Gladiatorial games

“ In the Circus, before hundreds of thousands of spectators, nobles of ancient lineage competed in the chariot race. Gladiatorial games, which had first taken place at funerals, and in honor of deceased friends, acquired an almost incredible popularity. At the games instituted by Augustus, ten thousand men joined in these bloody combats. In the festivals under the auspices of Trajan, in A.D. 106, eleven thousand tame and wild animals were slain. Not satisfied with seeing pairs of men engage in mortal conflict, the Romans were eager to witness bloodshed on a larger scale. ”

“ They were defended on the ground that they fostered a martial spirit among the people and inured the soldier to the sights of the battle-field. Hence gladiatorial games were actually exhibited to the legions before they set out on their campaigns. Indeed, all classes appear to have viewed the matter in much the same light, and with exactly the same absence of moral disapprobation, that we ourselves regard the slaughter of animals for food. ”

“ The extinction of the gladiatorial spectacles is, of all the results of early Christian influence, that upon which the historian can look with the deepest and most unmingled satisfaction. Horrible as was the bloodshed they directly caused, these games were perhaps still more pernicious on account of the callousness of feeling they diffused through all classes, the fatal obstacle they presented to any general elevation of the standard of humanity. ”

“ Spread of gladiatorial exhibitions. The Romans carried gladiatorial exhibitions wherever their conquests extended. "The Teutonic regions of the North and Greece were almost the only provinces in which the bloody games were not popular. The one Greek town where the taste for them was fully developed was the mongrel city of Corinth, which was a Roman colony. In the novel of Apuleius we meet a high Corinthian magistrate traveling through Thessaly to collect the most famous gladiators for his shows. Plutarch urges public men to banish or to restrain these exhibitions in their cities. ”

“ Then, preceded by the pomp of lictors, interminable files of gladiators entered, while the eyes of the women lighted and glowed; artistic death was their chiefest joy, for there was no cowardice in the arena. The gladiators fought for applause, for liberty, for death—fought manfully, skillfully, terribly too, and received the point of the sword or the palm of victory with an equally unmoved expression, an unchanged face. ”

“ Lions and elephants tore each other in pieces before their eyes; and they beheld, with emotions only of delight, crowds of hireling gladiators wasting their energy, valour, and life, on the guilty arena of a Circus. Gladiatorial combats were first exhibited by Decius and Marcus Brutus, at the funeral of their father, about the commencement of the Punic wars. The number of such entertainments increased with the luxury of the times; and those who courted popular favour found no readier way to gain it than by magnificence and novelty in this species of expense. ”

“ The number of the gladiators had gone on increasing; as the rage for them among the Romans had daily become greater, and such games were the surest means by which the men of rank could make themselves popular. ”

“ For centuries the wholesale murders of the gladiatorial shows had lasted through the Roman empire. Human beings, in the prime of youth and health, captives or slaves, condemned malefactors, and even free-born men, who hired themselves out to death, had been trained to destroy each other in the amphitheatre for the amusement, not merely of the Roman mob, but of the Roman ladies. Thousands, sometimes in a single day, had been
"Butchered to make a Roman holiday."
The training of gladiators had become a science. ”

“ For it was so, and all in our ragged, fierce group would no doubt be forced to fight and slay one another to amuse the indolent spectators at the tables, as the gladiators of ancient Rome had struck each other down in the great games. And what of myself?
There was a sudden great shout from the tables, and I turned my attention back to the struggle at the center of the floor. The Arab's blade had darted past his opponent's shield and had wounded the latter in the shoulder with a flashing down-stroke. But the leather-clad giant was not beaten. ”

“ We can mark, or rather we can believe when we are pointed to, the places where the nobles sat to see the games of blood in the arena of the amphitheatre, the dungeons of the wild beasts are laid open, and the chambers where gladiators stripped for the fight, that gladdened the hearts of men and women two thousand years ago. Yet they were quite as rational and refined, quite as Christianable and decent, as the bull-fights of to-day. ”

“ But after the sword dance came the arraying of swordsmen, with no blunted weapons, but with sharp spears and swords—a gladiator combat in full earnest. The people, enchanted, applauded with shouts of ecstasy this gratification of their savage tastes. Suddenly, however, there was an interruption. A rude, roughly robed man, bareheaded and barefooted, had sprung into the arena, and, signing back the gladiators, began to call aloud upon the people to cease from the shedding of innocent blood, and not to requite God's mercy in turning away the sword of the enemy by encouraging murder. ”

“ THE REVOLT OF THE GLADIATORS.
At the beginning of the first Punic War, or war with Carthage, a new form of entertainment was introduced into Rome. This was the gladiatorial show, the fights of armed men in the arena, the first of which was given in the year 264 B.C., at the funeral of D. Junius Brutus. These exhibitions were long confined to funeral occasions, money being frequently left for this purpose in wills, but they gradually extended to other occasions, and finally became the choice amusement of the brutal Roman mob. ”

“ The portico behind the large theater was remodelled in Nero’s reign to make a barracks for gladiators, complete with armory and lock-up, where three of them were found asphyxiated in the stocks. The amphitheater has seats for 20,000. Legends scrawled on its walls, and on house-walls all over town, testify to the gladiators’ popularity with their fans: gladiatorial records are registered (twenty-four fights, twenty-four victories; the losers most often are murdered and forgotten) , and one champion is recorded as SVSPIRIVM PVELLARVM, the one the girls sigh for.
202 ”

“ An almost inordinate proportion relate to the now popular gladiatorial shows, and many others deal with the events of the circus and arena. Of gladiatorial subjects there are three principal varieties, which occur again and again on lamps of all shapes and periods with little alteration. [2955] One class represents a single gladiator in the characteristic armour, with visored helmet, greaves, and arm-guards, sword and shield [2956] ; the next represents a combat of two (Plate LXV. fig. 5) , in which the one is usually worsted and falls at the other’s feet, his shield on the ground beside him. ”

“ These bills gave the names of the chief pairs of competitors, the date of the show, the name of the giver and the different kinds of combats. The spectacle began with a procession of the gladiators through the arena, after which their swords were examined by the giver of the show. The proceedings opened with a sham fight (praelusio, prolusio) with wooden swords and javelins. The signal for real fighting was given by the sound of the trumpet, those who showed fear being driven on to the arena with whips and red-hot irons. ”

“ Privileged persons would even descend into the arena, examine the death agonies, and taste the blood of some specially brave victim ere the corpse was drawn forth at the death gate, that the frightful game might continue undisturbed and unencumbered. Gladiator shows were the great passion of Rome, and popular favor could hardly be gained except by ministering to it. Even when the barbarians were beginning to close in on the Empire, hosts of brave men were still kept for this slavish mimic warfare—sport to the beholders, but sad earnest to the actors. ”

“ The gladiators entered on one side of the arena and the wild beasts on the other, and probably the same rule prevailed when gladiator was to contend with gladiator. Here man fought his fellow-man, or with the fierce wild beast, to pamper the cruel appetite for blood. Strange feelings of awe and grandeur are excited by seeing the vast space which was so often filled with human beings, and one’s mind runs wild with excitement when he sees in imagination, the lion’s eye glancing at the grating until he was enlarged to spring upon his victim. ”

“ There was every different mode of combat known in the arena, and of these the most deadly were sure to find the most favor.
Again were the ever-recurring scenes of blood and agony presented; the fierce champion of the day received the short-lived congratulations of the fickle spectators. Again man fought with man, or waged a fiercer contest with the tiger. Again the wounded gladiator looked up despairingly for mercy, but received only the signal of death from the pitiless spectators.
The satiated appetites of the multitude now demanded a larger supply of slaughter. ”

“ The years go on, and human blood alone can satisfy the cruel thirst of the Romans. Over the seats and benches, now mouldering ruins, you see a mighty populace swarming. In the vast arena, where your modern foot, clad in a buttoned kid boot, now stands, thousands of gladiators, their huge muscles standing out like iron bars, fight, and dye the ground{179} with their gore. The fiercest beasts stand at bay, with trembling captured slaves, and the nobles and the people—ay, even the women—shriek with delight as quivering flesh is torn, and the life-blood of man and brute spirts out in crimson jets. ”

“ Men recruited mainly from slaves and criminals, whose lives hung on a thread, must have been more dangerous characters than modern galley slaves or convicts; and, though highly fed and carefully tended, they were of necessity subject to an iron discipline. In the school of gladiators discovered at Pompeii, of the sixty-three skeletons buried in the cells many were in irons. But hard as was the gladiators’ lot,—so hard that special precautions had to be taken to prevent suicide,—it had its consolations. A successful gladiator enjoyed far greater fame than any modern prize-fighter or athlete. ”

“ How much better, then, is it for me to remain ignorant of the punishment inflicted on the wicked, lest I am obliged to know also of the good coming to untimely ends—if I may speak of goodness in the case at all! At any rate, gladiators not chargeable with crime are offered in sale for the games, that they may become the victims of the public pleasure. ”

“ The heroic gladiator advances to his fate.
The forest king awaits him with a fiery eye,
And again is repeated that most awful cry;
And with a malignant, prodigious leap and bound
He hurls his deadly charge, but the foe is not found:
For the brave gladiator springs lightly aside,
And on his speaking face beams confidence and pride;
And again he avoids the lion’s ruthless might,
And like streaming lightning flashes in the light{184}
His Roman sword, that stills that savage roar,
And the dread forest king sinks lifeless to the floor;
And the gladiator bows ’mid thunders of applause. ”

“ Under a spacious archway, supported by marble pillars, wide folding-doors are flung open, and two by two, with stately step and slow, march in the gladiators, armed with the different weapons of their deadly trade. Four hundred men are they, in all the pride of perfect strength and symmetry, and high training, and practised skill. With [pg 148] head erect and haughty bearing, they defile once round the arena, as though to give the spectators an opportunity of closely scanning their appearance, and halt with military precision to range themselves in line under Cæsar’s throne. ”

“ So far were gladiatorial combats from being one of the hardships imposed by slavery, that we have repeated references in the early Imperial period to the misconduct of Roman knights, and even Senators, who exhibited themselves in the arena. A skilled gladiator risked his life, as does a skilled toreador, and he enjoyed the same measure of popular favour; there were statues of gladiators as well as of schoolmasters.
The tendency of the Empire was to break down the barriers between the free man and the slave ”

“ One may imagine the frantic excess to which the taste for gladiatorial combats was carried in Rome, from the preventive law of Augustus that gladiators should no more combat without permission of the senate; that prætors should not give these spectacles more than twice a year; that more than sixty couples should not engage at the same time; and that neither knights nor senators should ever contend in the arena. The gladiators were classified according to the national manner of fighting which they imitated. Thus were distinguished the Gothic, Dacian, Thracian, and Samnite combatants ”

“ The cestus of the Roman gladiators was even more terrible than that of the Greeks. In Greece the end desired was skill and courage and strength; in Rome the desire was for death. The death of an antagonist, unless by accident, was severely punished in Greece; but in Rome the sooner the gladiator killed his man the better. ”

“ He would leave his home, neglect his business, forfeit his bath, to sit for hours on the benches of the amphitheatre, exposed to heat and crowding, and every sort of inconvenience, and would bring his food with him rather than run the risk of losing his place. And all this to see trained gladiators shedding each other’s blood, wild beasts tearing foreign captives limb from limb, and imitation battles which differed in no respect from real, save that the wounded were not spared, and the slaughter consequently far greater in proportion to the number of combatants engaged. ”