from retirement has a solid histori-
cal basis: rudiarii often went back to the arena, lured by substantial cash
payments. I have already discussed the anachronism of the ‘champion glad-
iator’, which also appears in Quo Vadis? Gladiator wanders even further
from history when the match turns into a combination of gladiatorial com-
bat with the venatio, obviously inspired by the same scene in Demetrius and
the Gladiators. As Tigris and Maximus fight, arena attendants release tigers
on chains through trapdoors. One tiger attacks Maximus, who kills it.
Another problem with this contest is the weapon that eventually determines
victory. Tigris has a second weapon, a battleaxe in his left hand.34 When

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he drops it, Maximus (on the ground) picks it up and drives it into Tigris’
foot. The Roman army on occasion did use battleaxes, but there is no evi-
dence of gladiators using them in the arena. The quality of the fighting in
this duel (and throughout the film) reveals nothing of the gladiator art, but
is blatantly, to borrow Allen Ward’s appropriate phrase, of the ‘flail and
hack’ school.35 The second duel is the climactic event in the film in which
Maximus kills Commodus and then dies of a wound inflicted by a dagger
which Commodus had treacherously concealed in his corselet. There is
nothing wrong with screenwriters concocting a gladiatorial match between
an historical character (Commodus) and a fictional character (Maximus) as
long has it has historical plausibility. This quality is sorely missed, however,
in this scene. First, the idea that the Romans would tolerate the determi-
nation of who would rule the empire by victory in a gladiator match is
patently ridiculous. Moreover, although Commodus loved gladiatorial
combat and performed as a gladiator both in private and in public, the like-
lihood that he would have voluntarily faced a ‘champion’ gladiator in a
match with real weapons is non-existent. As we have seen, when Com-
modus used real weapons, he fought servants in his palace, wounding some
and killing some of these easy victims. When he appeared in public as a
gladiator and fought real gladiators, he used a wooden sword while his pro-
fessional opponents were limited to some kind of wooden stick. This mis-
take is due to the fact that Gladiator, which is practically a remake of The
Fall of the Roman Empire (dir. Mann, 1964), adopts portions of the plot of
that film almost as if it were a real historical source. The climax of The Fall
is a duel (with spears and not swords) between Commodus (Christopher
Plummer) and Livius (Stephen Boyd), Marcus Aurelius’ adopted son (like
Maximus, a fictional character) and his preference as successor. Both Livius
and Maximus kill Commodus in their respective duels, but do not succeed
him.36 Both films wisely stop short of revising history that drastically.
In all fairness, however, it should be pointed out that Gladiator did
capture the big picture in its representation of the life of a gladiator. Perhaps
the most significant success is the film’s emphasis on the redemption that
was available to the gladiator as illustrated in the fictional story of
Maximus.37 After Marcus Aurelius designated Maximus as his successor, the
jealousy of Commodus, who had naturally expected to succeed his father,
led him to have Maximus’ wife and son murdered and condemn Maximus
to a life of slavery.38 Maximus, however, takes advantage of the opportunity

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to redeem himself through his courageous performances as a gladiator and

reaches a point where he can again challenge Commodus for the throne. To
be sure, such an extreme reversal of fortune would have been unlikely in real
life, but it is only an exaggeration of a basic truth about the life of a gladia-
tor, which offers, however remote, the possibility of redemption. Maximus,
with his death, falls tragically short of complete success, but distinguishes
himself as a courageous hero, willing to risk his life, no matter what the
odds, to fulfil the demands of martial virtue.

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Notes


Preface
1 Donald Kyle in his Spectacles of Death in Ancient Rome (London and New York)
ix reports that he took a similar path to this topic.
2 The Interactive Ancient Mediterranean website provides useful information
about the format of references to ancient authors and lists of abbreviations:
http://iam.classics.unc.edu/main/help/A.html.

Chapter 1 Cultural Context and Origins

of Gladiatorial Combat
1 This dream, like her two other dreams, are found in a work of anonymous
authorship called the Passio Perpetuae et Felicitatis (Passion of Perpetua and
Felicity) 4; 7; 10. Most scholars agree that the accounts of these three dreams
were written by Perpetua herself. See Robert Rousselle, ‘The Dreams of Vibia
Perpetua: An Analysis of a Female Christian Martyr’, The Journal of Psychohistory
14 (1987) 194. Although Thomas Heffernan (Sacred Biography: Saints and
their Biographers in the Middle Ages (New York, 1988) 200; 202) places the
Passion ‘within a sphere of textual/historical indeterminacy’, he nonetheless says
that Perpetua’s dreams are probably genuine. For introduction, Latin text and
English translation of the Passion, see Herbert Musurillo, The Acts of the Christ-
ian Martyrs (Oxford, 1972) xxv–xxvii and 116–19 (10).
2 See Georges Ville, La Gladiature en occident des origines à la mort de Domitien
(Paris, 1981) 276, n. 107. Perpetua calls this figure a lanista (‘owner-trainer of
gladiator troupe’), which Ville says is an incorrect use of the word, although he
does point out that lanista may have had the metaphorical meaning of ‘referee’
as seems to be the case in a passage from Cicero’s thirteenth Philippic (40).
Peter Dronke’s identification (following von Franz) of this figure as an African
priest of Saturn and his rod as the wand of Hermes is much less convincing. See
his Women Writers of the Middle Ages: A Critical Study of Texts from Perpetua
(⫹203) to Marguerite Porete (⫹1310) (Cambridge, 1984) 14. The outfit of the

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NOTES TO CHAPTER 1

lanista most closely resembles that of a referee of a gladiator match, as can be

seen most clearly in Figures 18 and 23 in Chapter 3.
3 See Brent Shaw, ‘The Passion of Perpetua’, Past and Present, 139 (May 1993)
28, n. 63.
4 Shaw (‘Passion’, 28, n. 62) says that the Egyptians were the most hated ethnic
group in the ancient world and interprets Perpetua’s description of the Egyptian
(‘foul in appearance’) as referring to the dark skin of Egyptians, which he sees as
a racist satanic reference. Jan Den Boeft and Jan Bremmer (‘Notiunculae Marty-
rologicae II ’ Vigiliae Christianae 36 (1982) 390) also connect the Egyptian with
the Devil. They point out that the popular image of the Devil in the early third
century AD was black skinned. Joyce Salisbury (Perpetua’s Passion: The Death
and Memory of a Young Roman Woman (New York, 1997) 110) omits any refer-
ence to skin colour (as does Perpetua) and suggests that Perpetua’s demonizing
of the Egyptian derives from his homeland’s association with pagan wisdom.
5 See Dronke, Women Writers, 15. Tertullian, speaking on behalf of martyrs, notes
the irony of a martyr’s victory: ‘Therefore we have conquered, when we are put
to death; we go forth [to victory], when we are defeated’ (Apol. 50.3).
6 Pass. Perpet. et Felic. 10.13–14. The gladiator seems to have been an important
symbolic figure for pagan dreamers in the Greco-Roman world. Artemidorus in
his Interpretation of Dreams discusses what dreams of fighting various types of
gladiator meant. In all instances but one, the gladiator type in the dream provides
a forecast of the kind of wife the dreamer will marry. For example, if he dreams of
fighting a thraex (‘Thracian’), he will marry a wife who is wealthy, cunning and
ambitious. According to Artemidorus, her wealth is indicated by the fact that the
thraex was covered with armour. The wife is cunning because the thraex’s sword
is not straight, and ambitious because the thraex always moves forward (2.32).
7 See Daniel Boyarin, ‘Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity and Judaism’,
Journal of Early Christian Studies 6.4 (1998) 615 and n. 119; C. Barton, ‘Savage
Miracles: The Redemption of Lost Honor in Roman Society and the Sacrament
of the Gladiator and the Martyr’, Representations 45 (Winter 1994), 56–8;
Leonard Thompson, ‘The Martyrdom of Polycarp: Death in the Roman Games,
Journal of Religion 82.1 (2002) 42–3; Salisbury, Perpetua’s Passion, 55.
8 This translation is from Musurillo, Acts, 75.
9 ‘Passion’, 29.
10 Ad martyr. 3.3–5. Eusebius, a fourth century AD historian of the early Church,
compares the martyr Porphyrios to a pancratiast (De martyribus Palaestinae
11.19).
11 Petron. 117.5.
12 Pass. Perpet. et Felic. 18.2.
13 Pliny. HN 11.144. The power that a fixed gaze can exert over an opponent can
be seen in Mucius Scaevola’s intense stare at the Etruscan king Porsenna as he
held his hand in a fire to demonstrate his contempt for pain (Plut. Public.
17.24). See Barton, ‘Savage Miracles’, 48–9.

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14 Actually, the Passion merely says ‘in the usual place’, which scholars have assumed
(rightly) to be the spoliarium. David Bomgardner (‘The Carthage Amphitheatre:
A Reappraisal’, AJA 93.1 (1989) 89–90; 102) places the spoliarium in a subter-
ranean chamber of the amphitheatre. The same is true of the spoliaria at Capua
and Puteoli. At Rome and Praeneste, the spoliarium seems to have been a separ-
ate facility. See, Donald Kyle, Spectacles of Death in Ancient Rome (London,
1998) 158–9.
15 Sen. Ep. 93.12.
16 Ep. 30.8.
17 Another important ‘gladiatorial’ painting of the period is Simeon Solomon’s
Habet! (1865), which was inspired by contemporary interest in gladiators and
Roman life. It depicts six aristocratic women, a female slave, and a child watch-
ing a gladiator match (unseen). The title refers to the shout of the Roman crowd
when a gladiator wounded his opponent. The painting shows the different reac-
tions (including a dead faint) of these spectators to this important moment in a
match. The painting was forgotten after it was sold at Christie’s in 1891 and only
resurfaced in a private collection in the early 1990s. See Elizabeth Prettejohn,
‘“The monstrous diversion of a show of gladiators:” Simeon Solomon’s Habet!’,
in Catherine Edwards (ed.), Roman Presences: Receptions of Rome in European
Culture, 1789–1945 (Cambridge, 1999) 157, n. 1.
18 Margaret Malamud, ‘Roman Entertainments for the Masses in Turn-of-the-
Century New York’, CW 95 (Fall 2001) 50–4.
19 Ep. 6.34.
20 Funeral munera did not necessarily take place at the time of the funeral and bur-
ial. In many cases, they were given some time afterwards, sometimes even years
later. See F. Meijer, The Gladiators: History’s Most Deadly Sport, trans. Liz Waters
(New York, 2005) 26.
21 La Gladiature, 72–8.
22 Aristocratic editores looked upon the expense of producing a munus or any other
spectacle as a civic responsibility in keeping with their high status in society: a gift
pure and simple to their fellow citizens. We do hear of munera being used as a
source of revenue outside of Rome in Cirta (Numidia) (CIL VIII.6695), prob-
ably by the state. Vitruvius mentions that charging for luxury seating in bal-
conies attached to the upper part of public buildings (ancient sky boxes?),
produced revenue for cities in Italy (De arch. 5.1.2) There are reports of Caligula
charging for seats at spectacles, but this may have only been an emergency
measure in a time of state bankruptcy (Cass. Dio 59.14.1; Suet. Calig. 26.4; 38).
Imperial legislation of AD 177–180 mentions munera assiforana (‘gladiator
shows for profit’) but these were small-time affairs given by travelling troupes of
gladiators, much like a modern carnival (ILS 5163.29).
23 For tomb paintings, see Ville, La Gladiature, 20–35. Campania extended west
from central Italy to the coast of southern Italy, including such famous cities as
Capua, Cumae and Naples.

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NOTES TO CHAPTER 1

24 Pun. 11.51–4. See also Livy 9.40.17 and Strabo 5.4.13.

25 See W. G. Runciman’s review article of K. Hopkins’ Death and Renewal, ‘The
Sociologist and the Historian’, JRS 76 (1986) 260.
26 Tac. Hist. 2.95.
27 See Ludwig Friedländer, Roman Life and Manners under the Early Empire, sev-
enth enlarged and revised edition of Sittengeschichte Roms, trans. J. H. Freese
and Leonard A. Magnus, II (London and New York, 1908–13) 42.
28 ‘The Contagion of the Throng: Absorbing Violence in the Roman World’,
Hermathena 164 (1998) 78–9.
29 Epict. Dissertationes ab Arriano digestae 3.15.5; Ench. 29.3.
30 Das Spiel mit dem Tod: So Kämpften Roms Gladiatoren (Mainz am Rhein,
2000) 11.
31 Pis. 65.
32 Fam. 7.1.1–3.
33 Cicero had attended these games, but probably only to avoid giving offence to
Pompey.
34 Att. 2.1.1. In this passage, Cicero is no doubt alluding to Lucilius, a second
century BC satirist, who reports that he left Rome to avoid the city while a munus
in memory of the great general Metellus Macedonicus was going on. See
Remains of Old Latin, ed. and trans. E. H. Warmington (Cambridge, MA, 1938)
3, 636–7.
35 2.41. Cicero’s indecision may be purely rhetorical here, because it suits his argu-
ment at this point.
36 For example, Lucian, Demon. 57 and Anach. 37; Philostr. VA 4.22; Plut. De soll.
an. 959 C.
37 Cass. Dio 71.29.3.
38 Senatus Consultum de sumptibus ludorum gladiatorum minuendis, ILS 5163.
39 Hor. Sat. 2.6.44.
40 Dial. 29.3.
41 De spect. 12.1–4. Servius, a fourth century AD commentator on the works of
Virgil, notes the same ‘progress’ claimed by Tertullian from human sacrifice at
the tomb to the less cruel practice of gladiatorial combat (ad Aen. 10.519).
42 Blood in the Arena: The Spectacle of Roman Power (Austin, TX, 1997) 205–10.
See also Lintott, Violence in Republican Rome (Oxford, 1968) 40 and Peter
Connolly, Colosseum: Rome’s Arena of Death (London, 2003) 68–9.
43 Emperors and Gladiators (London and New York 1995) 34.
44 See also Donald Kyle, Spectacles of Death, 40 and D. S. Potter, ‘Entertainers in
the Roman Empire’, in D. S. Potter and D. J. Mattingly (eds), Life, Death, and
Entertainment in the Roman Empire (Ann Arbor 1999) 305–7.
45 Blood, 110.
46 Ibid. 4.
47 David Magie, Roman Rule in Asia Minor, to the End of the Third Century after
Christ (Princeton, NJ, 1950) 1, 127.

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NOTES TO CHAPTER 1

48 J. E. Lendon has presented telling objections to Futrell’s theories in his review

article ‘Gladiators’ in CJ 95.4 (2000) 402–4.
49 Conquerors and Slaves (Cambridge, 1978) 208.
50 Rituals and Power: Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor (Cambridge, 1984) 89.
51 Blood, 213. See Edmondson, ‘Dynamic Arenas: Gladiatorial Presentations in
the City of Rome and the Construction of Roman Society during the Early
Empire’, in W. J. Slater (ed.), Roman Theater and Society (Ann Arbor, MI,
1996) 72; Skinner, Sexuality in Greek and Roman Culture (Malden, MA, 2005)
210.
52 See also Kyle, Spectacles of Death, 43; Meijer, The Gladiators, 24.
53 M. Clavel-Lévêque, L’Empire en jeux: espace symbolique et pratique sociale dans le
monde romain (Paris, 1984) 79.
54 Michael Poliakoff, Combat Sports in the Ancient World: Competition, Violence,
and Culture (New Haven, CT, 1987) 155.
55 Val. Max. 2.4.6.
56 Gryphus, 36–7; Serv. ad Aen. 3.67. Ausonius’ identification of these gladiators as
thraeces (Thracians) is anachronistic. The thraex did not exist at this very early
period. See Futrell, Blood, 22.
57 Serv. ad Aen. 10.519.
58 Cic. Pis. 19.
59 Gryphus 37.
60 Spectacles of Death, 47–9.
61 ‘Gladiators and Blood Sport’, in Martin Winkler (ed.), Gladiator: Film and
History (Malden, MA, 2004) 80.
62 Frag. 84.6–7.
63 La Gladiature, 2.
64 For example, see Potter, ‘Entertainers in the Roman Empire’, in Potter and
Mattingly (eds), Life, 305; Jean-Claude Golvin, L’Amphithéâtre romain: essai
sur la théorisation de sa forme et de ses functions (Paris, 1988) 15; Keith Hopkins
and Mary Beard, The Colosseum (Cambridge, MA, 2005) 119.
65 Op. 654–7.
66 Mark Golden, Sport and Society in Ancient Greece (Cambridge, 1998) 91–3.
67 Il. 23.798–825.
68 Sport and Society, 92–3.
69 It has been suggested that the gladiators used in the first munus were prisoners
of war who marched in D. Junius Brutus Pera’s triumphal procession. See RE
10.1 (1914): 1026, 59. No record of Pera’s political and military achievements
has survived, but to be honoured in this public and novel way indicated that he
was a man of importance, who probably had distinguished himself in war and
politics, the only careers open to a Roman noble. All we can say for certain is that
he belonged to one of the most prominent aristocratic families of the Roman
Republic. His son Decimus, one of the givers of the munus in his honour, two
years before the funeral had been a consul and had been granted the great

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NOTES TO CHAPTER 1

honour of a triumph for his victories in northern and southern Italy. Other
notable members of the Junian family: L. Junius Brutus, an ancestor who,
according to legend, played an important role in the creation of the Republic;
M. Junius Pera, a descendant of Pera, who, later in the third century, was
appointed to the office of dictator, a constitutional magistracy of limited dura-
tion, which was given in times of crisis to Rome’s most trusted citizens; and
M. Junius Brutus, leader of the assassins of Julius Caesar.
70 ‘Das Ende der Gladiatorenspiele’, Nikephoros 8 (1995) 151.
71 La Gladiature, 9–19.
72 Johan Huizinga Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture (New
York, 1970) 26, 30, 32, 47.
73 Allen Guttmann, ‘Roman Sports Violence’, in Jeffrey Goldstein (ed.), Sports
Violence (New York, 1983) 9.
74 Pierre Cagniart, ‘The Philosopher and the Gladiator’, CW 93 (2000) 607–10.
75 Sen. Ep. 7.3–4.
76 Homo, 40–1.
77 Death and Renewal (Cambridge, 1983) 29.
78 ‘Contagion’, 70.
79 Violence, 36.
80 Livy 28.20.6–7. It should be noted here that even in modern times the killing
of non-combatants has been seen as an unpleasant necessity when in World War
II the Allies bombed German cities and the Americans dropped atom bombs on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
81 Polyb. 6.38.1–4. The word ‘decimation’ comes from decimus, ‘tenth’.
82 Plut. Crass. 10.2.
83 Ulp. Dig. 50.17.32.
84 Cod. Theod. 2.25.1.
85 SHA Hadr. (Aelius Spartianus) 18.8.
86 The usual site of abandonment of slaves was an island in the Tiber dedicated to
Aesculapius, the god of healing (Suet. Claud. 25.2). As inhuman as this aban-
donment was, at least the reason why masters abandoned their slaves on Aescu-
lapius’ island seems to have been their hope that this healing god would cure
their illnesses and infirmities.
87 Modest., Dig. 48.8.11.1–2.
88 Tac. Ann. 14.42–5.
89 Ep. 3.14. American slave owners could be as cruel as the Romans. During the
Revolutionary War, one slave owner punished a 15-year-old girl for seeking
independence with the British army, with eighty lashes, which he followed up
by putting hot embers into her wounds (The New Yorker, Jill Lepore, ‘Goodbye
Columbus’, 8 May 2006, 74.) Although the Romans never abolished slavery
even in Christian times, Roman law eventually outlawed traditional practices that
were considered inhumane.
90 Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study (Cambridge, MA, 1982) 337.

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NOTES TO CHAPTER 1

91 See Friedländer, Roman Life, II. 78.

92 See Lintott, Violence, 43–4. This attitude seems to be related to the principle of
law that lower-class citizens deserve harsher punishment than the upper classes
for the same crime. Seventeenth century England was not that different from
ancient Rome in this regard. See Thomas Macaulay, The History of England,
from the Accession of James the Second, I, ch. 3.
93 Clem. 2.5.1. See Magnus Wistrand, Entertainment and Violence in Ancient
Rome: The Attitudes of Roman Writers of the First Century A.D. (Gothenburg,
Sweden, 1992) 19–20.
94 Emperors, 92–3.
95 Ibid. 35.
96 Entertainment, 15–16 and 18–20. See also Katherine Welch (‘The Roman
Arena in Late-Republican Italy: a New Interpretation’, JRA 7 (1994) 80), who
calls martial virtue ‘a key ingredient of the Roman self-image’.
97 Leisure and Ancient Rome (Cambridge, MA, 1995) 35.
98 2.10.2–13. In Polybius’ version of the story (6.55.3), Horatius is killed.
99 Livy 2.12.13–15. This story explains the origin of Mucius’ cognomen Scaevola
(‘Lefty’).
100 Hor. Carm. 3.5.13–56.
101 Livy 8.9.6–14.
102 See Keith Hopkins, Death, 29, who views the arena as an image of the battlefield.
103 Emperors, 36–7.
104 ‘Single Combat in the Roman Republic’, CQ NS 35.2 (1985) 392–410.
105 Tusc. Disp. 2.41. Cicero is undoubtedly indulging in hyperbole in this passage.
Indeed, gladiators were taught to be courageous, but it stands to reason that
there were some who did not live up to Cicero’s high standards.
106 51.7.2–6.
107 Plut. Cic. 48.3–4.
108 Ep. 30.8.
109 Ep. 26.10; 70.6; 77.6; Ira 15.4; Tranq. 11.4; Q Nat. 2.59.3; 6.32.4. See
Cagniart, ‘The Philosopher and the Gladiator’, 611–18.
110 Pan. 33.1. For gladiatorial combat as stimulation to virtue for young men in
the Greek east, see Livy 41.20.12.
111 Max et Balb. 8.7.
112 ‘Les Jeux de gladiateurs dans l’empire chrétien’, Mélanges d’archéologie et
d’histoire 72 (1960) 304–5.
113 Tranq. 3.2; 11.4.
114 Sen. Prov. 2.8.
115 Livy 9.40.17.
116 Quint. Decl. Min. 305.17.
117 The Gauls had sacked Rome in 390 BC and remained a danger until they were
defeated by Julius Caesar in the middle of the first century BC. By the imperial
period they were thoroughly romanized.

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NOTES TO CHAPTER 1

118 In Latin, the name of this gladiatorial type was spelled thraex or threx to differ-
entiate the gladiator from an ethnic Thracian (Thrax).
119 Flor. Epit. 2.8; Oros. Hist. adv. pag. 5.24.
120 Cass. Dio 68.32.2.
121 ILS 5085.
122 As Carlin Barton (‘Savage Miracles’, 52) points out, ‘[gladiators] inspired both
worship and disgust, emulation and loathing, sympathy and revulsion’.
123 The Game of Death in Ancient Rome (Madison, WI, 1995) 10.
124 41.20.11–13.
125 Quint. Decl. Min. 279.8.
126 August. Conf. 6.8.
127 Plin., Ep. 1.8.10 and Sen. Tranq. 2.14.
128 Publ. Spect., 5.
129 Suet. Claud. 34.1–2.
130 Pass. Perpet. et Felic. 21.7.
131 De spect. 21.4.
132 Resp. 439e–440a. See K. M. Coleman, ‘Fatal Charades: Roman Executions
Staged as Mythological Enactments’, JRS 80 (1990) 58.
133 The History of England, I, ch. 3.
134 Roman Life, IV, 192–3.
135 ‘The Martyrdom of Polycarp’, 30–1.
136 45.6.
137 Tranq. 2.13.
138 Livy 39.42.8–12.
139 Dio Chrys. Or. 31.122 and S. R. F. Price, Rituals and Power, 88.
140 Tox. 59.
141 Panegyr. 34.4.
142 As, for example, the heavy-handed censure of gladiatorial combat found
throughout Michael Grant’s Gladiators: The Bloody Truth (New York, 2000,
reprint of 1971 edition): ‘The constant recurrence of this bloodthirstiness
throughout long centuries is one of the most appalling manifestations of evil
that the world has ever known’ (105).
143 Quoted by Elizabeth Prettejohn, ‘The monstrous diversion of a show of gladi-
ators: Simeon Solomon’s Habet!’, in C. Edwards (ed.), Roman Presences,
171. See also Christopher Kelly, ‘Corruption’, in Simon Hornblower and
Antony Spawforth (eds), Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd edn (Oxford, 1996)
and Bomgardner, The Story of the Roman Amphitheatre (London, 2000),
226–7.
144 ‘The Ideology of the Arena’, Classical Antiquity 15 (1996) 122–3.
145 Wistrand, Entertainment, 15 and Meijer, The Gladiators, 8.
146 See ‘Violence in Media Entertainment’, ‘http://www.media-awareness.ca/
english/issues/violence/violence_entertainment.cfm.
147 ‘Contagion’, 80.

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148 There was also a big-game fishing component to the show; http://sports.espn
.go.com/outdoors/tv/columns/story?columnist=gowdy_curt&page=g_col_
gowdy_sportsman. Ancient fans of the venatio clearly had the advantage in the
matter of excitement over the viewers of this TV show. The ancient arena
hunter clearly put himself in much greater danger than the modern hunter,
whose high-powered rifle virtually assures success with minimum risk.
149 Get Wild with Cindy Garrison on ESPN 2. See http://sports.espn.go.com/
espn/print?id=2251147&type=story. Bullfighting, most likely a direct descen-
dant of the venatio, seems to be approaching its last days, even in Spain.

Chapter 2 Recruitment and Training of Gladiators

1 Tusc. 2.41.
2 Cicero calls these convicts sontes, a group elsewhere in this book referred to as
noxii or damnati. All three words are synonymous.
3 Plin. Ep. 10.31.2. See Magie, Roman Rule, II, 604–5. A public slave was owned
by the state rather than by a private individual.
4 Ulp. Dig. 48.19.8.11–12.
5 Suet. Vit. 12.1.
6 Ville, La Gladiature, 240.
7 The Romans connected the word lanista with lanius (‘butcher’), a term of
Etruscan origin.
8 Ben. 6.12.2.
9 87.15. See Juv. 3.156–8.
10 Spartacus: A New Edition with a Special Introdution by the Author (Armonk, NY,
1996) 170.
11 See Chapter 3 (‘Spartacus: Testing the Strength of the Body Politic’) in Maria
Wyke’s Projecting the Past: Ancient Rome, Cinema and History (New York,
1997) 34–72 for a thorough discussion of the novels, plays and films that Spar-
tacus has inspired.
12 Flor. Epit. 2.8.
13 Ibid; Oros. Hist. adv. pag. 5.24.
14 Leg. Agr. 2.95.
15 ILS 5062.
16 B Civ, 1.14.116.
17 Crass. 8–9.1. Well over a century later during Nero’s reign, there was an at-
tempted breakout at a school in Praeneste (modern Palaestrina, just east of
Rome), which was put down by its military guard. Ville (La Gladiature, 284,
n. 134) points out that, since this school had a military guard, it was probably an
imperial gladiatorial school (private gladiatorial schools had no such protection).
Like the rebellion of Spartacus, the Praenestine breakout indicates that the
school contained convicts and prisoners of war kept under lock and key.

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NOTES TO CHAPTER 2

18 Crass. 8.1; Mor. 997 C.

19 Other Greek intellectuals took a similarly dim view of gladiatorial combat, for
example Demonax (Lucian, Demon. 57). See also Dio Chrys. Or. 31.121. Both
sources are contemporary with Plutarch. See Robert, Les Gladiateurs, 239–48.
20 Plut. Crass. 9.9–11.11. For the crucifixion of Spartacus’ army, see App. B Civ.
1.14.120. For distance between crosses, see Brent Shaw, Spartacus and the Slave
Wars: A Brief History with Documents (Boston, 2001) 144, n. 8. Plutarch does
not mention this punishment, but credits Pompey, who had just arrived from
Spain, with slaughtering the remainder of Spartacus’ army (Crass. 11.11).
21 These two fighters no doubt belonged to the category of gladiators called equites
(‘horsemen’).
22 Shaw, Spartacus, 15.
23 Crass. 8.2. See Shaw, Spartacus, 131. Batiatus’ official Roman name was prob-
ably Cn. Cornelius Lentulus Vatia. The name Batiatus only appears in Plutarch,
a Greek source, which substitutes B for V and adds a suffix. The confusion of B
and V is a familiar linguistic phenomenon in the empire. See E. H. Sturtevant,
The Pronunciation of Greek and Latin: The Sounds and Accents (Chicago, 1920)
87; 142–3.
24 J. A. Crook, Law and Life (Ithaca, NY, 1967) 83 and C. Edwards, ‘Unspeakable
Professions’, 67.
25 Crook, Law, 83–5.
26 ‘Unspeakable Professions’, 67. See also Ville, La Gladiature, 462–3.
27 Hor. Epist. 1.18.36.
28 11.20.
29 Sen. Con. 10.4.18. Tacitus also reports that towns throughout Italy offered
lavish compensation to equestrian youth as an inducement to fight in the arena
(Hist. 2.62).
30 Sen. Ep. 99.13.
31 Quint. Decl. Min. 260.22.
32 Tib. 35.3.
33 La Gladiature, 227.
34 See Manil. 4.224–9 and Tert. Ad mart. 5.1. Wiedemann (Emperors, 109), how-
ever, is sceptical about the boredom motive. He proposes that peacetime longing
for warfare may be more of literary commonplace that a real-life motive.
35 C. Barton, The Sorrows of the Ancient Romans: The Gladiator and the Monster
(Princeton, NJ, 1995) 38. See Katherine Welch’s criticism of Carlin’s arguments
in Journal of Social History, 27 (1993) 2, 430–3.
36 Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius (New York, 1956) 242.
37 Juv. 11.5–8.
38 Ville, La Gladiature, 250.
39 Quint. Inst. 8.5.12. See also Sen. Clem. 2.6.2.
40 Pont. 1.5.37–8; Trist. 2.1.17.
41 28.21.2.

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42 Petron. 117.5. See also Hor. Sat. 2.7.58–9.

43 Sen. Ep. 37.1–2. See Ville, La Gladiature, 247–51.
44 Sen. Apoc. 9.3.
45 See Ville, La Gladiature, 255.
46 Val. Max. 2.3.2.
47 Att. 7.14.2. I have adopted Shackleton Bailey’s (Cicero’s Letters to Atticus, 4
(Cambridge, 1968) 18) reading of CI C (1,000), rather than the commonly ac-
cepted I C C (5,000). The text says ‘shields’ (scutorum) rather than ‘gladiators’. I
heartily agree with SB (138, n. 5) that it is hard to believe that Caesar’s ludus
housed 500 gladiators, much less 1,000 or 5,000, but SB thinks scutorum could
have its normal meaning and not be metonymy for ‘gladiators’. This leads him to
a translation that does not make sense: ‘There were 1,000 shields in the estab-
lishment and they were said to be going to break out.’ Interpreting shields as
‘gladiators’ seems to me to be the only way of making sense of the Latin.
48 Gaius Inst. 3.146. This evidence is late (Gaius is second century AD and Ulpian,
third century), but it most likely that these rules were already in effect in the late
Republic. See D. Potter, ‘Gladiators and Blood Sport’, in Martin Winkler (ed.),
Gladiator: Film and History (Malden, MA, 2004) 79.
49 Att. 4.8.2.
50 Oct. 37.3.
51 Cyprian, Ad Donat, 7. See also Tert. De spect. 12.3.
52 Juv. 6.247–9.
53 45.12.
54 Suet. Iul. 26.3.
55 Tert. Ad martyr. 1.2.
56 Sen. Ep. 22.1.
57 Les Gladiateurs, 304.
58 Quint. Inst. Orat. 10.5.20.
59 A Roman foot was equivalent to approximately 11.6 inches.
60 Mil. 1.11. Quintilian in a simile describes a four-step process for gladiatorial
combat which involves a series of feints countered by parries, which is then
repeated (Inst. 5.13.54).
61 5.24.2–3.
62 ILS 5091; 5099; 5103; 5110; 5116.
63 J. D. Duff (Fourteen Satires of Juvenal (Cambridge, 1957) 233 ad loc.) suggests
that this is the armament of a Samnite gladiator, but by Juvenal’s day (early sec-
ond century AD) the Samnite had long disappeared from the arena.
64 Juv. 6.256–8.
65 6.82–105.
66 We hear of a ludus, in Rome or Capua, owned by a certain C. Aurelius Scaurus,
from which P. Rutilius Rufus (consul in 105 BC) hired arms experts to train his
soldiers (Val. Max. 2.3.2.). See Ville, La Gladiature, 273, n. 98. In the late first
century, Horace mentions the school of a certain Aemilius that was famous

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NOTES TO CHAPTER 2

enough to be used as a landmark in Rome (AP 32). For the possible danger that
the presence of many gladiators in Rome posed during the Catilinarian conspir-
acy, see Sall. Cat. 30.7.
67 Friedländer, Roman Life, II, 56. For Ravenna, see Strabo 5.1.7.
68 Ps. Quint. Decl. Mai. 9.5.19.
69 11.20. See also Cypr. Ad Donat. 7.
70 Plin. HN 18.72.
71 Hist. 2.88.
72 See Suet. Aug. 42.3 and Cass. Dio 55.26.1.
73 Ps. Quint. Decl. Mai. 9.21.
74 Luciana Jacobelli, Gladiators at Pompeii (Los Angeles, 2003) 66.
75 6, Ox. 13.
76 Ps. Quint. Decl. Mai. 9.21. See Ergastulum in William Smith, A Dictionary
of Greek and Roman Antiquities (London, 1875) http://penelope.uchicago
.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/secondary/SMIGRA*/Ergastulum.html.
77 Plut. Crass. 8.4.
78 Jacobelli, Gladiators, 19.
79 The nature of the profession ensured that most of these unions would be
temporary.
80 5.24.10.
81 See Valerie Hope, ‘Fighting for Identity: The Funerary Commemoration of
Italian Gladiators’, in Alison Cooley, The Epigraphic Landscape of Roman Italy
(London, 2000) 104. Wife sets up memorial for gladiator husband: ILS 5090;
5095; 5098; 5100; 5101; 5102; 5104; 5107; 5112; 5115; 5120; 5121; 5122;
5123. Reversal: ILS 5125. Contubernalis Euche: ILS 5096.
82 Claud. 21.5.
83 ILS 5115.
84 Apol. 98.
85 Ps. Quint. Decl. Mai. 9.21.
86 Ibid. 9.5.
87 See Robert, Les Gladiateurs, 29 and Marcus Junkelmann, ‘Familia Gladiatoria:
The Heroes of the Amphitheater’, in Eckart Köhne and Cornelia Ewigleben
(eds), The Power of Spectacle in Ancient Rome: Gladiators and Caesars (Berkeley,
CA, 2000) 32–3. Ville (La Gladiature, 324, n. 217) points out that the hierar-
chical ranking for each type of gladiator in the ludus did not exist until after
the reign of Domitian (AD 81–96). Carter (Gladiatorial Ranking and the ‘SC de
Pretiis Gladiatorum Minuendis’ (CIL II 6278 ⫽ ILS 5163) Phoenix 57.1/2
(2003) 90) suggests the possibility of the existence of a sixth, and even an eighth
palus in some schools.
88 Les Gladiateurs, 30–1.
89 Inscriptions 16, 35, 89, 179, 293, 298 in Robert, Les Gladiateurs. See Cass. Dio
72.22.3.
90 See Ville, La Gladiature, 304, n. 184.

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91 ILS 5107.
92 Cass. Dio 72.22.3.
93 Herodian 1.15.9.
94 Cass. Dio 72.19.2.
95 Cass. Dio 72.22.3. For Hercules and gladiators, see Hor. Epist. 1.1.5.
96 ILS 5085; 5087; 5088; 5089; 5095; 5101; 5115; 5118; 5120.
97 Ville, La Gladiature, 266–7.
98 For example, ILS 5113; 5118; 5124.
99 ILS 5108. Much of what we know about gladiators comes from their epitaphs.
100 Les Gladiateurs, 147.109.
101 ILS 5126.
102 ILS 5108a; 5110.
103 ILS 5086; 5121.
104 ILS 5123.
105 Quint. Inst. 2.17.33. As we shall see in Chapter 7, the film Spartacus deals with
the issue of members of the same gladiatorial troupe fighting each other in the
arena.
106 Dial. 4.8.2.
107 Phil. 6.13.
108 ILS 5124.
109 See Wiedemann. Emperors, 119.
110 6. Ox. 8–9.
111 8.200–01.
112 Susanna Braund, Juvenal Satires: Book I (Cambridge, 1996) 159.
113 22.123–25.
114 6. Ox. 12–13.
115 M. D. Reeve, ‘Gladiators in Juvenal’s Sixth Satire’, CR NS, 23.2 (1973) 125.
116 Q Nat. 7.31.3. S. Cerutti and L. Richardson (‘The Retiarius Tunicatus of
Suetonius, Juvenal, and Petronius’, AJP 110.4 (1989) 590) argue that the seg-
regation reported by Juvenal and Seneca refers to one and the same part of the
school, as does Susanna Braund, Juvenal Satires, 159). For the opposite opinion,
see S. G. Owen, ‘On the Tunica Retiarii (Juvenal II. 143 ff.; VIII. 199 ff.; VI.
Bodleian Fragment 9 ff.)’, CR 19.7 (1905) 355–6.
117 CIL XIV.3014.
118 This house was first discovered in 1890 and was finally excavated in 1899. See
Ville, La Gladiature, 297, n. 165.
119 CIL IV.4420.
120 CIL IV.283.
121 CIL IV.4342; 4345.
122 CIL IV.4353; 4356.
123 De spect. 22. See CIL IV 4342; 4345; 4353; 4356.
124 2.32.
125 The Colosseum, 83.

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NOTES TO CHAPTER 2

126 126.5–6.
127 Rumour had it that her son Commodus was actually fathered by a gladiator
(SHA Marc. (Julius Capitolinus) 19.2). See also Tac. Ann. 11.21; Plut.
Galb. 9.2.
128 6.104–12. As Tertullian points out, the denizens of the arena (and no doubt
women attracted to them) considered scars essential to their sexual magnetism
(Ad mart. 5.1).
129 Ville, La Gladiature, 298.
130 Jacobelli, Gladiators, 49; 67.
131 Ibid. 67.
132 The name was still appropriate, because Octavian was adopted by Caesar in his
will and thus received the surname of Julius.
133 Ner. 30.2. Victorious generals made huge profits when they sold the portion of
the spoils that were awarded to them personally. The rest of the spoils were
dedicated to the gods.
134 HN 11.144. Ville (La Gladiature, 281, n. 124), claims that twenty is too small
to be the total number of gladiators in Caligula’s school or in any imperial
school. Perhaps so, but this count may have been taken after Caligula’s auction
of gladiators (Suet. Calig. 38.4).
135 Plin. HN 11.245.
136 Suet. Calig. 32.2.
137 Tac. Ann. 11.35. A procurator was an employee and representative of the
emperor in various administrative capacities.
138 See Wiedemann, Emperors, 170.
139 ILS 1428. The adjective matutinus means ‘morning’. Since beasts hunts
(venationes) regularly took place in the morning, the school for hunters re-
ceived the official name of ‘the Morning School’ – its unofficial name may have
been ludus bestiariorum or ludus bestiarius (‘beast fighters’ school’). See Sen.
Ep. 70.20; 22 and Ville, La Gladiature, 281.
140 ILS 1412.
141 ILS 1420. This was the triumphal procession that was represented so splen-
didly in the film The Fall of the Roman Empire.
142 See Ville, La Gladiature, 284–7 and Wiedemann, Emperors 170–1.
143 ILS 9014; 1396.
144 CIL IV.1190; 2508. See Jacobelli, Gladiators, 45–6.
145 Wiedemann, (Emperors, 17) wrongly calls Ampliatus a lanista. See Marcus
Junkelmann’s review of Wiedemann in Plekos 4 (2002) 40.
146 CIL IV.1182. It is probably the tomb of Umbricius Scaurus, but there are
other interpretations of the evidence. See Jacobelli, Gladiators, 92.
147 See Ville, La Gladiature 289, n. 146.
148 Suet. Calig. 38.4.
149 ILS 5084.
150 John Scarborough, ‘Galen and the Gladiators’, Episteme 5 (1971) 102.

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151 Aul. Gell. Att. Noct. 12.5.13.

152 See Vivian Nutton, ‘The Chronology of Galen’s Early Career’, CQ 23. 1
(1973) 164. Roman Asia was not the continent, but a large province that
occupied approximately the western half of modern Turkey. The high priest
of the province of Asia was sometimes referred to as the ‘Asiarch’.
153 Gal. De alimentorum facultatibus (Kühn) 6.529–30. See Scarborough, ‘Galen’,
102–3.
154 Gal. De compositione medicamentorum (Kühn) 13.600. See Scarborough,
‘Galen’, 107–11 and Vivian Nutton, ‘Chronology’, 163.
155 See Robert, Les Gladiateurs, 117.61.
156 ILS 5152.
157 Sen. Dial. 1.4.4.
158 Diss. 1.29.37.
159 Suet. Dom. 4.1. See Sen. Ep. 7.4 and G. Lafaye, ‘Gladiator’, in C. Daremberg,
E. Saglio and M. Pottier (eds) Dictionnaire des antiquités greques et romaines
d’après les textes et les monuments (Paris, 1896) 1590.
160 Cass. Dio 67.8.4.
161 Suet. Dom. 4.1.
162 Ibid.
163 See Ville, La Gladiature, 400.
164 ILS 5163.34; Epict. Dissertationes 2.24.23. See also C. Barton, Sorrows, 80.
165 Suet. Dom. 17.2.
166 ILS 5128; 5129; 5130; 5131; 5132.
167 Amanda Claridge Rome: An Oxford Archaeological Guide (Oxford, 1998) 283.
168 ILS 6087.70 (Urso charter). The duoviri, the chief executive magistrates of
Urso, were allowed to supplement their personal expenditure with up to 4,000
sesterces from public monies. For Aurelius’ legislation, see ILS 5163.
169 Cass. Dio 54.2.4.
170 Suet. Tib. 34.1.
171 The giving of a munus in the provinces was seen as means of displaying loyalty
to Rome. The Athenians, influenced by the adoption of gladiatorial shows by
the Corinthians, introduced them into their city. The philosopher Demonax
tried to convince the Athenians not to follow the Corinthians in this regard.
He sarcastically told the Athenians not to vote in favour of this proposal if they
did not first demolish their famous Altar of Pity (Lucian, Demon. 57).
172 Most munerarii, however, were not reluctant to impoverish themselves; for
example, a certain Tertullus of Sagalassus (north-west Turkey), who put ‘his
country before his possessions’. See Robert, Les Gladiateurs, 142. 98.6.
173 ILS 5163.16–18. See James H. Oliver and Robert E. A. Palmer, ‘Minutes of an
Act of the Roman Senate’, Hesperia 24.4 (1955) 320–49.
174 A fragmentary copy of this inscription, inscribed in marble, was found in the
city of Sardis in the province of Asia. Michael Carter (‘Gladiatorial Ranking’,
84) writes of both inscriptions: ‘Surviving inscriptions of the same decree

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NOTES TO CHAPTER 2

found at opposite ends of the Empire . . . do indicate that the decree had uni-
versal importance and application’.
175 SHA Marc. (Julius Capitolinus) 23.5. See Grant, Gladiators, 51.
176 Michael Carter, ‘Gladiatorial Ranking’, 86. This sales tax was probably intended
to finance the war against German tribes on the northern border of the empire.
177 Story, 209–10.
178 Fergus Millar (The Emperor in the Roman World: Economy, Society and Culture
(Ithaca, NY, 1977) 195), argues that the tax was not removed, but prices were
drastically reduced, causing a corresponding reduction in taxes. Carter (‘Glad-
iatorial Ranking’, 86, n. 15) rejects Millar’s interpretation, pointing out that:
‘It seems clear from the text . . . that the revenue abandoned was derived from
a vectigal [“tax paid to the state”].
179 Carter (‘Gladiatorial Ranking’, 88, n. 17), however, points out that although
there is general agreement that that munera assiforana were given for profit,
the evidence that lanistae were editores is weak. He also speculates that the
limitation in cost for these shows below the level of the non-profit games may
have been designed to prevent competition ‘in grandeur’ with the shows of the
priest of the imperial cult.
180 ILS 5163.29.
181 ‘Gladiatorial Ranking’, 95–8.
182 ILS 5163.29–35. Note that these price limitations did not apply to munera
given by the emperor.
183 45.6.
184 See Bomgardner, Story, 230–1 for the different numbers of gladiators possible
in munera of various price ranges according to the legislation’s guidelines.
Bomgardner assumes that the prices mentioned in the legislation are lease
rates.
185 ‘Gladiatorial Ranking’, 106–8.
186 Ibid. 101–3.
187 Ibid. 100–1.
188 ILS 5163.9–10.
189 ILS 5163.55–58. The text of the inscription actually says that provincial procu-
rators could charge only six gold coins (aurei) per man. Cassius Dio says that
one aureus was equivalent to 100 sesterces (55.12.4).
190 Minutes, 324–6.
191 Acts, xx–xxi. See J. F. Matthews’ review of Marcus Auelius by A. Birley, JRS
58.1/2 (1968) 263; Robert M. Grant, Augustus to Constantine (1970) 93–4.
Michael Carter, however, recently referred to Oliver and Palmer’s thesis as the
‘prevailing scholarly opinion’ in his review of Blood in the Arena: The Spectacle
of Roman Power by Alison Futrell, Phoenix 53.1/2 (1999) 157.
192 ILS 5163.59–61.
193 See Bomgardner, Story, 210.
194 Symm. Relat. 8.3.

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Chapter 3 Gladiator Games in Action

1 De arch. 10.pr.3.
2 Not all edicta advertise gladiator games. For example, Cn. Alleius Nigidius
Maius, a leading citizen of Pompeii, on at least on two occasions gave shows that
included a venatio and Greek athletic contests, but no gladiatorial fights. Athletes
who appeared in Roman spectacles would most likely have been practitioners of
combat sports (boxing, wrestling and pankration) and not of the track and field
sports (foot-racing, jumping, javelin, discus).
3 CIL IV.1181.
4 CIL IV.1180.
5 For example, CIL IV.1179.
6 Before the linking of the venatio with gladiatorial combat in the munus, we hear
of gladiator matches starting at dawn (Hor. Epist. 2.2.98).
7 See CIL IV.1180; 1183; 1184; 1186; 1189; 7993; 7994.
8 CIL IV.1989; 3881; 3882.
9 CIL IV.1181; 9980.
10 For example, CIL IV.1177, 1180; 1181; 1184; 3883. See more on the sparsio
later in this chapter.
11 CIL IV.7993.
12 Ville, La Gladiature, 401.
13 CIL IV.3884.
14 The dates given as April 8 to 12 are a modernization. What the Latin says is the day
before and the third, fourth, fifth and sixth days before the Ides of April (13 April).
The Roman system of giving dates involved counting backwards from three key
days in the month: the Kalends (first day), the Nones (5th or 7th, depending on
month), Ides (13th or 15th, also varying with the month). For us the next day in
a reverse series would be the second day before the Ides of April, but the Romans
always counted both ends of a series, so April 11 for them was the third day before
the Ides and so on. The pr in the inscription is for pridie (‘the day before’).
15 CIL IV.1189.
16 There is another term used in inscriptions, plena (‘full’), which is probably syn-
onymous with legitima in this context. See Ville, La Gladiature, 399.
17 SCR is abbreviation for scribit (‘painted’), SING is short for singulus (‘all by
himself’) while AD LUNA[M] means ‘by the light of the moon’.
18 CIL IV.1179.
19 See Ville, La Gladiature, 396.
20 77.6.2.
21 CIL IV 1179.
22 5.24.8.
23 Ville, La Gladiature, 397.
24 45.11.
25 Ville, La Gladiature, 397.

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26 AE 1961, 140; 1969–70, 183.

27 Sen. Ep. 7.4.
28 Ville, La Gladiature, 326. See Juv. 6.248; Ov. Ars am. 3.515; Tac. Dial. 34.5;
Livy 40.6.6 (reading rudibus, rather than sudibus (‘stakes’). See also Livy The
Dawn of the Roman Empire: Books 31–40, trans. J. C. Yardley (Oxford, 2000)
583, note on ‘wooden stakes’.
29 Suet. Claud. 21.5; Calp. Flacc. 52; Quint. Decl. Min. 302. When an auctoratus
received the rudis, he was released from his voluntarily assumed obligation to
perform in the arena and resumed his status as a freeman. When a slave received
the same release, he remained a slave (Ville, La Gladiature, 328. See Tert. De
spect. 21.4).
30 There is also a secunda rudis. He probably served as the second referee we some-
times see in ancient depictions of gladiatorial combat. See Figures 12 and 18.
31 See Robert, Les Gladiateurs, 138.90. This inscription is accompanied by a depic-
tion of a summarudis dressed in a tunic and holding a stick in his hand in the act
of refereeing a match.
32 Ville, La Gladiature, 372.
33 Suet. Tib. 7.1.
34 Livy 44.31.15.
35 See Martin Winkler’s quotation of Lewis Mumford (The City in History: Its Ori-
gins, Its Transformations and its Prospects (New York, 1961) 229–30) in ‘Gladia-
tor and the Colosseum: Ambiguities of Spectacle’, in Winkler (ed.), Gladiator:
Film and History, 96.
36 CIL X; X.4643; 6090X; AE 1927, 124; 1975, 255; FIRA, 2.557.
37 CIL X.4643.
38 CIL X.6429.
39 AE 1969–70, 183.
40 Dial. 10.16.3.
41 4.13.
42 45.7–8. See Wistrand, Entertainment, 24.
43 Suet. Iul. 39.4.
44 Plass (Game of Death, 52) sees the cena libera as a mediation between the living
and the dead, the hospitality of which provides a dramatic contrast with the viol-
ence to occur the next day.
45 Mor. 1099B.
46 For the cena libera as compensation, see Ville, La Gladiature, 366. M. Z. Brettler
and M. Poliakoff (‘Rabbi Simeon ben Lakish at the Gladiator’s Banquet:
Rabbinic Observations on the Roman Arena’, The Harvard Theological Review
83.1 (1990) 93–8) question Ville’s theory, finding it impossible to explain why
editores felt obliged to give compensation, especially to damnati. The authors
discuss the cena libera in the light of the human sacrifice theory of the origin of
gladiatorial combat, arguing that prisoners and captives do not make suitable
victims for funeral ritual. Citing Karl Meuli, Der griechische Agon: Kampf und

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NOTES TO CHAPTER 3

Kampfspiele in Totenbrauch, Totentanz, Totenklage, und Totenlob (Cologne, 1968)

49, they argue that the libera cena as a purification ceremony makes the victims
more worthy by temporarily raising their status.
47 The five revellers may in fact represent the five associations (sodalitates) of
venatores in North Africa, among whom are the famous Telegenii, the Pentasi
and perhaps the Leontii. See Katherine Dunbabin, The Mosaics of Roman North
Africa (Oxford, 1978) 78–83. See plate xxvii.69 in Dunbabin.
48 Tert. Apol. 42.5. See Junkelmann, ‘Familia Gladiatoria’, in Köhne and Ewigleben
(eds), The Power of Spectacle, 64.
49 Plut. Mor. 1099 B. A gladiator who had slaves could have been an auctoratus,
but some slave gladiators were wealthy enough to afford their own slaves. We
have the example of an essedarius (‘chariot-fighter’) named Porius who cel-
ebrated a victory by manumitting a slave. When the crowd vigorously applauded
Porius’ generosity, Caligula experienced a fit of jealousy because the people were
lavishing their respect upon Porius rather than on himself, the emperor. The in-
cident ended comically with Caligula tripping on the hem of his toga as he
rushed down the steps (Suet. Calig. 35.3). Porius’ name is Greek, indicating
that he is probably either a slave or a freedman. For slaves as slave owners, see
Plaut. Asin. 433–4; Hor. Sat. 2.7.79; Mart. 2.18.7; Paul. Dig. 9.4.19.2; Ulp.
15.1.17.pr. A slave’s slave was called a vicarius. See also Beryl Rawson, ‘Family
Life among the Lower Classes at Rome in the First Two Centuries of the
Empire’, CPh, 61.2 (1966), 75.
50 Pass. Perpet, et Felic. 17.1–2.
51 In Figure 4, the top panel is divided into two segments, one on top of the other,
to fit the format of the page.
52 See Junkelmann, ‘Familia Gladiatoria’, in Köhne and Ewigleben (eds), The
Power of Spectacle, 65.
53 The toga was worn only by Roman citizens on official occasions. Note that the
musicians, who are probably slaves, are wearing tunics. The lictors carry the
fasces, symbolic bundles of rods and axes that represent the magistrate’s power to
punish with flogging or with death.
54 The best modern depiction of a pompa is in the film Demetrius and the Gladia-
tors (dir. Daves, 1954).
55 The blacksmiths are very small, but that is probably due to the limitations of
space in the panel.
56 Suet. Tit. 9.2. Cassius Dio tells practically the same story about a later emperor,
Nerva (68.3.2).
57 Third century emperors used gladiators in processions of other kinds, probably
because of their impressive appearance with their bejewelled armament and
plumes. Gallienus (AD 259–68) commemorated the tenth anniversary of his
rule with a parade including 1,200 gladiators, while Aurelian (AD 270–275) cel-
ebrated a triumph with a procession including 1,600 gladiators (SHA Gallien.
(Trebellius Pollio) 8.3 and Aurel. (Flavius Vopiscus Syracusius) 33.4).

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58 For gladiators’ participation in the pompa, see Ps. Quint Decl. Mai. 9.6 and
Robert, Les Gladiateurs, 174–6.171.9.
59 3.59.
60 Tox. 58.
61 Cass. Dio 44.16.2; Appian, B Civ. 2.17.118; Vell. Pat. 2.58.
62 Even after the venatio became a regular feature of the munus, on occasion it was
given in the Circus Maximus in connection with chariot races. For example,
Caligula was fond of combining chariot races with animal hunts, by presenting
venationes between races (Suet. Calig. 18.3). Cassius Dio says that Claudius
adopted this practice at least on one occasion, presenting bear hunts, athletic con-
tests and Pyrrhic dances (war dances) between chariot races (60.23.5) Suetonius
adds that Claudius frequently used this hybrid format in circus games on the
Vatican hill, inserting a venatio every five races (Claud. 21.2).
63 The word venatio is related to ‘venison’, which originally meant ‘the flesh of a
hunted animal’.
64 See Juv. 4.100–1.
65 Apul. Met. 4.13. The importance of swiftness for the hunter also explains
the short tunic. Any article of clothing longer than this was liable to impede the
progress of the hunter in various ways as he raced through the forest. Once the
prey had been cornered by the dogs, the hunter would dispatch it with one of
his two spears.
66 Sen. Dial. 10.13.6. Before this occasion lions in the arena had always been
chained.
67 Plin. HN 8.131.
68 Ibid. 8.20.
69 Strabo 17.1.44.
70 Ulp. Dig. 48.19.8.11.
71 Cic. Sest. 135.
72 Q Fr. 2.5.3.
73 45.11. See also Cic. Vat. 40; Tert. De anim. 57.5.
74 ‘Familia Gladiatoria’, in Köhne and Ewigleben (eds), The Power of Spectacle, 71.
75 Ep. 70.20; 22.
76 Ulp. Dig. 48.19.8.11.
77 See Roland Auguet, Cruelty and Civilization: The Roman Games (London,
1994) 89–90; 93.
78 Plin. HN 33.53.
79 Claud. 34.2.
80 Ben. 2.19.1.
81 Apol. 9.5; 42.5.
82 Whipping and torches were also used to force reluctant gladiators to fight.
83 Dial. 5.43.2.
84 See Salvatore Aurigemma, I Mosaici di Zliten (Rome, 1926) 188.

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85 14.53; Spect. 11; 21; 22. The numbering of the poems in Martial’s Book of
Spectacles used in this book is that of D. R. Shackleton Bailey in the first volume
of his Loeb Classical Library translation of Martial (Cambridge, MA, 1993).
86 Ov. Met. 11.25–7.
87 Symm. Ep. 2.77.
88 11.69.
89 I Mosaici, 186; 188.
90 Varro Rust. 3.13.1–3. Hortensius’ dinner guests had a view of his park and en-
joyed watching a servant dressed as Orpheus summon the animals by blowing
his horn. Roman elites also enjoyed keeping fish ponds and aviaries.
91 Ner. 31.1.
92 SHA Gord. Tres (Julius Capitolinus) 33.1. Procopius mentions that there was a
vivarium in Rome just outside the Praenestine Gate (De bell. 5.22.10). Ani-
mals were kept in this area and attended by magistri (trainers) until they were
transported to the amphitheatre (CIL VI.130).
93 Wiedemann (Emperors, 64) says that ‘in a pre-industrial world, any sign of
control over the natural world is reassuring to society at large’.
94 2.5.33. A poem in the Anth. Palat. (7.626) says practically the same thing. See
Edmondson, Dynamic Arenas, 72–3.
95 Themist. De Pace 140.2–4.
96 Ep. 41.6.
97 SHA Gord. Tres (Julius Capitolinus) 3.7.
98 The naturalist Pliny the Elder enthusiastically makes this claim for elephants,
calling their intellectual and emotional capacity closest to that of human be-
ings. Pliny, however, in the examples that he presents to support his claim, in-
dulges in gross anthropomorphism, noting the elephant’s religious tendencies
(HN 8.1).
99 J. M. C. Toynbee, Animals in Roman Life and Art (Ithaca, NY, 1973) 21.
100 4.40.
101 Cass. Dio 66.25.1; 68.15.1.
102 Theodoric, an Ostrogoth, relied on Cassiodorus to ghost-write his letters in
polished Latin. It is impossible to know where Theodoric ends and Cassiodor-
us begins in these thoughts on the venatio, but I think it is safe to assume that
the two men, as Christians, were in agreement on this matter. See James
O’Donnell, Cassiodorus (Berkeley, CA, 1979) 96.
103 Cassiod. Var. 5.42.2. Theodoric expresses distaste for the venatio, but never
questions the political value of these shows.
104 Var. 5.42.6–10. The phrase ‘four panels that rotate around a central pole’ is my
simplification of Cassiodorus’ vague description of this device. S. J. B. Barnish
(The Variae of Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator (Liverpool, 1992) 92)
translates the phrase more literally: ‘angled screens, fitted in a rotating four part
apparatus’.

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105 Rust. 3.5.

106 See ‘Cochlea’ in William Smith, A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities
(London, 1875). (http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/
secondary/SMIGRA/home.html.
107 See figures 1687–8 in E. Saglio, ‘Cochlea’, in Dar.–Sag., Dictionnaire, 1265.
108 9.533.
109 See George Jennison, Animals for Show and Pleasure in Ancient Rome
(Manchester, 1937) 180.
110 Ibid.
111 One is reminded of the two wooden walls (burladeros) at opposite ends of the
arena in modern bullrings, from behind which toreros taunt the bulls. See Terin
Tashi Miller, ‘On Bullfighting’. http://www.lostgeneration.com/article6.htm.
112 See Dunbabin, Mosaics, 76; plate XXVI.65 (Khanguet el-Hadjaj) in which a
man coming out of a door seems to be trying to get the attention of animals,
which will be lassoed by the man standing nearby. Another ‘teaser’ of wild
beasts in the arena was the tree-climber (arborarius), who used this method of
escape. Robert (Les Gladiateurs, 327) suggests that he was paired with a bear
to introduce more risk into this event since a bear is also a tree-climber.
113 A. Chastagnol, Le Senat romain sous le règne d’Odacre: recherches sur l’epigra-
phie du Colisée au V e siècle (Bonn, 1966) 20–2.
114 See figure 98 in Peter Brown’s The World of Late Antiquity AD 150–750
(London, 1973). See also Porphyrius the Charioteer (Oxford, 1973) 228–9 and
Bryan Ward-Perkins, From Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages: Urban Pub-
lic Building in Northern and Central Italy AD 300–850 (Oxford, 1984) 114.
115 Cass. Dio 37.46.4.
116 Sen. Ep. 7.3–4.
117 See Hopkins and Beard, The Colosseum, 73.
118 CIL IX.3437 (Peltuinum) and ILS 5063a (Beneventum).
119 See Lucian, Tox. 59.
120 The Athenians also armed criminals such as adulterers, male prostitutes, bur-
glars and kidnappers, and forced them to fight as gladiators (Philostr. V A 4.22).
121 Ep. 7.3–4. Seneca elsewhere condemns these fights: ‘A human being . . . is led
out [into the arena] naked and defenceless and the spectacle is no more than a
man being killed’. Some scholars, such as Otto Kiefer (Sexual Life in Ancient
Rome (New York, 1993) 102–3), have mistaken this passage as a reference to
trained gladiators, but although gladiators might loosely be described as naked,
they had protective armour.
122 Salisbury, Perpetua’s Passion, 130.
123 Suet., Claud. 34.2. See also Cass. Dio 60.13.4.
124 Cass. Dio 60.13.3. See Ville, La Gladiature 134–5.
125 Sen. Ep. 14.5. See also Juv. 1.155–7. Tertullian reports seeing a man volunteer
to wear the tunica molesta for a price in order to show his contempt for fire
(Ad nat. 1.18.10). This man seems to be a precursor of the modern fire-eater.

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126 Suet. Vit. 17.1–2.

127 Plin. Pan. 34.3.
128 AE 1975, 255.
129 Wiedemann. Emperors, 71. The placard was also used to humiliate Attalus in
the amphitheatre of Lyons in AD 177. Attalus, because he was the most well-
known of the damnati, was forced to walk around the arena behind a sign,
which read: ‘This is Attalus, the Christian’ (Euseb. HE 5.1.44).
130 Ad nat. 1.10.47.
131 Ville, La Gladiature, 425
132 Ad nat. 1.10.47.
133 The picture of Tertullian and his friends enjoying themselves at the merid-
ianum spectaculum seems at odds with his strong Christian stance in his
writings, but his attendance at the amphitheatre was no doubt before his
conversion to Christianity. It should be noted, however, that Tertullian shares a
fixation with Seneca and various Christian writers. As Barton (‘Scandal of the
Arena’, Representations, 27 (1989) 29, n. 49) comments, Tertullian is ‘fasci-
nated and obsessed with the violence he often decries’.
134 Bomgardner, Story, 137.
135 Ad nat. 1.10.46. See also Apol. 15.5. Ville (La Gladiature, 378) believes that
these two ‘gods’ were also employed at the ad bestias executions.
136 Junkelmann, Das Spiel, 141.
137 Fabian Kanz and Karl Grossschmidt, in their valuable study of the head injuries
of gladiators (‘Head Injuries of Roman Gladiators’, Forensic Science Inter-
national 160 (2006) 214), trace four head traumata of either round or square
shape to the hammer of Dis Pater.
138 Das Spiel, 141.
139 La Gladiature, 377.
140 Vitr. 1.7.1, Mart. Spect. 26.3.
141 ILS 2088; 2096; 3739.
142 ILS 3628.
143 ILS 3744.
144 Robert, Les Gladiateurs, 182–3.179.
145 Nick Bateman, Gladiators at the Guildhall: The Story of London’s Roman
Amphitheatre and Medieval Guildhall (London, 2000) 34.
146 ILS 5121.
147 ILS 3742; 3743. See Bomgardner, Story, 137.
148 Robert, Les Gladiateurs, 87–90.24.
149 Blood, 110, 114, 118.
150 See Ov. Ib. 47–9 (I read velitis, ‘a light-armed gladiator’, instead of militis
(‘soldier’). It may have been during the prolusio that new auctorati were
subjected to a gauntlet as an initiation ceremony (Sen. Apoc. 9.3).
151 Ov. Ars am. 3.515.
152 Ep. 117.25.

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153 De Or. 2.317.

154 Ibid. 2.325.
155 Ps. Quint. Decl. Mai. 9.6; Petron. 36.6. See Ville, La Gladiature, 408.
156 Ovid in his Ibis (47–9), speaking of a gladiator in the prolusio, uses the verb
calefacere, which can mean both ‘to warm up’ and ‘excite the emotions’. Per-
haps Ovid wants both meanings to apply.
157 Tusc. 4.48. Cicero is quoting the second century BC satirist Lucilius.
158 Besides gladiators, the lanista provided other necessities for the munus: arms, a
herald, musicians, a flogger (for reluctant gladiators) and arena attendants.
159 Cic. Phil. 2.97.
160 Fam. 2.8.1.
161 SHA Claud. (Trebellius Pollio) 5.5.
162 Ars am. 1.167.
163 See Junkelmann, ‘Familia Gladiatoria’, in Köhne and Ewigleben (eds), The
Power of Spectacle, 64; Ville, La Gladiature, 364.
164 The acta diurna were first published by order of Julius Caesar in 59 BC during
his first consulship. They contained proceedings of the Senate, news about no-
table people (births, deaths, marriages, divorces), and other noteworthy events
(Suet. Iul. 20.1). There is a parody of the acta diurna in Petronius’ Satryicon
(53). Trimalchio, the central character, has so much property that, like an in-
habitant of a city, he needs a newsletter to keep him informed of events. Here
is a sample: ‘June 25: on the Cumaean estate which belongs to Trimalchio
there were born thirty slave boys and forty slave girls; five hundred thousand
pecks of wheat were removed from the threshing floor and put into the store-
house; five hundred cattle were tamed. On the same day: the slave Mithridates
was crucified for cursing the genius [‘spirit’] of the master. On the same day:
ten million sesterces were put into the money chest because they could not be
invested. On the same day: There was a fire in the gardens at Pompeii, which
started with the house of the steward Nasta’.
165 CIL IV.2508. See Lafaye, ‘Gladiator’, in Dar.–Sag., Dictionnaire, 1597.
166 Grant, Gladiators, 57.
167 Gladiators, 7.
168 Fest., Gloss. Lat. 285.12–16; ‘Familia Gladiatoria’, in Köhne and Ewigleben
(eds), The Power of Spectacle, 37.
169 Epist. 2.2.98.
170 Livy 9.40.3.
171 Sest. 126.
172 Junkelmann, ‘Familia Gladiatoria’, in Köhne and Ewigleben (eds), The Power
of Spectacle, 37; 47.
173 Orig. 18.53.
174 While the position of the equites in the gladiatorial programme was fixed,
editores regularly varied the sequence of other paired gladiator types.

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175 Junkelmann, ‘Familia Gladiatoria’, in Köhne and Ewigleben (eds), The Power
of Spectacle, 47–8.
176 Robert (Les Gladiateurs, 67) points out that the essedarius (‘chariot fighter’)
was also depicted fighting on foot.
177 See Junkelmann, ‘Familia Gladiatoria’ in Köhne and Ewigleben (eds), The
Power of Spectacle, 38.
178 Sest. 126; 134.
179 Junkelmann, ‘Familia Gladiatoria’, in Köhne and Ewigleben (eds), The Power
of Spectacle, 37.
180 Prov. Cons. 9; Phil. 6.13.
181 Sen. Controv. 3. pr.10. See also Jacobelli, Gladiators, 50.
182 Emperors, 30. See Cass. Dio 72.19.2.
183 ‘Note sur une lampe représentant deux gladiateurs’, Phoenix, 57.1/2 (2003)
141–2.
184 Das Spiel, 128. For example, see ILS 5105.
185 ‘Familia Gladiatoria’, in Köhne and Ewigleben (eds), The Power of Spectacle,
51–2.
186 Ibid. 52.
187 Aurigemma, I Mosaici, 170, figure 101.
188 Grant, Gladiators, 57.
189 Gloss. Lat. 285.12–16.
190 See Val. Max. 1.7.8 for a murmillo paired with a retiarius.
191 Adv. nat. 6.12.2.
192 Aequoreus (CIL X.1927). See also Mart. 5.24.12. Junkelmann, Das Spiel, 85.
193 Junkelmann, ‘Familia Gladiatoria’, in Köhne and Ewigleben (eds), The Power
of Spectacle, 51.
194 14.213.
195 9.68.7–8.
196 Calig. 55.2.
197 Ibid. 54.1.
198 Suet. Ner. 30.2; 47.3. See Ville, La Gladiature, 444.
199 Suet. Tit. 8.2.
200 He referred to himself as dominus et deus (‘lord and god’) (Suet. Dom. 13.2).
201 Pan. 33.3–4. See Ville (La Gladiature, 445) on charges of impiety and treason.
202 Suet. Dom. 10.1. These dogs were a regular part of the venatio and were used
to chase down and kill deer and the like.
203 For the thraex vs a hoplomachus, see figure 43 in Junkelmann, ‘Familia Gladi-
atoria’, in Köhne and Ewigleben (eds), The Power of Spectacle, 51.
204 Spect. 31.
205 I adopt the reading of parma (‘small shield’) for palma (‘the palm of victory’)
in Mart. Spect. 31.5 proposed by P. Wagner and accepted by D. R. Shackleton
Bailey, ibid. 34, note ad loc.

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206 Mart. Spect. 31.9. There will be further discussion of this match later in this
chapter.
207 Med. 1.5.1.
208 CIL VI.9719. See Allen Guttman, ‘Sports Spectators from Antiquity to the
Renaissance’, Journal of Sport History, 8.2 (1981) 11.
209 The word retiarius is derived from the Latin word for net (rete), one of the
gladiator’s primary weapons.
210 There is one basic difference between the gladiator and the soldier: the soldier
wears a cuirass, while most gladiators fought with a bare torso.
211 The Oxford Latin Dictionary says that the retiarius was also called a pinnirapus
(‘a feather snatcher’), but no source I know of connects the retiarius specifi-
cally with this name. Pinnirapus may be just a generic term for a gladiator, as
Juvenal uses the word. The name may come from the custom of a gladiator
taking a decorative feather from the helmet of his opponent as a trophy, either
in the midst of battle or after the fight was over. Scholiasts on Juv. 3.158 and
Varro (LL 5.142) say that Samnite gladiators wore feathers on their helmets,
which opponents seized, probably as trophies. See Lucilius (fr. 3.121–2) for a
gladiator who had taken seven feathers in combat. Barbara Levick (‘The Senatus
Consultum from Larinum’, JRS 73 (1983) 102) believes that pinnirapus is a
gladiator in training (tiro) whose job was to collect helmet feathers from dead
gladiators to give to the victors, I do not think that this interpretation is sup-
ported by the evidence in Juvenal, who speaks of the pinnirapus as a full-
fledged gladiator.
212 As Junkelmann ‘Familia Gladiatoria’, in Köhne and Ewigleben (eds), The
Power of Spectacle, 61, explains: ‘The equipment of the murmillo and the
secutor differed only in the shape of their helmets’.
213 2.144; 8.206.
214 ILS 5118; 5119.
215 Juvenal describes the ordinary retiarius as nudus, which in this case means
‘almost naked’ (6. Ox 12).
216 See A. E. Houseman, ‘Tunica Retiarii’, CR 18.8 (1904), 397, his edition of
Juvenal’s Satires (Cambridge, 1931) 50, n. 10–13) and Cerutti and Richardson,
‘Retiarius Tunicatus’, 589–91.
217 6. Ox. 9–10.
218 The munus sometimes also featured group fights among boxers (pugiles cater-
varii). See Suet. Aug. 45.2; Calig. 18.1 and CIL X.1074d.
219 Suet. Calig. 30.3.
220 Owen (‘Tunica Retiarii’, 354–6) rejects the connection between the tunic and
effeminacy. The garment was commonly used in everyday life without any
hint of disgrace. He (357) also suggests that in the case of Gracchus, the tunic
was part of his outfit as a Salian priest. Susanna Braund ( Juvenal and Persius
(Cambridge, MA, 2004) 341, n. 51) agrees. J. Colin (‘Les Baladins et les réti-
aires d’après le manuscrit d’Oxford’, Atti della Accademia delle scienze di

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NOTES TO CHAPTER 3

Torino, 87 (1952–53) 352) argues that the shame of the tunic is derived from
the fact that convicted criminals wore them. Thus, retiarii who were convicts
would wear the tunic, while volunteer retiarii would not. The problem is that
there is no evidence that, among gladiators, dress was used to differentiate be-
tween slave and free status.
221 2.117–42. If the wedding with another man were not bad enough in the eyes
of the Romans, Gracchus’ husband was a man from the lowest level of society:
a horn player, probably a slave or at best a freedman.
222 8.203–6.
223 8.209–10. Seneca points out that gladiators felt shame if they were matched
with inferior fighters (Prov. 3.4).
224 Juv. 6. Ox. 9–13.
225 See CIL VI.631.
226 See Robert, Les Gladiateurs, 72; 106; plate xiii.46.
227 Junkelmann, ‘Familia Gladiatoria’, in Köhne and Ewigleben (eds), The Power
of Spectacle, 61–2.
228 Orig. 18.57.
229 Bell. Gall. 4.33.1.
230 Petronius has one of his characters mention the appearance of a female chariot
fighter (essedaria) in an upcoming munus (45.7). Since only one essedaria is
mentioned, it is not clear whom she was supposed to fight. The usual assump-
tion is that essedarii fought opponents of the same category.
231 ‘Gladiator’, in Dar.–Sag., Dictionnaire, 1589.
232 Orig. 18.56.
233 Das Spiel, 127.
234 Fam. 7.10.2.
235 Lafaye, ‘Gladiator’, in Dar.–Sag., Dictionnaire, 1589.
236 ILS 5126.
237 Suet. Calig. 26.5. See Junkelmann, Das Spiel, 128.
238 ILS 5083a.
239 See Junkelmann, Das Spiel, 127.
240 4.42.
241 It is not clear in the Florence relief whether the legs of the two archers are bare
or have leg protectors.
242 For the dimachaerus, see Robert, Les Gladiateurs, 130–1.
243 Lafaye, ‘Gladiator’ in Dar.–Sag., Dictionnaire, 1586.
244 Junkelmann, ‘Familia. Gladiatoria’, in Köhne and Ewigleben (eds), The Power
of Spectacle, 60–1.
245 CIL X.1074d.
246 Les Gladiateurs, 72–3; Das Spiel, 127.
247 Tac. Ann. 3.43; 46.
248 See paragraphs 17–18 of the decree (both Latin and English translation) in
Barbara Levick, ‘Senatus Consultum’, 98–9.

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249 Ibid. 98.12–13.

250 Jane Gardner, Women in Roman Law and Society (Bloomington, IN, 1986)
248. Gladiators were denied burial in the town of Sassina (modern Sarsina). The
author of an inscription prohibits gladiators, suicides by hanging, and prosti-
tutes from burial in a cemetery, which he has given to his fellow citizens for their
use (ILS 7846).
251 Ann. 15.32.
252 Cass. Dio 61.17.3.
253 Ibid. 63.3.1.
254 45.7.
255 1.22–3.
256 6.246–67.
257 66.25.2.
258 Dom. 4.1.
259 Silv. 1.6.57–64. If D. R. Shackleton Bailey’s plausible reading of pumilos
(‘dwarfs’) for pugiles (‘boxers’) is correct (Silvae (Cambridge, MA, 2003) 92–3
n. 12), dwarf gladiators also fought cranes in the arena, their traditional ene-
mies in folktale. See Hom. Il. 3.3–7; Plin. HN 7.26; Juv. Sat. 13.168–73. This
battle was a popular subject in Roman art (J. M. C. Toynbee, Animals, 244.
See Alex Scobie, ‘The Battle of the Pygmies and the Cranes in Chinese, Arab
and North American Indian Sources’, Folklore, 86.2 (1975) 123.
260 Cass. Dio 67.8.4. Newlands (Statius’s Silvae and the Poetics of Empire
(Cambridge, 2002) 244) thinks that the female and dwarf gladiators may
have been convicted criminals given the task of executing each other.
261 We also should consider the possibility that traditional pairings were ignored
for female gladiators.
262 See Kathleen Coleman, ‘Missio at Halicarnassus’, Harv. Stud. 100 (2000), 500.
263 Amy Zoll, Gladiatrix (New York, 2002) 37.
264 Shelby Brown, ‘Death as Decoration: Scenes from the Arena on Roman
Domestic Mosaics’, in Amy Richlin (ed.), Pornography and Representation in
Greece and Rome (Oxford, 1992) 188; 207–8 and Marilyn Skinner, Sexuality,
187–8.
265 Coleman, ‘Missio’, 495–6. Amy Zoll’s book (Gladiatrix) is based on the
premise that the recent discovery (2000) of the bones of a woman buried with
some lamps decorated with gladiator figures are those of a female gladiator.
Hopkins and Beard (The Colosseum, 75), however, have cast doubt on this as-
sumption, claiming that objects in the grave prove only that the woman was a
fan of gladiatorial combat, rather than a participant.
266 Cass. Dio 75.16.1. The Senatus Consultum of AD 19, which had banned
upper-class women from fighting as gladiators had probably had fallen into
disuse.
267 CIL XIV.4616; 5381. Munerarii were very proud of any ‘firsts’ they were able
to present. For example, see CIL IX.2237 and X.1795.

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268 ‘Revisions et nouveautés pour trios inscriptions d’Ostie’, MEFRA, 88.2

(1976) 614.
269 Cebeillac-Gervasoni and Zevi, ‘Revisions’, 615 and Mark Vesley, ‘Gladiatorial
Training for Girls in the Collegia Iuvenum of the Roman Empire’, Echos du
Monde Classique/Classical Views XLII NS 17 (1998) 88–91.
270 ILS 6635.
271 Cebeillac-Gervasoni and Zevi, ‘Revisions’, 615–16.
272 ‘Missio’, 498, n. 34. Coleman rejects the dating of this inscription by Cebeillac-
Gervasoni and Zevi to before AD 200, because they ignored ‘criteria of letter-
forms and phraseology’.
273 See Junkelmann, Das Spiel, 146.
274 Freedmen often had three names because it was the custom to take the
praenomen and nomen of their former master, but retain their slave name as a
cognomen, e.g., L. Sextius Eros. This, however, was not an attempt to fool any-
one, because the foreign third name (in this case, Greek) gave a freedman away
immediately.
275 Ville (La Gladiature, 308) notes that sometimes free gladiators (auctorati)
took stage names to keep their family name free from the infamia associated
with being a gladiator.
276 Robert, Les Gladiateurs, 211.245.
277 Ap. Rhod. Argon. 2.1–97.
278 Stat. Theb., 8.751–66.
279 One might argue that these mythological names indicate the homosexuality of
gladiators who adopted them, but more likely they were just meant to convey
the image of masculine beauty.
280 SHA Div. Claud. (Trebellius Pollio) 5.5.
281 Ville (La Gladiature, 309–10) notes that gladiators often adopted pseudonyms
that associated them with great gladiators of the past like Triumphus, Myrinus
and Columbus.
282 5.24.
283 Spect. 17 and 32. For discussion and commentary of these two poems, see
Coleman, M. Valerii Martialis Liber Spectaculorum (Oxford, 2006) 140–7 and
235–43.
284 See Dunbabin, Mosaics, 73.
285 29.3.9.
286 See Plass, Game of Death, 10; 22.
287 See Tert. De spect. 21.4.
288 Pirates were the terrorists of the ancient world, notorious for kidnapping
victims at sea. As a young man Julius Caesar was kidnapped by pirates and ran-
somed himself. After his release, he eventually captured them and, annoyed by
the provincial governor’s delay in applying punishment, had them all crucified
(Plut. Caes. 2).

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289 Ps. Quint. Decl. Mai. 9.6.1–14. Libitina was a goddess of death and her
‘couch’ was a stretcher for the removal of seriously injured and dead gladiators
(Figure 11).
290 Junkelmann, ‘Familia Gladiatoria’, in Köhne and Ewigleben (eds), The Power
of Spectacle, 64.
291 Petron. 34.4; Mart 2.75.5–6; Suet. Ner. 12.1.
292 It took considerable time to find a worthy (and available) troupe of gladiators.
It was perhaps even more difficult to assemble a good collection of wild beasts
for the venatio. This, however, was not true in every case. One of the Metelli
won for himself and his descendants the cognomen of Celer (‘swift’) because of
the astonishing speed with which he was able to organize a munus within a few
days after the death of his father. (Plut. Cor. 11.4).
293 60.
294 For the first alternative, see Ps. Quint. Decl. Mai. 9.9.
295 Sen. Ep. 37.2.
296 ILS 5113.
297 The letters or word in the brackets supply what was missing from the full word
or phrase in the Latin abbreviations.
298 Spect. 31.
299 K. Coleman (Liber Spectaculorum, 226–9), however, argues for the reading of
palma instead of parma. Her most telling argument points out that ordering
the two gladiators to fight without their shields, ‘would . . . reduce professional
combat to the status of a blood-bath’. She explains her reading of posita . . .
palma, ‘with the palm having been placed’ as follows: ‘a palm was placed in a
prominent position to symbolize that the fight had to continue until there was
a clear winner’. My problem with this interpretation is that it does not seem
necessary for the emperor to use the palm in this way to inform the crowd of
his decision. Even if a herald could not have made himself heard or placards
could not be read clearly by the crowd in a large amphitheatre like the Colos-
seum (as Coleman suggests), would the spectators not have realized the nature
of Titus’ decision when the two gladiators resumed their fight, even without
the placement of a palm?
300 Spect. 31.8.
301 Ibid. 31.9.
302 ‘Missio’, 493–5.
303 See Ville, La Gladiature, 415–16.
304 Helen Lovatt, Statius and Epic Games: Sport, Politics, and Poetics in the Thebaid
(Cambridge, 2005). 285.
305 Cass. Dio 72.19.5–6.
306 Ibid. 77.19.3–4.
307 CIL V.5933. In his epitaph (Robert, Les Gladiateurs, 131.79), a gladiator
named Diodorus expresses a similar sentiment, but he also blames ‘destructive
Destiny and the dire treachery of the referee’.

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308 Robert, Les Gladiateurs, 115.56. See also 85.20; 113–14.55.

309 ILS 5134. See Junkelmann, ‘Familia Gladiatoria’, in Köhne and Ewigleben
(eds), The Power of Spectacle, 68.
310 Mart. 12.28.7–8 and 13.99.
311 Plin. HN 28.25. See A. Corbeill, Nature Embodied: Gesture in Ancient Rome
(Princeton, NJ, 2004) 52–62.
312 Quint. Inst. 11.3.119.
313 415 (413 Shackleton Bailey), 27–8.
314 Nature Embodied, 49–50.
315 3.36.
316 3.37.
317 CIL IV.2508.
318 Cass. Dio 60.28.2.
319 CIL X.6012.
320 Pont. 2.8.53. In the Greek east, a provincial governor overturned the decision
of an editor and granted missio to a gladiator named Idomeneus (Robert, Les
Gladiateurs, 169.155).
321 45.6.
322 Suet. Aug. 45.3.
323 Nero 4.1.
324 45.6.
325 Tac. Ann. 1.76.
326 Cass. Dio 57.13.1. These ‘sharp’ swords were also known in the Greek east.
See Robert, Les Gladiateurs, 258.
327 Cass. Dio 71.29.3.
328 ‘Gladiators and Blood Sport’, in Winkler (ed.), Gladiator: Film and History,
76–7.
329 Claud. 34.1 See Ville, La Gladiature, 416.
330 Suet. Claud. 21.5.
331 Corbeill, Nature Embodied, 56–8.
332 Cic. Tusc. 2.41.
333 Cic. Mil. 92; Sen. Tranq. 11.4.
334 Ep. 30.8.
335 Ep. 93.12.
336 Suet. Claud. 34.2.
337 ad loc. Sat. 1.7.20. For other double deaths see Robert, Les Gladiateurs, in-
scriptions 122–3.66; 153–4.122; 155.124; 191.191; 208–9.239; 223–4.285.
In inscription 191, the gladiator Kinyras was declared winner before he died of
his wounds. See also ILS 5118.
338 48.19.31.pr.
339 Spect. 33. Martial also refers to a possible release of a gazelle (13.99).
340 See Richard Saller, ‘The Family and Society’, in John Bodel (ed.), Epigraphic
Evidence: Ancient History from Inscriptions (London, 2001) 100.

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341 La Gladiature, 318.

342 The Colosseum, 89
343 La Gladiature, 319.
344 ILS 5062.
345 La Gladiature, 320–1.
346 Ibid. 321.
347 Ibid., 325.
348 The Colosseum, 87.
349 Emperors, 120.
350 B. Frier, ‘Roman Life-Expectancy: Ulpian’s Evidence’, Harv. Stud. 86 (1982)
213–51.
351 ILS 5113.
352 ILS 5090.
353 Tert. De spect. 21.4.
354 FIRA 2.572.4–5. According to Ulpian, Hadrian’s decree also emphasized that
the penalty for cattle rustling was not the same everywhere.
355 See Cic. Phil. 2.74.
356 Ps. Cic. Ad. Oct. 9; Suet. Calig. 26.5; Petron. 45.11.
357 CIL VI.10189; VI.10184; VI.10178; XIII.1997. See La Gladiature, 323–4.
358 The Colosseum, 88; ‘Contagion’, 70.
359 La Gladiature, 325.
360 ILS 5088.
361 Ville, La Gladiature, 311.
362 Ibid. 324–5.
363 For another example of gladiators fighting twice in the same munus, see Plin.
HN 36.120 (Curio’s show in 52 BC).
364 Suet. Calig. 35.2; Cass. Dio 77.6.2.
365 See Suet. Calig. 32.2. A similar celebration takes place today when the Wim-
bledon champion carries his/her trophy around Centre Court. Likewise,
Olympic gold medal winners do a victory lap, carrying the flag of their country
around the stadium.
366 See Ville, La Gladiature, 315.
367 Claud. 21.5.
368 Mart. Spect. 31.6.
369 Oliver and Palmer, Aes Italicense, 332, 45–6. Michael Carter (‘Gladiatorial
Ranking’, 104), however, believes that this money was a percentage of the lease
fee, amounting to a wage of the gladiator, and not of the victor’s cash reward.
The difficulty is with the word mercedis in ILS 5163.45, which can mean either
‘lease fee’ or ‘reward’.
370 ‘Fighting for Identity’, in Alison Cooley (ed.), 97.
371 See Robert, Les Gladiateurs, 174.171.
372 9–10. The numbers here and in endnotes 373, 376, 378–81 are references to
the lines of inscription 171 in Robert, Les Gladiateurs.

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373 18.
374 Les Gladiateurs, 177.
375 HN 33.53.
376 15–16.
377 See Dunbabin, Mosaics, 69, plate XXII.54. (Le Kef ⫽ Sicca Veneria); 71, plate
XXIV.57 (Carthage).
378 17.
379 1–2.
380 7; 14.
381 18.
382 For two other honorific inscriptions dedicated to a munerarius, see CIL
VIII.5276 and 7969.
383 Stat. Silv. 1.6.48–50.
384 Silv. 1.6.28–33.
385 45.10.
386 Suet. Ner.11.2 and Sen. Ep. 74.6–7.
387 Cass. Dio 66.25.5.
388 Ep. 74.7.
389 Q Nat. 2.9.2.
390 Mart. 11.8.2. See See Alex Scobie, ‘Spectator Security and Comfort at Gladia-
torial Games’, Nikephoros 1 (1988) 223–4 and Robert, Les Gladiateurs, 86.22.
391 Tert. De spect. 16.7.
392 Suet. Calig. 35.2.
393 Suet. Dom. 10.1.
394 Servius (ad Aen. 12.296 ) explains that ‘hoc habet!’ was shouted by crowds in
the past, but in his day (fourth century AD) ‘peractum est !’ was favoured. There
is, however, evidence that the two shouts were used as early as the first century
AD. See Sen. Ag. 901 and Herc. O. 1457).
395 Sen. Dial. 3.2.4.
396 Macrob. Sat. 2.6.1.
397 Ep. 7.3.
398 Seneca comments on the great din of crowds at gladiator shows at Rome
(Tranq. 2.13).
399 August. Conf. 6.8.
400 De spect. 27.2–4.
401 Joyce Salisbury, Perpetua’s Passion, 134.
402 7.
403 Ps. Quint. Decl. Mai. 9.9.
404 16.323-5.
405 C. Symm. 2.1096–101. These lines might have been the inspiration for Jean-
Léon Gérôme’s depiction of the Vestal Virgins demanding the death of a fallen
retiarius in his famous painting Pollice Verso (see Figure 24).
406 Plut. Marius 17.3.

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407 Stat. Silv. 2.5.25–7.

408 See Auguste Audollent, Defixionum tabellae. Quotquot innotuerunt tam in
Graecis orientis quam in totius occidentis partibus praeter Atticas in corpore in-
scriptionum Atticarum editas, reprint of Paris 1904 edition (Frankfurt 1967)
348–50.252; 354.254. I have chosen the example of a defixio targeting a
venator, because the two surviving defixiones considered to be gladiatorial are
untranslatable in any meaningful way. For the use of defixiones in Roman
sports, see Florent Heintz, ‘Circus Curses and their Archaeological Contexts’,
JRA 11 (1998) 337–442.
409 Audollent (Defixionum tabellae, 336.247) suggests a hybrid divinity: Greek
Typhon/Egyptian Seth.
410 ILS 8755. For other defixiones targeting venatores, see Audollent, Defixionum
tabellae, 348–50.248–251.
411 Procop. De bell. 1.24.1–58. See Alan Cameron, Circus Factions: Blues and
Greens at Rome and Byzantium (Oxford, 1976) 278–80 and J. P. V. D. Balsdon,
Life and Leisure in Ancient Rome (London, 1969) 265–6.
412 Dig. 1.12.1.12; Tac. Ann. 13.24. Coleman (Contagion, 80) says that violence
in the amphitheatre was ‘exquisitely controlled’ by confining it to the arena.
See Scobie, ‘Spectator Security’, 219; W. Nippel, Public Order in Ancient Rome
(Cambridge, 1995) 93–4; and Balsdon, Life and Leisure, 266.
413 ‘Spectator Security’, 232.
414 Nippel, Public Order, 93.
415 ‘Security at the Games in the Early Imperial Period, Echos du monde classique
18 (1999) 370–1; 375–6.
416 61.8.1–3. Tacitus (Ann. 13.24) gives three different reasons for Nero’s
removal of soldiers from the games: (1) to allow greater freedom for the spec-
tators, (2) that soldiers might not be degraded by the licence of the theatre,
and (3) to see whether spectators would behave themselves in the absence of a
military guard.
417 Scobie, ‘Security and Comfort’, 220.
418 Tac. Ann. 14.17. Roman authorities believed that collegia were often instigators
of violence (Cic. Sest, 34; Pis. 9; Suet. Iul. 42.3; Aug. 32.1. Livienus Regulus
was a man of dubious reputation who had been expelled from the Senate.
Edmondson (‘Dynamic Arenas’, 101) suggests that seating by collegia may have
contributed to the riot. Bomgardner (Story, 50) suggests a plot by military
veterans in Pompeii organized into collegia against their neighbours.
419 ILS 5084; 5084a and Dessau’s notes on these two inscriptions in ILS. See
Cameron, Circus Factions, 77–8.
420 Plin. HN 35.52.
421 Ibid.
422 Petron. 52.3.
423 2.7.96–100.

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Chapter 4 A Brief History of Gladiator Games

1 Livy 23.30.15. The office of augur required knowledge of the ‘science’ of inter-
preting the flight of birds to determine the will of the gods. Augury was taken
so seriously that no important political business was undertaken without the mag-
istrate consulting a member of this board. This Lepidus was an ancestor of the
man with the same name who was a member of the second triumvirate (along with
Marc Antony and Octavian) that lasted from the late 40s to the middle 30s BC.
2 Livy 41.20.11.
3 Spectacles of Death, 47–9. For recruitment of slaves, see Livy 22.57.9–12 and Val.
Max. 7.6.1.
4 41.28.11.
5 See Edmondson, ‘Dynamic Arenas’, 76.
6 Sen. Dial. 10.20.5; Cic. Sull. 54.
7 Sat. 2.3.84–99.
8 Petronius’ Trimalchio expresses a desire to be admired posthumously for his
generosity (71.3).
9 Livy 23.30.16.
10 The Ludi Romani were often called the ‘Great’ (Magni) or the ‘Greatest’ games
(Maximi). The Ludi Romani and other annually celebrated ludi such as the
Ludi Plebeii (Plebeian Games), Ludi Cereales (for Ceres), Ludi Apollinares (for
Apollo), the Ludi Florales (for Flora) and the Ludi Megalenses (for Cybele) were
the oldest of these religious festivals. Other ludi continued to be added to
Rome’s religious calendar throughout the Republic and well into the empire.
11 Livy 31.50.4.
12 Livy 39.46.1.
13 Ville (La Gladiature, 396) estimates that thirteen combats was the maximum
number that could be accommodated comfortably in a single day.
14 Livy 41.28.11
15 Plin. HN. 35.52.
16 See R. C. Beacham, Spectacle Entertainment of Early Imperial Rome (New
Haven, CT, 1999) 14–15. On the other hand, Futrell (Blood, 24) claims that
seventy-four pairs were presented in the munus for Flamininus in 174 BC. Un-
fortunately, she did not notice that Livy was referring to the total number of
gladiators in this munus and not pairs.
17 31.28.1–6.
18 A talent is a Greek monetary unit. Polybius wrote for a Greek audience and thus
gives monetary sums in terms of Greek currency. See R. C. Beacham, Spectacle
Entertainment, 258, n. 26 for a fuller discussion of the problem of estimating
the modern value of ancient sums of money.
19 Bread and Circuses: Historical Sociology and Political Pluralism, abridged with
an introduction by Oswyn Murray, trans. Brian Pearce (London, 1990) 223;
271, n. 92.

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20 Polyb. 31.28.3.
21 Paullus could have been a fabulously rich man. His restraint after his victory over
Perseus was remarkable. He gave the great amounts of gold and silver he found
in Perseus’ palaces to the Roman treasury. The only spoils he took were Perseus’
books, which he gave to his sons, Fabius and Scipio (Plut. Aem. 28.10).
22 Ter. Hecyra 39–41. This information comes from the prologue of the play’s
third presentation a little later in the same year as Paullus’ munus, perhaps dur-
ing the Ludi Romani in September. In the early empire, Horace reports that
even in his day drama fared no better with the common people who preferred
boxing or bear baiting in the venatio (Epist. 2.1.185–6).
23 See Holt Parker, ‘Plautus vs Terence: Audience and Popularity Re-examined’,
AJP 117.4 (1996) 593.
24 Off. 2.55–6.
25 Ibid. 2.56.
26 Ep. 6.34.
27 Ps. Quint. Decl. Mai. 9.6.
28 Caes. 5.9. On the other hand, the giving of lavish spectacles was not itself an ab-
solute guarantee of public favour, which was also influenced by the personality of
the giver. Julius Caesar and Pompey both gave extravagant spectacles, but the
former enjoyed great public goodwill whereas the latter did not. See Z. Yavetz,
Plebs and Princeps (Oxford, 1969) 49.
29 Fam. 2.3.1.
30 HN 36.120.
31 Suet. Caes. 29.2; Cass. Dio 40.60.1–3. See Beacham, Spectacle Entertain-
ment, 72.
32 Ville (La Gladiature, 86) points out that all the Republican munera of which we
have record were given by members of the senatorial class, for whom the only ca-
reer was politics. There is no record of a munus given by a member of the eques-
trian class, which included men of considerable wealth. Equestrians did not
pursue a political career.
33 See Lily Ross Taylor, Party Politics in the Age of Caesar (Berkeley, CA, 1964)
30–1.
34 Suet. Tib. 37.3.
35 Public Order, 41.
36 Ath. Deipnosoph. 4.39.
37 Paul J. J. Vanderbroeck, Popular Leadership and Collective Behavior in the Late
Roman Republic (c. 80–50 B.C.) (Amsterdam, 1987) 79–80.
38 Lily Ross Taylor, Roman Voting Assemblies from the Hannibalic War to the Dic-
tatorship of Caesar (Ann Arbor, MI, 1966) 56–7.
39 Veyne (Bread and Circuses, 224–5) points out that spectacles were only one
important factor in elections.
40 Off. 2.59. Cicero was a special case. His enormous oratorical skills and political
acumen no doubt freed him from the need to give extravagant spectacles.

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41 Plut. Sull. 5.1.

42 Plut. Caes. 5.9.
43 La Gladiature, 82. The way Caesar threw himself so wholeheartedly into the
production of this munus (even owning a large gladiator school in Capua) makes
evident that his spectacles were not just a means to a political end, but truly a
passion of his.
44 Caesar 5.9.
45 Plutarch puts Caesar’s debt at 1,300 talents (31,200,000 sesterces), an ap-
pallingly huge sum.
46 Plut. Crass. 7.6 and Caes. 11.1–2. For accession to power through deliberate
bankruptcy, see Veyne, Bread and Circuses, 14.
47 Iul. 10.2.
48 Cic. Att. 7.14.2.
49 Sall. Cat. 30.7.
50 Cic. Sest. 9.
51 Caes. B Civ. 1.14.4–5.
52 During the civil wars of AD 69, Otho incorporated two thousand gladiators into
his army, most of whom did not perform well in battle (Tac. Hist. 2.11; 2.34–5;
3.76–7.) A century or so later, Marcus Aurelius employed a unit of gladiators in
his war against the Marcomanni, whom he called the Obsequentes (‘the obedient
ones’) perhaps a reference to the traditional loyalty of gladiators. Didius Julianus
(briefly emperor in AD 193) armed the gladiators of Capua at the approach of
Septimus Severus (SHA Marc. (Julius Capitolinus) 21.7 and Did. Jul. (Aelius
Spartianus) 8.3).
53 Cic. Att. 7.14.2.
54 Att. 8.2.1.
55 The practice of naming gladiator troupes after their owners prefigures the names
given to imperial gladiatorial troupes (Iuliani and Neroniani).
56 Lintott, Violence, 84.
57 Plut. Cato Min. 27.1–8.
58 Asc. ad loc. Scaur. 18, ad loc. Mil. 26; Lintott, Violence, 84.
59 Cic. Cat. 3.5.10.
60 Besides gladiators, the gangs, sponsored by Roman politicians, consisted of
slaves, clients (dependants attached to wealthy patrons) and hired hooligans. See
Cic. Dom. 6 and Lintott, Violence, 83–5.
61 Cass. Dio, 39.7.2.
62 The reason for the different spelling of the names of the two brothers is that
Clodius, who had himself transferred to the plebeian class, spelled his name in
accordance with how the lower classes pronounced the name Claudius.
63 77.
64 78.
65 Cass. Dio 39.8.2–3.
66 Dom. 6.

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67 Asc. ad loc. Mil. 27.

68 Ibid. 28.
69 Q Fr. 2.5.3; Cass. Dio. 39.8.1. A chance meeting of the gangs of Clodius and
Milo resulted in deadly violence, in which Clodius was killed. Milo was prosecuted
for the murder of Clodius, but went into exile before he could be convicted.
70 44.16.2. See also App. B Civ. 2.17.118.
71 App. B Civ. 2.17.122; Plut. Brut. 12.5.
72 Brut. 12.5.
73 2.58.2. See also App. B Civ. 2.17.120.
74 Cic. Sull. 54.
75 Ibid.
76 The proposer of a law gave his name to the bill, an adjectival form of his surname
which modified the feminine noun lex. Thus a law proposed by M. Tullius
Cicero was known as a Lex Tullia.
77 Cic. Mur. 67.
78 See Marsh, A History of the Roman World from 146 to 30 B.C., 374–77 (Revised
with additional notes by H. H. Scullard (London, 1957)). The thirty-five tribes
also provided the structure of the Tribal Assembly, which elected lower magis-
trates and voted on the passage of laws.
79 133.
80 37.
81 Curio had originally planned to run for the aedileship of 50 BC, but instead be-
came a candidate for the tribunate of the plebs and was elected to that office for
the same year.
82 La Gladiature, 83.
83 In fact, it is not a full two-year period, but a year and a half because elections
took place in July. Once a candidate had been elected, it did not matter whether
he gave munus or not.
84 Sest. 134
85 Vat. 37.
86 Suet. Iul. 26.2.
87 See Yavetz, Plebs, 44.
88 Cass. Dio 43.19.2.
89 Veyne, Bread and Circuses, 251; 259.
90 Principia Historiae 2.18. See Yavetz, Plebs, 47.
91 43.22.4.
92 Suet. Iul. 26.3.
93 Suetonius mentions letters of Caesar begging equestrians and senators to under-
take this training.
94 During the Republic, Roman aristocrats commonly began their careers by serv-
ing as officers in the army. See Cicero’s reference to his own military training in
the Pro Caelio (11).
95 Cass. Dio 43.23.5; Suet. Iul. 39.1.

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96 Cass. Dio 43.23 5. From the time of Sulla (early first century), attaining the
quaestorship, the lowest office in the cursus honorum (‘sequence of major mag-
istracies available to a Roman politician’) entitled the holder of this office to a
permanent seat in the Senate. A senator’s son had equestrian standing until he
was elected to the quaestorship.
97 Cass. Dio 48.43.2–3.
98 Ibid. 51.22.4.
99 Ibid. 54.2.5.
100 Ibid. 56.25.7.
101 Ibid. 56.25.7–8.
102 Ibid. 56.25.8.
103 Ville, La Gladiature 252 and 262.
104 45.4.
105 This fictional munus was to take place not in Rome but in an unidentified
southern Italian town. In the imperial period, when gladiator shows at Rome
were controlled by the emperor and supervised by his procurators, it was in the
towns like this that independent small-time gladiatorial troupes run by a
lanista were able to find work.
106 Suet. Aug. 43.3.
107 Cass. Dio 59.8.3. See Ville, La Gladiature, 258.
108 Suet. Ner. 21.3.
109 Tac. Hist. 2.62; Cass. Dio 65.6.3.
110 SHA Marc. (Julius Capitolinus) 12.3.
111 Princeps was commonly used to refer to the emperor.
112 Cass. Dio 53.21.6. See Yavetz, Plebs, 103.
113 See Beacham, Spectacle Entertainment, 13–14.
114 2.3.2. Ennodius, a fifth century AD author, claims that Rutilius and his colleague
gave a government-sponsored munus to allow the people of Rome to experi-
ence warfare (Panegyricus. dictus clementissimo regi Theodorico. 19). I, however,
agree with Ville (La Gladiature, 46) that this claim is a distortion of Valerius
Maximus’ information and actually a bit of late propaganda in favour of gladia-
torial combat to counter the increasing objections of Christian polemicists.
115 ILS 6087.70. See Welch, ‘Roman Arena’, 62.
116 CIL IV.7991.
117 CIL XIV.3014.
118 CIL X.6240; 6243.
119 53.27.6. Balsdon (Life and Leisure, 307) calls this spectacle ‘the last great show
of animals given by a private individual’.
120 Cass. Dio 54.2.3–4.
121 Ibid. 59.14.2.
122 Ibid. 54.2.3–4. See Ville, La Gladiature, 120.
123 Ibid. 54.17.4. These rules did not apply to the emperor and members of his
family, who were not limited in their spending on spectacles.

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124 Ibid. 59.14.1–5.

125 Ibid. 60.5.6. See Ville, La Gladiature, 164–5.
126 Wiedemann, Emperors, 8. The organization of munera given by the emperor
was taken care of by an imperial official entrusted with this duty. We hear of a
superintendent (curator) of munera and animal hunts under Caligula, who
seems to have seriously disappointed the emperor. Caligula had him beaten
with chains for a number of consecutive days as he watched until the smell of
his decaying brains led the emperor to have him put of his misery (Suet. Calig.
27.4).
127 Petron. 45.13.
128 Tac. Ann. 13.31.
129 Emperors, 43.
130 Cassius Dio (54.2.4) assigns these restrictions to the praetorian munus, but
I agree with Ville (La Gladiature, 121), who believes that these limitations
belong more logically to private citizens than to the praetors. Cass. Dio
59.14.1–5.
131 22. Augustus paid for these munera that were not given in his own name. At
these games, his stepsons and grandsons sat in the editor’s place of honour in
the amphitheatre during the games. The purpose of this practice was to pro-
mote the careers of younger men, a kind of survival of the primary political
function of the Republican munus. It was by this means that the emperor gave
a visible sign of his support and hope for their political advancement and gen-
eral popularity. See Cass. Dio 54.19.5 for Augustus’ promotion of his two step-
sons Tiberius and Drusus in this manner.
132 Augustus realized their importance both to the people and to the effectiveness
of his rule. On the other hand, Cassius Dio tells us that Augustus was fre-
quently not present in the amphitheatre during his shows (54.29.6). In the
case of his absence, he sent a representative to act as munerarius in his place.
133 The second of these two munera (7 BC) consisted of gladiators fighting indi-
vidual duels and in groups (gregatim) with an equal number of gladiators on
both sides (Cass. Dio 55.8.5). Augustus seems to have enjoyed group fights.
134 Cass. Dio 55.27.3; Suet. Tib. 7.1; Claud. 2.2.
135 Cass. Dio 61.17.3.
136 Ibid. 59.14.2.
137 Ann. 1.76.
138 Suet. Tib. 7.2. See Beacham, Spectacle Entertainment, 157.
139 Tac. Ann. 1.76.
140 57.14.3.
141 Two other emperors disliked gladiatorial combat: Vespasian for unspecified
reasons and Marcus Aurelius because of his distaste for bloodshed (Cass. Dio
71.29.3).
142 Suet. Tib. 47.1; Tac. Ann. 4.62.

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143 Dial. 1.4.4.

144 Tac. Ann. 4.63. During the reign of Augustus, the property qualification for
the senatorial class had been raised to 1 million sesterces.
145 Ann. 4.62.
146 Mur. 77.
147 See Ward-Perkins, From Classical Antiquity, 105.
148 See Nippel, Public Order, 87. Ville (“Les Jeux’, 312) explains that when the
common people lost their political power in the fall of the Republic, ‘the
munera [became] one of the principal compensations that were offered to
them . . .’ to maintain ‘equilibrium among the classes’.
149 Sest. 125–7.
150 Ibid. 106.
151 Ibid. 124.
152 Cicero, who could not resist a pun, sarcastically refers to Appius’ path to his
seat as ‘the Appian Way’, Rome’s most famous road, built by a prominent an-
cestor of Appius in the late fourth century BC.
153 Sest. 126.
154 AJ 19.24.
155 Cass. Dio 57.11.5. See J. C. Edmondson, ‘Dynamic Arenas’, 84. The specta-
cles that Tiberius did attend early in his reign were in all probability not gladi-
ator shows.
156 Suet. Aug. 45.1.
157 Suet. Claud. 21.5.
158 Normally, the emperor could be counted on to give a munus of the highest
quality, but this was not always true. For example, Caligula in a bad mood de-
liberately gave a munus with gladiators who were the cheapest he could find
and wild animals on their last legs (Suet. Calig. 26.5).
159 Millar, The Emperor, 373–5 and Nippel, Public Order, 87.
160 43.22.3.
161 22. See Ville, La Gladiature, 126.
162 See Plin. HN 8. 4–5.
163 Claud. 21.4.
164 See Ville, La Gladiature, 119–20.
165 Fasti, 3.813–14.
166 Cass. Dio 54.28.3.
167 The introduction of gladiator shows at Antioch in 175 BC by Antiochus
Epiphanes (discussed in Chapter 1) was successful after a shaky beginning, but
its success was only temporary. See Robert, Les Gladiateurs, 239–54; 264).
Wiedemann (Emperors, 42), however, believes that gladiatorial combat ‘became
a regular institution at Antioch’, but his reliance on Livy’s account (41.20.13)
for this claim seems to me unjustified.
168 Cass. Dio 47.40.6.

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169 Ibid. 54.2.3–4.

170 Tac. Ann. 11.22. See Ville, La Gladiature, 164–6.
171 Mart., 7.37. See Ville, La Gladiature, 166–8, n. 55. The emperor Alexander
Severus (AD 222–235) introduced a distinction between quaestors with a pol-
itical future and those without. The former were called quaestores candidati
and were required to give munera completely at their own expense with the
promise that they would later be chosen praetor and govern a province. The
latter, called quaestores arcarii (from arca, ‘treasury’) also gave munera but less
lavishly and received money from the treasury to help them pay for the shows
(SHA Alex. Sev. (Aelius Lampridius) 43.3–4).
172 Wiedemann (Emperors, 47) believes that Augustus decreed two annual
munera, one taking place in March and the other in December. Both in his
book and in a later article (“Das Ende der Gladiatorenspiele’, Nikephoros 8
(1995) 151), Wiedemann attaches elaborate symbolism for the pairing of the
well-attested December munus and his alleged March munus. He sees these
two annual munera, given during the winter and spring solstices, as symbols of
renewal. The December munus marks the end of the old year and the March
munus celebrates spring regeneration. Ville (La Gladiature, 159–60), in fact,
believes that there was only one annual munus, which in the time of Augustus
took place in March and was later moved to December by Caligula. I would
side with Ville in this matter. There is no further mention of the March munus
in the sources after the reign of Augustus and no reference at all to a December
munus during his reign. The fourth century AD calendar of Philocalus mentions
only the December munus.
173 It is true that by the fourth century, the celebration of the Saturnalia had been
extended several days, but the December gladiator games were only suspended
for the traditional date of the festival. See R. M. Ogilvie, The Romans and
Their Gods (London and Toronto, 1969) 98.
174 La Gladiature, 160–1.
175 CIL IV.9969.
176 Suet. Ner. 7.2.
177 CIL IV.1181; 3822; 7988b; 7989a.
178 CIL IV.1180; 1196; 1197; 1198; 7986a; 9964; 9971a.
179 CIL IV.1180.
180 CIL X.4893.
181 Cass. Dio 59.8.3.
182 Calig. 14.2.
183 SHA Max. & Balb. (Julius Capitolinus) 8.5–6. Ville (“Les Jeux’, 288) calls this
passage ‘propaganda in favor of munera’ that were coming under attack by
Christianity.
184 Cass. Dio 51.22.4; 54.19.4–5; 55.10.6.
185 Suet. Ner. 12.1; Cass. Dio 66.25.1–3.
186 Suet. Claud. 21.4; Cass. Dio 60.17.9.

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187 Tac. Hist. 2.95. The venatio, however, seems to have been a more common
way of celebrating the emperor’s birthday. For example, see Cass. Dio 54.26.2
and Pass. Perpet. et Felic. 7.9.
188 Cass. Dio 51.7.2–3; 53.1.4–6.
189 Ibid. 67.8.4; 68.15.1.
190 Suet. Ner. 12.1. See Ville, La Gladiature, 138–9.
191 Suet. Ner. 12.1.
192 This, however, is not to say that nobles always fought with harmless weapons.
When Drusus, the son of Tiberius, allowed two equestrians to fight as gladia-
tors in his munus, they must have fought with regular swords because one of
them was killed (Cass. Dio 57.14.3).
193 Suet. Ner. 31.3.
194 La Gladiature., 138.
195 28.21.1–4. Livy cites other reasons for participation: a love of competition and
the need to settle disputes (4–6).
196 ‘Ideology’, 140.
197 Ibid. 141.
198 Yavetz (Plebs, 115) in speaking of Caligula’s humiliation of the upper classes
says that ‘it was a source of particular gratification to the masses’.
199 Ann. 14.14. See Edwards, ‘Unspeakable Professions’, 85–8.
200 Cass. Dio 66.25.4.
201 Spect. 4; 5. Titus, probably wanting not to appear harsh at the beginning of his
reign, chose the lesser of two punishments that he could have imposed on these
informers, who were no doubt citizens. The other harsher penalty was death by
the sword.
202 See Ville, La Gladiature, 147.
203 See K. M. Coleman, ‘Contagion’, 77.
204 Cass. Dio 66.25.2.
205 Tac. Ann. 15.32; Suet. Dom. 4.1; Stat. Silv. 1.6.57–62.
206 Cass. Dio 68.15.1.
207 Caligula: Suet. Calig. 32.2; Hadrian: SHA Hadr. (Aelius Spartianus) 14.11;
Lucius Verus: SHA Marc. (Julius Capitolinus) 8.12; Didius Julianus: SHA Did.
(Aelius Spartianus) 9.1.
208 Ner. 53.1.
209 Cass. Dio 72.20.1.
210 72.19.3 Aurelius Victor (Caes. 17.4) says that Commodus was able to kill
many gladiators because he used a real dagger while they were limited to one
with a dulled point.
211 Aur. Vict. De Caes. 17.5–6. Herodian (1.15.8) mentions that when Com-
modus stopped wanting to be called Hercules, he took the name of a dead
gladiator, which may have been Scaeva, in as much as Commodus was left-
handed. See C. R. Whittaker’s Loeb Classical Library translation of Herodian
(Cambridge, MA, 1969) I, 105, n. 4.

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212 Cass. Dio 72.17.2; SHA Comm. (Aelius Lampridius) 5.5).

213 Cass. Dio 72.19.2–6.
214 Ibid. 72.21.3 and SHA Comm. (Aelius Lampridius) 16.8. It is likely that the
Porta Libitiensis (‘Gate of Death’) and its opposite, the Porta Sanivivaria
(‘Gate of Life’) were standard features of amphitheatres throughout the em-
pire. The Gate of Life in an amphitheatre in Carthage is mentioned twice in the
Passion of Perpetua and Felicity (10.13; 20.7). See also Kyle, Spectacles, 156.
215 Cass. Dio 72.22.5.
216 Iul. 39.3.
217 ‘Launching into History: Aquatic Displays in the Early Empire’, JRS 83
(1993) 49.
218 43.23.3.
219 HN 8.22.
220 Lucr. 5.1302; Juv. 12.110.
221 Suet. Iul. 39.3. The turning posts were called metae, which consisted of three
cones topped with egg-shaped objects on a high foundation.
222 Cass. Dio 51.22.6–8.
223 Suet. Claud. 21.6.
224 Coleman, ‘Launching’, 71.
225 The lake was filled in after Caesar’s death because of the suspicion that it had
caused a plague (Cass. Dio 45.17.8).
226 ‘Launching’, 70.
227 Ibid. 67–8.
228 Suet. Iul. 39.4.
229 These events with mutual ‘executions’ by the participants performed the same
function as the meridianum spectaculum, but on a much larger scale.
230 Suet. Iul. 39.4.
231 2.100.2.
232 Aug. RG 23.
233 Ibid.
234 Ov. Ars. am. 1.171–2.
235 Cass. Dio 55.10.8.
236 See Coleman, ‘Launching,’ 70.
237 The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus, trans. Allan Shapiro (Ann Arbor,
MI, 1990) 84.
238 Ibid. 72. There had already been a triumphal celebration for his victory over
Cleopatra, a foreign enemy.
239 Caligula seems to have given naumachiae, but we know nothing specific about
them. We have only one puzzling reference to his excavation of the Saepta and
filling it with water. After all this effort, only one ship could be accommodated,
which hardly qualifies as a naumachia. Cassius Dio says enigmatically that he
transferred his spectacles ‘to another place’, which involved demolishing many
large buildings (50.10.5). We may presume, however, that if Caligula had
given a notable naumachia elsewhere, it would have been recorded.

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240 H. J. Leon, ‘Morituri Te Salutamus’, TAPA 70 (1939) 46–7. Cass. Dio 60.11.5.
241 Suet. Claud. 21.6.
242 Ann. 12.56.
243 Suet. Claud. 21.6.
244 Ann. 12.56.
245 60.33.4.
246 See OCD, ‘Trireme’.
247 Cass. Dio 60.33.4. Suetonius reports these words in third person: ‘Hail, em-
peror, those who are about to die salute you’ (Suet. Claud. 21.6).
248 Cass. Dio 60.33.4.
249 The Praetorian Guard was a small army which protected the emperor.
250 Ann. 13.31.1. See Wistrand, Entertainment, 26–7.
251 Ann. 12.56.
252 61.9.5.
253 Suet. Ner. 12.1.
254 Ibid.
255 As Coleman (‘Launching’, 56) points out, although aquatic shows ideally re-
quired a structure built specifically for this purpose, the Romans were in the
habit of flooding existing structures such as the Saepta and the Circus Flaminius.
256 ‘Launching’, 57.
257 62.15.1. Cassius Dio (writing in Greek) regularly refers to the Roman am-
phitheatre as a ‘theatre’ or ‘hunting theatre’ probably because the venatio took
place there. For example see 66.25.2 and 66.21.2.
258 Cass. Dio 62.15.1–5. Tacitus (Ann. 15.37), describes a similar water party, also
hosted by Tigellinus, but locates the brothels (no mention of taverns), on the
banks of the stagnum Agrippae, an artificial lake built by Augustus’ chief naval
commander. Ville (La Gladiature, 140) assumes that the two aquatic dinner
parties are one and the same and argues that, contrary to Cassius Dio’s assign-
ment of Nero’s show to an ‘[amphi]theatre’, the spectacle had really taken
place on the stagnum Agrippae. Locating the show on an artificial lake, how-
ever, creates a problem. The trick of flooding, draining and flooding again,
would not have been possible with an artificial lake. It is better to take the
aquatic party in Tacitus as an event separate from the one described by Cassius
Dio. See Coleman, ‘Launching’, 51; 53–4.
259 See ‘The great Colosseum debate’, in Ronald Ridley, The Eagle and the Spade:
Archeology in Rome during the Napoleonic Era (Cambridge, 1992) 217–37.
260 ‘Launching’, 58–60. See also Golvin, L’Amphithéâtre Romain, 335; Connolly,
Colosseum, 139–51; Hazel Dodge, ‘Amusing the Masses: Buildings for Enter-
tainment and Leisure in the Roman World’, in D. S. Potter and D. J. Mattingly
(eds), Life, Death, and Entertainment in the Roman Empire (Ann Arbor, MI,
1999) 236.
261 Coleman, ‘Launching’, 61.
262 66.25.2–3.
263 Spect. 27.

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264 Ibid. 28–30. See Coleman, ‘Launching’, 62–5. The legend re-enacted in this
spectacle told of a young man named Leander, guided by the lamp of the beauti-
ful Hero, who swam every night across the Hellespont to be with her. One stormy
night when the wind blew out the lamp out, Leander lost his way and drowned.
In despair, Hero then jumped from her tower into the sea and drowned.
265 Spect. 34.9–10.
266 Cass. Dio 66.25.2–4. The monument may have been dedicated to the two
grandsons of Augustus, Gaius and Lucius Caesar, designated as his heirs, who
died before Augustus. The name of the area in which the lake was located
was ‘Grove of the Caesars’ (Nemus Caesarum), named in their honour. See
Coleman, ‘Launching’, 54.
267 Coleman (‘Launching’, 53) notes that draining a lake the size of this one
would have taken seventeen days.
268 Spect. 34.5–6.
269 Ibid. 34.11–12. See Coleman, ‘Launching’, 67–8.
270 Dom. 4.1.
271 Dom. 4.2.
272 Cass. Dio 48.19.1.
273 Hor., Epist. 1.18.61–4. See Coleman, ‘Launching’, 61–2.
274 Aur. Vict. Caes. 28.1. See Coleman, ‘Launching’, 54.
275 De spect. 12. See Ps. Cyprian, Spect. 4.
276 For example, Cass. Dio 47.40.7; Tert. Apol. 9; Prudent. C. Symm. 1.407;
Auson. De feriis romanis 33.37.
277 C. Symm. 2.1091–1132.
278 See Wiedemann, Das Ende, 146.
279 Serm. 199.3.
280 Conf. 6.8.
281 See Ramsay MacMullen, Changes in the Roman Empire: Essays in the Ordinary
(Princeton, NJ, 1990) 148.
282 Ep. 7.3. For similar thoughts on this matter from another pagan author, see
Plut. Mor. 997 c.
283 ‘Das Ende’, 148. Wiedemann (Emperors, 92 and ‘Das Ende’, 156; 159) ex-
plains the incompatibility of the Church and gladiatorial combat differently. He
sees the main theme of the gladiatorial experience as the conquest of death
through martial virtue in the arena, providing an earthly ‘salvation’ granted by
the Roman people when they persuaded the editor to grant missio and, on rare
occasions, a permanent release from the arena. This process resulted in a ‘re-
surrection’ from the status of non-person to that of freedman in the Roman
community. Thus gladiatorial combat came into direct competition with the
Church, which jealously claimed to be the sole instrument of salvation and re-
surrection in the conquest of death. Wiedemann claims that gladiatorial com-
bat disappeared because it became superfluous. This is an interesting and
ingenious theory, but as I see it, unlikely.

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284 Apost. Const. 2.61. As Ville (‘Les Jeux’, 294, n. 1) points out, Tertullian’s De
Spectaculis was intended as a warning for Christians not to attend the
amphitheatre.
285 See Ville, ‘Les Jeux’, 297.
286 Cod. Theod. 15.12.1. Wiedemann (‘Das Ende’, 159) suggests that this decree
may have been motivated by a need for new workers in the mines, rather than
compassion for convicts. MacMullen (Changes, 148) writes of an ‘unwilling-
ness to feed the amphitheater through the law courts’ and adds that ‘exactly
why the courts should not be used for that purpose, we have no hint or infor-
mation’ but this legislation was not a matter of ‘any general tenderness towards
one’s fellow beings’.
287 Gian Luca Gregori, ‘Legislation on the Arena Shows’, in Ada Gabucci (ed.),
The Colosseum, trans. Mary Becker (Los Angeles, 2001) 95. If convicts could
no longer be forced to become gladiators, the only remaining source was
voluntary gladiators (auctorati), whose price must have gone up dramatically,
thereby posing a further economic barrier to the frequent presentation of glad-
iator games.
288 Ville (‘Les Jeux’, 317) calls the effect of Constantine’s edict ‘ephemeral’, say-
ing that the law may have been ignored or revoked. He points out that in this
period an editor set up an epitaph at Tergesta for two gladiators in which he
congratulates them for having made his munus such a great success (CIL
V.563). See also 315–16.
289 See MacMullen, Changes, 148. Could this comment have anything to do with
the claim of Julius Capitolinus that in the mid-third century AD a munus was
given before a war to habituate the soldiers to the sight of blood (SHA Max. &
Balb. 8.7)?
290 CIL XI. 5283. See Gian Luca Gregori, ‘Constantine’s Reply to the Umbrians’,
in Gabucci (ed.), The Colosseum, 90.
291 Med. 1.5.1; 6.46.1.
292 Cass. Dio 71.29.3.
293 SHA Marc. (Julius Capitolinus) 21.6–8; 23.4–5.
294 Changes, 147. Ward-Perkins (From Classical Antiquity, 113) points out that
the Church never pursued the elimination of gladiatorial combat aggressively
and, moreover, emperors probably were not able to enforce a legal ban.
295 For the role of economics in the decline of gladiatorial combat, see Ramsay
MacMullen, Changes, 147 and Gregori, ‘The End of the Gladiators’, in Gabucci
(ed.), The Colosseum, 96. Ward-Perkins (From Classical Antiquity, 112) bases
his argument on the fact that chariot races and venationes, both expensive spec-
tacles, continued after the disappearance of gladiators in the second half of the
fifth century.
296 ‘Gladiatorial Ranking’, 111.
297 SHA Alex. Sev. (Aelius Lampridius) 43.4.
298 SHA Gord. Tres (Julius Capitolinus) 3.5.

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299 Hopkins and Beard, The Colosseum, 54 and Gregori, ‘The End of the Gladiators’,
in Gabucci (ed.), The Colosseum, 97.
300 28.4.33.
301 See Ville, ‘Les Jeux’, 331.
302 Hist. Eccles. 5.26.
303 ‘Les Jeux’, 326–9.
304 Cod. Theod. 15.12.3. Gregori, ‘Legislation on the Arena Shows’, in Gabucci
(ed.), The Colosseum, 95 suggests that this measure was to prevent senators
from using gladiators as bodyguards.
305 A. Chastagnol, Le Sénat romain, (Bonn, 1966) 22. See Bomgardner, Story,
207, 257, n. 47.
306 ‘Les Jeux’, 316. See also Rossella Rea, ‘The Colosseum through the Centuries’,
in Gabucci (ed.), The Colosseum, 181.
307 Gregori, ‘The End of the Gladiators’, in Gabucci (ed.), The Colosseum, 97.
308 For example, Tert. Apol. 39. See Veyne, Bread and Circuses, 23–6; 28.
309 Cameron, Circus factions, 217. Ward-Perkins (From Classical Antiquity, 112)
complains that Cameron’s suggestion is ‘too vague and difficult . . . to accept’
and cites ‘the absence of any firm evidence to support it’. I too would have
liked some specific evidence, but sometimes the historian must fall back on
intuition and informed conjecture.

Chapter 5 A Brief History of the Arena Hunt

1 39.22.1–2.
2 44.18.8. The sources tend to refer to large African cats simply as ‘African beasts’.
3 Plin. HN 8.64. Ville (La Gladiature, 55) suggests various motives that the
Senate might have had for this ban: (1) fear of the danger that these wild animals
posed in Rome, (2) concern that purchases of animals would enrich a powerful
North African enemy (Carthage), and (3) an attempt to restrict the political
ambition of magistrates who gave venationes.
4 Sest. 116.
5 Plin. HN 36.114–5.
6 22.15.24.
7 See Friedländer, Roman Life, II, 63.
8 Plin. HN 8.96. Euripus is the Greek word meaning ‘a strait’, specifically the one
between Boeotia and the island of Euboea in Greece.
9 HN 9.11.
10 17.1.44.
11 See Sen. Ep. 88.22.
12 Plin. HN 8.53.
13 Ibid. 8.17.
14 Ibid. 8.18.

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15 Ibid. 8.4.
16 Cic. Fam. 7.1.3.
17 Plin. HN 8.20.
18 Dial. 10.13.6.
19 HN 8.21.
20 39.38.3–4. Cassius Dio refuses to accept or reject this story.
21 Fam. 7.1.3.
22 Animals, 23.
23 Subjecting animals to violence as entertainment is a practice that survived the an-
cient world in the form of bull- and bear-baiting, bullfights, dog- and cockfights,
etc. Dog- and cockfights, although illegal, are enjoying a renaissance in contem-
porary America.
24 Fam. 7.1.3.
25 Dial. 10.13.6.
26 Ibid. 10.13.7.
27 HN 8.22. La Gladiature, 394.
28 12.106–7.
29 SHA Aurel. (Flavius Vopiscus) 5.6.
30 Caesar surrounded the racecourse of the Circus Maximus with a moat to keep
dangerous animals away from the spectators. In addition to the four hundred
lions in the venatio, twenty elephants were involved in the infantry and cavalry
battle that Caesar presented in the Circus Maximus (Suet. Iul. 39.2–3; Plin. HN
8.22). Caesar had obviously learned a lesson from the debacle of Pompey’s
venatio in 55 BC.
31 Cassius Dio (39.38.2) says that five hundred lions were slaughtered at Pompey’s
venatio, while Pliny the Elder says six hundred (HN 8.53).
32 Suet. Iul. 75.3.
33 Plut. Brut. 8.5–7.
34 NA 5.14.7.
35 HN 8.182.
36 Cass. Dio 61.9.1; Suet. Claud. 21.3. This event was also popular in the Greek
east. See Robert, Les Gladiateurs, 318–19.
37 43.23.1–2. This translation by E. Cary and H. Foster is from the Loeb Classical
Library edition of Cassius Dio’s History of Rome.
38 Spect 20.
39 NA 2.11.
40 One is reminded of the dancing elephants and hippos in Walt Disney’s Fantasia.
41 HN 8.4–5.
42 Pliny may be mistaken about the tightrope walking. Suetonius says that Galba
(later emperor briefly in AD 69) first presented this trick in the early 30s. Ele-
phant tightrope walking was again seen in a munus given by Nero for his mother
Agrippina. A Roman equestrian rode an elephant walking on a tightrope from the
highest point of a theatre’s seating to the floor to the stage (Cass. Dio 61.17.2;

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Suet. Ner. 11.2). Seneca says that tiny Ethiopian trainers taught elephants to
kneel and to walk on a tightrope (Ep. 85.41).
43 Musurillo, Acts, 10–13 (12). See Ville, La Gladiature, 235–40. Note that the
editor was not entirely free to do whatever he wanted.
44 When the flames failed to finish Polycarp off, he was dispatched by a confector,
whose job it was to put dying animals out of their misery (Suet. Aug. 43.2; Ner.
12.1). See Musurillo, Acts, 14–15 (16).
45 Val. Max. 2.7.14.
46 Livy, Per. 51. See also Val. Max. 2.7.13.
47 Tac. Hist. 2.61.
48 Dig. 48.19.8.11.
49 Shaw, ‘The Passion of Perpetua’, 6.
50 Musurillo, Acts, 4–5 (3).
51 Martial’s list of crimes eligible for this penalty varies only slightly: the murder of
his father or master, robbing a temple, or arson (Spect. 9.8–10).
52 Dig. 48.10.8.pr. It should also be noted that slaves guilty of counterfeiting re-
ceived even worse punishments. They were burned alive or crucified. This is in
accordance with the Roman legal principle: the lower the status of the criminal,
the harsher the penalty.
53 9.18.1.
54 Dig. 48.13.7. pr.
55 Crucifixion is not mentioned in this passage, but this too was an extreme pun-
ishment that involved an even slower death with much suffering. Crucifixion,
which required the victim to hang on the cross sometimes for days before death
came, also laid him open to frequent mockery from passers-by.
56 48.19.28.15. See Coleman, ‘Fatal Charades’, 46–7.
57 Dig. 48.8.11.1. The Digest specifically mentions the possibility of delay involved
in the carrying out the ad bestias penalty, but gives a different reason: the auth-
orities sometimes wanted to question the condemned further for evidence
against their associates, although it is hard to see why this would not be true of
other methods of capital punishment (48.19.29.pr).
58 Ep. 70.20.
59 Ep. 70.23.
60 Dig. 48.8.11.1.
61 La Gladiature, 239.
62 45.7–8.
63 De spect. 19.4.
64 Cic. Fam. 10.32.3. This was not the only outrage that Balbus committed in this
province (of which he was a native). C. Asinius Pollio gives a full listing of his
offences in the same letter (2–3).
65 Pis. 89.
66 Cass. Dio 59.10.3. See Suet. Calig. 27.4, which may refer to the same incident.

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67 Suet. Calig. 27.1.

68 Tac. Ann. 15.44.
69 See Shaw, ‘The Passion of Perpetua’, 3, n. 3.
70 From the beginning of the imperial period it became common practice to add an
amphitheatre to a military installation in the provinces for the purpose of train-
ing and entertainment for the soldiers. Some camps even had their own gladiator
troupe (Futrell, Blood, 150–2). The remains of this Carthaginian military am-
phitheatre have not yet been discovered. As Shaw (‘The Passion of Perpetua’, 3,
n. 3) points out, there is evidence of only one amphitheatre in Carthage, but this
was a large venue with a capacity of c. 30,000 spectators, not a small military
structure. See Bomgardner, ‘Carthage Amphitheatre’, 86. There was even a mili-
tary amphitheatre in Rome, built during the reign of Elagabalus (AD 218–222),
perhaps for the use of the Praetorian Guard. The emperor Aurelian may have
intended to use the upper seating area as part of Rome’s fortifications. See
Lawrence Richardson, A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome
(Baltimore, 1992) 7 (‘Amphitheatrum Castrense’).
71 The venatio was a traditional form of celebration of the birthday of the emperor
and members of his family (Ville, La Gladiature, 124). It should be noted that the
date, which I have taken from Shaw (‘The Passion’, 3, n. 2), is by no means cer-
tain. Shaw calls AD 203 ‘conjectural’ and the month and day ‘probable’.
72 Cass. Dio 76.15.2.
73 Pass. Perpet. et Felic. 2.1; 4.5.
74 Perpetua never mentions Felicitas; the anonymous author of the Passion tells her
story. See Shaw, ‘The Passion’, 25.
75 This arrest was not part of an official persecution of all Christians by the govern-
ment, but may have been the result of a decree by the emperor Septimius
Severus forbidding conversion to Judaism or Christianity (Eus. Hist. Eccl. 6.1.1;
SHA Sever. (Aelius Spartianus) 17.1). James Rives (‘The Piety of a Persecutor’,
Journal of Early Christian Studies 4.1 (1996) 19), however, argues that the
Historia Augusta is unreliable on this point and that Eusebius is talking about
only Alexandria.
76 Pass. Perpet. et Felic. 3.5–6. The soldiers were guards in the military prison, who
probably extorted either sex or money from female prisoners in return for
privileges.
77 Pass. Perpet. et Felic. 3.8; 6.7. Eventually she gave her baby to her family.
78 Ibid. 16.2–4.
79 Neither Perpetua nor the anonymous author of this work ever mentions her
husband. Shaw (‘The Passion’, 25, n. 56) suggests that her husband may have
found Christianity not to his taste and disowned his wife for embracing it.
80 Pass. Perpet. et Felic. 6.1–3.
81 See Robin Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians (New York, 1987) 434.
82 HE 5.1.11.

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83 Eus. De martyribus Palaestrinae. 3.3–4. For other volunteer martyrs, see Eus.
Hist. Eccl. 7.12 and Tert. Ad Scap. 5. See also Salisbury, Perpetua’s Passion,
135; Fox, Pagans, 457–8 and Coleman, ‘Fatal Charades’, 57.
84 Med. 11.3.
85 See Symm. Relat. 3; Prudent. C. Symmachum 2.23–44; and R. H. Barrow,
Prefect and Emperor: The Relationes of Symmachus AD 384 (Oxford, 1973)
32–3.
86 ‘The Martyrdom of Polycarp’, 46.
87 Hilarianus here was following the policy established in the previous century by
Trajan (AD 98–117) with regard to treatment of the Christians: ‘the one who
denies that he is a Christian and proves it unequivocally, that is by praying to
our gods, even if he has been under suspicion in the past, should receive par-
don as a result of his repentance (Plin. Ep. 10.97)’.
88 ‘Martyrdom as Spectacle’, in Ruth Scodel (ed.), Theater and Society in the
Classical World (Ann Arbor, MI, 1993) 64–5.
89 Pass. Perpet. et Felic. 6.4–6. Perpetua’s use of the word hilares to express the
Christians’ joy after being condemned must be intended as a mocking pun on
the name Hilarianus.
90 Rives, ‘Piety’, 20–4.
91 Pass. Perpet. et Felic. 15.1–6.
92 Ibid. 17.1–3.
93 Shaw (‘The Passion’, 5) describes the worship of Saturn and Ceres as ‘the great
non-Christian religious cults of North Africa’.
94 Pass. Perpet. et Felic. 18.1–9.
95 See Bomgardner, Story, 142.
96 Pass. Perpet. et Felic. 19.1–3. See Coleman, ‘Fatal Charades’, 59.
97 It is clear that, when wild beasts were roaming the arena, more lives were at risk
than just those who were the intended objects of their animal fury. Martial tells
the story of a performing lion whose trainer could insert his hand in the ani-
mal’s mouth with no danger. On one occasion, the lion’s savagery returned
suddenly and he killed two young arena attendants (harenarii) whose job it
was to rake the bloody sand (Mart. 2.75).
98 See Coleman, ‘Fatal Charades’, 59, nn. 135, 136.
99 Pass. Perpet. et Felic. 19.4–6.
100 Lions and leopards were still used in Italy as public executioners in the late
Middle Ages (Friedländer, Roman Life, II, 64).
101 Christian writers often see the cause of this behaviour as the martyr’s sanctity.
102 Eus. Hist. Eccl. 5.1.41; 56. See also 8.7.2. Being tossed by a bull was another
of the typical punishments for sexually promiscuous women. See Petron. 45.8.
103 Salisbury (Perpetua’s Passion, 143) points out that a feral cow could be as fero-
cious as a bull and that, even today, matadors in Spain fight wild cows to add
variety to the show.
104 Pass. Perpet. et Felic. 20.1.

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105 See Shaw, ‘The Passion’, 8. Punishing a woman by exposing her to a bull seems
to have been considered appropriate for an adulteress, as a character in Petron-
ius’ Satyricon says of the mistress who he claims forced her husband’s steward
to have sex with her (45.8).
106 Blandina, like Perpetua, was wrapped in a net, before she was exposed to a bull
(Eus. Hist. Eccl. 5.1.56).
107 She pinned up her hair to avoid giving a wrong impression to the crowd (un-
kempt hair in women was a sign of mourning). Perpetua wanted to avoid any
sign of sorrow, preferring to show her joy at her entrance into eternal life.
108 Pass. Perpet. et Felic. 20.1–7.
109 Cf. Suet. Claud. 34.2.
110 Pass. Perpet. et Felic. 21.1–10. Louis Robert (‘Une Vision de Perpetue martyre
a Carthage en 203’, Comptes rendus des séances – Académie des inscriptions et
belles-lettres (1982) 238–43) argues that the gladiator in training who was as-
signed to dispatch Perpetua and her two friends was a retiarius. Robert notes
that it would have been beneath the dignity of a veteran gladiator to perform
this menial task in the venatio. He then goes on to claim that the apprentice
retiarius would have been the choice among the tirones of the various gladiato-
rial categories, since the lightly armed and nearly naked retiarius was the most
despised of gladiators.
111 HN 8.56.
112 Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur, ‘The Grateful Lion’, PMLA 39.3 (1924), 485–524.
See also Campbell Bonner, ‘Eros and the Wounded Lion’, AJA, 49.4 (1945)
443.
113 NA 5.14.5–30.
114 NA 7.48.
115 Along with the announcements of stentorian heralds, this was a normal
method of providing information to the crowd. We know that Claudius used
them for this purpose (Cass. Dio 60.13.5). Arena placards are also mentioned
in a rhetorical exercise attributed to Quintilian (Quint. Decl. Min. 302, pr.).
When a placard was displayed to the crowd announcing that one of the gladia-
tors about to take part in combat was a freeman who had sold himself to pay
for his father’s burial, the crowd requested that he be released from further ser-
vice as a gladiator, a request that the munerarius granted.
116 Gell. NA 5.14.30.
117 Ben. 2.19.1.
118 The love of a lion for his carer has been vividly demonstrated by a videotape
from an animal shelter in Cali, Colombia: http://www.local6.com/news/
10726779/detail.html.
119 Brodeur (‘The Grateful Lion’, 503) believes that Apion’s story in Gellius was
the inspiration for all other extant tales of the grateful lion, which is possible,
but, I think, unlikely. Apion’s tale seems to me a later development of the
stories recorded by Pliny the Elder.

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120 Shaw’s play was brought to the screen in 1952 in a film of the same name star-
ring Alan Young, Victor Mature and Jean Simmons (dir. Chester Erskine).
Shaw changes Androcles from a pagan runaway slave to a Christian freeman.
121 ‘Fatal Charades’, 49.
122 App. B Civ. 5.13.131.
123 Ibid. 5.13.132.
124 Coleman (‘Fatal Charades’, 53) suggests that this execution took place in the
late 30s BC. In this spectacular execution, Octavian may have been inspired by
the showmanship of his adoptive father, Julius Caesar.
125 6.2.6.
126 For the representation of Mt Aetna, see Coleman, ‘Fatal Charades’, 54: ‘the
offender is humiliated by the expedient of associating the instrument of his
execution with the symbol of his power’.
127 10.104–107.
128 Met. 4.13.
129 Apuleius’ description of this contraption is no doubt based on something he
had seen in an amphitheatre. Although Apuleius’ Metamorphoses is a work of
fiction, it has been shown to be based on fact. See Fergus Millar, ‘The World of
the Golden Ass’, JRS 71 (1981) 63. A collapsing device in the form of ship was
employed in a venatio given by Septimius Severus, but not in order to execute
noxii. This ‘ship’ was used to provide a spectacular entry of hundreds of ani-
mals (bears, lionesses, panthers, lions, ostriches, wild asses, bison), which
spilled out into the arena and were slaughtered by arena hunters (Cass. Dio
76.1.5).
130 Coleman (Liber Spectaculorum, 83) notes that he could be historical or fictitious.
131 Josephus AJ 19.94; Juv. 8.187–8; Suet. Cal. 57.4. The word ‘mime’ in its
ancient usage is not to be confused with the modern. The Romans used the
word of both a dramatic genre and its actors. The Roman mime was a short
dramatic performance with dialogue, depicting a slice of life, with an emphasis
on comedy. With its lack of sophistication and literary pretension, it may be
compared to modern situation comedy on television.
132 See Coleman, ‘Fatal Charades’, 64.
133 Mart. Spect. 9.3.
134 Ibid. 24.7.
135 Ibid. 10. There is no extant account of the death of Daedalus.
136 Cf. the device called the deus ex machina used in ancient drama to depict gods
arriving on earth from the sky.
137 Mart. Spect. 19.
138 In the myth, the product of this union was the Minotaur.
139 Spect. 6.
140 ‘Fatal Charades’, 64. In support of her suggestion of a covering of cowhide for
Pasiphae, Coleman points to Nero’s having Christians wrapped in animal skins
when he set dogs on them.

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141 10.28. The ass is actually a human being named Lucius, who has been trans-
formed into this animal. Thus the title of Apuleius’ work: Metamorphoses
(‘Changes’). Coleman gives modern examples of bestiality as public entertain-
ment (though not judicial punishments) in North Africa, Mexico and the
Middle East (‘Fatal Charades’, 64, n. 173).
142 Epistle to Corinthians, 6.2.
143 Coleman, ‘Fatal Charades’, 66; Potter, ‘Martyrdom’, in Scodel (ed.), Theater
and Society, 67.
144 The story of Mucius Scaevola was told in Chapter 1.
145 10.25.
146 8.30.
147 10.25.3.
148 ‘Fatal Charades’, 61–2.
149 Tert. Apol. 15.5.
150 Coleman (‘Fatal Charades’, 61) gives an example of a similar option offered to
convicts in seventeenth century England: self-mutilation or starvation.
151 Anth. Pal. 11.184.
152 Coleman, ‘Fatal Charades’, 61.
153 Cass. Dio 72.20.3.
154 Fam. 8.2.2.
155 Christopher Epplett (‘The Capture of Animals by the Roman Military’,
Greece & Rome 2nd Ser. 48.2. (2001) 210) points out that although it is likely
that Cicero used soldiers to hunt for animals in Cilicia, there is no specific evi-
dence that this practice existed in the Republic. Epplett, however, presents
ample evidence that in the imperial period, army trackers (vestigatores) and
hunters (venatores) worked together in the capture of animals (217–19). The
official title of the hunters seems to have been venatores immunes (‘exempt
hunters’), referring to their exemption from regular soldierly duties in com-
pensation for their hunting activities (212).
156 Fam. 8.4.5.
157 Fam. 8.9.3.
158 Fam. 8.6.5. Caelius calls the leopards he wants Cicero to send from Cilicia
‘Greek’ because Asia Minor in which Cilicia was located was a hellenized area.
See Cicero’s Letters to His Friends, I, trans. D. R. Shackleton Bailey (New York,
1978) 189, n. 354.
159 Fam. 2.11.2.
160 Fam. 8.9.3.
161 See Plin. Ep. 6.34.3, discussed in Chapter 1.
162 15.11.2.
163 Met. 4.14. See Kyle’s chapter, ‘Arenas and Eating: Corpses and Carcasses as
Food?’ in his Spectacles of Death, 184–212.
164 App. B Civ. 3.3.23.
165 Att. 15.18.2.

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166 Cic. Phil. 1.36; Att. 16.5.3.

167 Plut. Brut., 21.5.
168 Phil. 10.7.
169 Ibid. 1.36; 10.8.
170 Att. 16.2.3.
171 App. 3.3.24.
172 Ecl. 7.65–6.
173 G. B. Townend (‘Calpurnius Siculus and the Munus Neronis’, JRS 70 (1980)
171–2) claims that there is no evidence of polar bears at Rome up through the
3rd century AD. He does point out, however, that arctic hares, elk and possibly
even polar bears could have been brought back to Rome by the Roman eques-
trian sent to northern Europe to get amber for Nero’s munus (Plin. HN
37.45). I would like to point out that Martial describes a bear killed in a venatio
in AD 80 as having dwelt ‘under the vault of the Arctic skies’ (Spect. 17.4).
174 Calp. Ecl. 7.69–73. The strawberry tree is so called not because it produces
actual strawberries, but owing to its colour, although its fruit only vaguely
resembles strawberries.
175 Spect. 24.3.
176 SHA Prob. (Flavius Vopiscus) 19.4.
177 See SHA Gord. Tres (Julius Capitolinus) 3.6.
178 Poems 6 through 26 and 32–3. D. R. Shackleton Bailey (Martial: Epigrams I
(Cambridge, MA, 1993) 39, note a) notes that since the earliest manuscripts
do not include poems 35–37, they ‘probably (certainly in the case of 37) do
not belong to this book’. They have nothing to do with the Colosseum or the
inaugural shows there and poem 37 was clearly written after the death of
Domitian (AD 96).
179 Cass. Dio 66.25.4. The one hundred days refer to how much time elapsed
from the first event of the inauguration to the last. It does not mean that events
were held on every one of the hundred days. See Ville, La Gladiature, 144.
180 Cass. Dio 66.25.1. I am not sure how cranes could be induced to fight each
other. Perhaps, males were tied together as large animals like bulls and bears
were (and even, on at least one occasion, gladiators).
181 Poems 6, 9, 10, 18, 19, 24, 25.
182 The numbers in parentheses refer to the order of the poems in Shackleton
Bailey’s Loeb Classical Library edition of Martial’s Book of Spectacles.
183 Another example of an offence to modern sensibilities is the tastelessness (from
our point of view) of the owner of a villa at Silin in Libya, who adorned one of
his bedrooms with a mosaic depicting damnati being killed by a bull. See
Coleman, ‘Contagion’, 79.
184 Europa was an Asian princess carried off over the sea to Crete by Zeus (Jupiter)
in the form of a bull. She became the mother of Minos, a king of Crete. Alcides
is a patronymic of Hercules derived from his grandfather Alcaeus.
185 1.15.2.

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186 Cass. Dio 72.18.1. Domitian also was fond of playing the arena hunter, but not
in public. At his Alban private retreat he would kill up to a hundred animals
with his bow and arrows for invited friends. He had a reputation for accuracy
with the bow. It was said that he could shoot two arrows into the heads of his
animal victims so that they resembled horns. It was also reported that he could
shoot arrows into the spaces between the fanned out fingers of a boy’s hand
(Suet. Dom. 19).
187 Cass. Dio 72.18.1–2.
188 SHA, Comm. (Aelius Lampridius) 11.9.
189 Cass. Dio 73.20.1–3.
190 Ibid. 72.19.1.
191 1.15.5–6.
192 72.21.1–2.
193 SHA Gord. Tres (Julius Capitolinus) 3.6.
194 SHA Probus (Flavius Vopiscus) 19.5–6.
195 SHA Gord. Tres (Julius Capitolinus) 33.1.
196 Ibid. 3.7–8.
197 SHA Prob. (Flavius Vopiscus) 19.4.
198 SHA Elagab. (Aelius Lampridius) 8.3.
199 8.78.10.
200 Mart. 8.78.11–12. See J. R. Killeen, ‘What Was the Linea Dives (Martial, VIII,
78,7)? AJP 80.2 (1959) 187–8. According to Killeen, birds distributed in this
way included guinea fowl, turtle doves, pigeons and ducks. At a December
munus under Domitian, the birds were more exotic; they were from Egypt,
eastern Black Sea area and northern Africa (Statius, Silvae 1.6.77–8).
201 Sen. Ep. 74.7.
202 See David Potter, ‘Gladiators and Blood Sport’, in Winkler (ed.), Gladiator:
Film and History, 74; Wiedemann, Emperors, 154.
203 Cassiod. Var. 5.42.1–2; 11. See also Rea, ‘The Colosseum through the
Centuries’, in Gabucci (ed.), The Colosseum, 182 and Hopkins and Beard, The
Colosseum, 153.
204 Bomgardner, ‘Carthage Amphitheater’, 103 and Story, 225–6.

Chapter 6 The Roman Amphitheatre

and the Colosseum
1 Gian Luca Gregori, ‘The Dedication of the Amphitheatre in Pompeii’, in
Gabucci (ed.), The Colosseum, 30.
2 ILS 5627. In the towns of Italy, two men were elected every fifth year to the
prestigious position of duoviri quinquennales, which required them to admi-
nister the census and check the worthiness of members of the local senate
(decuriones).

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3 The settlement of veterans was Pompeii’s punishment for opposing the Romans
in the Social War (Nicholas Purcell, ‘Pompeii’ in the OCD). See Katherine Welch,
The Roman Amphitheatre: From Its Origins To The Colosseum (Cambridge, 2007)
76–7.
4 Connolly, Colosseum, 35–6 and Welch, Roman Amphitheatre, 192–4. Another
early technique of amphitheatre construction was to cut out the seating area from
surrounding bedrock, as at Sutrium (modern Sutri in north Italy) and Corinth.
5 The historian Velleius Paterculus calls this resistance an example of ‘the out-
standing strictness (severitas) of the state’ (1.15.3).
6 There is mention of two earlier theatrical structures built in 179 BC and in
174 BC but it is not clear that these were permanent stone theatres. See
Constance Campbell, ‘The Uncompleted Theatres of Rome’, Theatre Journal
55.1 (2003) 67–8.
7 Ann. 14.20.
8 2.4.2.
9 Appian, B Civ. 1.4.28. See also E. Gruen, Culture and Identity in Republican
Rome (Ithaca, NY, 1992) 209–10. Campbell, ‘Uncompleted Theatres’, 76–7)
suggests that defective concrete may have also contributed to the decision to
destroy this theatre.
10 Val. Max 2.4.2.
11 Campbell, ‘Uncompleted Theatres’, 68–9.
12 See Golvin, L’Amphithéâtre romain, 19 and Welch, ‘Roman arena’, 69–79.
13 See Livy’s account of the origins of drama at Rome in the fourth century BC, be-
ginning in 364 (7.2.3–7). Welch (Roman Amphitheatre, 34) suggests another
purpose of the balconies was for viewing triumphal processions as they pro-
ceeded through the Forum (Plut. Aem. 32.1).
14 Fest. Gloss. Lat. 134.7–9.
15 Basilica Porcia (184 BC), Basilica Aemilia et Fulvia (179 BC) and the Basilica
Sempronia (170 BC).
16 Welch, Roman Amphitheatre, 34–5.
17 Isid. Orig. 51.3.11.
18 E. J. Jory, ‘Gladiators in the Theatre’, CQ NS 36.2 (1986) 538.
19 C. Gracch. 33.5–6.
20 72.19.1.
21 Welch, Roman Amphitheatre, 50.
22 Sest. 124. See Edmondson, ‘Dynamic Arenas’, 87.
23 HN 36.115.
24 Cic. Fam. 8.2.1.
25 Plin. HN 36.5.
26 Ibid. 36.117. See Golvin’s thorough discussion of this architectural novelty
(L’Amphithéâtre romain, 30–2).
27 HN 36.118.
28 Cass. Dio. 43 22.3.

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29 P. Connolly and H. Dodge, The Ancient City: Life in Classical Athens and
Rome (Oxford, 1998) 190–2; Dodge, ‘Amusing the Masses’, in Potter and
Mattingly (eds), Life, Death, and Entertainment, 225; Scobie, ‘Security and
Comfort’, 199.
30 Scobie, ‘Spectator Security’, 198–99.
31 ad Martyr. 6.1.
32 Welch, Roman Amphitheatre, 39.
33 Dodge, ‘Amusing the Masses’, 230.
34 For example, the plebeian aediles gave gladiatorial matches in the Circus
Maximus in 42 BC. (Cass. Dio 47.40.6–7).
35 Cass. Dio 43.23.3.
36 Vitr. De arch. 5.1.1.
37 Suet. Tib. 7.1.
38 Bomgardner, Story, 59.
39 ‘The Arena’, 77–80. Some of these amphitheatres were located in areas that had
strong military ties with Rome, e.g. Pompeii (a military colony founded by Sulla
for his veterans).
40 For a detailed discussion of amphitheatres in the west, see Futrell, Blood,
53–76.
41 See Golvin, L’Amphithéâtre romain, 175–7.
42 Bomgardner, Story, 60; Welch, Roman Amphitheatre, 255–9.
43 Welch, Roman Amphitheatre, 259–63.
44 Thompson, ‘The Martyrdom of Polycarp’, 30.
45 See Robert, Les Gladiateurs, 33–6.
46 Philostr. VA 4.22.
47 Or. 31.121.
48 Val. Max. 1.7.8
49 Cass. Dio 51.23.1; Suet. Aug. 29.5. The Campus Martius covered an area of
about 600 acres bordered on the west by the Tiber.
50 Roman Amphitheatre, 116.
51 Tac. Ann. 3.72.
52 ILS 5156.
53 ILS 5157.
54 Cass. Dio 51.23.1.
55 See Zanker, Power of Images, 70; Diane Favro, The Urban Image of Augustan
Rome (Cambridge, 1996) 164; Edmondson, ‘Dynamic Arenas’, 78.
56 59.10.5.
57 Roman Amphitheatre, 113.
58 Suet. Calig. 21.1.
59 Cic. Att. 4.16.8.
60 Cass. Dio 53.23.1–3.
61 See Claridge, Rome, 207. Seneca lists the Saepta with the Forum and the Circus
Maximus as locations that could accommodate very large crowds (Dial. 4.8.1).

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The footprint of the Saepta was nearly two acres larger than that of the later
Colosseum.
62 Ecl. 7.45–6. It is likely that Corydon’s two references to ‘sheepfolds’ (ovilia, 11,
15) in his home town are allusions to the Saepta, popularly called ‘the sheep pen’
(ovile). This interpretation is made even more plausible by Corydon’s scornful
comparison of these sheep pens with what he had seen in Rome: ‘Let Stimicon [a
winner of a local musical contest in Corydon’s absence] carry off all the sheep-
folds which Thyrsis [sponsor of contest] purifies; he will still not equal my joys,
not if someone presented me with all the herds of the Lucanian [in southern
Italy] forest’ (Ecl. 7.15–17).
63 Ann. 13.31.
64 Ecl. 7.23–4.
65 Claridge, Rome, 276.
66 Ecl. 7.47–8. In an amphitheatre, the balteus (‘belt’) was one of the walls running
around the whole building that divided the seating area into different levels
(maeniana).
67 Ecl. 7.53–4. HN 37.45.
68 Suet. Iul. 39.2.
69 Ecl. 7.48–53.
70 Ibid. 7.53–5. Pliny the Elder also mentions the nets, the purpose of which he
describes as ‘protecting the podium’ (HN 37.45), but oddly omits any reference
to the cylinder mentioned by Calpurnius and discussed below.
71 See Townend, ‘Calpurnius Siculus’, 171–3.
72 See Bomgardner, Story, 20–1; Junkelmann, Familia Gladiatoria, in Köhne and
Ewigleben (eds), The Power of Spectacle, 35.
73 ‘Spectator Security’, 210.
74 Ibid. 210; 238, n. 113.
75 Suetonius (Ner. 12.1–2) calls these enactments pyrrhicae. The term pyrrhica,
borrowed from the Greek, is usually translated as pyrrhic dancing, i.e., ‘a war
dance in armour’ in accordance with its original meaning, but its application
here indicates that the word during the empire had acquired a wider connotation
including dramatic performances. See Coleman, ‘Fatal Charades’, 68, n. 200.
76 Townend (‘Calpurnius Siculus’, 173) argues that the enclosed box was in place
on the first day of the munus because Nero was afraid of an attack by wild ani-
mals, but was afterwards removed when he saw that the nets had been effective.
David Woods (‘Pliny, Nero, and the “Emerald”, (NH 37, 64)’, Arctos 40 (2006)
195) takes a different tack altogether. He claims that the purpose of Nero’s en-
closed box was to allow him to spy on the spectators unobserved.
77 The saffron mist must have been produced by the same device that shot a saffron
spray into the seating area to refresh the crowd (Q Nat. 2.9.2.).
78 Spect. 1.
79 Amm. Marc. 16.10.14.

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80 Claridge, Rome, 271. See Plin. HN 34.45; Suet. 31.1; and Cass. Dio 66.15.1. As
a point of comparison, the Statue of Liberty is (not including the base) 152 feet,
2 inches high. Nero indeed had megalomaniac tendencies. He had a painting
made of himself on canvas, 120 (Roman) feet high (⫽ 114 modern feet). Soon
after it was displayed publicly, it was set on fire by lightning (Plin. HN 35.51).
81 See ‘Domus Aurea’ in the OCD, 3rd edn, and Suet. Ner. 31.1–2.
82 H. V. Canter (‘The Venerable Bede and the Colosseum’, TAPA 61 (1930)
162–5) supports this interpretation.
83 See Hopkins and Beard, The Colosseum, 35 and Claridge, Rome, 271.
84 ‘Signs of Continued Use after Antiquity’, in Gabucci (ed.), The Colosseum, 197.
85 Spect, 2. Coleman (Liber Spectaculorum, 20) claims that Vespasian erased
Nero’s features from the face of the statue, but that was actually the work of
Hadrian, who had the statue converted to a representation of the Sun god
(SHA Hadrian. (Aelius Spartianus) 19.13).
86 Cass. Dio 66.15.2.
87 The use of money acquired from the sale of manubiae for gifts to the Roman
people was a regular practice of victorious generals. For example, Augustus often
financed gifts to the Roman people (including public buildings) from his manu-
biae (RG 15; 21). See Coleman, ‘Contagion’, Hermathena 164 (1998) 67.
88 CIL VI.40454a.
89 Hopkins and Beard (Colosseum, 34) are dubious about this reconstruction: ‘A
skeptical reader is likely to feel (as we do) that there is an uncomfortably long
distance between the scatter of holes and the suspiciously appropriate solution
to “joining the dots” ’. Nevertheless, Hopkins and Beard do not go so far as to
deny the overall accuracy of the reconstruction.
90 Silvia Orlandi, ‘The Bronze-Lettered Inscription of Vespasian and Titus’, in
Gabucci (ed.), The Colosseum, 165.
91 Ramsay MacMullen (‘Some Pictures in Ammianus Marcellinus’, The Art Bul-
letin 46.4. (1964) 443) points out that for the Romans, when it came to am-
phitheatres, money was no object. See also Richard Duncan-Jones, The Economy
of the Roman Empire: Quantitative Studies (Cambridge, 1974) 75.
92 AE 1961, 140; 1969–70, 183.
93 ‘Contagion’, 76 (CIL X.5183).
94 See Bomgardner, Story, 30. A fourth century chronicle (354 AD) attributes the
completion of the attic story, at that time decorated with shields, to Domitian.
The depiction of the Colosseum on the tomb of the Haterii has only three
stories.
95 Only arches numbered 31 to 54 on the northern side have survived.
96 Scobie, ‘Security and Comfort’, 204.
97 Claridge, Rome, 266, fig. 128; 271–2.
98 Hopkins and Beard, The Colosseum, 133–4. See also Rea and Orlandi, ‘The
Interior’, in Gabucci (ed.), The Colosseum, 132–4; 138–9 and P. Connolly, The

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Colosseum, 59–60. Bomgardner (Story, 9) oddly places the passageway of

Commodus and the emperor’s box on the north side, but he may have been
misled by a schematic from Golvin (L’Amphithéâtre romain, plate XXXVII),
reproduced in his text (10), which appears to have its directional arrows
reversed.
99 Cass. Dio 72.4.4.
100 Aug. 44.3.
101 Connolly and Dodge, The Ancient City, 194.
102 ‘The Interior’, in Gabucci (ed.), The Colosseum, 132–4.
103 Cic. Har. Resp. 24. See also Val. Max 2.4.3 and Livy 34.44.5.
104 Cic. Mur. 40 and Vell. Pat. 2.32.3.
105 See Elizabeth Rawson, ‘Discrimina Ordinum: The Lex Julia Theatralis’, PBSR
55 (1987) 102, n. 110.
106 Sen. Ben. 7.12.4. Seneca also says that he does not have the right to sell or rent
his place. This is probably the result not of a legal prohibition but of conven-
tion. It was obviously considered déclassé to sell a seating privilege that one had
been awarded because of one’s elite status.
107 Quint. Inst. 6.3.63.
108 Epict. Dissertationes 1.25.26–9.
109 Tac, Ann. 3.31.
110 ‘Discrimina’, 108.
111 Suet. Aug. 14.1.
112 Suet. Dom. 8.3.
113 5.14. Martial gives the name of this usher (Leitus) here and in 5.8.12. Martial
refers by name to one other usher (Oceanus) in 3.95.10 and 5.23.4.
114 3.95.9–10. See Tac. Ann. 16.12 and Rawson, ‘Discrimina’ (1987) 100. Mar-
tial apparently was peeved because Naevolus would never say hello to him,
unless he spoke first.
115 5.23.
116 Rawson, ‘Discrimina’, 102, n. 112.
117 Rawson (Ibid. 86) notes that the seating assignments in the Colosseum fol-
lowed the requirements of the lex Julia Theatralis.
118 Suet. Aug. 44.1 See Edmondson, ‘Dynamic Arenas’, 102–3.
119 Suet. Aug. 44.1.
120 Ibid. 44.2.
121 Silvae 1.6.44.
122 Rawson, ‘Discrimina’, 84.
123 Augustus believed that men who remained unmarried and did not produce
children were not performing their duty as Roman citizens (Cass. Dio 56.5.7).
He backed up this belief with legislation that encouraged marriage. See
Rawson, ‘Discrimina’, 98–9.
124 Florence Dupont (Daily Life in Ancient Rome, trans. Christopher Woodall
(Cambridge, MA, 1993) 223) suggests that the toga praetexta was a symbol of

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inviolability, which applied to both magistrates, young boys and young girls,
who wore the praetexta until they were married.
125 There is no reference in the sources to any other seating area for slaves. Perhaps
the Romans still followed the policy that was in effect during the Republic. The
prologue speaker in Plautus’ Poenulus warns slaves to stand in the theatre in
order not to deprive freeborn Romans of a seat, although they could purchase
one if they could afford it (23–4). In the Colosseum, perhaps slaves found
empty seats in the upper reaches of the stands.
126 Suet. Aug. 44.2–3. These people were called pullati (‘clad in dark clothing’).
127 Calp. Sic. Ecl. 7.29. Following van Berchem and Bollinger, I read tribules
(‘citizens belonging to tribes’, ‘commoners’) instead of the perplexing tribuni
(‘tribunes’) in line 29. Tribules, if correct, would be a reference to the plebs div-
ided into their tribes (politican divisions of the Roman people). See Rawson,
‘Discrimina’, 95. I believe that nivei (‘snow white’) modifying tribules implies
an understood niveus qualifying eques (‘equestrians’).
128 Aen. 1.282.
129 Cass. Dio 60.7.4.
130 3.171–2.
131 14.135.
132 4.2.
133 Suet. Aug. 44.2–3. Wives, no matter what their status, were not permitted to
sit with their husbands. See Rawson, ‘Discrimina’, 91.
134 Calp. Sic. Ecl. 7.25–7.
135 Plut. Sull. 35.3–5.
136 Ars am. 1.167–8. Since this poem was written long after the passage of
Augustus’ Lex Julia Theatralis, one might wonder why Ovid has men and
women sitting together in the amphitheatre. (Rawson (‘Discrimina’, 98) gives
26 to 17 BC as the most likely time frame for the issuing of the lex Julia
Theatralis.) There are as many different opinions as scholars. Edmondson
(‘Dynamic Arenas’, 88–90) suggests that there might have been a lag in the
application of the seating rules to the amphitheatre in comparison with the
theatre, but eventually they were applied equally to both structures. Rawson
(‘Discrimina’, 108) notes that in the early principate there were some occasions
when Augustus’ seating rules were not observed. Ville (La Gladiature, 436,
n. 157) argues that all these seating rules probably were not established at the
same time, but in a piecemeal fashion. Cassius Dio says that the rules about
separate seating for the senators and the equestrians were not put into effect in
the Circus Maximus until AD 5 (55.22.4).
137 Ars. am. 1.165–6; 169–70.
138 4.8.76–7.
139 Am. 2.7.1–6.
140 Tac. Ann. 4.16.
141 Cass. Dio 59.3.4; 60.22.2.

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NOTES TO CHAPTER 6

142 ILS 5049. See Silvia Orlandi, ‘Seating Inscriptions for the Fratres Arvales’, in
Gabucci (ed.), The Colosseum, 126.
143 Edmondson, ‘Dynamic Arenas’, 91, n. 93.
144 Hopkins and Beard, The Colosseum, 109.
145 Arval Brothers who were members of the senatorial order no doubt sat on
the podium among their senatorial colleagues to enjoy the better vantage
point.
146 Jerzy Kolendo, ‘La répartition des places aux spectacles et la stratification social
dans l’empire romain, Ktema: civilizations de l’Orient, de la Grèce et de Rome
antiques 6 (1981) 304–5. Kolendo, however, ignoring Augustus’ rule that
women sit in the upper regions of the amphitheatre, seems to include them in
his mention of the family members sitting with the Arvals in the maenianum
primum.
147 Arnob. Ad. Nat. 4.35.4.
148 Kolendo, ‘La répartition’, 304.
149 Rawson, ‘Discrimina’, 92.
150 The Frisians were a Germanic tribe, ancestors of the Dutch.
151 Tac. Ann. 13.54.
152 Spect. 3.
153 Catherine Edwards and Greg Woolf, ‘Cosmopolis: Rome as World City’,
in Catharine Edwards and Greg Woolf (eds), The Cosmopolis (Cambridge,
2003) 1.
154 Cass. Dio 61.17.5.
155 The award could only be given if testimony was given by the person saved.
156 Plin. HN 16.12–13. See Rawson, ‘Discrimina’, 106.
157 Phil. 9.16. How long this honour for the Sulpician family remained in effect is
not known. See Rawson, ‘Discrimina’, 110.
158 ‘Roman arena’, 76–7, n. 42.
159 Welch (Roman Amphitheatre, 32–5) gives an account of the scholarly debate
over whether the maeniana were invented by the fourth century Maenius
or the second century Maenius. She notes that the sources for the earlier
Maenius are more reliable than those for the later Maenius and rightly points
out that this question is not crucial and that what is significant for the topic at
hand is (1) maeniana existed in the Forum as early as 184 BC and (2) by this
date gladiator shows had become so popular that more viewing space was
necessary.
160 Ps. Asc. 201.15; Porphyr. ad loc. Hor. Sat. 1.3.21.
161 AE 1927 58. See Rawson, ‘Discrimina’, 110, n. 162. The reason for this
honour is unknown.
162 See Hopkins and Beard, The Colosseum, 109. Roman patronage involved assist-
ance, both financial and legal, that was provided by a well-to-do patron of higher
status to a man of lower status with whom he had a long-standing relationship,
for example (e.g. a slave freed by the patron). Some patrons had many such

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clients. In return, the client supported his patron in various ways and gave him
respect by greeting him early in the morning at his house.
163 See Bomgardner, Story, 6; Paul J. J. Vanderbroeck, Popular Leadership, 79–80;
Futrell, Blood, 164.
164 ‘Discrimina’, 97.
165 Cic. Att. 2.1.5.
166 73.
167 ‘Discrimina’, 97.
168 Futrell, Blood, 164.
169 5.24.9.
170 See Gunderson, ‘Ideology’, 123; 125.
171 Balsdon, Life, 268.
172 Edmondson, ‘Dynamic Arenas’, 91.
173 Ner. 12.2.
174 Suet. Aug. 44.1.
175 Cass. Dio 59.7.8.
176 Edmondson (‘Dynamic Arenas’, 91, n. 97) says there is no convincing evi-
dence that the equestrians sat in the maenianum primum. He suggests that
their seats were immediately behind the podium with no walkway (praecinctio)
separating them. The more common interpretation is that there were three
concentric walkways backed by a balustrade (balteus) which divided the cavea
into the four main sections noted in Figure 30. The lowest walkway would
have been just behind the podium; the highest was immediately behind the
maenianum imum secundum.
177 Ibid. 92.
178 Connolly, Colosseum, 61.
179 Rea and Orlandi, ‘The Underground Chambers’, in Gabucci (ed.), The Colosseum,
129 and Connolly, Colosseum, 56.
180 Story, 12.
181 Suet. Aug. 44.3.
182 Calp. Sic. Ecl. 7.27. Golvin (L’Amphithéâtre romain, 36, n. 85) has suggested
that the cathedrae were box seats. See also Edmondson, ‘Dynamic Arenas’, 93.
183 Suet. Calig. 26.5.
184 Plin. HN 19.23.
185 Ibid.
186 Ibid.
187 Cass. Dio 53.31.3.
188 4.75–80. The translation is by Cyril Bailey with adjustments made by the
author (Titi Lvcreti Cari De Rerum Natura: Edited with Prolegomena, Critical
Apparatus, Translation and Commentary, I (Oxford 1947) 367).
189 Plin. HN 19.24; Cass. Dio 63.6.2.
190 Claridge, Rome, 271 and Coleman, Liber Spectaculorum, 21. See SHA
Hadrian (Aelius Spartianus) 19.13.

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NOTES TO CHAPTER 6

191 SHA Comm. (Aelius Lampridius) 15.6. See Connolly and Dodge, Ancient
City, 198; Claridge, Rome, 269; and Ville, La Gladiature, 282. Misenum on
the Bay of Naples was Rome’s most important naval base.
192 Mart. 4.2.5; 11.21.6. The sailors may have used a device called an anemoscope
to determine the direction of the wind. One of these wind indicators was found
on the Esquiline Hill not far from the Colosseum. See Silvia Orlandi, ‘The
Anemoscope’, in Gabucci (ed.), The Colosseum, 119.
193 ‘Reconstructing the Roman Colosseum Awning’, Archaeology 35.2 (1982) 62.
194 SHA Comm. (Aelius Lampridius) 15.5–8.
195 14.28.
196 Scobie, ‘Security and Comfort’, 222; Hopkins and Beard, The Colosseum,
110–11.
197 Cass. Dio 59.7.8; Mart. 14.29.
198 Connolly, Colosseum, 64.
199 HN 19.24.
200 Connolly and Dodge, Ancient City, 199.
201 Claridge, Rome, 280–2.
202 Connolly and Dodge, Ancient City, 208.
203 Connolly, Colosseum, 196 and Bomgardner, Story, 30.
204 Claridge, Rome, 281.
205 Ibid. 280–1.
206 Connolly and Dodge, Ancient City, 206–7.
207 Ibid. 208.
208 Cass. Dio 78.25.2–4. The ‘stadium’ mentioned by Dio was probably the one
built by Domitian, the shape of which is now evident in the Piazza Navona
(Claridge, Rome, 209–11).
209 Rea, ‘Original Use from A.D. 80 to 523’, in Gabucci (ed.), The Colosseum, 176.
210 Ibid.
211 The colonnade may also have fallen during an earthquake in the fifth century.
See Rea, ‘Original Use’, in Gabucci (ed.), The Colosseum, 181 and Connolly,
Colosseum, 158.
212 Hopkins and Beard, The Colosseum, 154–5 and Rea, ‘Ludwig the Bavarian’, in
Gabucci (ed.), The Colosseum, 200.
213 History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ch. 71.
214 Connolly, Colosseum, 158.
215 Claridge, Rome, 276.
216 Connolly, Colosseum, 158.
217 Cassiod. Var. 3.49.3
218 The other two owners were the Capitoline Senate (the government of the city
of Rome) and the religious order of Santissimo Salvatore ad Sancta Sanctorum.
219 Rea and Orlandi, ‘From Ruins to Monument’, in Gabucci (ed.), The Colosse-
um, 203–4.
220 Ibid. 208; 212.

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NOTES TO CHAPTER 7

221 Rea, ‘Myth and Legends’, in Gabucci (ed.), The Colosseum, 205. Pope Sylvester
presided over the dedication of St John Lateran in 324.
222 See Tert. De spect. 7.3.
223 The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini, ch. 64.
224 See Rea, ‘Virgil the Magician’, in Gabucci (ed.), The Colosseum, 207.
225 Rea, ‘From Arena of Death to Place of Prayer’, in Gabucci (ed.), The Colosseum,
209.
226 Hopkins and Beard, The Colosseum, 103. The article ‘The Coliseum’ in the
online version of the Catholic Encyclopedia (http://www.newadvent.org/
cathen/04101b.htm, 1913 edition) points out that it is just as likely that
Christian martyrs in Rome were executed in other entertainment buildings
such as the Circus Flaminius, the Amphitheatrum Castrense and the stadium
of Domitian. This article also expresses doubt about the Colosseum as the
location of Ignatius of Antioch’s martyrdom.
227 Rea, ‘From Ruins to Monument’, in Gabucci (ed.), The Colosseum, 204.
228 Clement XI (1700–1721) revived the plan of his seventeenth century name-
sake to build a substantial church in the arena, but plans for this monument
also were abandoned. See Connolly, Colosseum, 164–6.
229 Hopkins and Beard, The Colosseum, 167.
230 Rea, ‘From Ruins to Monument’, in Gabucci (ed.), The Colosseum, 213 and
Beard and Hopkins, The Colosseum, 6 (figure 2). The ritual of the Stations
(‘stopping places’) of the Cross involves a procession of the devout, who stop
before depictions of various scenes of Christ’s passion from his condemnation
to his death, meditating on each scene. The tradition of the Stations of the
Cross in the Colosseum was revived in the twentieth century and is still per-
formed by the Pope every Good Friday.
231 Hopkins and Beard, The Colosseum, 172.
232 Rea, ‘From Ruins to Monument’, in Gabucci (ed.), The Colosseum, 214.
233 Connolly, Colosseum, 166.
234 Rea, ‘From Ruins to Monument’, in Gabucci (ed.), The Colosseum 219–27.
235 See Hopkins and Beard, The Colosseum, 3–12 for the less romantic views of
Dickens, de Staël and Mark Twain.
236 Ibid. 19–20.

Chapter 7 Gladiators in Film

1 As Martin Winkler (‘Gladiator and the Traditions of Historical Cinema’, in
Winkler (ed.), Gladiator: Film and History, 16–24) ably explains, films need not
limit themselves to what actually happened but can fill in gaps in the historical
record by inserting what might have happened, provided that these ‘fill-ins’ have
sufficient plausibility in the context of the extant evidence.
2 See Junkelmann, Das Spiel, 7.

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NOTES TO CHAPTER 7

3 ‘The Pedant Goes to Hollywood: The Role of the Academic Consultant’, in

Winkler (ed.), Gladiator: Film and History, 51. Junkelmann (Das Spiel, 7) sees
historical films as educators of the public and every such film, whether it portrays
the past accurately or not, becomes ‘a factoid’.
4 Even scholars (e.g., myself ) can be led into error by a film. Junkelmann (Das
Spiel, 7) cites the scene in William Wyler’s Ben Hur (1959) in which chained
slaves and convicts ply the oars in a Roman galley as a prime example of a film
perpetuating an historical error (rowers were normally freemen). It never oc-
curred to me to question the accuracy of that scene when I first saw the film soon
after its release and even when I saw it for a second time a few years ago.
5 In Sign, Nero’s munus takes place in a large stone amphitheatre, which is given
no name. It could not be the Colosseum, which was built twelve years after
Nero’s death. The stone amphitheatre of Statilius Taurus was available during
the first ten years of Nero’s reign, but was burned down (along with Nero’s
famous wooden amphitheatre) in the great fire of AD 64.
6 Shaw, however, does include in his play the error of gladiators addressing the ‘we
who are about to die’ speech to the emperor.
7 For example, CIL IV.1194.
8 The Romans used the adverb gregatim (‘in a group’) to describe these mêlées
among gladiators.
9 See Suet. Calig. 30.3. The legislation of AD 177–180 required that outside Rome
every gladiator show present a number of gladiators who fought gregatim equal
to the number of gladiators who fought in individual duels (ILS 5163.37–40).
This, however, is an emergency measure inspired by the outrageous costs of
gladiators. Before this legislation, we do not often hear of gregatim fights; they
were not a regular feature of the munus.
10 Suet. Ner. 12.1; Cass. Dio 59.10.1 and 61.9.5.
11 A herm is a column usually topped by a head of the Greek god Hermes (thus the
name). The indication seems to be that the gorilla is going to rape the woman.
Perhaps this scene was inspired by the punishment of a convicted woman in a
venatio, who was raped by a bull as a mythical enactment of the Pasiphae myth
(Mart. Spect. 6). Did DeMille think that gorilla rape was more palatable than bull
rape?
12 CIL IV.1189 (edictum). A(uli) Suetti Certi | aedilis familia gladiatorial pugnab(it)
Pompeis | pr(idie) kalendas Iunias: venatio et vela erunt [letters in parentheses
complete abbreviations]. ‘The gladiatorial troupe of the aedile A. Suettius Certus
will fight at Pompeii on the day before the calends of June (31 May): there will be
an animal hunt and awnings’. Unfortunately, ERUNT, which means ‘there will
be’, is spelled erroneously in the film as FRUNT. The graphic artist apparently left
off the bottom horizontal bar of the ‘E’.
13 Suet. Claud. 21.5.
14 It would have been unusual for a member of the imperial family other than the
emperor to own a gladiator school.

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NOTES TO CHAPTER 7

15 As the camera looks across the arena from the emperor’s box, the Vestal Virgins
sitting together are clearly visible. Although the evidence is unclear, this is one of
the possible locations of the Vestal Virgin’s box.
16 This pairing of a black and a white gladiator is a precursor of the Woody Strode
(Draba)/Kirk Douglas fight in Spartacus. In both cases, the black fighter shows
goodwill towards his white opponent. Glycon tries to save the life of the inexpe-
rienced Demetrius by faking the duel, while Draba does not attack when Sparta-
cus is helpless, but instead throws his trident at the aristocratic Roman guests in
the viewing box. The emphasis on black/white friendship must be understood as
a product of the contemporary American civil rights movement in the 1950s.
The friendship between Juba and Maximus in Gladiator is an echo of this theme,
but the two do not fight.
17 The reason that Glycon gives to Strabo for forcing Demetrius to fight more
opponents is to give the emperor a truly worthy birthday show. It does seem
somewhat out of character for Glycon to force Demetrius to risk his life further,
especially since Demetrius had spared his life the day before.
18 Earlier in the film, the same topic comes up in a conversation between Spartacus
and Draba, in which the latter preferred not to know the name of a potential
opponent in the arena. In Howard Fast’s novel Spartacus, although he is
enrolled in Batiatus’ school, never fights as a gladiator.
19 Das Spiel, 10.
20 The Gladiators, 224. In the film Fabiola (dir. Blasetti, 1949), an Italian produc-
tion dubbed into English and released in the United States, a banquet scene
features a contest between the hero Rual (Henri Vidal), a retiarius, and a thraex,
clearly identified by his helmet with a griffin finial. Like Spartacus, the thraex
uses a small round shield instead of the rectangular shield of the historical
thraex. The end of this contest illustrates why the secutor with his smooth fish-
bowl helmet was a more appropriate opponent for the retiarius. Clearly, any
gladiator who wore a helmet with a prominent crest was at a significant disad-
vantage against a retiarius’ trident. Rual catches his trident on the thin finial of
his opponent’s helmet and uses it as a lever keep him at a distance. Rual eventu-
ally is able to wrap him up in his net, but, as a Christian, spares his life.
21 Note that Russell Crowe in Gladiator also fights on occasion without a helmet,
probably for the same reason.
22 The film uses the amphitheatre in Verona for its gladiatorial scenes. The DVD
version identifies it as the Colosseum, but that building did not exist during
Nero’s reign. This, however, is a forgivable error, especially in comparison with
the solecisms that follow.
23 The Scandinavian name Torvald seems out of place in ancient Italy, but movies
have never been very careful about giving historically appropriate names to gladia-
tors. For example, the programmes (libelli) for gladiator shows that list opponents
in The Last Days of Pompeii include names that are at best medieval: Laurentius,
Gulielmus, Gregorus, Carolus and Ludovicius and misunderstands the terms

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NOTES TO CHAPTER 7

Iulianus and Neronianus, presenting them as if they were names of individual

gladiators and not indications of their special status. The history of the character
Torvald, however, has a solid basis in the real world of gladiators. We are told he
had already won his freedom, but still returned to the arena three times. This was
a common phenomenon among retired star gladiators. Editores paid large sums to
these returning retired gladiators because of their popularity with spectators. Tigris
in Gladiator is another retiree who has returned to the arena.
24 Balsdon (Life and Leisure, 294–5) mentions a contest between an essedarius and
a retiarius, but gives no primary or even secondary source. In any case, Barrabas
and his two colleagues, although wearing only a subligaculum like a retiarius, do
not use the trident as a weapon. In fact, it is the essedarius Torvald who uses a
net, one of the retiarius’ weapons.
25 See Kathleen M. Coleman, ‘The Pedant’ 45–52 and Allen M. Ward, ‘Gladiator in
Historical Perspective’, 31, both in Gladiator: Film and History, Winkler (ed.).
One should be especially wary of the information provided in the documentary
(Gladiator Games: Roman Blood Sport) on the special features disc included with
the DVD of the film. The words of excellent scholars like Kathleen Coleman,
David Potter and Andrew Wallace Hadrill can be trusted, but there is an ‘archae-
ologist’ who says that gladiators on horseback were called andabatae and were
blindfolded along with their horses. This nonsense confuses the andabatae, who
were blindfolded, with the equites, who were not, as ancient depictions clearly
demonstrate. Her Latin is also inaccurate. The crowd’s cry for release of a gladi-
ator is not missa, but missum or missos. The commentary provided by the
voiceover runs the gamut of informational quality from erroneous to acceptable.
26 He also gave permission to a wealthy citizen to present a munus in the town of
Avella (southern Italy), where this kind of spectacle had been long forgotten
(CIL X.1211). He did ban all spectacles (including gladiatorial contests) in
Antioch (Syria), but that was only because the city had supported his rival to the
throne, Avidius Cassius (SHA Marc. (Julius Capitolinus) 9.1).
27 Zucchabar was not a Roman province but an Augustan colony in Mauretania
(modern Algeria).
28 Das Spiel, 8.
29 Could the film be suggesting here the savage animal nature of gladiators? This
seems to be a recurring theme in the film. Later on, a gladiator wears a helmet
with a lion mask and another, a mask with two horns and two tusks. These
helmets, of course, are the fantasy of the modern designers, as is the futuristic
design of Maximus’ helmet in the re-creation of the battle of Zama and that of
Tigris of Gaul in his duel with Maximus, with a visor representing the mask of
Tragedy. As unhistorical as Tigris’ helmet is, I cannot help liking the design and
the idea.
30 The most striking misrepresentation in this contest is that of a retiarius (identified
by his trident, net and shoulder protector (galerus) – on the wrong shoulder).
He wears a skull-like helmet enclosing the whole head, another example of the

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NOTES TO CHAPTER 7

fantasy armour in this film. It would be interesting to know why the retiarius,
after being depicted accurately in the gladiator films of the 1930s, suddenly
acquires a helmet in Demetrius (1954). Spartacus corrected this error, but
Gladiator fell right back into it.
31 The television series Rome (co-produced by the BBC, HBO (USA) and RAI
(Italy)) imitates this scene but ups the ante. Pullo kills seven opponents in a row.
32 In reality, Commodus and his representatives would never have bothered
importing gladiators of a minor lanista all the way from North Africa. The
emperor had the greatest gladiators in the empire in the Ludus Magnus adjacent
to the Colosseum. Considerations of the plot have prevailed over historical
accuracy in this instance.
33 Das Spiel, 9. Similar metae appear in the amphitheatre scene of George Lucas’s
Attack of the Clones (2002). Their presence is probably due to the influence of
Gladiator. Obviously, film makers watch each other’s films.
34 The film first guilty of the anachronism of medieval weapons is Richard Lester’s
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966) in which a gladiator
apprentice practises on victims with a flail. This anachronism may have been
deliberate for comic effect, but Gladiator and Rome (n. 31 above) apparently
took it seriously. In Rome, a huge gladiator employs a flail, at the other end of
which is a sword blade. I am not sure that this concoction ever existed, even in
medieval times. It is interesting to note that in the background of a gladiatorial
school scene in Demetrius and the Gladiators, a trainee is swinging a battleaxe at
a palus, but at least the gladiators in the film’s combat scenes never use this
weapon.
35 ‘Gladiator in Historical Perspective’, in Winkler (ed.), Gladiator: Film and
History, 40.
36 After killing Commodus, Livius declines the throne.
37 See Wiedemann, Emperors, 92–3 and 102–4. Junkelmann (Das Spiel, 10), who
has few kind words for Gladiator, praises the solidly historical depiction of
Proximo, the lanista.
38 The historical Commodus served as co-ruler with Aurelius for the last three years
of his father’s life and, after his death, was his choice to succeed him.

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Index

acclamatio, 76, 100, 145 Androcles and the Lion

Achilles, 13–14, 47, 122,124 film, 291, 358n120
acta diurna, 97, 328n164 play, 228, 291, 358n120
Actium, 21, 173, 185, 194, 201 Anicius Maximus, 243
aedile, 38, 39, 53, 86, 147, 155, 160–3, animal hunter, 8, 22, 189 seevenator
166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 175, 183, animal hunt, viii, 9, 22, 25, 86, 175, 181,
204, 207, 208, 213, 233, 234, 237, 241, 243, 253–4, 256, 324n62,
241, 249, 276, 342n81, 363n34, 344n126, 372n12 see venationes
372n12 animal hunter school
Aelian, 214–15, 227 ludus bestiarius, 57, 81, 318n139
Aemilius Celer, 69 Ludus Matutinus, 52, 55, 81, 318n139
Aes Italicense, 60 ludus venatorius, 30, 81
Aeschylus, 251 Antony, Marc (M. Antonius), 21, 173, 185,
Aesculapius, 310n86 191, 194, 201, 222, 235, 269
Agrippa, M. Vipsanius, 173, 177, 349n258 Antioch, 24, 153, 251, 283
Ajax, 14, 124 Antiochus Epiphanes, 24, 153, 345n167
Alexander Severus (emperor, AD 222–35), Antonia, 269
204, 280, 346n117 Antoninus Pius (emperor, AD 138–61), 291
Alexandria, 42–3, 52, 355n75 Antonius, C., 235
Alypius, 25, 147–8, 149, 202 Apion, 227–8, 357n119
American Sportsman, 29 Apollonius (philosopher), 252
Ammianus Marcellinus, 128, 204, 208 apparitores, 265
Amphipolis, 216 Appian, 33, 236
amphitheatres, see also Colosseum Appian Way, 34, 345n152
architecture, 245 Apuleius, 44, 73, 229, 231, 234, 358n129,
locations of, 4, 60, 73, 94, 149, 151, 359n141
179, 181, 184, 185, 198, 197, 199, Aquilius Gallus, 165
236, 245–6, 249–50, 251, 252–3, Aquitania, 64
253–6, 259, 260, 268, 276, 278, Arcadius, 65
279, 307n14, 327n129, 348n214, Arendt, Hannah, 28
355n70, 362n4, 363n39, 372n5, Ares (Greek counterpart of Mars), 95
373n22 argentarius, 204
military amphitheatre (amphitheatrum Aristophanes, 251
castrense), 220, 355n70, 371n226 armamentarium, 57
Roman attitude towards, 246–50, 260 Arnobius, 105
seating, 58–9, 145, 151, 161, 245–8, Arsinoe, 170
307n22, 338n418, 355n70, 362n4, Artemidorus, 49, 306n6
366n106, 367n125, 367n136 Arval Brothers (Fratres Arvales), 269–70,
stone, 245, 246, 251, 252, 253, 259, 263, 275–6, 368n145, 368n146
264, 269, 271–2, 302, 372n5, Asia (province), 53–4, 160, 169, 215,
underground area (hypogeum), 250, 256; 319n152, 354n43, 359n158
see also Colosseum Asiarch, 215, 219, 319n152, 354n43
wooden, 158, 184–5, 197, 199, 236, associations of venatores (North Africa),
249–50, 253, 254, 266, 273 323n47
Ancyra, 72 Athens, 26, 182
Androclus (Androcles), 139, 226–8, 291, Attack of the Clones, Star Wars: Episode II,
358n120 375n33

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INDEX

Atticus (friend of Cicero), 39, 235 Bomgardner, D. L., 60, 243, 251, 275,
Attis, 232 320n184, 366n98
auctoratus, 37–8, 111, 124, 136, 142, 294, Book of Spectacles, 12, 107, 127, 187, 237,
322n29, 323n49 256, 270, 325n85, 360n182
oath of auctoratus 3, 38, 184 Borgnine, Ernest, 294
augur, (augury), 153, 339n1 Boyd, Stephen, 303
Augustine, St, 25, 147, 202 Bracciolini, Poggio, 281
Augustus (emperor, 31 BC–AD 14), ix, 43, Brasidas, 13
51, 52, 60, 72, 87, 91, 98, 136, 137, Brutus, D. Junius Albinus (one of Caesar’s
172–3, 174, 175, 177, 178, 180, assassins), 78, 167
181, 182–3, 184, 187, 193–5, 197, Brutus, D. Junius Pera (honorand of first
199–201, 222, 228, 229, 250, 252, munus at Rome) 12, 309n69
253, 259, 262–70, 275–6, 301, Brutus, L. Junius (founder of Republic),
344n131, 344n132, 346n172, 309n69
350n266, 365n87, 366n123; see also Brutus, M. Junius (leader of Caesar’s
Octavian assassins) 194, 213, 235–6,
Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights, 213, 227 264, 309n69
Aurelian (emperor, AD 270–75), 212, Bullfights, 5, 213, 244, 280–1, 313n149,
323n57 326n111, 353n23
Aurigemma, Salvatore, 85 burladeros, 326n111
Ausonius, 12, 309n56 Bulwer-Lytton, Edward, 4
awnings (vela), 66–9, 76, 257, 275–8,
277–8, 291, 372n12 Caelius Rufus, M., 233–4
Caesar, C. Julius, 38–40, 43, 51, 74, 78, 81,
Baetica, 219 114, 144, 159, 160, 163–4, 167,
Balbus, L. Cornelius, 219, 354n64 168, 170–2, 173, 174, 177, 180,
balteus 181, 184, 187, 190–1, 192–3,
gladiator belt, 42, 99, 108, 121 212–14, 235, 250, 251, 253, 254,
wall between seating levels, 254, 364n66, 258, 271, 276, 301, 302, 315n47,
366n176, 369n176 318n132, 328n164, 333n288
banquet, public (epulum) 145, 157, 159, Caesar, L., 213
160, 163, 170, 179, 197 calendar of Philocalus, 183, 202
Barabbas, 298–9 Caligula (emperor, AD 37–41), 3, 52, 54,
Barnum, P. T., 4 90, 106, 111, 115, 136, 146, 173,
Barton, Carlin, 37 176, 178, 181–2, 183, 184, 219,
basilica, 248 229, 252, 253, 269, 276, 294–6,
Porcia, 271 307n22, 318n134, 323n49,
San Marco, 282 324n62, 344n126, 345n158,
St John Lateran 282, 371n221 347n198, 348n239
St. Peter, 282 Calpurnius Siculus, 236, 253, 267
Belgica, 64 Cameron, Alan,
Ben Hur (film) 294, 372n4 Campania, 7, 22–3, 33, 35, 164, 184, 251,
Bernini, Gian Lorenzo, 284 307n23
bestiarius, (pl. bestiarii), 37, 78, 80–2, Cannae, battle of, 154
166, 169, 208, 211, 218, Capitolium, 166
318n139 Cappadocia, 53
Bibulus, M. Calpurnius, 163 Capua, 33–4, 38, 42, 43, 51, 57, 164, 250,
Bingham, Sandra, 150 279, 296, 307n14
Biondo, Flavio, 281 Caron, Baudoin, 102
Bird, Robert, Montgomery, 31 Caracalla (emperor, AD 211–17)
Bithynia, 30, 53 Carthage, 16, 20, 25–6, 40, 95, 149,
Blandina, St., 2, 255, 357n106 154, 158, 208, 216, 220–1,
Blasetti, Alessandro, 373n20 293, 352n3
Bocchus (King of Mauretania), 79 Carter, Michael, 61, 63–4, 204

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Cascellius, A., 147, 165 Colosseum (Flavian amphitheatre), 12, 46,

Cassiodorus, 87, 89, 325n102 57–8, 73, 87, 107, 120, 132, 145–7,
Cassius Dio, 21, 46, 70, 102, 120, 151, 184, 187, 197, 198–200, 205, 230,
167, 171, 172, 175, 178, 181, 182, 231, 237, 239, 240, 245–87, 290,
184, 189–91, 195, 197, 198, 211, 294, 300–2
214, 237, 240–1, 248, 250, 252, architectural orders, 260
271, 275, 279, 291, 323n56, hypogeum, 278, 279, 280
344n130, 349n257, 353n20 later history, 279–82
Cassius, C. Longinus (one of Caesar’s seating, 263, 264–5, 267, 269–71, 273–6,
assassins), 213, 235–6 280, 369n176
Castra Misenatium, 277 tickets, distribution of, 272–73
Catiline, 163 Commodus (emperor, AD 180–92), 8–9,
Caudine Forks, battle of, 22 45–6, 50, 53, 54, 60, 64, 133, 143,
cavea, see amphitheatres, seating and 152, 188–90, 232, 239–41, 261–2,
Colosseum, seating 277–8, 301, 303, 318n127,
Cebeillac-Gervasoni, M., 123 347n210, 347n211, 375n38
cena libera, 4–5, 223 295, 322n44, confector, 82, 226, 354n44
322n46 Connolly, Peter, 275
Cellini, Benvenuto, 283 Constanta, 112
centuria praerogativa, 162 Constantine (emperor, AD 311–37), 203–4,
centuriate assembly, 162, 168, 179 217, 256
Ceres, 183, 224 Constantius II (emperor, AD 337–61), 256
Charun, 93–4 consul, 27, 34, 39, 87, 89, 153, 155, 161–5,
Christianity, 2, 201–4, 205–6, 216, 220, 168, 174, 185, 190, 233, 243, 247,
222, 243, 283, 296 260, 263, 272
Roman attitude toward, 220, 222 proconsul, 217
Cicero, M. Tullius, 8, 12, 20–2, 30, 33, 39, contio, 179–80
47, 81, 95–6, 99, 101, 115, 138, convicts (damnati, noxii, sontes), 8, 10, 14,
159–60, 163–4, 165, 166, 168–9, 15, 18, 22, 27, 30, 33, 64–5, 74, 75,
179–80, 208, 211, 219, 233–4, 235, 81–4, 90–4, 139, 144, 147, 186,
248, 272, 308n33, 308n35, 187, 192, 196, 199, 203, 215–32,
311n105, 340n40, 345n152 239, 291, 294, 300, 313n2
Cilicia, 53, 233–4, 270 Corbeill, Anthony, 134
Circus Flaminius, 349n255, 371n226 Corinth, 55, 251, 362n4
Circus Maximus, 80, 120, 149, 155, 188, Crassus Dives, M. Licinius, 16, 34, 156–7,
191, 192, 208–10, 212, 213, 227, 163, 297
236, 250–1, 254, 273, 285, 302, Crassus, P. Licinius, 156
324n62 crowd, viii, 3, 14, 18, 19, 21, 25, 26, 27,
Cisalpine Gaul, 34 37, 39, 41, 56, 57, 58, 64, 68, 71,
Claudius (emperor, AD 41–54), 25, 44, 52, 74, 89, 90, 91, 92, 97, 99, 100, 115,
82, 90, 91, 136, 137–9, 143, 173, 127, 128, 130, 132, 133, 134, 135,
176, 177, 181–2, 183, 187, 192, 136, 138, 139, 140, 141, 143, 144,
194–7, 212, 214, 252–3, 267, 269, 145, 146, 147–50, 158, 171, 172,
294–5, 301, 324n62, 357n115 178, 179, 180, 190, 193, 205, 210,
Claudius Pulcher, Ap., 165–6, 180 211, 215, 216, 217, 219, 220, 221,
clients, 248, 272, 341n60 224, 225, 226, 227, 236, 239, 242,
Clodius Pulcher, P. 165–7, 180, 219, 272, 243, 249, 252, 253, 254, 255, 256,
341n62, 342n69 276, 278, 290, 295, 299, 307n17,
Codex Theodosianus, 217, 234 323n49, 334n299, 337n394,
Coleman, K. M., 7, 16, 29, 102, 123, 132, 337n398, 357n107, 357n115,
142, 191, 193, 197–8, 228, 231, 363n61, 364n77, 374n25;
260, 289, 300 see also spectators
collegia, 123, 151, 152, 156, 175, 259–70, control of, 150–1
338n418 Crowe, Russell, 300

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crucifixion, 17, 220, 230 duovir (pl. duoviri)(two chief magistrates of

Cumae, 272 Roman towns and colonies), 77,
cunei, 266 174, 319n168
curator, 53, 123, 254, 344n16 duoviri quinquennales 245, 361n2
Curio, C. Scribonius 160, 169, 233, 234, Dupont, Florence, 366n124
249–50
Curius Dentatus, M’., 209 Eagan, Richard, 295
curse tablets (tabellae defixionum), 149–50 edictum (pl. edicta), 67–9, 71, 97, 290–1,
Cybele, 156, 233, 339n10, see also 292, 293, 321n2
Magna Mater editor (pl. editores), 6, 14, 19, 21, 22, 27,
Cyprian of Carthage, 25, 40 32, 37, 39, 40, 53, 59, 60, 61, 62,
Cyrene, 23 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71,
74, 75, 77, 90, 96, 100, 107, 111,
Dacia and Dacians, 52, 57, 87, 94, 185, 122, 128, 129, 130, 131, 133, 134,
188, 191 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 143,
Daedalus, 230, 237, 255, 358n135 144, 145, 146, 159, 162, 163, 166,
Dalmatia, 53, 109 167, 177, 178, 188, 204, 208, 219,
damnati, see convicts 234, 235, 239, 248, 272, 273, 291,
damnatio, 30, 215–16 292, 299, 300, 307n22, 320n179,
Danaids, 231 322n46, 328n174, 335n320,
Daves, Delmer, 294 344n132, 350n283, 351n288,
de Staël. Mme., 371n235 374n23; see also munerarius
Dea Dia, 269 Edmondson, J. C., 11
decimation (decimatio), 16, 34, 310n81 Edwards, Catharine, 36
Decius Mus, P., 20 Eleutheria, 13
Deianeira, 232 Epictetus, 55
Demetrius and the Gladiators, 293–5, Epitaphia, 13
302, 323n54 equestrians, 9, 145, 161, 172–3, 178, 185,
DeMille, Cecil B., 290–2 187, 240, 263–7, 274
Dessau, Hermann, 152 Erskine, Chester, 291, 358n120
devotio, 20, 184 Etruscans, 13, 19
Diana, 95, 152, 256 Euripides, 251
Dickens, Charles, 371n235 euripus, 208–9, 254, 352n8
Didius Julianus (emperor, AD 193), Eusebius, 222
341n52 Eutaricus Cillica, 243
Digest of Justinian, 81, 140, 218 Exochus, M. Antonius, 103, 125, 142–3
Dio Chrysostom, 252
Diocletian’s edict, 65 Fabiola, 373n20
Diomedes, 14, 124 The Fall of the Roman Empire, 303,
Dirce, 231 318n141
Dis Pater, 93–4, 327n137 familia gladiatoria, see gladiatorial troupe
Domitian (emperor, AD 81–96), 27, 56–7, Fast, Howard, 31–2
106–7, 120, 145, 146, 176, 183, Faustina, 50
185, 188, 198, 200, 257, 260, 261, Felicitas (Felicity), 220–1, 223,
264, 267, 275–6, 279, 292, 316n87, 225, 355n74
360n178, 361n186, 361n200, flamen, 68–9
365n94, 370n208, 371n226 Flamininus, L. Quinctius, 27,
Domitius Ahenobarbus, L. (great-great Flamininus, T. Quinctius, 156–7
grandfather of Nero); 79 Flavian Amphitheater, 184, 257, 283–4;
(grandfather of Nero), 136, 137 see Colosseum
Douglas, Kirk, 31, 297–8 Flavius Germanus, T., 52
Drusus (son of Tiberius), 137, 178 Fleischer, Richard, 298
Drusus Claudius Nero (brother of Florus, 32
Tiberius), 177 Fortuna, 95

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Forum (Forum Romanum), 22, 66, 92, 152, 315n47, 315n66, 316n87, 317n116,
154–5, 158, 164–6, 180, 212, 318n134, 341n43, 372n14, 373n18,
247–9, 250–1, 254, 271–2, 276 375n32, 375n34
Forum Boarium (cattle market), 154, 247 Ludus Dacicus, 57
Foster, Preston, 292 Ludus Gallus, 57
freedmen, 77, 172, 213, 217, 252, 270, Ludus Magnus, 44, 45, 46, 52, 54, 57–9,
333n274 115, 164, 174, 176, 263, 278,
Friedländer, Ludwig, 4, 26 375n32
Fronto. M. Cornelius, 171 gladiators
Fucine Lake, 139, 194, 200 armour, 4, 15, 22, 23, 33, 42, 47, 48, 50,
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the 56, 78, 80, 81, 98, 99, 100, 101,
Forum, 375n34 106, 113, 116, 118, 120, 122, 126,
132, 144, 169, 171, 193, 297, 300,
Galataea, 200 302, 306n6, 326n121, 375n30,
Galatia, 53 arm guard (manica), 42, 58, 99, 104,
Galen, 54–5 108, 112, 121, 152, 297
Gallienus (emperor, AD 259–268), 323n57 breastplate, 101, 122
Gassman, Vittorio, 299 greaves (ocreae), 42, 48, 98, 99, 103,
Gaul, 2, 27, 34, 60, 64, 118, 170 104, 107, 108, 112, 117, 120, 121
Germanicus (Christian damnatus), 217 helmet, 25, 42, 47, 48, 50, 56, 77, 78,
Germanicus (nephew and adopted son of 91, 99, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105,
Tiberius and brother of Claudius), 107, 112, 113, 114, 120, 121, 122,
137, 177, 181, 214 130, 131, 132, 190, 290, 291, 293,
Gérôme, Jean-Léon, 4, 134–5, 262, 290, 295, 298, 300, 330n211, 330n212,
295, 337n405; see also Pollice Verso 373n20, 373n21, 374n29, 374n30
Geta, 220 shoulder guard (galerus), 47, 106, 107,
Gibbon, Edward, 280 108, 374n30
Giovagnoli, Raffaello, 31 shield, 40, 41, 47, 48, 49, 77, 78, 81,
Gladiator (film), 288–9, 293, 300–3 91, 99, 101, 102, 104, 105, 106,
The Gladiator (play), 31 107, 108, 112,113, 116, 121, 122,
gladiator gang violence, 165–6 127, 131, 132, 146, 211, 293, 296,
gladiator show, 4, 6–7, 12, 25, 27, 37, 67–8, 297, 298, 315n47, 329n205,
78, 90, 148, 152, 153–206, 208, 334n299, 365n94, 373n20; see also
248, 263, 276, 293, 372n9; parma (parmula) and scutum, 102,
see also munus 104, 106–7, 329n205, 334n299
gladiator troupe (familia gladiatoria), 21 character of, 3, 20–2, 55–7
38–9, 42, 46, 51, 57, 66, 69, 152, cost of, 33, 59–65, 71, 129, 157–9, 163,
164–7, 172, 297 165, 178, 297, 320n179, 372n9
gladiatorial combat dwarf, 56, 74, 85, 120, 121, 188, 202,
Christian attitude towards, 201–4, 298, 332n259, 332n260
205–6 elites as, 171–3, 185–7
group fights (gregatim), 111, 133, 291–2, female, 40, 42, 56, 74, 118–23, 132,
295, 299, 300, 301, 344n133, 178, 188, 298, 301, 331n230,
372n8, 372n9 332n260, 332n260, 332 n261,
origins of, 10, 13 332n265
popularity of, 15–27 health care and nutrition of, 43, 54–5
sport, 14–15 imperial, 51–4, 55–7, 58, 67, 97, 141,
gladiatorial school (ludus gladiatorius), 3, 4, 142, 313n17, 341n55
23, 30, 33, 34, 35, 36, 38–51, 52, left–handedness, 46, 102 see Scaeva
54, 55, 56, 57–8, 71, 80, 95, 96, loyalty of, 21, 46, 341n52
101, 110, 111, 115, 120, 122, 126, names of, 23, 55, 70, 107, 124–6, 127,
127, 133, 142, 164, 174, 176, 203, 132, 139, 152, 166, 178, 188,
205, 217, 219, 263, 278, 290, 294, 239, 273
296, 297, 299, 303, 313n17, number of combats per year, 142

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rewards of 106, 107, 122, 130, 141, 142, 146,

cash, 51–2, 143, 184, 293, 336n369 290, 295, 298, 306n6, 309n56,
crown of laurel, 48, 143, 103, 125, 312n11, 373n20
143–4, 293 weapons:
palm branch, 1, 52, 77, 103, 132, 143–4 spear (hasta), 95, 101, 104, 113, 114,
sexual attraction of, 49–50, 125, 127, 117, 127, 293, 299, 301, 302, 303
296–7, 318n128 rete (net), 25, 49, 105, 107, 108, 109,
survival odds and life expectancy of, 111, 113, 290, 299, 330n209,
140–3 374n24, 374n30
training, see palus, 40–2, 48, 50, 53, 185, swords, 3, 4, 5, 8, 15, 19, 21, 36, 38,
294, 296, 297, 299 40, 41, 50, 51, 52, 58, 71, 77, 78,
types of gladiators: 80, 95, 96, 98, 100, 101, 102, 104,
andabata, 114–15, 374n25 113, 107, 118, 122, 123, 124, 127,
cruppellarius, 118 129, 130, 131, 133, 137, 138, 139,
dimaecharus, 117 169, 185, 189, 190, 204, 292, 294,
eques, (pl. equites), 23, 44, 48, 50, 70, 295, 297, 209, 298, 299, 300, 303,
77, 96, 98, 99–100, 101, 110, 114, 306n6, 335n326, 347n192, gladius,
138, 180, 314n21, 328n174, 374n25 104; sica, 101, 103–4, 122
essedarius (essedaria), 44, 74, 99, trident, 105, 107, 108, 109, 111, 113,
113–4, 120, 124, 136, 138, 301, 127, 290, 299, 373n16, 373n20,
323n49, 329n176, 331n230, 374n24 374n24, 374n30
gallus, (Gaul), 11, 23, 57, 98, 105, gladius, see gladiators, weapons, swords
118, 192, 290, 302 Golden House (Domus Aurea), 86, 186,
hastarius, 117 232, 257–9
hoplomachus, 23, 42, 97, 99, 101, 102, Goldman, Norma, 277
104, 106, 107, 117, 127, 131, 136, Gordian I (emperor, AD 238), 86, 204,
146, 329n203 241, 242
laquearius, 114 Gordian III (emperor, AD 238–44), 86,
murmillo, (pl. murmilliones), 23, 42, 261–2
45, 47, 48, 51, 52, 98, 99, 101, 102, Gracchus, C. Sempronius, 248
104–7, 108, 112, 131, 290, 291, Gracchus, Ti. Sempronius, 155
295, 298, 299, 329n190, 330n212 grateful lion, 227–8
pontarius, 117–8 greaves, see gladiator, armour
provocator, 23, 42, 46, 98, 99, 101, Greeks, 14, 23, 153, 183, 247, 248,
105, 112, 122 251, 271
retiarius, (pl. retiarii), 23, 25, 47, 48, gregarii, 62–3
49, 61, 94, 99, 105, 106, 107–11, griffin, 102–3, 290, 373n20
112, 113, 117, 118, 127, 151, 189, Gunderson, E., 28, 186
252, 290, 291, 292, 295, 297, 298,
299, 300, 329n190, 330n209, Hadrian (emperor, AD 117–38), 57, 142,
330n211, 330n215, 331n220, 336n354, 365n85
337n405, 357n110, 373n20, Hannibal, 154, 156, 210, 263
374n24, 374n30, 375n30 harenarii, 129, 356n97
retiarius tunicatus, 110–11 Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 285, 286–7
sagittarius, 116–17 Hayward, Susan, 295
samnis, (Samnite), 11, 22–3, 95, 98, Hector, 47, 124
101, 192, 315n63, 330n211 Hercules, 46, 94, 127, 189, 230, 232,
scissor, 117 237–9, 347n211, 360n184
secutor, (pl. secutores), 23, 42, 44, 45, Hermeros, 152
46, 47, 61, 98, 99, 105, 108, 109, Hermes (gladiator), 42, 44, 46, 70,
110, 111, 112–13, 117, 118, 189, 126–7, 273,
190, 290, 291, 330n212, 373n20 Hero and Leander, 199
thraex (Thracian, pl. thraeces), 23, 42, Herodian, 46, 239–40, 347n211
45 47, 49, 70, 97, 98, 99, 101–4, Hesiod, 13

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Hilarianus, 222–6, 356n87, 356n89 lanista, 16–17, 31, 33, 37, 38, 39, 43, 44,
Hilarion, St, 148 53, 54, 55, 60, 61, 63, 64,–5, 96,
Hispalis, 219 119, 135, 142, 143, 165, 172, 186,
Historia Augusta, 22, 212, 241, 219, 301, 305n2, 306n2, 313n7,
242, 355n75 318n145, 320n179, 328n158,
Homer, 47 343n105, 375n32, 375n37
Hope, Valerie, 144 Larisa, 72
Hopkins, Keith, 11, 16, 49, 140–2, The Last Days of Pompeii, 292–4
311n102, 365n89 book, 4
Horace, 9, 98, 152, 155, 201, 315n66, film, 292–3
340n22 Laureolus, 229–30, 237
Horatius Cocles, 19, 311n98 laws,
Hortensius, Q. Hortalus, 85, 249, 325n90 Lex Calpurnia, 168
Huizinga, Johan, 14–15 Lex Julia Theatralis, 265, 367n136
human sacrifice, 10, 12, 201, 308n41, Lex Petronia, 218
322n46 Lex Tullia, 168–9, 175, 342n76
hydraulis, 95 Lentulus Batiatus (Vatia), 33, 35, 38, 101,
296–7, 314n232, 373n18
Ignatius of Antioch, St., 283, 371n226 Lentulus Spinther, P. Cornelius, 164
Iliad, 13, 47 Leontios, 26
Iliturgi, 16 Lepidus, M. Aemilius, 153–6, 248,
infamia, 19, 35–6, 39, 63, 72, 119–20, 253, 339n1
164, 173, 186, 333n275 Leroy, Mervyn, 302
infantry skirmishes, staged, 62, 187, 188, Lester, Richard, 375n34
190–2, 193, 197, 199, 251, 291, libellus munerarius (pl. libelli), 45, 96–7,
293, 301, 353n30 292–3, 373n23
Ireland, John, 297 Liber Pater, 210
Isidore of Seville, St., 99, 113, 114 lictors, 76–7, 170, 265, 323n53
Italica, 60 Livia, 177, 183, 268
Iuliani, see gladiators, imperial Livienus Regulus, 151, 338n418
Livy, 24, 38, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 186,
James, Henry, 287 207–8, 216, 339n16, 345n167,
Jerome, St, 148 347n195, 362n13
Jesus, 93, 223–4 locarii, 272–3
Jones, Barry, 294 locus, 272
Josephus, Flavius, 180 Lollius Maximus, 201
Julius Capitolinus, 22, 242, Lord Byron, 285–7
Junkelmann, Marcus, 8, 81, 94, 98, 102, Lucanus, C. Terentius, 152, 157
106, 115, 118, 288, 297–8, Lucas, George, 375n33
300, 372n4 Lucian, 27, 78, 129
Jupiter Latiaris, 201 Lucilius, 308n34, 328n157
Jupiter Optimus Maximus, 166 Lucretius, 276
Juvenal, 36, 40, 42, 43, 44, 47, 50, 109–11, Lucretius Valens, D., 68
120, 134, 135, 212, 229, 267, 273, Lucretius, D. Satrius Valens, 68–9, 77
315n63, 317n116, 330n211, ludi, 6, 38, 43, 155–6, 157, 158, 159, 160,
330n215 161, 163, 167, 175, 179, 180, 183,
202, 207, 208, 216, 232–6, 247,
Kiralfy brothers, 4 248, 249, 263, 340n22
Kubrick, Stanley, 31, 288, 296 Apollinares, 235, 339n10
Kyle, Donald, 12, 154, 305n1 circenses, 155, 183
Cereales; 183, 339n10
Laetorius, C., 155 Florales, 339n10
Laevinus, M. Valerius, 156 funebres, 157
Landi, Elissa, 292 Megalenses; 158, 163, 233, 339n10

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Plebei, 339n10 Metellus Macedonicus, 308n34

Romani, 155–6, 163, 233–4, 339n10, Metellus, M., 165
340n22 Metellus Nepos, Q. Caecilius Q., 165
scaenici, 155, 208 Metellus Pius Scipio, Q. Caecilius, 165
ludus, see gladiatorial school milites stationarii, 150
ludia, 44 Milo, T. Annius, 81, 165–6, 342n69
Ludwig the Bavarian, 280 Miltiades, 13
Lycia, 53 mime, 229, 237, 358n131
Lyons (Lugdunum), 2, 26, 64–5, 225 Minerva, 182–3
Minturnae, 33, 136–7, 141
Macedonia, 95, 216, 219 Minucius Felix, 40
Macaulay, Thomas, 26 Misenum, 52, 277, 370n191
MacMullen, Ramsey, 204 missilia, 145; see sparsio
Maecenas, 9, 253 Mithridatic wars, 23, 33
maenianum, 269–70, 272, 275–6, mitigated penalty, 232
368n146 mosaics, 7, 75, 82, 83, 84, 85, 89, 96, 100,
balcony, 271 104, 109–110, 115, 122, 128, 129,
level in amphitheatre, 247, 260–2, 266, 139, 144, 152, 360n183
269, 271–2, 274–6, 282 Zliten, 82–5, 96, 104, 109, 131
Magna Mater, 156; see also Cybele Mucius Scaevola, 19, 231, 306n13,
Mann, Anthony, 303 359n144
manubiae, 365n87 munerarius (pl. munerarii), 6, 61, 33, 47,
March, Frederic, 292 60, 61, 62, 65, 68, 69, 70, 71, 77,
Marcus Aurelius (emperor, AD 161–80), 78, 96, 129, 137, 138, 139, 140,
8–9, 50, 59–60, 64, 71, 73, 107, 142, 145, 151, 152, 176, 181, 184,
137, 143, 173, 188, 203–4, 222, 190, 196, 205, 224, 272, 293,
300, 303, 319n168, 341n52, 319n172, 332n267, 337n382,
344n141, 375n38 344n132, 357n115; see also editor
Marius, C. (general), 149 munus (pl. munera), 5–14, 21, 24, 25, 27,
Marius, M. (friend of Cicero), 8, 32, 33, 38, 39, 47, 50, 53, 54, 55,
Marricus (Gallic rebel), 216 56, 59–65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71,
Mars, 94, 95, 121, 127, 184, 193–4, 198 72, 73, 74, 75, 76–8, 80, 81, 89, 90,
Marshall, William, 295 93, 96, 97, 99, 111, 115, 118, 120,
Martial, 42, 44, 46, 70, 77, 84, 106, 107, 122, 123, 129, 130, 135, 136, 137,
126–7, 132, 140, 187, 198, 199, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147,
200, 214, 230, 231, 236, 237–9, 151, 152, Ch.4 153–206, 207, 212,
256, 258, 264–5, 267, 270, 271, 223, 224, 236, 239, 240, 241, 242,
273, 278, 325n85, 335n339, 247, 249, 250, 251, 252, 253, 262,
354n51, 356n97, 360n173, 264, 267, 268, 276, 290, 291, 292,
360n182, 366n113, 366n114; see 293, 294, 295, 298, 299, 300,
Book of Spectacles 307n20, 307n22, 308n34, 309n69,
martyrs, 2, 3, 216, 283, 284, 306n5, 319n171, 320n179, 320n182,
356n83, 371n226 320n184, 321n6, 324n62, 328n158,
Mature, Victor, 294, 358n120 330n218, 331n230, 334n292,
Maximus of Verona, (friend of Pliny the 336n363, 339n16, 340n22, 340n32,
Younger), 5–7, 9–10, 159, 178 341n43, 342n83, 343n105,
Megara, 213 343n114, 344n126, 344n130,
Meijer, Fik, 288, 298 344n131, 344n133, 345n148,
Mercury, 93–4, 190 345n158, 346n171, 346n172,
meridiani, 82 346n183, 347n192, 351n288,
Messalina, 136, 269, 295 351n289, 353n42, 360n173,
metae, 302, 348n221 361n200, 364n76, 372n5, 372n9,
Metellus Celer, 334n292 374n26
Metellus Celer, Q. Caecilius, 272 decline of, 201–6

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munus (Contd.) ordinarii, 56, 71

funeral, 5–7, 10, 12, 14, 72, 119, Orlandi, Silvia, 263
129,144, 152–3, 156–7, 161, 167, Orpheus, 230, 236, 239, 325n90
169, 177–8, 181–2, 201–2, 248, Ostia, 52, 123
307n20, 309n69, 322n46 Ovid, 37, 84, 96, 136, 182, 267, 268,
functions in imperial period, 182–5 328n156, 367n136
iustumatque legitimum; 182, 187, 189 Owen, S. G., 111, 330n220
political influence of, 159–71, 176–7,
179–81 paedagogi, 266
pro salute, 183–4 Paget, Debra, 296
Palance, Jack, 299
Naples, 26, 277, 307n23, 370n191 Palazzo di Venezia, 282
naumachia, 139, 187, 190, 192–201, Palmer, R. E. A., 65
279, 348n239 pancratiast, 2, 306n10
necromancy, 283 Pannonia, 53, 95, 254
Nemean lion, 46, 189, 237 panthers, 6, 9, 358n129
Nemesis, 94–5, 102, 184 Paphlagonia, 53
shrines of, 94 parmularii, 106–7, 150
nemus Caesarum, 187, 350n266 Pasiphae, 231, 237, 255, 358n140, 372n11
Nero (emperor, AD 54–68), 4, 17, 46, Pater, Walter, 27
51–2, 68, 69, 86, 106, 120, 136, paterfamilias, 107, 119
145, 150–1, 152, 170, 173, 177, Patroclus, 13, 14, 124
183, 184, 185–7, 188, 189, 197–8, Patterson, Orlando, 18
199, 200, 212, 214, 218, 220, 232, palus, see gladiators, training, 40, 41,
236–7, 253–6, 257, 258, 259, 261, 45–6, 61, 294, 296, 299, 316n87,
262, 266, 270, 273, 277, 278, 282, 375n34
290, 291, 292, 299, 302, 313n17, parma (parmula), 102, 104, 106, 107,
338n416, 349n258, 353n42, 329n205, 334n299
358n140, 360n173, 364n76, Paullus, L. Aemilius, 157–8, 216,
365n80, 365n85, 372n5, 373n22 248, 340n21
Neroniani, see gladiators, imperial pax deorum, 222
Nerva (emperor, AD 96–8), 323n56 pegma, 209, 229
Nicolaus of Damascus, 13, 161 Penthesilea, 122
Nicomedia, 72 Pergamum, 54–5, 63, 72
Nigidius Maius, Cn. Alleius, 69–71, Perpetua, St, 1–3, 26, 75, 220–6, 231,
184, 321n2 305n1, 305n2, 306n4, 355n74,
Nika riot, 150 355n79, 356n89, 357n106,
Nippel, A. W., 161 357n107, 357n110
Nobilior, M. Fulvius, 207 Perseus (king of Macedon), 101, 157, 216,
Nonius Bassus, L. Flavius Silva, 71, 73, 260 340n21
noonday spectacle(meridianum Perseus (mythical hero), 125, 209, 239
spectaculum), 25, 82, 90–4, 115, Pessinus, 156
185, 278, 327n133, 348n229 Petronius, 27, 40, 50, 62, 70–1, 74, 81,
North, Alex, 296 120, 136, 145, 152, 172, 176, 219,
noxii, see convicts 328n164, 331n230, 339n8,
Nuceria, 151 357n105; see also Trimalchio
Pharsalia, 213
Oakley, S. P., 20 Philip the Arab (emperor, AD 244–9), 86,
Octavian, 21, 51, 172, 173, 185, 191–2, 201, 242
201, 228, 264, 318n132, 339n2, Philippopolis, 72
358n124 Phoenix, Joaquin, 301
see also Augustus Piazza di Spagna (Spanish Steps), 200
Oliver, J., 65 pietas, 168
Olivier, Laurence, 297 pinnirapus (pinnrapus), 123, 330n221

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Piso Caesoninus, L. Calpurnius, 8, 219 Praetorian Guard, 150, 182, 185, 190, 196,
Plass, Paul, 24 197, 229, 278, 294, 349n249,
Plataea, 13, 73, 234–5 355n70
Plato, 26 probatio armorum, 77
Pliny the Elder, 52, 85, 144, 191, 208, 210, Probus (emperor, AD 282–283), 236,
211, 212, 213, 215, 226, 249, 254, 241–2, 243
278, 325n98, 353n31, 357n119, procurator, 52–3, 64, 96, 142, 220,
364n70 318n137
Pliny the Younger, 5–7, 9–10, 17, 20, 21, prolusio, 95, 300, 327n150, 328n156
22, 25, 27, 107, 159 Propertius, 268
Plummer, Christopher, 303 propompe–, 78
Plutarch, 34–5, 75, 159, 163, 165, 167, Prudentius, 149, 202
248, 267, 214n19, 314n20, 314n23, pullus, 274–5
341n45 Punic Wars, 16, 19, 154, 158, 208, 210, 301
pollice infesto, 134 punishments
Pollice Verso (painting), 4, 134, 135, 290, ad bestias, 17, 74, 81, 90, 140, 215–228,
337n405; see Jean–Léon Gérôme 228–32, 238, 292, 327n135, 354n57
pollice verso (gesture), 134 crematio, 107, 220, 232; see tunica
Polybius, 158, 311n98, 339n18 molesta
Polycarp, St., 215–6, 354n44 hanging, 26, 92, 217, 218, 332n250
pompa, 68, 76–7, 144, 263, 295, 323n54, ad ludum gladiatorium, 33, 142, 294
323n57; see also propompe– ad metalla, 217, 296, 351n286
Pompeii, 4, 35, 43, 48–9, 53, 58, 67–9, Puteoli (Pozzuoli), 120, 265, 307n14
76–7, 97, 118, 124, 151, 174, 183, Pydna, 157
245–6, 278, 292–3, 321n2, Pyrrhus, 209–10
328n164, 338n418, 362n3, 363n39,
372n12 quaestor, 56, 72, 160, 164, 169, 183, 188,
Pompey, 8, 51, 78, 79, 164, 165, 167, 170, 202, 204, 219, 262, 264, 272,
201, 209–13, 229, 247, 254, 270, 343n96, 346n171
308n33, 314n20, 340n28, 353n30, Quinn, Anthony, 299
353n31 Quinquatrus, 182
Pontus, 53, 170 Quintilian, 37,
Popes Quo Vadis?, 302
Benedict XIV (1740–58), 284
Clement X (1670–76), 284 Ravenna, 43, 51, 52, 57
Clement XI (1700–21), 282, Rawson, E., 264, 272
284, 371n228 Rea, Rossella, 258, 263, 275
Nicholas V (1447–55), 282 Reed, Oliver, 301
Pius II (1458–64), 282 referees, 1, 7, 58, 71, 96, 100, 108, 110,
Pius V (1566–72), 283 133; see also summa rudis and
Pius VII (1800–23), 284 secunda rudis
Sistus V (1585–90), 282 Regulus, 19–20
Sylvester (314–35), 283, 371n221 release (missio), 33, 37, 58, 71, 95, 96, 97,
Porsenna, 19, 306n13 122, 130–40, 141, 142, 145,147,
Porta Libitiensis, 190, 348n214 196, 227, 295, 299, 322n29,
Porta Sanivivaria, 2, 348n214 335n320, 335n339, 350n283,
postulaticii, 56, 71 357n115, 374n25
Potter, David, 13, 137, 223 sine missione,136–7
Praeneste, 43, 48, 57, 174, 307n14, stans missus, 131–2
313n17 stantes missi, 132
praetor, 39, 54, 60, 72, 161–3, 166, 168, Republican attitude toward entertainment
169, 172, 173, 175, 176, 178, 183, buildings, 246–7
212, 233, 235, 252, 262, 264, Res Gestae of Augustus, ix, 87, 177, 181
344n130, 346n171 Rives, James, 223, 355n75

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Robert, Louis, 41, 45, 46, 118, 144, Sextus Pompey, 201, 228
357n110 Shaw, Brent, 2, 225, 306n4, 355n70,
Robinson, Jay, 294 355n71, 355n79, 356n93,
Rome (BBC, HBO, RAI series), 375n31 Shaw, George Bernard, 228, 291,
Roscius Otho, L., 263–4 358n120, 372n6
Rostra, 271 sica, see gladiators, weapons, swords
rudiarius, 71 Sicily, 17, 34, 156, 201, 210, 229, 252,
rudis, 58, 71, 128, 132, 142, 299, 272, 281
322n29, 322n30 The Sign of the Cross (film), 288, 290, 300
Rutilius Rufus, P., 174, 315n66, 343n14 Silius Italicus, 7, 149
Simmons, Jean, 358n120
Saepta (Ovile), 182, 194, 253, 348n239, Skinner, Marilyn, 11
349n255, 363n61, 364n62 slaves and slavery, 10, 14, 16, 17–18, 21,
Samnites (people of southern Italy), 13, 20, 30–1, 32, 33, 34, 38, 55, 56, 75, 77,
22, 98 138, 145, 146, 154, 163, 166, 170,
sanitarium, 57 186, 201, 213, 217, 218, 219, 228,
Saturn, 201–2, 224; 305n2, 356n93 265, 266, 270, 274, 275, 296, 303,
Saturnalia, 183, 202, 346n173 310n86, 310n89, 323n49, 323n53,
Saurin, Bernard-Joseph, 31 339n3, 341n60, 354n52, 367n125,
Scaeva, 189, 347n211 372n4; see also vicarius, 323n49
Scaevola, see Mucius Scaevola Smyrna, 124, 217
Saturus, 221, 224–6 sodalitates, see associations of venatores
Scaurus, C. Aurelius, 38, 174, 315n66 (North Africa)
Scaurus, M. Aemilius, 162, 208–9, 249–50 sontes, see convicts
Schadenfreude, 25, 33, 228 Sophocles, 251
Schoedsack, Ernest B., 292 sparsio, 68, 145–6, 242–3
Scipio Aemilianus, P. Cornelius, 158, 216 distribution of gifts, 145
Scipio Africanus, P. Cornelius, 16, 186, 263 sprinkling of perfumed water, 146
Scipio Nasica Corculum, P. Cornelius, 247 missilia, 145
Scobie, Alex, 150, 255 Spartacus (leader of slave revolt), 16, 17, 23,
Scott, Ridley, 288, 293, 300 31–5, 42, 44, 101, 163, 196, 296,
scutarii, 106–7, 150 297, 298, 313n11, 313n17, 314n20,
scutum, 104, 105, 106 317n105,
Selurus, 229 Spartaco (book), 31
senators, 8, 9, 35, 37, 38, 39, 42, 50, 74, Spartaco o Il gladiatore della Tracia, 31
119, 120, 123, 145, 161, 164, 170, Spartacus
171–3, 178, 185, 188, 189, 190, book, 31, 32
205, 240–1, 263–7, 268, 270–1, film, 288, 296–8, 317n105, 373n18,
273–4, 278, 281, 340n32, 342n93, 373n20, 375n30
343n96, 345n144, 352n304, spectacula (seating area of amphitheatre),
367n136, 368n145 245–6
Senatus Consultum, 119 spectators, 3, 11,19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 26,
Seneca the Elder, 102 27, 33, 37, 39, 40, 41, 45, 49, 56,
Seneca the Younger, 3, 4, 15, 18, 20, 21, 58, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 70, 74, 77,
22, 25, 27, 31, 41, 47, 48, 73, 81, 84, 86, 90, 91, 97, 111, 113, 115,
82, 86, 90–1, 95, 102, 115, 138, 118, 119, 121, 122, 124, 128, 129,
146, 147, 178, 202, 210–12, 218, 134, 135, 137, 141, 144, 145, 146,
228, 263, 317n116, 326n121, 147–52, 161, 171, 172, 176, 179,
327n133, 331n223, 337n398, 180, 181, 185, 192, 193, 194, 197,
354n42, 363n61, 366n106 198, 200, 201, 202, 205, 209, 211,
Septimius Severus (emperor, AD 193–211), 213, 215, 221, 224, 225, 226, 227,
123, 220, 222, 355n75 230, 235, 239, 242, 243, 247, 248,
Servius, 12, 308n41, 337n394 249, 250, 252, 254, 255, 260, 264,
Sestius, 164, 180 267, 268, 270, 273, 275, 276, 278,

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290, 293, 301, 307n17, 334n299, Theatre of Pompey, 78, 167, 247, 270
338n416, 353n30, 355n70, 364n76, Theodoric (Ostrogothic King of Italy, AD
374n23; see also crowd 493–526), 87–8, 243, 281, 325n102,
composition of, 263–72 325n103
fan clubs, 151, 152 Theodosius I (emperor, AD 379–95), 65,
gestures of, 14, 134, 147–9 203, 281
shouts of, 14, 41, 89, 91, 100, 107, 134, Theophrastus, 159
144, 147, 148, 149, 240, 307n17, Thessalonika, 72
337n394; see also acclamatio Thetis, 200
spoliarium, 3, 48, 57, 138, 226, 307n14 Thrace, 33
Staberius, 155 Tiberius (emperor, AD 14–37), 52, 55, 60,
stagnum Augusti, 187, 194, 199 72, 73, 137, 161, 174, 177, 178–9,
stans periit, 130 180, 181, 183, 214, 218, 229, 251,
Statilius Taurus, 252, 259, 268, 276, 372n5 268, 344n131, 345n155, 345n167,
Statius, 120–1, 145, 265 347n192
Strabo, 86, 209, 229 Tiberius Nero, 177–8
Strode, Woody, 297, 373n16 tickets (tesserae), 272–3
subligaculum, 99, 101, 104, 108, 110, 113, Tigellinus, 197, 349n358
121, 374n24 Timoleon, 13
subsellia, 274 Tiridates, 120, 277
Suetonius, 25, 36, 44, 51, 56, 57, 82, 86, tiro (pl. tirones), 45, 61, 142–3, 171,
106, 111, 120, 136–7, 143, 163, 330n21, 357n110
182, 184, 185, 189, 190, 191, 195, toga praetexta, 266, 366n124
200, 219, 256, 262, 265, 273, 291, toga virilis, 266
324n62, 342n93, 349n247, 353n42, tomb of the Haterii, 261
364n75 Toner, J. P., 19
Sulla, Faustus Cornelius (son of dictator), Toynbee, J. M. C., 211
165, 167 Trajan (emperor, AD 98–117), 27, 57, 87,
Sulla Felix, L. Cornelius (dictator), 79, 163, 142, 181, 185, 188, 283, 356n87
165, 167, 170, 212, 246, 263, tribune of the people, 37, 180, 208,
267–8, 343n96, 363n39 248, 263
Sulla. P. Cornelius (nephew of dictator), 246 Trimalchio, 152, 328n164, 339n8;
Sulpicius Rufus, Ser., 52, 271 see also Petronius
summa rudis, 58, 71–2, 96, 108, 130, 133, trinqui, 64–5
138, 322n31; see also secunda rudis Triton, 195, 200
superintendent of the public munus triumph, 52, 53, 74, 86, 142, 170–1, 181,
(procurator muneris publici), 174 185, 192, 194, 209, 210, 212, 216,
suppositicii, 69–70, 143 250, 251, 252, 276, 284, 309n69,
Sybilline oracle, 156 318n141, 323n57, 348n248, 362n13
Troy, 14, 122
Tacitus, 9, 43, 120, 151, 178, 179, 187, tunica molesta, 92, 231–2, 326n125;
195, 196, 220, 247, 254, 314n29, see punishments, crematio
338n416, 349n258 Twain, Mark, 371n235
Tarpeian summit (of Capitoline Hill), 254
Tarquinius Superbus, 19 Ulpian, 217, 336n354
taurokathapsia, 213; see bullfights Ummidia Quadratilla, 260
Tentyritae, 209 Urso, charter of, 59, 174
Terence, 158, 340n23 Ustinov, Peter, 296
Tertullian, 2, 10, 26, 41, 49, 82, 93–4, 148,
201, 202, 219, 250, 306n5, 308n41, Valerius Maximus, 174, 247, 343n114
318n128, 326n125, 327n133, Varro, M. Terentius, 85, 88, 165
351n284 Vatinius, P., 147, 168–9
Thasos, 72 Vegetius, 41
Theatre of Dionysus, 251–2 Velleius Paterculus, 167, 194, 362n5

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venatio (pl. venationes), 9, 12, 22, 25, 27, 61, Veyne, Paul, 158
64, 67, 68, 69, 73, 74, 76, 78–89, Via Sacra (Sacred Way), 92, 276
90, 95, 120, 140, 144, 146, 150, viator tribunicius, 265
151, 163, 169, 175, 181–2, 183, Vidal, Henri, 373n20
184, 185, 187, 189, 197, 198, 199, Vidali, Giovanni Enrico, 31
200, Ch. 5 207–44, 246, 250, 251, Ville, Georges, 5, 6, 13, 14, 22, 37, 94,
253, 254, 280, 291, 292, 295, 299, 140–2, 163, 169, 183, 186, 205,
302, 313n148, 318n139, 321n2, 212, 219, 305n2, 322n46, 345n148,
321n6, 323n47, 324n62, 324n63, 346n172, 346n183, 349n258,
325n102, 325n103, 329n202, 351n284, 351n288, 352n3,
334n292, 338n408, 338n410, 367n136,
340n22, 347n187, 349n257, Virgil, 266, 283
351n295, 352n3, 353n30, 353n31, virtus, 19, 20, 21, 121, 187
355n71, 357n110, 358n129, visceratio, 157
359n155, 360n173, 372n11, Vitellius (emperor, AD 69), 7, 31, 43, 92,
372n12; see also animal hunt, staged 173, 185, 217
political influence of, 175, 232–6 vivarium, 86, 325n92
venatio legitima (plena), 68–9, 321n16
venator, (venatores), 22, 30, 37, 55, 75, Ward, Allen, 303
78–80, 81, 85, 87, 95, 120, 125, Wharton, Edith, 287
149, 189, 200, 200, 208, 211, 224, Wiedemann, Thomas, 10, 14, 19, 20, 21,
225, 237, 239, 240, 243, 244, 263, 102, 141, 177, 203, 314n34,
280, 295, 323n47, 338n408, 318n145, 325n93, 345n167,
338n410, 359n155 346n172, 350n283, 351n286
weapons, 78 Winkler, Martin, 288, 371n1
Venerable Bede, 257–8 Wistrand, Magnus, 19
Venus Victrix, 49, 247 Wonders of the City of Rome (Mirabilia Urbis
Verona, 5–7, 47, 94, 151, 178, 198, Romae), 282
252, 373n22 Wyler, William, 282, 372n4
Verres, C., 272
Vespasian (emperor, AD 69–79), 73, 183–4, Young, Alan, 358n120
188, 257, 258, 259, 344n141,
365n85 Zanker, Paul, 194
Vestal Virgins, 134–5, 149, 262, 268–9, Zevi, F, 123
272, 274, 373n15 Zliten mosaic, 82–5, 96, 104, 109, 131;
Vesuvius, 48 see also mosaics

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