combat, we can reconstruct something of the way in which
gladiators fought. Gladiators were taught a standard ‘at the ready’
stance which was shared with Roman legionaries and which is
depicted on a variety of media. This consisted of achieving a
comfortable, balanced position, with the left foot forward and
the shield covering the left side whilst the right foot was kept
back with the sword held horizontally by the side. This explains
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why, when only one greave was worn, it was worn on the left
side. Gladiators with large shields were then protected from their
helmeted head to their greave-clad shin. When the gladiator
wished to strike with the sword, it was necessary to change
balance by advancing the right leg and bringing the sword arm
into play. At this point their armguard served to protect the
advanced sword arm from any blow against it.
Various types of blow were possible with the gladius (and other
swords), although some seem to have been favoured over others
at different times and perhaps even at the same time by different
instructors. There is some evidence that the various possible moves
were known as numeri (‘numbers’) or dictata (‘rules’), a character
in Petronius’ Satyricon disliking a Thracian who fought by the rules
( ad dictata), whilst Julius Caesar expected recruits to his gladiatorial
school to learn the dictata. Clearly there was a fine balance between
knowing the rules and sticking too closely to them. First was the
horizontal stab ( punctim) which could easily be delivered from the
‘at the ready’ stance and could be fatal with just one blow. Next
came the chop ( caesim), which required the arm to be raised and
was thus more suited to use in the midst of close combat. Finally,
there was a variant of the punctim which required reversing the grip
on the sword and stabbing downwards with the blade as if it were a
dagger and this, again, was only suitable in certain circumstances,
notably close combat. The design of the gladius, with a top nut
holding the pommel onto the tang, suggests one more way in
which it could have been used offensively, namely punching down
with it onto the unprotected head of an opponent, so particularly
suited when, say, a secutor was fighting a retiarius.
Whatever the weaponry, a great deal of attention must have
been given to showmanship and this was where the manner in
which the weapon was used would have mattered. The military
writer Vegetius describes how deadly the tip of the gladius could
be, observing that in some areas of the body a wound only
needed to be 2 Roman inches (49 mm) deep to be fatal. This
was good for soldiers in battle but made for a poor show in the
arena, where spectacular (but not fatal) wounds would make for
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a longer, more interesting contest. At the same time, gladiators
who let a contest go on too long ran the risk of displeasing the
crowd if they grew bored, so knowing how to to use a weapon
effectively, and where the key vulnerable points of the body were,
was of paramount importance.
The combination of skill, training and art are all cited by
Cyprian, a Christian writer deploring gladiatorial contests:
... if you turn your eyes and your regards to the cities themselves, you
will behold a concourse more fraught with sadness than any solitude.
The gladiatorial games are prepared, that blood may gladden the lust
of cruel eyes. The body is fed up with stronger food, and the vigorous
mass of limbs is enriched with brawn and muscle, that the wretch
fattened for punishment may die a harder death. Man is slaughtered
that man may be gratified, and the skill that is best able to kill is an
exercise and an art. Crime is not only committed, but it is taught.
What can be said more inhuman – what more repulsive? Training is
undergone to acquire the power to murder, and the achievement of
murder is its glory. (Cyprian, Epistles 1.7)
Training in the Imperial schools lasted at least six months before
achieving the lowly status of tiro. The effects of all this training
could be seen on the skeletons of gladiators from the cemetery
region of 1.68m. By comparing the dimensions of bones found
with ‘normal’ examples that might be expected, it was possible to
see how the enhanced musculature of the gladiators left its mark
on their skeletons. This was true not only in their joints, but also
in the calf, thigh and upper arm.
The contest
Shows were advertised well in advance, summarising what might
be expected on the programme, as well as extra luxuries (such
as vela erunt or ‘there will be awnings’) to tempt the undecided.
Advertisements ( edicta munerum) were painted on walls, with
the names of the sponsors the most prominent of all.
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Adverts for games from Pompeii
From Decimus Lucretius Satrius Valens, permanent priest of Nero
Caesar, son of Augustus, twenty pairs of gladiators, and Decimus
Lucretius Valens, his son, ten pairs of gladiators will fight at
Pompeii on 27th April; there will be animal hunts and awnings.
[signed] Polybius ( CIL IV, 7995)
An impression, albeit fictional, of the sort of spectacle advertised
and then put on at Pompeii can be gained from Petronius:
Just think, we are soon to be given a superb spectacle lasting three days;
not simply a troupe of professional gladiators, but a large number of
them freedmen. And our good Titus has a big imagination and is
hot-blooded: it will be one thing or another, something real anyway.
I know him very well, and he is all against half-measures. He will give
you the finest blades, no running away, butchery done in the middle,
where the whole audience can see it. And he has the wherewithal; he
came into thirty million when his father came to grief. If he spends
four hundred thousand, his estate will never feel it, and his name will
live for ever. (Petronius, Satyricon 45)
The night before a contest, the gladiators of a familia enjoyed
a banquet known as the cena libera (‘free meal’). Bizarrely, to our
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Spectators attending gladiatorial games needed
tickets in the form of a pottery or bone token
( tessera ) to gain entry. These could be obtained for
free beforehand, or queued up for on the day of the
contest, and bore a sector, row and seat number (e.g.
CVN II GRAD III LOC VII would be cuneus (sector)
2, gradus (row) 3, locus (seat) 7). Some of the sector
numbers can still be seen above entrances to the
Colosseum. Programmes ( libelli ) could be purchased
telling audience members what to expect from the
day’s entertainment and which gladiator was to fi ght
which opponent.
eyes at least, it was freely accessible and members of the public
were allowed in to gawp. It has been speculated that the origi
ns
of the meal may have lain in the sacrifi cial nature of the original
funerary gladiatorial contests, but by the Imperial period, it was
as much a part of the spectacle as the combat itself. It was also
one of the few times when gladiators had the opportunity to eat
something other than barley and beans (Plutarch noting the fare
was good but the gladiators were not interested in it).
Th e games began with a procession ( pompa ) where all the
competitors could be seen and admired, along with the animals
and prisoners involved in providing the entertainment. Such
parades are depicted on some reliefs. An example of what it
might have looked like in a provincial town comes from Pompeii
and shows a pair of toga-clad lictors carrying the fasces , bundle
of rods containing an axe, that symbolised a magistrate (diff erent
ranks of magistrates had diff ering numbers of lictors). Next
came three trumpeters ( tubicines , playing the tuba ), who were
CHApTeR 6: LIfe AS A GLADIATOR | 123
later to provide the music to accompany the events, and then a
platform ( ferculum) bearing two statues, carried by four bearers.
Next were figures carrying a plaque ( tabella) and a palm branch.
Then comes a man who is probably the editor, the person
responsible for mounting the games. He is followed by six more
men carrying the gladiators’ shields and helmets. Another man
is carrying something that looks like a bowl and he is followed
by another musician playing a lituus. Finally there are two men
leading horses. The gladiators themselves do not appear in the
relief, although they were obviously an important part of the
procession, particularly since, unhelmeted, their public would
be able to see them in all their glory. In Rome itself, pompae
would have been larger and more magnificent.
After the pompa came the main events. A pattern was
established for the games by the time of the Empire. The broad
outline was always the same: the morning would be devoted to
animal hunts, with a lunchtime interval generally consisting
of the execution of criminals, before the main event – the
gladiatorial matches – started.
The animal displays were first up in the morning and there
were three ways they could have been presented, any or all of
which might have been applied. By the Imperial period, crowds
had long ago grown bored with just seeing exotic animals
moping around and now needed some form of interaction,
and the bloodier the better. The first option might be to have
one type of animal pitted against another, such as lions against
elephants. A second was for bestiarii or venatores to be pitched
against them. Finally, there was what might be called execution
by wild animal (for those suffering damnatio ad bestias as it was
known), a fate traditionally associated with Christians, although
it was not exclusively reserved for them, nor is it thought to have
been as common as some supposed.
Although the philosopher (and tutor to Nero) Annaeus Seneca
is often cited as having been against the gladiatorial games in a
famous passage, he was in fact protesting about these lunchtime
executions, as is clear from the fact that those who had been
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condemned to the arena ( damnatio to ludum), unlike gladiators,
were unprotected:
By chance I attended a mid-day exhibition, expecting some fun,
wit, and relaxation – an exhibition at which men’s eyes have respite
from the slaughter of their fellow men. But it was quite the reverse.
The previous combats were the essence of compassion; but now all
the trifling is put aside and it is pure murder. The men have no
defensive armour. They are exposed to blows at all points, and no
one ever strikes in vain. Many persons prefer this programme to the
usual pairs and to the bouts ‘by request’. Of course they do; there
is no helmet or shield to deflect the weapon. What is the need of
defensive armour, or of skill? All these mean delaying death. In the
morning they throw men to the lions and the bears; at noon, they
throw them to the spectators. The spectators demand that the slayer
shall face the man who is to slay him in his turn; and they always
reserve the latest conqueror for another butchering. The outcome of
every fight is death, and the means are fire and sword. This sort of
thing goes on while the arena is empty. (Seneca, Moral Letters 7.3–4)
After these so-called meridionali, the gladiatorial component
of the show would be started off with a little light sparring
between men using practice weapons, to pique the interest of
the audience. This taster of things to come was known as the
prolusio or prelude. Before there could be any serious fighting,
however, there had to be an examination of the weaponry (a
process known as probatio armorum) to make sure the weaponry
( ferra acuta – literally, ‘sharp steel’) was acceptable.
The gladiatorial contests themselves thus occurred in the
afternoons and were normally confined to just one pair at a time.
There was a rule that the pair should be equally matched and not
of the same armatura (so thraex could not fight thraex, nor retiarius another of his kind), although there was an exception insofar as
eques was always matched against eques. There was a good reason
for this: any more than one pair at a time could actually detract
from the enjoyment of the audience, who prided themselves on
being able to judge the finer points of a match and most of whom
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would have been firm followers of some of the more famous
combatants from particular gladiatorial schools. To understand
why more than one pair was not a good idea, imagine being in the
audience at a giant football stadium with several games going on
at once. The exception to this was when teams were pitted against
each other, such as the occasion recorded by Suetonius:
Once a band of five retiarii in tunics, matched against the same
number of secutores, yielded without a struggle; but when their
death was ordered, one of them caught up his trident and slew all
the victors. Caligula bewailed this in a public proclamation as a
most cruel murder, and expressed his horror of those who had had
the heart to witness it. (Suetonius, Caligula 30.3)
Such team events might be billed as re-enactments of famous
battles. After the excitement (and death) of the morning hunt and
lunchtime interval executions, the first pair of gladiators would
enter the arena. These were usually equites, a pair of mounted
gladiators. Unless they already knew them, this was the audience’s
first chance to size them up. They would be hard task masters: they
would expect them to get on with it, for there not to be too much
running away and certainly no reluctance to actually engage in
combat. At the same time, nobody (except perhaps the occasional
gladiator) wanted to see it all over as fast as possible. It was, after all,
a contest, and th
e crowd would want to see a stylish, technical fight,
and the best of all would be one closely balanced. The pairings were
ultimately decided by the individual sponsoring the games (the
editor). Cicero, who was not averse to using the term ‘gladiator’ as
an insult, could understand the concept of a stylish performance
and would cheerfully employ it as a metaphor to make a point:
For as we see athletes, and in a similar manner gladiators, act
cautiously, neither avoiding nor aiming at anything with too much
vehemence, (for over-vehement motions can have no rule), so that
whatever they do in a manner advantageous for their contest, may
also have a graceful and pleasing appearance; in like manner oratory
does not strike a heavy blow, unless the aim was a well-directed one;
126 | GLADIATORS
nor does it avoid the attack of the adversary successfully, unless
even when turning aside the blow it is aware of what is becoming.
(Cicero, Orator 228)
At the crucial moment in the struggle between two opponents,
when one managed to land a telling blow, the crowd would
cry ‘ Habet! Hoc habet! ’ or ‘he’s had it!’. The victim, if still
capable, might then decide to appeal to the crowd for mercy by
dropping his shield and raising the forefinger of his right hand.
This is the gesture most commonly shown in contemporary
representations, rather than the famed thumb gesture. If the
contest was indecisive and both contestants were dismissed,
they were said to be stantes missum (‘dismissed standing’);
alternatively, they might pause for a break and then carry on.
Indeed, it was sometimes mandated that a fight should carry
on ad digitum, in other words until one or other contestant
pleaded for mercy. Depending upon how the crowd then
responded – and there were clearly many factors affecting such
a decision, such as loyalty, appreciation of both technique and
style and perhaps even whether they had got out of bed on
the wrong side that morning – with the famous pollice verso
(‘turned thumb’) gesture mentioned by Juvenal that is the very
quintessence of gladiatorial combat: thumbs up or down. Cries
of ‘ Iugulum!’ (‘kill him!’) from the onlookers might be matched
by appeals of ‘ Mitte! ’ (‘let him live!’).