By the 1st century BC, noxii were being condemned to the beasts (damnati ad bestias) in the arena, with almost no chance of survival, or were made to kill each other. Modern customs and institutions offer few useful parallels to the legal and social context of the gladiatoria munera. Remains of a Pompeian ludus site attest to developments in supply, demand and discipline; in its earliest phase, the building could accommodate 15–20 gladiators. As most ordinarii at games were from the same school, this kept potential opponents separate and safe from each other until the lawful munus. Novices (novicii) trained under teachers of particular fighting styles, probably retired gladiators. The city of Rome itself had four; the Ludus Magnus (the largest and most important, housing up to about 2,000 gladiators), Ludus Dacicus, Ludus Gallicus, and the Ludus Matutinus, which trained bestiarii.
Role in Roman life
Courage, dignity, altruism and loyalty were morally redemptive; Lucian idealised this principle in his story of Sisinnes, who voluntarily fought as a gladiator, earned 10,000 drachmas and used it to buy freedom for his friend, Toxaris. Having “neither hope nor illusions”, the gladiator could transcend his own debased nature, and disempower death itself by meeting it face to face. Yet, Cicero could also refer to his popularist opponent Clodius, publicly and scathingly, as a bustuarius—literally, a “funeral-man”, implying that Clodius has shown the moral temperament of the lowest sort of gladiator.
The gladiators
The Christian author Tertullian, commenting on ludi meridiani in Roman Carthage during the peak era of the games, describes a more humiliating method of removal. The body of a gladiator who had died well was placed on a couch of Libitina and removed with dignity to the arena morgue, where the corpse was stripped of armour, and probably had its throat cut as confirmation of death. Even more rarely, perhaps uniquely, one stalemate ended in the killing of one gladiator by the editor himself.
- Female gladiators probably submitted to the same regulations and training as their male counterparts.
- Tiberius offered several retired gladiators 100,000 sesterces each to return to the arena.
- When a gladiator earned their freedom or retirement, they were given a wooden rudis sword to signify proof of their freedom from slavery.
- By common custom, the spectators decided whether or not a losing gladiator should be spared, and chose the winner in the rare event of a standing tie.
- All prospective gladiators, whether volunteer or condemned, were bound to service by a sacred oath (sacramentum).
- Where traditional ludi had been dedicated to a deity, such as Jupiter, the munera could be dedicated to an aristocratic sponsor’s divine or heroic ancestor.
- In AD 69, the Year of the Four Emperors, Otho’s troops at Bedriacum included 2000 gladiators.
Those condemned ad ludum were probably branded or marked with a tattoo (stigma, plural stigmata) on the face, legs and/or hands. By Domitian’s time, many had been more or less absorbed by the State, including those at Pergamum, Alexandria, Praeneste and Capua. The Spartacus revolt had originated in a gladiator school privately owned by Lentulus Batiatus, and had been suppressed only after a protracted series of costly, sometimes disastrous campaigns by regular Roman troops. Hopkins and Beard tentatively estimate a total of 400 arenas throughout the Roman Empire at its greatest extent, with a combined total of 8,000 deaths per annum from executions, combats and accidents. Marcus Junkelmann disputes Ville’s calculation for average age at death; the majority would have received no headstone, and would have died early in their careers, at 18–25 years of age. A natural death following retirement is also likely for three individuals who died at 38, 45, and 48 years respectively.
- In 66 AD, Nero had Ethiopian women, men and children fight at a munus to impress the King Tiridates I of Armenia.
- Other novelties introduced around this time included gladiators who fought from chariots or carts, or from horseback.
- Mosaics dating from the 2nd through 4th centuries AD have been invaluable in the reconstruction of combat and its rules, gladiator types and the development of the munus.
- For enthusiasts and gamblers, a more detailed program (libellus) was distributed on the day of the munus, showing the names, types and match records of gladiator pairs, and their order of appearance.
- His revision of sumptuary law capped private and public expenditure on munera, claiming to save the Roman elite from the bankruptcies they would otherwise suffer, and restricting gladiator munera to the festivals of Saturnalia and Quinquatria.
- Of the 176 days reserved for spectacles of various kinds, 102 were for theatrical shows, 64 for chariot races and just 10 in December for gladiator games and venationes.
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He was lanista of the gladiators employed by the state circa 105 BC to instruct the legions and simultaneously entertain the public. The contract between editor and his lanista could include compensation for unexpected deaths; this could be “some fifty times higher than the lease price” of the gladiator. From the principate onwards, private citizens could hold munera and own gladiators only with imperial permission, and the role of editor was increasingly tied to state officialdom. Henceforth, an imperial praetor’s official munus was allowed a maximum of 120 gladiators at a ceiling cost of 25,000 denarii; an imperial ludi might cost no less than 180,000 denarii. It involved three days of funeral games, 120 gladiators, and public distribution of meat (visceratio data)—a practice that reflected the gladiatorial fights at Campanian banquets described by Livy and later deplored by Silius Italicus.
Gladiator
Few gladiators survived more than 10 contests, though one survived an extraordinary 150 bouts; and another died at 90 years of age, presumably long after retirement. A gladiator might expect to fight in two or three munera annually, and an unknown number would have died in their first match. Having no personal responsibility for his own defeat and death, the losing gladiator remains the better man, worth avenging.
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This yielded two combats for the cost of three gladiators, rather than four; such contests were prolonged, and in some cases, more bloody. A general melee of several, lower-skilled gladiators was far less costly, but also less popular. Increasingly the munus was the editor’s gift to spectators who had come to expect the best as their due. Gladiators may have been involved in these as executioners, though most of the crowd, and the gladiators themselves, preferred the “dignity” of an even contest.
In any event, the final decision of death or life belonged to the editor, who signalled his choice with a gesture described by Roman sources as pollice verso meaning “with a turned thumb”; a description too imprecise for reconstruction of the gesture or its symbolism. An outstanding fighter might receive a laurel crown and money lanista from an appreciative crowd but for anyone originally condemned ad ludum the greatest reward was manumission (emancipation), symbolised by the gift of a wooden training sword or staff (rudis) from the editor. The Zliten mosaic in Libya (circa 80–100 AD) shows musicians playing an accompaniment to provincial games (with gladiators, bestiarii, or venatores and prisoners attacked by beasts). Even among the ordinarii, match winners might have to fight a new, well-rested opponent, either a tertiarius (“third choice gladiator”) by prearrangement; or a “substitute” gladiator (suppositicius) who fought at the whim of the editor as an unadvertised, unexpected “extra”. In late Republican munera, between 10 and 13 matches could have been fought on one day; this assumes one match at a time in the course of an afternoon. The gladiators may have held informal warm-up matches, using blunted or dummy weapons—some munera, however, may have used blunted weapons throughout.
Their training as gladiators gave them the opportunity to redeem their honour in the munus. Yet, in the last year of his life, Constantine wrote a letter to the citizens of Hispellum, granting its people the right to celebrate his rule with gladiatorial games. Throughout the empire, the greatest and most celebrated games would now be identified with the state-sponsored imperial cult, which furthered public recognition, respect and approval for the emperor’s divine numen, his laws, and his agents. Following Caesar’s assassination and the Roman Civil War, Augustus assumed imperial authority over the games, including munera, and formalised their provision as a civic and religious duty. Thereafter, the gladiator contests formerly restricted to private munera were often included in the state games (ludi) that accompanied the major religious festivals.
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As a soldier committed his life (voluntarily, at least in theory) to the greater cause of Rome’s victory, he was not expected to survive defeat. As Wiedemann points out, December was also the month for the Saturnalia, Saturn’s festival, in which death was linked to renewal, and the lowest were honoured as the highest. They included a provincial magnate’s five-day munus of thirty pairs, plus beast hunts. Many, if not most, involved venationes, and in the later empire some may have been only that.