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    Gladiators

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      The most commonly believed version of the pollice verso gesture

      sees the thumbs-up to mean ‘let him live’ and thumbs down

      ‘kill him’. However, it has been suggested that the thumbs-up

      gesture (with phallic undertones) meant ‘kill him’ and the

      thumbs down implied ‘spare him’ (thumbs up not acquiring a

      positive meaning until comparatively recently). The outcome

      of the less-favourable version of the gesture is shown on relief

      sculpture and in mosaics, but who had made that decision?

      There is some evidence to suggest that it was up to the victor

      and that all the audience (and even the editor) could do was

      appeal to that individual’s generosity. Of course, an appeal for

      CHApTeR 6: LIfe AS A GLADIATOR | 127

      clemency from the emperor was probably not something one

      would overlook lightly.

      The lucky loser whom the crowd judged had fought well

      would enjoy missio and be allowed to live to fight another day.

      Those who were not so lucky faced execution by the victor.

      A relief from Lucus Feroniae (Italy) shows one Republican-

      period gladiator, sword blade resting on his right shoulder,

      finishing off another with his dagger. Another relief depicts

      a kneeling gladiator, his face concealed behind a shield

      apparently attached to his head, about to be executed by the

      man who had defeated him.

      Each contest was overseen by a summa rudis (‘top stick’) who

      acted like a referee in a modern boxing match. These individuals

      can be seen on depictions of gladiatorial combats wielding a long

      cane and, perhaps understandably, are most visible when one

      gladiator is down and appealing for mercy. He was supported by

      a deputy, the secunda rudis. It was up to the summa rudis at this

      point to ensure fair play and stop either of the contestants taking

      unfair advantage of the pause in proceedings. A tombstone from

      Amisus in Turkey records how a bent referee managed to turn

      a result and the victor, Diodorus, ended up dead as a result.

      The tombstone of summa rudis Publius Aelius from Pergamum

      records that he had honorary citizenship from a number of cities

      in the East – Abdera (Greece), Apros (Kermeyan in Turkey), Bizye

      (Vize in Turkey), Larisa (either in Greece or Turkey), Nicomedia

      (İzmit in Turkey), Perge (Turkey), Philippopolis (Plovdiv

      in Bulgaria), Thasos (Greece), Thessalonica (Thessaloniki in

      Greece) – suggesting that he was an itinerant umpire.

      If the umpire thought the gladiators were not trying hard

      enough, he might use his cane to encourage them to produce

      a better performance. He would doubtless have been sensitive

      to the mood of the crowd. Where there was a decisive winner,

      then they would be awarded a palm branch, a laurel crown and

      perhaps a purse of coins or other gifts as a sign of their victory

      from the editor of the games. Prize money was divided between

      128 | GLADIATORS

      Pompeii graffiti including a gladiator appealing (drawing by M. C. Bishop)

      the gladiator and his lanista: Marcus Aurelius set the amount for

      the gladiator at 25% of the purse if free, 20% if a slave.

      When the time came to leave, the crowd did so by means of

      the exits known as vomitoria. Although the word vomitorium

      is often thought to be a room where debauched Roman diners

      could shed what they had been eating earlier to make room for

      more, this is in fact a myth. Vomitoria were exits from arenas

      which were carefully designed so that they did not constrict a

      crowd in a hurry to leave a building.

      Career

      The hardest part of a gladiator’s career was making the move from

      an untried tiro (new recruit) to a man who had survived (and

      possibly even won) his first fight. Experienced gladiators were

      known as veterans ( veterani) and the number of their victories was

      CHApTeR 6: LIfe AS A GLADIATOR | 129

      Summa rudis on the Zliten mosaic (photo by Carole Raddato)

      recorded, since it is found associated with their names on both

      graffi ti and tombstones. Once a gladiator had started winning,

      beyond surviving, they could aspire to reaching the status of

      primus palus , ‘fi rst stake’, named after the stake against which they

      trained. Th e best gladiator in the school would be primus palus ,

      the next best secundus palus and so on. Th ere is evidence for at least

      four grades and inscriptions from the East suggest that there may

      have been up to eight levels. When viewed in the context of the

      legislation of AD 177 to limit the costs of games using the ranks

      of gladiators, this suggests that all gladiators within a school would

      thus have had a palus ranking, not just an elite few. Inherent in the

      system seems to have been the ability for any gladiator to work

      their way up through the hierarchy, although how many (or what

      proportion of) victories were necessary to achieve this is unclear.

      Whilst the ultimate goal of most gladiators was retirement,

      that does not mean that some of them at least did not enjoy what

      they did and look forward to a fi ght:

      Even among the gladiators of Caesar (the Emperor) there are some

      who complain grievously that they are not brought forward and

      matched, and they off er up prayers to God and address themselves

      to their superintendents intreating that they may fi ght. (Epictetus,

      Discourses 1.29.37)

      130 | GLADIATORS

      Gladiator with palm branch (photo by Carole Raddato)

      Collegia

      Like many groups in Roman society, gladiators organised

      themselves into trade guilds, even though they were only

      slaves, for the most part. It is generally assumed that collegia

      acted as burial clubs, but they probably acted as social clubs

      too. Elsewhere in Roman society, collegia organised feasts as a

      component of religious festivals and gladiatorial guilds may have

      helped organised the cena libera before a fight. Collegia were

      organised into decuriae (‘tens’) and, if they were big enough,

      centuriae (‘hundreds’) and headed by initiales (‘leaders’ or

      ‘founders’). An example was the collegium of Silvanus recorded

      on an inscription from Rome dating to AD 177 when Marcus

      Aurelius and Commodus were co-emperors:

      For Emperor Caesar Lucius Aurelius Commodus and Marcus

      Plautius Quintillus consuls, the initiales of the collegium of Silvanus

      CHApTeR 6: LIfe AS A GLADIATOR | 131

      Aurelianus, curatores Marcus Aurelius Hilarus, freedman of the

      emperor, and Coelius Magnus, cryptarius.

      decuria I

      Secundinus provocator beginner

      Borysthenes, thraex veteran

      Eleuther thraex beginner

      Clonius hoplomachus veteran

      Pirata masseur

      Callisthenes thraex veteran

      decuria III

      Zosimus essedarius veteran

      Barosus contraretiarius beginner

      Plution essedarius veteran

      Aemilianus contraretiarius newly

      Pertinax contraretiarius veteran

      arrived

      Carpophorus murmillo veteran

      Ulpius Euporas Proshodus contra-


      Crispinus murmillo veteran

      retiarius beginner

      Pardus provocator veteran

      Aurelius Felicianus (?civilian)

      Miletus murmillo veteran

      Aurelius Felix (?civilian)

      decuria II

      Zoilus civilian

      Vitulus murmillo veteran

      Flavius Marissus (?civilian)

      Demosthenes armguard-maker

      Flavius Sanctus (?civilian)

      Felicianus retiarius beginner

      Diodorus civilian

      Servandus retiarius beginner

      decuria IIII

      Iuvenis murmillo sword-maker

      Aprilis paegniarius

      Ripanus contraretiarius beginner

      Zosimus thraex sword-maker

      Silvanus contraretiarius beginner

      ( CIL VI, 631)

      The likely burial function of the collegium is reflected by the

      post of cryptarius, the man who looked after the burial plot. It

      is noticeable how all of the veterans were in the first decuria, the

      beginners in the second and assorted other statuses in the third

      and fourth decuriae. Likwise, there were sword- and armour-

      makers, as well as a masseur. Presumably, all of the gladiators

      in the collegium belonged to the same familia, but this is not

      stated. It is known that there was a collegium for summa rudes in

      Rome since a tombstone of one of its members, Publius Aelius,

      is known from Pergamum (Turkey).

      Retirement

      A gladiator who survived to retirement was awarded with

      freedom and the wooden sword or rudis, which was of course the

      132 | GLADIATORS

      Rudis from Saalburg (photo by C. Rusalen)

      very practice weapon with which they had trained. It is unclear

      whether this would have been an actual double-weight wooden

      sword, or whether it might in fact have been a symbolic replica,

      such as the slightly scaled-down wooden swords excavated from

      Carlisle (UK) and Saalburg (Germany). The wooden sica from

      the Roman fort at Oberaden mentioned above may have served

      a similar purpose for a thraex.

      A successful gladiator, who had in most cases been a slave,

      might receive their freedom, enabling them to set up in business

      or (certainly in the turbulent Late Republican period) perhaps get

      into the security trade, acting as a politician’s henchman. They

      might even aspire to the role of lanista and train other gladiators.

      Even after retirement, it might be possible to persuade a

      gladiator to fight again for a very special occasion. The Emperor

      Tiberius offered a massive fee of 100,000 sesterces to rudiarii

      (‘men who have received the rudis’) who would fight in a games

      in honour of his grandfather Drusus.

      Life, health and death

      Gladiators were expected to eat healthily as well as train in order

      to maintain peak fitness. Cyprian alludes to this in his Christian

      diatribe against the games:

      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. (Cyprian, Letter to Donatus 1.7)

      CHApTeR 6: LIfe AS A GLADIATOR | 133

      Paegnarius (‘play fi ghter’)

      • Armour: padded left arm

      • Special feature: whip or cane

      • Period: Imperial

      • Common opponent: paegnarius

      Analysis of the bones from the gladiator cemetery at Ephesus

      (Turkey) confi rms that they enjoyed a special diet and showed

      just how much it diff ered from that of the general population.

      Th ey apparently had a vegetarian diet (called sagina or ‘stuffi ng’),

      preferring carbohydrate over protein. Gladiators were indeed

      nicknamed hordearii (‘barley boys’) and Galen notes that they

      mainly ate bean soup and barley, sometimes served as a pudding,

      sometimes watered down as a drink. However, aside from leading

      to excessive fl atulence, barley and legumes could not provide

      everything they required for peak fi tness and Galen made eff orts to

      improve the diet of the gladiators under his charge at Pergamum.

      It has even been suggested that, to avoid calcium defi ciency,

      gladiators consumed a special concoction which scientists believe

      was made from the ashes of burnt plants. Th is would ensure that

      their calcium levels were not just maintained but markedly higher

      than that of the general population. It has been speculated that

      one eff ect of this diet may have been to increase the subcutaneous

      body fat of the combatants, making it possible for them to receive

      fairly impressive-looking wounds without it having too much

      direct impact on their ability to fi ght. Cicero repeatedly plays on

      the word ‘gladiator’ in his Th ird Philippic speech against Julius

      Caesar’s former right-hand man, Marc Antony, as a way of both

      sneering at his slightly thuggish physique and demeaning his

      status.

      134 | GLADIATORS

      One of the paradoxes of the Roman world was that, apart

      from the very wealthy, those whose lives were most at risk

      (such as soldiers and gladiators) had access to some of the

      best living conditions (relatively speaking) and the highest

      quality healthcare. The physician Galen, whose writings were

      highly influential upon medieval medicine, began work as the

      doctor ( medicus) for a gladiatorial school in Pergamum from

      AD 158 to 161 before becoming the personal physician of the

      Emperor Marcus Aurelius. He was clearly good at what he did,

      since his predecessor had lost 60 gladiators under his charge,

      whereas Galen only lost two. As he was treating the living and

      patching together the wounded, he was learning about anatomy,

      dissection of humans no longer being popular amongst the

      medical profession of his time.

      Galen described treating an eques who had suffered a nasty

      wound to his thigh (an occupational hazard for any mounted

      warrior) and how he went about stitching it back together.

      Learning on the job, Galen’s knowledge of drugs and how to

      use them slowly improved and he evidently diligently sought the

      correct treatments.

      Again, skeletal analysis of the remains of 68 individuals from the

      gladiator cemetery at Ephesus has proved extremely informative

      with regard to the injuries and wounds they received. Most of

      those wounds were to the head and usually fatal, although a

      diamond-shaped puncture wound resembling the cross-section

      of a gladius blade showed signs of healing, whilst the triple

      puncture characteristic of a retiarius’ trident was decidedly fatal.

      Others had been finished off with a blow to the head with a

      hammer, doubtless dealt by the figure dressed as Dis Pater or

      Charun. Some healed wounds to the head, it was suggested, may

      have resulted from over-vigorous training sessions.

      We even have a joint epitaph with a medical twist from one of

      the training schools in Rome:

      Claudius Agathocles, medicus of the emperor, physician at the

      Ludus M
    atutinus, made this for himself, Claudius the lanista of the

      CHApTeR 6: LIfe AS A GLADIATOR | 135

      emperor, Primitivus, keeper of the morgue, and Thelesphorus the

      retiarius, may the earth rest lightly upon you. ( CIL VI, 10171)

      Like everybody else in the Roman world, gladiators were usually

      concerned to make some sort of provision for a memorial once

      they were dead. At Ephesus, not only do many of the gladiators’

      tombstones survive, but there is also a gladiator cemetery

      which has been examined archaeologically. Scientific analysis of

      the bodies of some of the deceased has produced a wealth of

      extremely interesting information about the lives and deaths of

      the gladiators buried there.

      Accommodation

      True to the notion of the familia gladiatoria, gladiators usually

      lived together in some form of barracks. Various ludi in Rome

      and elsewhere with practice arenas and cells for accommodation

      have already been mentioned but two sets of gladiatorial

      accommodation are known from Pompeii. The first, which

      apparently dated back to the beginning of the Imperial period,

      was a peristyle courtyard structure in Regio V of the town known

      as the House of the Gladiators. Excavated at the end of the 19th

      century, it was found to include over 100 graffiti connected with

      gladiators, recording Thracians, murmillones, retiarii, equites and

      essedarii. However, it was badly damaged in the earthquake of

      AD 62 and the barracks was moved to the quadriporticus next

      to the Triangular Forum in Regio VIII, which was uncovered

      in the 18th century. There were rooms on two floors around

      the central courtyard, the lanista having rooms on the upper

      floor whilst the gladiator cells were at ground level. There was

      even a kitchen with mess hall for communal dining and, on its

      wall, somewhat enigmatically, was written the name of Lucius

      Annaeus Seneca, that critic of at least some aspects of the games.

      When the building was first excavated, the remains of eighteen

      individuals were found including, in one cell, the skeleton of a

      136 | GLADIATORS

      woman wearing jewellery, lying next to the remains of a man;

      this poignant scene has invited many different interpretations

      over the years. The barracks also produced a number of pieces of

      gladiatorial armour – including helmets, greaves, belts, daggers,

      a shield and a spear – as well as graffiti attesting to the presence

     


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