Invisible Romans (42 page)

OF ALL ORDINARY ROMANS
, gladiators probably have the highest profile in the modern imagination. Their representation in ancient settings, as well as in later mythical, metaphorical and artistic incarnations, intrigues and excites. But like other ordinary folk, the men (and a few women) who became gladiators lived real lives. Those lives, focused on the arena as a venue for one of the most popular entertainments in the Romano-Grecian world, were hardly typical. But balanced between glory and the finality of death, they made their way.

The arena was, as its name implies, a sandy surface. It could be in a gigantic edifice like the Colosseum at Rome, or in one of the very many more modest amphitheaters scattered around the empire, or in a converted theater, or even in a town plaza blocked off temporarily for a local event. Gladiators were trained entertainers who fought with swords and other weapons in pairs (except in very rare cases) in the arena for the entertainment of a crowd. But before discussing these gladiators in detail, it is important to identify carefully the demographics of the arena. In particular, it is important to separate the arena as an execution venue from the arena as a contest venue. Romano-Greeks firmly believed in the necessity and efficacy of painful, brutal death for those ordinary people condemned for serious antisocial behavior such as murder. Thus crucifixion, burning alive, and condemnation to be torn to pieces by wild beasts or killed by fellow prisoners featured strongly
in their capital-punishment universe. In these cases the combination of spectacle meant to deter others and the reestablishment of social order by brutalizing those who had brutalized that order appealed very strongly to their sense of justice and order. Executions in the arena typically took place at the ‘noon break’ between wild-beast hunts in the morning and gladiators in the afternoon; they were advertised as part of a normal event, as this painted notice from Pompeii demonstrates:

Twenty pairings of gladiators and their back-ups will fight at Cumae on October 5th and 6th. There will also be crucifixions and a wild-beast hunt. (
CIL
4.9983a)

They involved a completely different group of people – condemned criminals – and they were not in any way a ‘contest’ or a ‘sport,’ as the other two events could at least be presented as being. Criminals were sometimes executed outright, as when beasts were set upon tied-up victims, sometimes as faux gladiators or wild-beast hunters, sent into the arena to fight each other or beasts without training and without protective armor. Also, on occasion a criminal might be condemned to a gladiatorial school, in which case, after training, he would perform in the afternoon, with the same chance of survival as any other gladiator. If he lived through three years of fighting and two more of service in the school, he was freed. But in discussing gladiators it is important to remove criminals from our imaginations; their circumstances, prospects, and fates were altogether different.

In fact, gladiators were drawn from two groups: slaves and free volunteers. A slave, as the possession of another, had no choice about becoming a gladiator. There were two motivations for the slave owner: retribution and gain. The owner might wish to get rid of a misbehaving slave, and sell him to a gladiatorial agent. He also might wish to take advantage of the special physical condition and abilities of a slave, and sell him to be trained for the arena. Volunteers, on the other hand, freely contracted themselves to become gladiators. A Pompeiian graffito gives an example:

Severus, a freeborn man, has fought 13 times. ‘Lefty’ Albanus, also freeborn, fought 19 times – and beat Severus! (
CIL
4.8056)

Putting oneself under contract –
auctoratus
was the Latin term – was a legal transaction in which the volunteer received a signing bonus and the prospect of prize money if successful, and in return agreed to be trained and to fight. Quite specifically, he swore he would give up his rights to protection under the law, promising to allow himself to ‘be burned, chained, beaten, or killed’ in his contracted position. This is not, however, reduction to slavery. The closest (although still imperfect) equivalent is joining the army, where enlistment is also for a specified time, legal rights are given up, and an oath is taken which includes a promise to die for the emperor. Petronius replicates the gladiatorial enlistment oath in his novel. In order to trick the sympathy of possible patrons, the anti-hero Eumolpus offers a plan:

‘Make me your master, if my idea pleases,’ Eumolpus said. No one dared criticize the suggested artifice. And so, in order that the falsehood remain safe among us all, we took an oath to obey Eumolpus. We swore ‘to be burned, bound, beaten, and slain by the sword’ – as well as whatever else Eumolpus might order. Just like
real
gladiators, we pledged ourselves body and soul to our new master. (
Satyricon
117.5)

The gladiator volunteer’s contract was for a specified time and although the contractee agreed to very severe terms, presumably he would be released if the contractor failed to live up to his side of the bargain, especially in the matter of the signing bonus and pay for appearances.

The relative proportion of slaves and volunteers in gladiatorial events is unknown. In the few and mutilated lists of gladiators that survive, there seems to be a preponderance of slaves, although both slave and free figure in all lists. Most epitaphs are of free or freed men, but these gravestones must represent only a small portion of all the gladiators who fought. Furthermore, it is more likely that free or freed fighters would have the resources and relationships necessary to have a monument set up. Free gladiators in general were thought to be better fighters than slave, because they had entered voluntarily into the profession. But that does not mean that they outnumbered slaves in the arena. In the end, the proportion is simply unknowable.

Some women became gladiators. A relief from Halicarnassus
(Turkey) shows two, ‘Amazon’ and ‘Achillia,’ fighting each other; it is now in the British Museum. The inscription states that they fought to an honorable draw, so presumably they fought again. Elite literature mentions a number of times the disgrace of noblewomen fighting in the arena, and of shows put on by emperors featuring women (and dwarfs). An inscription from Ostia boasts of fielding ordinary women:

Hostilianus, Head Town Councilor, Treasurer, and Chief Priest of Ostia, put on the Youth Games by decree of the town council. He was the first from the very founding of the city to put on gladiatorial games featuring women. He did this together with his wife Sabina. (
CIL
14.5381)

Such displays always remained a rarity, however. No woman gladiator memorializes herself in a gravestone inscription. Nothing is known about these entertainers or their lives.

There were many players in the creation, organization, management, and provision of gladiators. The
lanistae
were the most infamous. These men acquired, trained, and rented out gladiators. However, individuals and groups (priests, associations) also played a role in the industry, as did, on a very large scale, the imperial government. In all cases, the gladiators had to be housed, fed, prepared, treated if sick or injured, and leased out for fights. They represented a significant, ongoing investment, and an elaborate business.

A slave who was chosen by his master to be trained as a gladiator, of course, had no choice in the matter. But the volunteer certainly did. While the elite’s rhetoric stigmatized free men who chose the gladiator’s profession by claiming that they were degenerates, bankrupts, desperate men driven to desperate choices, the persistence of the rhetoric and even of official and legal attempts to discourage or even to prevent volunteers shows the strong pull of the arena for both men and the occasional woman as well. And, of course, the elite concern was only for those of their own class. If men and women from a cultural background of superiority found the arena nonetheless appealing even though emerging onto the sand brought the opprobrium of their peers, what must the pull have been for ordinary people who stood to win all the glory and gain, while leaving their previous life behind them entailed only a modest loss in
rights, and a gain in prestige? The risk was great, that could not be denied. If the training regimen went well and a man escaped the normal life-threatening experiences of disease and accident, there was a one in ten chance of dying in the first bout, assuming he was pitted against another tiro. If a person survived, his chances in a second round were probably not any better. However, if he managed to fight through, his chances improved just as his prizes and glory did. And even if he were a slave forced into gladiatorial work, the same calculus was at work in motivating him. The basic premise was that a slave who served his master well at least had some chance of freedom; this would play out in the arena as well as in other aspects of a slave’s life. In winning, a gladiator gained a purse which (allowing for all the potential risks of the
peculium)
he hoped could be accumulated to buy his freedom. The living conditions in gladiatorial slavery were better than field work, certainly, and perhaps equaled those of favored household slaves, for the investment in a slave gladiator was great. In the case of a volunteer there was no initial cost beyond the signing bonus, whereas with a slave the manager had to recoup not only the cost of training and maintenance, but that of acquisition. He had every reason to keep the slave gladiator not just alive but healthy and, ideally, committed to his role in the arena, for a willing slave gladiator was like a volunteer: much more likely to prevail, or at least put up a good fight and so enhance the manager’s reputation and the prices he could command for future leases for future games. The promise of freedom was the best motivation – and the fact that freed slave gladiators continued as volunteer fighters shows that for some, at least, the career was not merely from compulsion but freely worth the risks.

29. Female gladiators. Although quite uncommon, women did fight. Here two, Achillia and Amazon, fight to an honorable draw on a relief from Halicarnassus in Asia Minor.

It is not surprising that freeborn ordinary young men, presumably healthy and strong, volunteered for the gladiator’s life. This career offered opportunities that no other did. By being a gladiator, a person succeeded in the recognition game that emphasized the importance of the ego-individual. The hierarchical Romano-Greek social structure meant that it was very difficult to jump the status queue either in wealth or social standing. As a gladiator, however, a young man possessed currency valued by all levels of society: excellence in courage, physical prowess and skill (especially at weapons), and perseverance. By showing himself to be ‘manliness-positive’ he could propel himself to heights of social adoration, for outstanding manliness (what Romans called
virtus)
trumped even money and birth and education when it came to gaining awe. From the elite standpoint, this fact explains at least some of the anxiety felt about gladiators – they gained a position of renown and recognition that could outshine the elites.’ Not that the young man contemplating a gladiatorial career would care about such things. What he cared about was that he had not only a guarantee of being fed and housed, and of earning money on a regular basis, but the possibility of recognition, of becoming a star:

Men train and exert themselves for the worldly contest and think it their honor’s glorious day if they win through with the people looking on and the emperor himself present. (Cyprian,
Letter
58.8)

Gladiators’ epitaphs often stress their fixation on glory: ‘I am famous among men fighting with arms’; ‘I did not lack for fame among all men’
(Robert, nos. 69 and 260). They gloried in their strength, skill, daring, and victory over all rivals. They knew the appeal such glory had. It did not escape actual and potential fighters that, as Tertullian remarks (
On Spectacles
22), ‘men surrender their minds and spirit – and the women! –
they
give up their very bodies as well’ to gladiators.

The feeling of self-importance, enhanced especially by the pomp and circumstance surrounding the pageantry of the fights in the arena, fed this very natural desire for fame. The day before a fight there was a parade of the men who were to perform. Their enthusiasm and good looks were enough to inspire others, as they did the friends Lucian features in his tale
Toxaris:

The next morning, while walking about the marketplace he saw a sort of procession of high-spirited, handsome young men. These had been enrolled to fight duels for hire and were to settle their combats on the next day but one. (
Toxaris
59/Harmon)

The friend is inspired to try to earn money in this way, and signs up. While that was not a very likely scenario – gladiators were trained fighters, not picked up from the street – the inspiration of the men parading through the marketplace before a gladiatorial display certainly was. The day after this procession, the combatants reclined on couches – not the usual stools at table – and ate a ceremonial meal together, the
cena libera,
literally the ‘unrestricted meal,’ meaning they could eat anything they wanted, breaking from their usual training regimen. Indeed, the whole day was a release from rules and regulations, culminating in the feast. Not all gladiators were so blasé about the dangers that awaited them in a few hours that they simply enjoyed the excess of the day of liberation; rather, they took thought for their family and possessions: