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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.
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.
Throughout the Roman world, ceramics, lamps, gems and jewellery, mosaics, reliefs, wall paintings and statuary offer evidence, sometimes the best evidence, of the clothing, props, equipment, names, events, prevalence and rules of gladiatorial combat. 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. In the later Imperial era, Servius Maurus Honoratus uses the same disparaging term as Cicero—bustuarius—for gladiators.
The magistrate editor entered among a retinue who carried the arms and armour to be used; the gladiators presumably came in last. A procession (pompa) entered the arena, led by lictors who bore the fasces that signified the magistrate-editor’s power over life and death. The night before the munus, the gladiators were given a banquet and opportunity to order their personal and private affairs; Futrell notes its similarity to a ritualistic or sacramental “last meal”. Female gladiators probably submitted to the same regulations and training as their male counterparts. Other novelties introduced around this time included gladiators who fought from chariots or carts, or from horseback. In the mid-republican munus, each type seems to have fought against a similar or identical type.
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.
High status non-Romans, and possibly Romans too, volunteered as his gladiators. The gladiator munus lanista became a morally instructive form of historic enactment in which the only honourable option for the gladiator was to fight well, or else die well. Their Campanian allies stage a dinner entertainment using gladiators who may not be Samnites, but play the Samnite role. There is evidence of it in funeral rites during the Punic Wars of the 3rd century BC, and thereafter it rapidly became an essential feature of politics and social life in the Roman world. Irrespective of their origin, gladiators offered spectators an example of Rome’s martial ethics and, in fighting or dying well, they could inspire admiration and popular acclaim.
A match was won by the gladiator who overcame his opponent, or killed him outright. Suetonius describes an exceptional munus by Nero, in which no-one was killed, “not even noxii (enemies of the state).” At the opposite level of the profession, a gladiator reluctant to confront his opponent might be whipped, or goaded with hot irons, until he engaged through sheer desperation.
The event may also have been used to drum up more publicity for the imminent game. These were probably both family and public events which included even the noxii, sentenced to die in the arena the following day; and the damnati, who would have at least a slender chance of survival. As reward for these services, he drew a gigantic stipend from the public purse.
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.
The munus thus represented an essentially military, self-sacrificial ideal, taken to extreme fulfillment in the gladiator’s oath. Nero banned gladiator munera (though not the games) at Pompeii for ten years as punishment. Those judged less harshly might be condemned ad ludum venatorium or ad gladiatorium—combat with animals or gladiators—and armed as thought appropriate. In Roman law, anyone condemned to the arena or the gladiator schools (damnati ad ludum) was a servus poenae (slave of the penalty), and was considered to be under sentence of death unless manumitted. Part of Galen’s medical training was at a gladiator school in Pergamum where he saw (and would later criticise) the training, diet, and long-term health prospects of the gladiators. All prospective gladiators, whether volunteer or condemned, were bound to service by a sacred oath (sacramentum).