Roman Gladiatorial Combats

In her dream Perpetua sees herself as a naked male athlete fighting in a sort of pancratium, but this vision also reveals elements of Roman gladiatorial combats: the enormous man appears to her like a lanista (a gladiatorial trainer), her opponent has a sword, and after her victory she leaves through the Porta Sanavivaria, the Gate of Life, through which victorious gladiators left the arena.

The first gladiatorial spectacle was reportedly given in Rome in 264 bce, when three pairs of gladiators fought at the funeral of Decimus Iunius Brutus (Livy, Epit. 16). For the next 200 years until the end of the Republic the spectacle continued to be presented in Rome strictly in association with the funerals of great men, the military and political leaders of the city. Such a show became known as a munus (a ‘duty’; plural: munera). The funerary context is key to interpreting the social significance of the spectacles. The Greek historian Polybius (second century bce) attributed Rome’s stunning rise to world domination to her political and social institutions, including the aristocratic funeral.^[1008] The Roman aristocratic funeral celebrated not only the virtues and accomplishments of the deceased, which were primarily military, but also promoted the martial values that had made Rome great, that would sustain the Romans in the present crisis, and that would maintain them in the future by inspiring the youth in traditional Roman priorities. That the community also came together at a gladiatorial munus presented in connec­tion with the funeral is significant, for gladiators fighting hand to hand in single combat visibly demonstrated martial virtues key to a militaristic society like that of Rome. Writing during the last days of the Roman Republic, Cicero, for example, praises the courage, training and discipline of gladiators, even as he despises them for their low social status.

What blows the gladiators, who are either ruined men or barbarians, endure. How those who are well-trained prefer to take a blow rather than shamefully avoid it. How often is it apparent that they wish nothing more than to satisfy their masters or the spectators. Even when worn down with wounds they send messages to their masters asking what they want: if their masters are satisfied, they themselves are willing to give up. What even mediocre gladiator has ever groaned or changed his expression? Who has ever fought or given up disgracefully? Who, when defeated and ordered to receive the death blow, has ever retracted his neck? Such is the strength of their training, preparation, and habit. (Cic. Tusc. 2.41)

The munus thus united Romans in the presence of exemplary Roman martial virtues; the entire Roman community assembled around and focused on a demonstration of consummate skill in single combat, the extreme courage demanded of that combat, and strict discipline, all traditional values which might have helped to define what it meant to be a Roman.

By the late first century bce the number of gladiators involved in a typical munus had grown enormously, often reaching the hundreds. Because of the soaring costs and dangerous popularity that could accrue to the host of the show, the first emperor Augustus removed the munus from its strict funerary context and instead placed the games on a regular schedule, often in association with wild beast displays and hunts (venationes) in the morning and spectacular executions at noon, all followed at the end of the day by the gladiators. It is from about this time that the spectacle began to spread to communities all across the Roman Empire, from Britain to North Africa and east to Syria and the Greek world. In most cases, gladiatorial combats (and their related spectacles) were found in connection with the celebration of the imper­ial cult: the worship of the Roman emperors as gods. For example, the execution of Perpetua, with which we started, took place as part of a munus in the amphitheatre in Carthage in celebration of the emperor Geta's birthday.

The nature of gladiatorial combat may on the surface seem to have little in common with combat sports. After all, gladiators were from the lowest class, often slaves who fought under compulsion in murderous games for the entertainment of bloodthirsty spectators. But much recent scholarship has found that these traditional beliefs may be misleading, and that gladiatorial combats might have had closer parallels to combat sports than previously thought. We have few descriptions of actual combat, so such generalisations are difficult. The poet Martial celebrated the opening of the Flavian Amphitheatre in Rome (the Colosseum in 80 ce) with a little book of poems dedicated to the emperor, in which he described some of the amazing spectacles the crowd witnessed. One show saw two famous gladiators pitted against each other with an unusual outcome:

While Priscus continued to draw out the contest, and Verus did likewise, And for a long while the struggle was evenly balanced on both sides, Discharge (missio) was demanded for the stout fighters with loud and frequent shouting;

But Caesar (the emperor) obeyed his own law: The law was that

Once the palm had been set up, the fight had to proceed until a finger was raised.

He did as he was allowed, making frequent awards of plate.

Still, a resolution was found for the deadlocked contest:

Equal they fought, equal they yielded.

To both Caesar awarded the wooden sword and the palm:

Thus courage and skill received their reward.

This has happened under no emperor but you, Caesar:

Two men fought and two men won. (Martial, Spect. 31)^[1009]

Though the outcome (two victorious) was unparalleled, the combat itself and its circumstances reflect the general features of most gladiatorial matches. The first thing to note is the vocal, engaged role of the crowd. They are not passive spectators, nor are they even particularly bloodthirsty: they call out repeatedly for the missio (release) of the two gladiators.

In addition to supervising the submissions, these two referees (the summa and secunda rudes) also policed the combats in order to ensure that the gladiators fought according to the rules and expected standards of behaviour. It is difficult to know now what all these rules were, since our ancient literary sources say so little about them, but we know, for example, that forcing an opponent to the ground even by pushing him over was an acceptable way to force submission, whereas an accidental fall would invite intervention of the referee and a temporary stoppage.^{[1011] [1012]} Other conventions of the combats involved the distinct armament types into which gladiators were grouped: the heavily armed murmillones, secutores, Thracians and similar, all wore helmets that restricted their vision to various degrees even as they protected their heads, carried shields of different sizes, wore greaves on their shins (either one or both legs, depending on type) and carried the gladius, a short stabbing sword, though the Thracian had a short, curved sword called a sica.

Of course, combats were dangerous and fatality was always a real possi­bility, but the various rules (combats ad digitum and missio) reduced the chances of a gladiator dying in the arena. In addition to the official rules, however, many gladiators themselves seem to have followed an ‘unwritten code', to fight bravely and in the hope of victory, but not necessarily in order to kill their opponent. The tombstone of the gladiator with the mythical name Aias from Thasos in northern Greece provides an example.

I am not Locrian Aias whom you behold, nor the son of Telamon, but the one who was pleasing in the stadia in martial contests, who mightily saved many souls out from under necessity, myself expecting that someone would return the same to me. No opponent killed me, but I died on my own, and my revered wife buried me here in the holy plain of Thasos.

Other examples exist, particularly from the Greek world, where gladiatorial spectacles were part of the imperial cult festivities, as they were in most other parts of the empire. They may point to a high level of professionalism or camaraderie, but they also suggest that homicide was not necessarily the point of the combat, even if the fights were dangerous and death was always a possibility. The combats were certainly bloody and violent, but it was purposive violence. To defeat an opponent, to force him to yield and claim victory for oneself within the boundaries of established rules and expecta­tions, was an expression of extreme skill, martial prowess and discipline. These were values at the heart of Roman martial ideology.

Interestingly, the martial values on display in gladiatorial munera are similar to the ‘victory or death' ideology celebrated by Greek combat athletes. In fact, gladiators in the Greek world deliberately adopted athletic terminology to describe themselves, as their tombstones repeatedly show. They described their combats as ‘pugmai', boxing fights, and located their exploits in the stadium, the home of Greek athletics. Moreover, gladiators tended to draw on mythology for their performance names (like Aias above), strengthening the obvious parallels between their single combat (monoma­chia) and the single combat of Greek heroes. Indeed, the term ‘gladiator' was not borrowed into Greek, but instead the pre-existing term, monomachos, was used to identify the gladiators in Greek. But while Greek athletes express paramilitary, victory-or-death heroic values, gladiators lived it every time they fought. A gladiatorial epitaph from Gortyn on Crete makes their reality clear: ‘The olive is not the prize, but we fight for our lives.'^[1014] The gladiator thus presents himself as a paradigm of the Greek agonistic spirit.^[1015]

Gladiatorial spectacles across the empire were given by local elites for the entertainment oflocal people in the context of the celebration of the imperial cult, one of the highlights of the calendar year and perhaps the only religious institution that united the whole empire. An advertisement for such games offered at Odessos in 227 ce was inscribed in stone: it is as much a com­memoration of the games as it is an announcement of them, and states for whom the games were offered:

With good fortune! For the fortune and victory and eternal endurance of the most holy and great and unconquerable emperor Marcus Aurelius Severus Alexander, Pius, Felix Augustus and for the fortune of Julia Mamaea the Augusta and their whole house and for the sacred Senate and people of Rome and for the sacred armies and for the illustrious Lucius Mantennius Sabinus the military governor and for the council and people of Odessos... the chief priests of the city, Marcus Aurelius Simon, son of Simon, the councillor, and Marcus Aurelius Io— (the stone is damaged)... through hunts and gladiatorial combats (... a certain number of...) days before the Kalends of May (or March - the stone is damaged) in the consulship of Albinus and Maximus. (IGBulg. I² no. 70)

The spectacles were presented for benefit of the entire ruling structure of the empire, from the emperor at the top all the way down to the local commu­nity of Odessos. They thus helped to incorporate contemporary Greeks within the present reality of the Roman Empire, as local people gathered to watch spectacles of extreme violence. For the most part it is difficult to know what these spectators thought of the shows they were watching. Tertullian, a Christian apologist and contemporary of Perpetua from Roman North Africa, despaired over those fellow Christians who went to the games and acclaimed actors and athletes and gladiators with cries of ‘Heis ap' aionos!' (‘One for Eternity', or similar) from the same mouth with which they prayed to God (Tert. De spect. 25.5).^[1016] The acclamation of an athlete or gladiator as immortal was probably in reference not to his lifespan but to his memory, his fame and his reputation. In the same way heroes all died but their fame lived forever, so the people expected immortality for their heroes in the stadium or arena. The ideals are very much heroic.