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    Gladiators

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      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

      CHApTeR 6: LIfe AS A GLADIATOR | 119

      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

      120 | GLADIATORS

      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

      at Ephesus. The average height of the men examined was in the

      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.

      CHApTeR 6: LIfe AS A GLADIATOR | 121

      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

      122 | GLADIATORS

      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

      124 | GLADIATORS

      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

      CHApTeR 6: LIfe AS A GLADIATOR | 125

      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!’).

     


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