thirteen

reading gladiators’ epitaphs

and rethinking violence
and masculinity in
the roman empire
Renata S. Garraffoni

Introduction
Classical sources have been used to provide broad parallels and contrasts with the
present. Although many types of archaeological and historical information are avail-
able about the Roman Empire, Hingley (2005) states that a core issue in modern
scholarship is how to approach the relationship between power and identity. Since
the sixteenth century, the Romans sometimes have been understood to be part of a
shared European identity; conversely, at times the Romans were categorized as “oth-
ers.” Roman violence and power have both attracted and repulsed scholars through-
out the past two centuries, resulting in different interpretations of the Roman past.
For example, the consequences of Roman imperialism have been understood at
times as beneficial to native societies because of supposed material improvement
and cultural “progress” experienced by native societies. The Roman system of dom-
ination, therefore, became an example of what a modern empire should be and
consequently inspired colonialist policy during the end of nineteenth century into
the beginning of twentieth, with the violence of the process seldom acknowledged
(Hingley 1996, 2000, 2001, 2005, Shepherd, Chapter 17, this volume).
In the 1970s, however, this perception of the Roman Empire began to be
challenged. The so-called nativist approach, developed mainly by British scholars,

A preliminary version of this chapter was first read at World Archaeology Congress 2008 for the session
“Intimate Encounters, Post-colonial Engagements: Archaeologies of Empire and Sexuality.” I thank my
colleagues for their comments on that occasion and also for comments offered during the workshop held
at Stanford University in April 2009. During December 2008 and March 2009, I was based at University
of Birmingham, United Kingdom, as a British Academy Fellow, allowing me the time to complete up-to-
date reading and to finish this chapter. I thank Mary Harlow, Anthea Harris, and Ray Laurence for their
support and the Museo Arqueológico y Etnológico de Córdoba (Spain) for the permission to publish the
photos of the tombstones. The ideas expressed here are my own, and I am solely responsible for them.

214

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 Renata S. Garraffoni 215

pointed out the importance of material culture in the study of local communities.
This new scholarship balanced the record of the elite with an awareness of cultural
negotiation in different areas of the empire (Delgado and Ferrer, Chapter 12, this
volume). This approach emphasizes that native people were not only “assimilated”
into the Roman order but also participated in the creation of new orders.
Hingley (2005) has pointed out that in both approaches, the idea of Romaniza-
tion, or becoming Roman, was constructed from a male elite point of view, because
the focus of classical studies has been on elite male writings and material culture.
Hingley himself did not develop a gender-focused approach to understanding the
effect of the Roman Empire on native people, because his main focus was to recon-
ceptualize Romanization as a modern colonialist concept. However, his scholarship
enables us to seek alternative models with which to construct a more critical and
balanced interpretation of the Roman Empire and its people. This paves the way
toward a more reflexive approach to Roman material culture or, as Shepherd points
out in this volume, to confront the presence of the past and its absences.
Inspired by Hingley’s critical approach and motivated by a desire to bring under-
represented Roman people into archaeological discourse, I believe that a focus on
the tombstones and epitaphs of gladiators can aid in understanding native people’s
daily lives. This chapter focuses on gladiators’ tombstones found in Rome and His-
pania (Roman Spain), especially those paid for by women. My goal is to understand
the emotional lives of men and women who, during the Roman Empire, were defined
as outsiders through violence, sexuality, or death but who developed relationships
to sustain and comfort each other. Although these tombstones are seldom studied,
I believe that, as archaeological data, they create gendered places of memory. They
also contribute to a better understanding of the dynamics of human relationships
(Rubertone, Chapter 14, this volume).
As Voss and Schmidt (2000) have shown, material culture has an unique role to
play in telling the history of people who are invisible or misrepresented in written
sources. I believe these tombstones can help us to understand how common men
and women were affected by Roman power, as well as their responses to “imperial
effects” (Voss, Chapter 2). My intent here, then, is to examine the ways in which
the archaeological record, particularly epigraphy, can suggest new perspectives on
the gladiators’ experience, allowing us to rethink our perceptions of the Roman
Empire, violence, sexuality, and masculinity. Considering that these are ephemeral
concepts for which meanings can change through time, their transitory nature
requires that we develop new theoretical approaches to understand the postcontact
cultural changes among Romans and native people. As the tombstones chroni-
cle diverse experiences and are places of memory, I suggest they challenge us to
construct alternative interpretative models to understand those whose desires and
worldview were not always visible.

Understanding the Roman Arena

Theatrical combat involving gladiators were held for more than five centuries.
In this analysis, I focus on the first century ce period, a time when the Roman
Empire was well established. During this period, there was a substantial increase in
gladiatorial presentations and wild-beast hunts. Many masonry amphitheaters were

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 216 Reading Gladiators’ Epitaphs and Rethinking Violence and Masculinity

built in various parts of the Roman Empire to support these shows (Edmondson
1996; Figure 13.1). In addition, there were gladiator schools supported by the
Roman emperor, as well as a variety of formal professions linked to the Roman
arena.
Since the nineteenth century, scholars have been trying to explain the gladia-
tor phenomenon, which encompassed religiosity, blood, masculinity, and violence.
The interpretation of the Roman arena remains a controversial subject to this day.
For example, some scholars argue that arena spectators were an idle mob that
lived for panem et circenses (bread and circuses). In theories of Romanization, the
amphitheaters are understood as a symbol of Roman masculinity and power (Gar-
raffoni 2005). These studies have focused on literary sources and have paid more
attention to audiences than to the gladiators themselves. Although it is difficult to
find gladiator voices in the literature, as such sources describe the gladiators from
the viewpoint of the elite, archaeology can provide unique evidence of those voices
through inscriptions, which potentially become an important source for captur-
ing aspects of a gladiator’s day-to-day life (Garraffoni 2008; Garraffoni and Funari
2009). Because archaeology connects materiality to social relations and breaks the
silences of the written record, it provides a different approach to gladiator combats.
However, it is important to emphasize that to bring archaeological evidence to the
center of this analysis also means to use a unique data set for producing alternative
models through which to rethink the Roman past. In this context, it is also necessary
to rethink theoretical underpinnings, and I suggest here that postcolonial thought
seems to be the most appropriate tool with which to recognize the particularity of
marginalized lives in the Roman Empire. Peter Ucko (1995) has already noted that
postcolonial thought can help us rethink normative models based on similarity and
underline the specificity of each social stratum. Recent historical archaeological
literature criticizes the assumption of a one-to-one correspondence between text
and material culture and proposes to study documents and archaeology in their
respective contexts (e.g., Courtney 2007; Funari, Jones, and Hall 1999; Funari and
Zarankin 2001; Laurence 2005).
Although in the 1990s Cullen (1996) observed that classical archaeologists had
shown little inclination to examine theoretical approaches to the ancient past, in
the past decade this situation has been changing. The development of postmodern
theory led to a skepticism of meta-narratives and helped classicists refine the sensi-
tivity to differences and “otherness.” Recent approaches view the Roman Empire as
an intricate pattern of inequalities (e.g., Hingley 2005).
Using a postcolonial epistemological approach, I focus on material culture – the
gladiators’ tombstones – to discuss memory, neglected lives, and the role of women
in shaping the identity of the deceased gladiator and in memory-keeping. First I
discuss the main approaches to the gladiators’ lives. Then I focus on the role of
archaeological research to confront silences and contribute alternative perspectives
to understand excluded pasts.

The Gladiators’ Daily Lives

As the gladiators fought in the arena, the focus on the experience of the warrior in
battle, their virtues in the face of death, and the masculinity involved in public fights

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 Atlantic
Ocean
217

Black Sea

M e d i t e r r a n e a n S e a

0 250 500 750 1000 km

0 100 200 300 400 500 miles

Figure 13.1. The most important Roman arenas (Weeber 1994: 20).

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 218 Reading Gladiators’ Epitaphs and Rethinking Violence and Masculinity

was prioritized. Such scholarship neglected social and family networks, sexualities,
and desires, thus preserving an understanding of common people’s lives that relied
on an exclusively normative model of what it was to be a Roman male. It is important
to emphasize that the gladiators practiced a stigmatized profession, so that the
images of masculinity that are constructed from that profession are not the same as
the masculinity attributed to elite men. This complexity can be found in Seneca’s
writings.1 Although the philosopher considered the gladiators infamous because of
their profession, he constantly evoked the gladiator as a powerful metaphor to teach
the virtue of disdain for death, a virtue he felt essential for the formation of the ethos
of a warrior or a political leader. Seneca constantly moves between the notions of
virtue and infamy in establishing the moral values that should be taught to members
of the elite. Such values articulate in different ways according to rank, status, or
occupation: what would be worthy for the formation of the ethos of a man of virtue
would be different from the virtues available to a man of infamous profession.
Commenting on Seneca, some scholars contend that he admitted the impor-
tance of the gladiatorial performance as a pedagogical element to prepare the
Roman soldier for death (Barton 1993; Cagniart 2000; Wistrand 1992). However,
this approach relates the gladiators’ infamous condition to their status as social pari-
ahs: men without identity or memory seeking to be recognized by Roman society.
Following this approach Edwards, for instance, contends that gladiators, as with
prostitutes and actors, were infamous because they sold their own flesh; they lived
to provide sex and violence for the pleasure of the public (Edwards 1997: 67, 77,
85). Barton (1993), Gunderson (1996), and Wiedemann (1995), like Edwards,
conclude that legal disabilities stripped the gladiators of the social and cultural
characteristics that gave identity to most men in Roman society. According to this
perspective, these legal restrictions condemned the gladiators to live as a homoge-
nous mob, a collective social pariah; they became, as Edwards has suggested, “the
gladiator,” a naked figure, defined only by his weapon (Edwards 1997:78).
Approaches based mainly on literary sources create hermetic categories of mas-
culinity and of the identity of the common people. Such a narrow idea of masculinity
links the gladiators’ lives to elite ideas of morality and masculinity (although they
may have also helped to shape the warrior ethos and disdain for death). The lim-
ited sense of “identity” for the common people condemns them to an anonymous
journey, seeking social acceptance. These models lead us to imagine that all those
who fought in Roman arenas were men without personal history or identity. We see
them only as men who lived to serve special purposes, some as victims of Roman
cruelty and violence, others condemned to an obscure social life or reduced to bod-
ies for public display and entertainment. Thus, important details of their lives are
concealed. One such detail, for example, would be that during the early principate,
the gladiators comprised not only slaves or bandits condemned to fight but also
free persons who decided to live and work as gladiators (Ville 1981). Another point
obscured by such hermetic concepts is the fact that at the end of the first century ce,
there was an increase in the presence of women in the gladiatorial troops (Briceño
Jáuregui 1986; Vesley 1998; McCullough 2008).
The presence of women and freemen choosing to fight in the arenas reveals a
heterogeneity among the gladiatorial troops. Their presence, and the records of
institutional proceedings such as gladatorial contracts, allow us to contend that

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 Renata S. Garraffoni 219

these men and women made choices and could not be described as belonging to a
homogenous mob. Although the conscious choice to become a gladiator may seem
odd to modern sensibilities, when we examine their commemorative tombstones,
erected by wives or friends, we encounter surprising evidence. This evidence exposes
the complexity of human relations in the Roman past, a complexity seldom found
in the older interpretive models mentioned earlier. In this context, I believe that
a gender archaeology approach to the tombstones can shed light on the evidence
and help us to rethink aspects of the gladiators’ daily lives and intimacy.

Why a Gender Approach to the Gladiatorial Combat?

As noted earlier, the few studies done on gladiators’ daily lives have constructed a
negative image of them: they were condemned to the status of social pariah, infa-
mous people who provided violence and sex for the delight of elite audiences. The
studies from the 1990s served an important historical role in having reinserted the
figure of the gladiator into the scholarly discourse and in proposing new interpre-
tations for the combats. However, these studies were constructed on an idea of uni-
versal male aggression. The gladiators are described by their armor categories, their
weapons, their violence, and their bloodthirstiness; their essential nature becomes
“warriorhood.” Because the Roman arena was a highly masculinized region of social
life, I suggest it is important to rethink this approach. Same-sex social environments
can be complex and challenge us to look for points of articulation, searching beyond
the “aggressiveness,” for example, to consider the inhabitants of these environments
in a more contextual analysis. As Casella and Voss (Chapter 1) have pointed out,
it is important to rethink masculinized environments, sexuality, and intimacy, artic-
ulating them within the context of personal, familial, institutional, economic, and
religious practices. Or, in other words, it is necessary to consider the gladiators as
lovers, husbands, fathers, and men who could express their worldview and share it
with friends, both male and female.
Gilchrist (1999) has already pointed out that masculinist theories can challenge
monolithic and essentialist views of “male.” Such theories also provide tools to reex-
amine masculinity and to consider it as a multidimensional and socially acquired
quality. Gender archaeology thus helps us to rethink naturalized approaches to mas-
culinity and femininity, reminding us that those categories are neither absolute nor
static because they are constituted within specific societies. The concern with gender
gives impetus to new types of data analysis and inspires innovative ways of approach-
ing past social relations (Sorensen 2007). Using this epistemological context, it is
possible not only to rethink some aspects of the gladiators’ daily experiences but
also to highlight the contributions of women in shaping their memories.

Approaching the Roman Tombstones

Alföldy (2003) comments that during the Augustan period, there was an increase
in the use of inscriptions. On the basis of MacMullen’s classic study on epigraphy
(MacMullen 1982), Alföldy argues that the Romans developed an epigraphic habit
and turned inscriptions of the most varied types into an efficient communication
medium. Inscriptions spread symbolic values and reached public opinion in distinct

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 220 Reading Gladiators’ Epitaphs and Rethinking Violence and Masculinity

spheres, becoming vital to a broader knowledge of Roman society and economy.

Among the extensive diversity of inscriptions from Rome and the Roman provinces,
tombstones thus became important evidence for the study of moral, legal, and
hereditary relationships between the deceased and a commemorator.
Saller and Shaw (1984) indicate that tombstones furnish more than three-quarters
of the entire corpus of Latin inscriptions.2 Many tombstones give us no more than
names, but thousands of others offer additional details, such as age at death or the
name of the commemorator, allowing us to study relationships between commem-
orator and deceased. Most analyses of this type of evidence are usually focused on
the epitaphs of elites, not only because they are so plentiful but also because there
has been greater interest among historians in mapping the kin and local status of
Roman politicians. In this context, tombstones constitute an important data set for
classicists, especially those interested in family relationship analysis, to define the
political web in the Roman provinces.
It should also be noted that although tombstones and epitaphs were common in
Roman culture, historians and epigraphists have paid more attention to the inscrip-
tions themselves than to the surfaces on which they were embossed or the places in
which they were found. Funari (1994) has defined this as a crossroad of epigraphic
studies. According to Funari, the main difficulty produced by this omission is that
some experts publish translations of inscriptions but do not comment on the mate-
rial context in which they were found, creating a void between material culture and
epigraphy. As a result, epigraphists end up ignoring archaeologists’ work, and vice
versa, impeding a dialogue that could be useful for both specializations.
Studying the tombstones and epitaphs as material culture can help construct a
better understanding of daily life in the Roman provinces. Inscribed tombstones
were central to Roman culture because they were a media for place-making or mem-
ory-keeping. They were used to bring the past into the present and to remind people
of the finitude of life. Tombstones usually were located on roadsides outside of the
city walls and were intended to reveal to passersby not only who was lying there but
also some aspect of his or her life. Not everyone could afford them, but the Collegia
(guilds or associations) helped common people pay for tombstones and provide an
appropriate burial (Alföldy 1984). Unfortunately for archaeological purposes, the
majority of Roman tombstones have not been found in situ because they were used
to construct new buildings during the medieval period. Therefore, it can sometimes
be difficult to date some tombstones or to reconstruct their original context. Even
with these problems, those that have survived can help us reconstruct fragments of
anonymous lives otherwise lost in a landscape of elite-dominated references.

Gladiator Tombstones from Rome and Roman Spain

The tombstones I selected comprise a particular type of data because they commem-
orate deceased gladiators. Although some scholars, such as Sabbatini Tumolesi or
Hope, have pointed out that gladiator tombstones are not numerous, are in a poor
state of preservation, or are too fragmentary, they nevertheless help us to under-
stand gladiator games from a different perspective, allowing us to glimpse aspects of
the worldviews and family relationships of individual gladiators (Hope 1998, 2000a,

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 Renata S. Garraffoni 221

2000b; Sabbatini Tumolesi 1971, 1974, 1980, 1984, 1988). Despite Hope’s assertion
that only professional gladiators would have received formal burial rites, with the
majority buried in mass graves (Hope 2000a: 97), memorials to individual gladiators
reveal the everyday life of the gladiators, especially the gendered relationships that
tombstones express between the deceased and their commemorators.
Tombstones were erected by friends or relatives and help us to understand how
memories and social roles were constructed. Sabbatini Tumolesi reminds us that epi-
taphs and tombstones commemorated the dead gladiator as an individual; instead
of indicating, as in inscriptions announcing a spectacle, the number of men sched-
uled to fight, the epitaphs give us a few words about an individual’s life and history
(Sabbatini Tumolesi 1980: 150). Most gladiator epitaphs were written in irregularly
shaped and positioned letters, indicating the humble origin of those commemorat-
ing the dead gladiator. However, additional inscriptions with more regular letters
indicate that some gladiators could afford professionally made tombstones. In either
case, the few words written on a tombstone inform us about aspects of the gladiator’s
skills and allow us glimpses of a private life, including the presence of friends, fellow
fighters, and relatives.
For this analysis, I selected epitaphs from both Rome and Roman Spain. My goal
has been to compare epitaphs and tombstones from two parts of the empire, the
main city (Rome) and the provincial area of Córdoba (Roman Spain). It is also
important to remember that the territory of Hispania was one of the first to be
dominated by the Romans after they left the Italic peninsula and that the Roman
presence in Hispania lasted several centuries. During the first century ce, many
masonry amphitheaters had already been built in Roman Spain (Figure 13.1), which
has allowed retrieval of a great diversity of the material culture of the gladiators,
including the tombstones. Although the tombstones I selected are all of the first
century ce, were professionally made, and refer to an urban funeral context, there
are some differences I would like to stress. First, the tombstones from Rome discussed
later in the chapter were collected in a series of books titled Epigrafia anfiteatrale
dell’occidente romano edited by Sabbatini Tumolesi (1984). As noted earlier, none of
the tombstones and epitaphs from Rome were found in their original context. Most
are fragmentary, and most are now housed in various Italian museums. Although
provenance is unknown, the tombstones can be dated by the material they are
made of and the lettering style of the inscription. The examples from Roman Spain,
however, are of a known archaeological context. They were unearthed between
1948 and 1954 during excavations on a necropolis in Córdoba (Figure 13.2) and
were published by Garcia y Bellido (1960). Since excavation, these tombstones have
been housed in Córdoba’s Archaeological Museum. They comprise a corpus of
eleven inscriptions. Garcia y Bellido (1960) notes they are well preserved and are all
inscribed in the same format. Most have marble surfaces (for example, see Figures
13.3 and 13.4).
I selected eleven tombstones – seven from Rome and four from Córdoba. I believe
this sample is representative of the ways in which gladiators were represented in the
funerary context and of the role of women in shaping their memories. As Hope
has stressed (2000a: 94), the tombstones provided a forum open to manipulation.
Thus, they construct ideal memory rather than reflect reality.

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 222 Reading Gladiators’ Epitaphs and Rethinking Violence and Masculinity

LVCVS G A L
L I A

ASTVRICA
T A CLVNIA
R CAESARAVGVSTA
BRACARA
R
AVGVSTA A
C

O
ARRACO

N
E
I A

N
SCALLABIS
N
A EMERITA

S I
I T AVGVSTA
S

S
V
L
LI
A C A
IV E T I CORDVBA
X
PA B A
ISPALIS
ASTIGI
CARTHAGO NOVA

GADES

CAPITALES DE PROVINCIA
CAPITALES DE CONVENTUS
LIMITES DE PROVINCIA
LIMITES DE CONVENTUS

Figure 13.2. Roman Spain and Cordoba, Baetica (Gozalbes Gravioto 2000: 262).

Figure 13.3. Satur’s tombstone, marble (Museo Arqueólogico y Etnológico de Cordoba,

Spain; number CE012342).

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 Renata S. Garraffoni 223

Figure 13.4. Actius’ tombstone, marble (Museo Arqueólogico y Etnológico de Cordoba,

Spain; number CE010681).

Rome
Tombstone 1:
A(ulus) POSTUMIUS
ACOEMETUS
DOCTOR
MYRMILLON(um)3
[Aulus Postumius Acoemetus, Murmillos trainer]
Tombstone 2:
GRATUS
DOCTOR MURM(illonum)
V(ixit) A(nnis) XXVII4
[Gratus, Murmillos trainer, he was 27 when he died]
Tombstone 3:
D(is) M(anibus) S(acrum)
APOLLONIO
THRAECI, SC(aeua)
LIB(ero), VI5
[To the Manibus gods, Apollonius, Thracian, left-handed, freedman, fought 6 times]
Tombstone 4:
Amanus, Sam(nes), Ner(onianus),
v(ictoriarum) III, (coronarum) II6
[Amanus, Samnites, neronian, 3 victories, 2 crowns]

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 224 Reading Gladiators’ Epitaphs and Rethinking Violence and Masculinity

Tombstone 5:

L(ucius) Lucretius, tr(aex), vict(oriarum) XIIX7

[Lucius Lucrecius, Thracian, 18 victories]

Tombstone 6:

C(aius) IVLIVS
IVCVNDVS
ESSEDARIVS
V(ixit) A(nnis) XXV
FILIA PATRI8
[Caius Iulius Iucundus, Essedari, he was 25 when he died. From his daughter]

Tombstone 7:

C(aius) Futius Hyacintus doct(or) opl(omachorum).

Futia C(ai) l(iberta) Philura fecit9
[Caius Futius Hyacintus, Oplomachus’ trainer.
Futia Philura, freedwoman has done it.]

The preceding tombstones from Rome all have regular letters, harmoniously dis-
tributed on the surface of the tombstone. Tombstones 1 and 2 belong to two doctores,
the Latin word for a trainer of gladiators. Aulus Postumius Acoemetus and Gratus
were both trainers of a specific type of gladiator, the Murmillo. This indicates that
each man fought for a period as a Murmillo gladiator and later became a trainer.
Both thus survived combat and spent the remainder of their lives training young glad-
iators. Aulus was a free citizen and Gratus a slave. According to Sabbatini Tumolesi,
Aulus was of Greek origin.
Sabbatini Tumolesi also comments on the origin of Amanus, the gladiator com-
memorated by tombstone 4. Amanus came from a Syrian family, according to his
name. Although Amanus was a slave, and Aulus a freeman who died as a trainer, the
tombstones of both men tell us their armor categories and indicate aspects of their
careers. Amanus, who fought in Samnite armor, trained in the ludus neronianus, a
gladiator training school in southern Italy in operation during Nero’s reign. Thus,
Amanus was born to a Syrian family, lived and trained in southern Italy, and passed
away in Rome. This career, which includes three victories and two prizes, indicates
the gladiator’s geographic mobility.
Tombstone 3 belongs to Apollonius, a freedman who fought as Thracian. He
fought six times before dying and was left-handed, a skill that was always commemo-
rated because it was more difficult to fight against somebody who carried the sword
in his left hand.
Lucius Lucretius, tombstone 5, is another Thracian who fought and won eighteen
bouts. Even if we presume that this number of victories is inflated, it is interesting
to note that Lucius fought in multiple presentations and survived for some years
afterward. This tombstone particularly, but also each of the others already noted,
reminds us that in Rome, as in other parts of the empire, gladiator presentations were
not necessarily simple slaughters. Many professional gladiators survived multiple
contests, and some could go on to become trainers and die outside of the arena.

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 Renata S. Garraffoni 225

Others established affective relationships, such as Caius Iulius Iucundus (tomb-

stone 6) and Caius Futius Hyacintus (tombstone 7). The former belonged to the
Essedari armor category and was commemorated by his daughter. Even if we assume
that someone else paid for the tombstone, because the girl would have likely been
too young to actually provide for this, it is important to emphasize that her men-
tion indicates that some gladiators may have had children. Because this tombstone
emphasizes the daughter’s presence, it represents persuasive evidence that women
played an important role in commemorating a gladiator’s death. The second tomb-
stone noted earlier, of Caius Fuitius Hyacintus, is more explicit in this aspect. His
tombstone, very well preserved, indicates that Futia Philura was responsible for hav-
ing it made. She was a freedwoman, probably Caius’ concubine, and was responsible
for guaranteeing his memory by paying for the tombstone and having it engraved.
The epitaphs are short, and their simplicity leads some scholars to point out
the features they share with Roman military epitaphs. Like gladiator tombstones,
the military variety also presented the soldier’s biographical information, such as
province of origin, rank, unit, and age (Gregori 2001; Hope 2000a: 111–112).
Military tombstones were erected in faraway lands, after a battle, by comrades com-
memorating the skills of a deceased colleague. Roman gladiator tombstones are thus
as valuable as the tombstones of Roman soldiers for the information they provide.
They support a clearer understanding of the diverse ethnic origins of the gladiators.
They provide information about individual gladiatorial careers. And they provide
insight into the dynamics behind the games themselves, given that we find many
gladiators continued to work in a capacity related to the games, as trainers, even
past their combat years. Although the gladiatorial matches can be understood as a
highly masculinized environment, epitaphs from tombstones 6 and 7 highlight the
role of women, figures seldom otherwise mentioned in connection with the gladia-
torial presentations. We find that an important figure to guarantee the memory of
a gladiator could be female.

Roman Spain
Although the essential characteristic of a tombstone is to be concise, tombstones
from Roman Spain are more complex and provide more background on the role
of women in commemorating the gladiators. These tombstones from Hispania also
allow us to consider the presence of interethnic households.
Tombstone 8:

Mur(millo). Cerinthus. Ner(onianus). II. Nat(ione) graecus.

An(norum) XXV. Rome Coniunx bene merenti de suo posit. T(e) R(ogo)
P(raeteriens) D(icas) S(it) T(ibi) T(erra) L(euis)10
[Murmillo Cerinthus, neronian, fought two times. He was Greek.
He was twenty-five when he died. Rome, his wife, has paid for this tombstone.
I ask you, passerby, say “Let the earth be light upon you.”]

Tombstone 9:

Actius, mur(millo), uic(it) VI,

Anno XXI, H(ic) s(itus) e(st) s(it) t(erra) l(euis).

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 226 Reading Gladiators’ Epitaphs and Rethinking Violence and Masculinity

Uxor uiro de suo quot quisquis uestrum mortuo.

Optarit mihi it ili di faciant. Semper uiuo et mortuo.11
[Actius, Murmillo, won six times. He was twenty-one years old when he died. Here he lies.
His wife has paid for this tombstone with her money. Whatever you wish on me and on
him the gods will do to you, dead or alive.]

Tombstone 10:

SATVR MVR(millo) IVL(ianus) XIII

BASSUS. L(iberatus). MVR(millo) I. I
H(ic) S(iti) S(unt). S(it) V(obis). T(erra). L(evis)
CORNELIA SEVERA
VXOR D(e) S(uo). D(edit)12
[Satur, Murmillo, iulianus, he fought 13 times.
Bassus, freedman, Murmillo, won one palm and one crown. They lie here. Let the earth be
light upon them. Cornelia Severa, wife, has paid for this tombstone with her money.]

Tombstone 11:

MUR(illo) FAVSTVS NER(onianus)

XII VER(na) ALEX(andriae) AN(orum) XXXV
H(ic) S(itus) E(st) APPOLONIA VXOR ET HERMES TR(ax)
DE SVO POSVERVNT13
[Murmillo Faustus, neronian, he fought 12 times. He was born as a slave at Alexandria
and was 35 when he died. Here he lies. Apollonia, his wife, and Hermes, a Thracian
gladiator, paid for the tombstone with their money.]

Like the tombstones found in Rome, all the tombstones from Córdoba in Hispania
were produced in the first century ce. Although additional tombstones from this
area are irregularly lettered, made by friends or paid for by the troops, I have
chosen to comment on those described here because they document the presence
of women, illuminating the active role of women in choosing the words to describe
their partners or friends. Such tombstones also allow us to reflect on the intimate
encounters and interethnic cross-sex relationships that were made possible only
through the increase in gladiator troops and their movement throughout the Roman
Empire.
Like tombstones 6 and 7 from the city of Rome, tombstones from Hispania were
also made by professionals, but with notable differences. The tombstones from
Roman Spain have longer epitaphs and allow us insight into the gladiators and
their social context. According to tombstone 8, Cerinthus, a Murmillo gladiator
who trained at neronian’s school, was of Greek origin. As with Amanus, mentioned
in tombstone 4, Cerinthus also traveled with his troop: he trained in Italy, but died
in Roman Spain. He was twenty-five years old when he died. He left a wife, Rome,
also a slave, who paid for his tombstone.
Garcı́a y Bellido (1960) has commented on an interesting detail in this inscription:
the word coniunx (wife) in the epitaph was not usually used among slaves. Another
remarkable detail is that the woman, Rome, chose to underscore that she paid for
the tombstone with her own money: bene merenti de suo posit.

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 Renata S. Garraffoni 227

On tombstones 9, 10, and 11 we find a similar situation. Tombstone 9 was dedi-

cated to Actius, tombstone 10 to Satur and Bassus (freedmen), and tombstone 11 to
Faustus. On each of these tombstones we find the word uxor, which refers to a “wife.”
As with coniunx, this word was not usually used to refer to a slave’s concubine, but
rather to freewomen married to Roman citizens. Although no female name appears
on tombstone 9, on the other two, we find the term applied to both the freed-
woman Cornelia Severa and the slave Appolonia. It is a plausible assumption that,
because they paid for the tombstones, these women also selected the messages to be
engraved there. Again, each commemorative tombstone not only commemorates
the gladiator’s life but also suggests that his partner had an active role in shaping
the memory of that life through an engraving to intervene against forgetfulness.
Because these tombstones were excavated from the necropolis, it conceivable that
the women chose epitaphs as a way to construct a dialogue with passersby, not only
commemorating the deceased but also asserting their own place in this provincial
society.
All the tombstones also give us details of the gladiators’ lives. We read that Actius
was a slave who fought as a Murmillo and won six times. He was twenty-one when
he died, and his wife left a warding-off message to protect them both from any
uncharitable thoughts a passerby might have.
Tombstone 10 is unusual in being dedicated to two gladiators, Satur and Bassus.
Satur trained at the ludus of Julius Caesar in Capua (southern Italy), fought thirteen
times, and died in Roman Spain. His friend Bassus won two prizes, a crown and a
palm. It is not clear which of these men was Cornelia Severa’s partner, but Garcı́a
y Bellido (1960) suggests she was married to Bassus. This tombstone allows us to
consider that fellow gladiators could be buried together and the women who were
close to them outside of the arena.
Tombstone 11 also showcases friendship and family links. Fautus, commemorated
by this tombstone, was born a slave in Alexandria, trained in Capua (southern Italy),
and died in Roman Spain. His wife, Apollonia, and his friend, Hermes, a gladiator of
another armor category, paid for his tombstone. This tombstone, as with tombstone
10, indicates that women, as well as friends from the gladiatorial troops, were present
in the gladiators’ lives and that such relationships were important in preserving the
memory of the deceased gladiator.
This question of women companions is seldom explored in studies of the lives of
gladiators. As Vesley (1998) has pointed out, we do not have many sources through
which to study female gladiators, but I believe this type of evidence enables us to
imagine women and their role outside of the arena. Even if we take into account
that some tombstones are not signed, as in tombstones numbers 1 through 5, or
that some were made by comrades from the gladiatorial troops, the tombstones paid
for by women provide alternative possibilities and approaches to explore. They help
us understand gladiators in a social context, commemorated as friends, partners,
or fathers. They also emphasize a woman’s role in constructing the memory of a
companion and in choosing the words to celebrate his life. Some, like number 11,
are more precise in stating the birthplace of the gladiator, and others underscore
the possibility of expressing feelings and protection for the deceased lover. I sug-
gest, then, that although the arena is a highly masculinized environment, women

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 228 Reading Gladiators’ Epitaphs and Rethinking Violence and Masculinity

nevertheless sometimes had active roles in that arena through commemorating the
deceased gladiators’ lives and experience.
The tombstones allow us to see these men in a complex social net that involved
interethnic households and cross-class relationships, including even intimate rela-
tionships between free and enslaved persons. Through the commemorative words
these women chose, we learn of gladiators born in different areas of the empire,
who trained in specific schools, married, and died far away from their birthplaces.
Furthermore, we see that because these women’s lives took on a public dimension
through the inscriptions, they themselves became visible, challenging an environ-
ment dominated by male references.
The tombstones I selected for this case study provide an idea of the diversity
of the epitaphs and of their importance as an alternative source of biographi-
cal details and the social lives of otherwise obscured individuals. Even in their
variety, the tombstones help us understand these people from a more humanistic
approach. Reading the epitaphs one learns of the gladiators’ mobility throughout
the Roman Empire, their legal status (slave, freedman, or free), their friendships
and family, their skills and abilities, and the ways in which their memory was con-
structed by friends and lovers. In addition, the armor category of some gladiators,
important enough to include on a tombstone, does not seem to be a symbol of
shame, as some scholars have suggested, but, I believe, a positive expression of pro-
fessional pride, or, as Hope has suggested (2000a), a claim to membership in a
community.
This evidence comprises a compelling corpus, encouraging us to think about these
men not just as a narrowly defined group but as people who shared life, feelings,
and intimacy. The tombstone is an epigraphic source that can help us understand
the gladiators not only as representatives of aggressive masculinity but as individuals
playing different roles: winner or loser in the arena, professional, father, lover, friend,
slave, or freedman. The tombstones also require us to recognize that many gladiators
are still remembered because of their concubines’ wishes. They could afford the
tombstones, and it is possible to imagine that in commemorating the deceased
gladiator, they also claimed their position in local society. Saller and Shaw (1984:
127) have noted that it was not only the wealthy who wished to perpetuate their own
histories but that people of humble origins also sought to avoid the anonymity of the
mass grave. The gladiators would have been no different. In light of that awareness,
I suggest that the deceased gladiator and his concubine became visible through
the tombstone. They could be seen by passersby and acted to construct a particular
discourse of memory that enables us to think not only about ephemeral affairs
but also about different forms of long-term social bonds, such as nuclear families
and interethnic households. Tombstones, then, can be understood as a special
type of material culture, dedicated to memory-making and memory-keeping. They
provide clues to the intimate encounters between people who were born under and
affected by the Roman Empire but who seldom appear in scholarly discourse. As I
have suggested in a previous study, I believe these tombstones represent valuable
alternative archaeological sources that allow us to think in terms of a more complex
social context, understanding the gladiators’ lives not as enclosed in an isolated

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 Renata S. Garraffoni 229

male world but as lives constructed among the women and men with whom they
shared their lives, intimacy, and desires (Garraffoni 2005, 2008).

Conclusion
The tombstones I have commented on here are a singular corpus because they
allow us to reach gladiators’ lives. They provide a different type of discourse, one
informed not by the elite point of view found in written sources but by the percep-
tions of friends and relatives who helped construct the memories of the gladiators.
Although most of these inscriptions are concise, through case studies of thought-
fully selected samples, it is possible to recover voices otherwise seldom heard by
scholars. In this context, the tombstones still direct our attention to a specific type
of discourse, one encompassing socially constructed and reinterpreted memories.
Through the tombstones, it is possible to celebrate individual lives, not only recon-
structing the gladiators’ experiences in the arena but also establishing them in
their social networks. One may consider the tombstones to be fragmentary, but they
nonetheless remind us of men who trained, rested, had friends, and sometimes even
married and had children. In sum, they lived, and as they lived, they were not alone
but shared their values and experiences with confidantes.
Finally, I believe these epigraphic sources are important evidence for not only
capturing aspects of the gladiators’ experience but also documenting the presence of
women in keeping the memory of the gladiators alive. In this context, the tombstones
challenge us to deconstruct analytical categories based on the idea of the gladiator
as a symbol of aggressive masculinity, allowing us to envision them in a complex
social context of interaction with men and women of different social backgrounds
and ethnic origins. This new perspective should remind us that the purpose of
archaeology is to study the historical nature of specific social, cultural, and gender
relationships, observing, in this case, the details and complexities of the Roman past,
and avoiding universal assumptions. Instead of a uniform or global interpretation of
who the gladiators were or of the armor category they belonged to, this epigraphic
evidence focuses on local variety in a specific context, allowing us to avoid analytical
approaches based on Western notions of what a warrior should be.

Notes
1. See, for instance, Seneca’s text On the Brevity of Life, especially chapter 13.
2. Saller and Shaw indicate that there were approximately 250,000 known inscriptions at
the time of publication (1984).
3. Catalogue number 55 (Sabbatini Tumolesi, 1988).
4. Catalogue number 56 (Sabbatini Tumolesi, 1988).
5. Catalogue number 95 (Sabbatini Tumolesi, 1988).
6. Sabbatini Tumolesi, 1988: 77–78.
7. Sabbatini Tumolesi, 1998: 81–82.
8. Catalogue number 67 (Sabbatini Tumolesi, 1988).
9. Sabbatini Tumolesi, 1988: 61–62.
10. Garcı́a y Bellido, 1960: 127–128.
11. Garcı́a y Bellido, 1960: 134–135.

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 230 Reading Gladiators’ Epitaphs and Rethinking Violence and Masculinity

12. Garcı́a y Bellido, tombstone 01

13. Garcı́a y Bellido, tombstone 04.

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