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Gladiators: |Rise and Fall of
the Gladiators | The Gladiatorial shows
|Ancient Roman Gladiators | Training
| Gladiator fights | After
the Gladiatorial fights | Types of
Gladiator | More types and Classes of
Gladiator
| Commodus | Julius Caesar and the Gladiators | Christian martyrs and
the Colosseum | Gladiators,
Christians and Fish | Christians
against the Circus and Colosseum | End
of the Gladiators |
Slaves and criminals were often employed in gladiatorial bouts and in
some cases this was used as a form of capital punishment. To these we should add
a good number of voluntary "professionals" largely made up of
prisoners of war. There were also free citizens who were trying to pay off debts
or indeed even reckless upper-class men in search of a buzz and popular fame,
particularly with women. These free men were called "Auctorati"
and they had no need to be under the supervision of the trainer-jailer "Lanista".
A champion Gladiator could understandably become quite a heart-throb and be
known as "decus
puellarum" or "suspirium puellarum" (the sigh of the
girls). It would be quite common for these victorious Gladiator-playboys to
freshen up at the nearby fountain called the Meta Sudans where they could meet
and exchange words and phone numbers with their lady fans (figuratively
speaking).
The satirist Juvenal goes as far as suggesting that hitherto respectable women literally turned into the crazed fans of the ugliest gladiator and his "sword" in favour of their husbands and children. You could even buy clay figurines such as the one drawn left.
The more normal circumstance was that of the prisoner of war who had been
given the choice between slavery or a fixed term contract as a Gladiator.
Although dangerous the Gladiatorial option gave the captive an opportunity to
become free at the end of his contract and in the mean time to earn himself a
discrete sum of money. A famous but not so successful example of this was Spartacus. He led the Gladiators and the slaves who joined them in a massive
revolt, defeating various legions only to be betrayed by pirates in southern
Italy. Stranded in southern Italy he and his forces were eventually beaten and
crucified.
Read on about Commodus and Upper Class Gladiators....
Gladiators: |Rise and Fall of the Gladiators | The Gladiatorial shows |Ancient Roman Gladiators | Training | Gladiator fights | After the Gladiatorial fights | Types of Gladiator | More types and Classes of Gladiator | Commodus | Julius Caesar and the Gladiators | Christian martyrs and the Colosseum | Gladiators, Christians and Fish | Christians against the Circus and Colosseum | End of the Gladiators |
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"Ancient Roman Gladiators" was written by Giovanni Milani-Santarpia for www.mariamilani.com - Rome apartments