Ludi and munera were accompanied by music, played as interludes, or building to a “frenzied crescendo” during combats, perhaps to heighten the suspense during a gladiator’s appeal; blows may have been accompanied by trumpet-blasts. Referees were usually retired gladiators whose decisions, judgement and discretion were, for the most part, respected; they could stop bouts entirely, or pause them to allow the combatants rest, refreshment and a rub-down. Among the cognoscenti, bravado and skill in combat were esteemed over mere hacking and bloodshed; some gladiators made their careers and reputation from bloodless victories. Combats between experienced, well trained gladiators demonstrated a considerable degree of stagecraft.

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In 365, Valentinian I (r. 364–375) threatened to fine a judge who sentenced Christians to the arena and in 384 attempted, like most of his predecessors, to limit the expenses of gladiatora munera. For that reason we forbid those people to be gladiators who by reason of some criminal act were accustomed to deserve this condition and sentence. Still, emperors continued to subsidize the games as a matter of undiminished public interest. Between 108 and 109 AD, Trajan celebrated his Dacian victories using a reported 10,000 gladiators and 11,000 animals over 123 days. Gladiatorial games, usually linked with beast shows, spread throughout the republic and beyond. Caesar’s showmanship was unprecedented in scale and expense; he had staged a munus as memorial rather than funeral rite, eroding any practical or meaningful distinction between munus and ludi.

  • The Punic Wars of the late 3rd century BC—in particular the near-catastrophic defeat of Roman arms at Cannae—had long-lasting effects on the Republic, its citizen armies, and the development of the gladiatorial munera.
  • Roman military discipline was ferocious; severe enough to provoke mutiny, despite the consequences.
  • Many schools and amphitheatres were sited at or near military barracks, and some provincial army units owned gladiator troupes.
  • From across the stands, crowd and editor could assess each other’s character and temperament.
  • Some of the best preserved gladiator graffiti are from Pompeii and Herculaneum, in public areas including Pompeii’s Forum and amphitheater, and in the private residences of the upper, middle and lower classes.
  • Combats between experienced, well trained gladiators demonstrated a considerable degree of stagecraft.

Role in Roman life

Some gladiators were volunteers who risked their lives and their legal and social standing by appearing in the arena. You can contact us via Live Chat or by writing an email to Whether you love fast-paced video slots, classic table games, massive jackpots, or the thrill of live casino tables, Lanista Casino has something for every kind of player. Lanista Casino supports multiple payment methods including Visa, Mastercard, Bitcoin, Skrill, Neteller, and bank transfers. The casino features titles from industry-leading providers such as Pragmatic Play, NetEnt, Microgaming, and Evolution Gaming.
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 lanista 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.

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In 105 BC, the ruling consuls offered Rome its first taste of state-sponsored “barbarian combat” demonstrated by gladiators from Capua, as part of a training program for the military. They clearly show how gladiator munera pervaded Pompeiian culture; they provide information pertaining to particular gladiators, and sometimes include their names, status as slaves or freeborn volunteers, and their match records. Some of the best preserved gladiator graffiti are from Pompeii and Herculaneum, in public areas including Pompeii’s Forum and amphitheater, and in the private residences of the upper, middle and lower classes.

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  • The use of volunteers had a precedent in the Iberian munus of Scipio Africanus; but none of those had been paid.
  • A show of gladiators was to be exhibited before the people in the market-place, and most of the magistrates erected scaffolds round about, with an intention of letting them for advantage.
  • Ludi and munera were accompanied by music, played as interludes, or building to a “frenzied crescendo” during combats, perhaps to heighten the suspense during a gladiator’s appeal; blows may have been accompanied by trumpet-blasts.
  • Some “unfree” gladiators bequeathed money and personal property to wives and children, possibly via a sympathetic owner or familia; some had their own slaves and gave them their freedom.
  • The gladiator munus 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.
  • Ten years later, Scipio Africanus gave a commemorative munus in Iberia for his father and uncle, casualties in the Punic Wars.

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.
Claudius, characterised by his historians as morbidly cruel and boorish, fought a whale trapped in the harbor in front of a group of spectators. Caligula, Titus, Hadrian, Lucius Verus, Caracalla, Geta and Didius Julianus were all said to have performed in the arena, either in public or private, but risks to themselves were minimal. In 66 AD, Nero had Ethiopian women, men and children fight at a munus to impress the King Tiridates I of Armenia. Nero gave the gladiator Spiculus property and residence “equal to those of men who had celebrated triumphs.” For the poor, and for non-citizens, enrollment in a gladiator school offered a trade, regular food, housing of sorts and a fighting chance of fame and fortune.

One gladiator’s tomb dedication clearly states that her decisions are not to be trusted. A wealthy editor might commission artwork to celebrate a particularly successful or memorable show, and include named portraits of winners and losers in action; the Borghese Gladiator Mosaic is a notable example. The bodies of noxii, and possibly some damnati, were thrown into rivers or dumped unburied; Denial of funeral rites and memorial condemned the shade (manes) of the deceased to restless wandering upon the earth as a dreadful larva or lemur. Whether the corpse of such a gladiator could be redeemed from further ignominy by friends or familia is not known. Another, dressed as Mercury, tests for life-signs with a heated “wand”; once confirmed as dead, the body is dragged from the arena.

Gladiator

In the same century, an epigraph praises one of Ostia’s local elite as the first to “arm women” in the history of its games. From the 60s AD female gladiators appear as rare and “exotic markers of exceptionally lavish spectacle”. Tiberius offered several retired gladiators 100,000 sesterces each to return to the arena.