Editing Gladiator (section)

==Role in Roman life==
It is not known how many ''gladiatoria munera'' were given throughout the Roman period. Many, if not most, involved ''venationes'', and in the later empire some may have been only that. In 165 BC, at least one ''munus'' was held during April's [[Megalesia]]. In the early imperial era, ''munera'' in Pompeii and neighbouring towns were dispersed from March through November. They included a provincial magnate's five-day ''munus'' of thirty pairs, plus beast hunts.<ref>[[Alison E. Cooley]] and M. G. L. Cooley, ''Pompeii, A Sourcebook'', Routledge, 2004, p. 218.</ref> A single late primary source, the ''Calendar of Furius Dionysius Philocalus'' for 354, shows how seldom gladiators featured among a multitude of official festivals. Of the 176 days reserved for spectacles of various kinds, 102 were for theatrical shows, 64 for [[chariot race]]s and just 10 in December for gladiator games and ''venationes''. A century before this, the emperor [[Alexander Severus]] (r. 222–235) may have intended a more even redistribution of ''munera'' throughout the year; but this would have broken with what had become the traditional positioning of the major gladiator games, at the year's ending. As Wiedemann points out, December was also the month for the Saturnalia, [[Saturn (mythology)|Saturn's]] festival, in which death was linked to renewal, and the lowest were honoured as the highest.<ref>{{harvnb|Wiedemann|1992|pp=11–12}}.</ref>

===Role in the military===
According to [[Livy]]: "A man who knows how to conquer in war is a man who knows how to arrange a banquet and put on a show."<ref>Livy, 45.32–33.</ref>

Rome was essentially a landowning military aristocracy. From the early days of the Republic, ten years of military service were a citizen's duty and a prerequisite for election to public office. ''[[Devotio]]'' (willingness to sacrifice one's life to the greater good) was central to the Roman military ideal, and was the core of the Roman military oath. It applied from highest to lowest alike in the chain of command.<ref>{{harvnb|Kyle|1998|p=81}}. It was notably fulfilled and celebrated in the battlefield ''devotio'' of two consular [[:Category:Decii|Decii]]; firstly by [[Publius Decius Mus (340 BC)|the father]] and later by his [[Publius Decius Mus (312 BC)|son]].</ref> As a soldier committed his life (voluntarily, at least in theory) to the greater cause of Rome's victory, he was not expected to survive defeat.<ref>{{harvnb|Edwards|2007|pp=19–45}}; Livy, 22.51.5–8, has wounded Romans at Cannae stretch out their necks for the death blow by comrades: ''cf'' Cicero's death in Seneca's ''Suasoriae'', 6.17.</ref>

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''. In the aftermath of Cannae, Scipio Africanus crucified Roman deserters and had non-Roman deserters thrown to the beasts.<ref>{{harvnb|Welch|2007|p=17}}.</ref> The Senate refused to ransom Hannibal's Roman captives: instead, they consulted the [[Sibylline books]], then made drastic preparations:

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In obedience to the Books of Destiny, some strange and unusual sacrifices were made, human sacrifices amongst them. A Gaulish man and a Gaulish woman and a Greek man and a Greek woman were buried alive under the Forum Boarium&nbsp;... They were lowered into a stone vault, which had on a previous occasion also been polluted by human victims, a practice most repulsive to Roman feelings. When the gods were believed to be duly propitiated&nbsp;... Armour, weapons, and other things of the kind were ordered to be in readiness, and the ancient spoils gathered from the enemy were taken down from the temples and colonnades. The dearth of freemen necessitated a new kind of enlistment; 8,000 sturdy youths from amongst the slaves were armed at the public cost, after they had each been asked whether they were willing to serve or no. These soldiers were preferred, as there would be an opportunity of ransoming them when taken prisoners at a lower price.<ref>Livy, 22.55–57.</ref>
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[[File:Kourion10.jpg|thumb|190px|Late 3rd century gladiator mosaic from a private residence in [[Kourion]], [[Cyprus]]. All the participants are named. The central figure (Darios) is positioned as a referee but wears a citizen's high-status [[Toga#Varieties|toga or tunic with broad stripes]]]]
The account notes, uncomfortably, the bloodless human sacrifices performed to help turn the tide of the war in Rome's favour. While the Senate mustered their willing slaves, Hannibal offered his dishonoured Roman captives a chance for honourable death, in what Livy describes as something very like the Roman ''munus''. The ''munus'' thus represented an essentially military, self-sacrificial ideal, taken to extreme fulfillment in the gladiator's oath.<ref name="autogenerated2" /> By the ''devotio'' of a voluntary oath, a slave might achieve the quality of a Roman (''[[Romanitas]]''), become the embodiment of true ''virtus'' (manliness, or manly virtue), and paradoxically, be granted ''missio'' while remaining a slave.<ref name="autogenerated1" /> The gladiator as a specialist fighter, and the ethos and organization of the gladiator schools, would inform the development of the Roman military as the most effective force of its time.<ref>{{harvnb|Barton|1993|p=15}}; {{harvnb|Kyle|2007|p=274}}.</ref> Following defeat at the [[Battle of Arausio]] in 105 BC:

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...weapons training was given to soldiers by P. Rutilius, consul with C. Mallis. For he, following the example of no previous general, with teachers summoned from the gladiatorial training school of C. Aurelus Scaurus, implanted in the legions a more sophisticated method of avoiding and dealing a blow and mixed bravery with skill and skill back again with virtue so that skill became stronger by bravery's passion and passion became more wary with the knowledge of this art.<ref name="ReferenceA" />
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The military were great aficionados of the games, and supervised the schools. Many schools and amphitheatres were sited at or near military barracks, and some [[Roman province|provincial]] army units owned gladiator troupes.<ref>{{harvnb|Wiedemann|1992|p=45}}.</ref> As the Republic wore on, the term of military service increased from ten to the sixteen years formalised by Augustus in the Principate. It would rise to twenty, and later, to twenty-five years. Roman military discipline was ferocious; severe enough to provoke mutiny, despite the consequences. A career as a volunteer gladiator may have seemed an attractive option for some.<ref>{{harvnb|Mattern|2002|pp=126–128}}. Mattern is citing Tacitus's ''Annals'', 1.17.</ref>

In AD 69, the [[Year of the Four Emperors]], [[Otho]]'s troops at [[Bedriacum]] included 2000 gladiators. Opposite him on the field, [[Vitellius]]'s army was swollen by levies of slaves, plebs and gladiators.<ref>{{harvnb|Mattern|2002|p=87}}. Mattern is citing Cassius Dio, 72, 73.2.3.</ref> In 167 AD, troop depletions by plague and desertion may have prompted Marcus Aurelius to draft gladiators at his own expense.<ref>{{harvnb|Mattern|2002|p=87}}.</ref> During the Civil Wars that led to the Principate, Octavian (later Augustus) acquired the personal gladiator troop of his erstwhile opponent, Mark Antony. They had served their late master with exemplary loyalty but thereafter, they disappear from the record.<ref name="Futrell, 129: citing Dio" />

===Religion, ethics and sentiment===
Roman writing as a whole demonstrates a deep ambivalence towards the ''gladiatoria munera''. Even the most complex and sophisticated ''munera'' of the Imperial era evoked the ancient, ancestral ''dii manes'' of the underworld and were framed by the protective, lawful rites of ''sacrificium''. Their popularity made their co-option by the state inevitable; [[Cicero]] acknowledged their sponsorship as a political imperative.<ref>{{harvnb|Futrell|2006|p=16}}. Futrell is citing Cicero's ''Letters to Friends'', 2.3.</ref> Despite the popular adulation of gladiators, they were set apart, despised; and despite Cicero's contempt for the mob, he shared their admiration: "Even when [gladiators] have been felled, let alone when they are standing and fighting, they never disgrace themselves. And suppose a gladiator has been brought to the ground, when do you ever see one twist his neck away after he has been ordered to extend it for the death blow?" His own death would later emulate this example.<ref>Cicero's admiration: ''Tusculan Disputations'', 2.41.</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Barton|1993|p=39}}. Barton is citing Seneca's ''Suasoriae'', 6.17 for Cicero's death.</ref> Yet, Cicero could also refer to his popularist opponent [[Publius Clodius Pulcher|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. "Gladiator" could be (and was) used as an insult throughout the Roman period, and "Samnite" doubled the insult, despite the popularity of the Samnite type.<ref>{{harvnb|Kyle|2007|p=273}}. For ''bustuarius'', with reference to Clodius's alleged impious disturbance at the funeral of [[Gaius Marius|Marius]], see Cicero's ''In Pisonem'' (Against Piso). See {{harvnb|Bagnani|1956|p=26}}, for the bustuarius as a lower class of gladiator than one employed in the public ''munus''. Cicero's unflattering references to Marcus Antonius as ''gladiator'' are in his 2nd Philippic.</ref>

[[Silius Italicus]] wrote, as the games approached their peak, that the degenerate [[Campania#Ancient tribes, Etruscan & Greek Colonies, and Samnite Wars|Campanians]] had devised the very worst of precedents, which now threatened the moral fabric of Rome: "It was their custom to enliven their banquets with bloodshed and to combine with their feasting the horrid sight of armed men [(Samnites)] fighting; often the combatants fell dead above the very cups of the revelers, and the tables were stained with streams of blood. Thus demoralised was Capua."<ref>Silius Italicus, 11.51 (cited in {{harvnb|Welch|2007|p=3}}).</ref> Death could be rightly meted out as punishment, or met with equanimity in peace or war, as a gift of fate; but when inflicted as entertainment, with no underlying moral or religious purpose, it could only pollute and demean those who witnessed it.<ref>{{harvnb|Richlin|1992|loc=Shelby Brown, "Death As Decoration: Scenes of the Arena on Roman Domestic Mosaics", p. 185}}. Tacitus, in ''Annals'' 15.44, describes the public repugnance towards Nero's punishment of Christians, which seemed based on his appetite for cruelty, rather than a desire for the public good.</ref>

The ''munus'' itself could be interpreted as pious necessity, but its increasing luxury corroded Roman virtue, and created an un-Roman appetite for profligacy and self-indulgence.<ref>{{harvnb|Futrell|2006|p=4}}. Roman commentators associated ''munera'' with Capua's proverbial luxury and excess.</ref> Caesar's 46 BC ''ludi'' were mere entertainment for political gain, a waste of lives and of money that would have been better doled out to his legionary veterans.<ref>Cassius Dio, 43.24.</ref> Yet for Seneca, and for Marcus Aurelius—both professed [[Stoics]]—the degradation of gladiators in the ''munus'' highlighted their Stoic virtues: their unconditional obedience to their master and to fate, and equanimity in the face of death. Having "neither hope nor illusions", the gladiator could transcend his own debased nature, and disempower death itself by meeting it face to face. 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.<ref>{{harvnb|Barton|1993|p=16}}; {{harvnb|Futrell|2006|p=154}}. Futrell is citing Lucian's ''Toxaris'', 58–59.</ref> Seneca had a lower opinion of the mob's un-Stoical appetite for ''ludi meridiani'': "Man [is]...now slaughtered for jest and sport; and those whom it used to be unholy to train for the purpose of inflicting and enduring wounds are thrust forth exposed and defenceless."<ref name="autogenerated2" />

These accounts seek a higher moral meaning from the ''munus'', but [[Ovid]]'s very detailed (though satirical) instructions for seduction in the amphitheatre suggest that the spectacles could generate a potent and dangerously sexual atmosphere.<ref name="Futrell 205"/> Augustan seating prescriptions placed women—excepting the Vestals, who were legally inviolate—as far as possible from the action of the arena floor; or tried to. There remained the thrilling possibility of clandestine sexual transgression by high-caste spectators and their heroes of the arena. Such assignations were a source for gossip and satire but some became unforgivably public:<ref>{{harvnb|Kyle|1998|p=85}}. This should be considered scandalous and noteworthy, rather than common.</ref>

<blockquote>
What was the youthful charm that so fired Eppia? What hooked her? What did she see in him to make her put up with being called "the gladiator's moll"? Her poppet, her Sergius, was no chicken, with a dud arm that prompted hope of early retirement. Besides his face looked a proper mess, helmet-scarred, a great wart on his nose, an unpleasant discharge always trickling from one eye. But he was a gladiator. That word makes the whole breed seem handsome, and made her prefer him to her children and country, her sister, her husband. Steel is what they fall in love with.<ref>Juvenal. ''Satires'', 6.102ff.</ref>
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Eppia—a senator's wife–and her Sergius eloped to Egypt, where he deserted her. Most gladiators would have aimed lower. Two wall ''[[graffiti]]'' in Pompeii describe Celadus the Thraex as "the sigh of the girls" and "the glory of the girls"—which may or may not have been Celadus' own wishful thinking.<ref>{{harvnb|Futrell|2006|p=146}}. Futrell is citing ''{{CIL|4|4342}} and {{CIL|4|4345}}.</ref>

In the later Imperial era, Servius Maurus Honoratus uses the same disparaging term as Cicero—''bustuarius''—for gladiators.<ref>Servius. ''Commentary on the "Aeneid" of Vergil'', 10.519.</ref> Tertullian used it somewhat differently—all victims of the arena were sacrificial in his eyes—and expressed the paradox of the ''arenarii'' as a class, from a Christian viewpoint:

<blockquote>
On the one and the same account they glorify them and they degrade and diminish them; yes, further, they openly condemn them to disgrace and civil degradation; they keep them religiously excluded from council chamber, rostrum, senate, knighthood, and every other kind of office and a good many distinctions. The perversity of it! They love whom they lower; they despise whom they approve; the art they glorify, the artist they disgrace.<ref>Tertullian. ''De Spectaculis'', 22; {{harvnb|Kyle|1998|p=80}}. ''Bustuarius'' is found in Tertullian's ''De Spectaculis'', 11.</ref>
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=== In Roman art and culture ===
<blockquote>
In this new Play, I attempted to follow the old custom of mine, of making a fresh trial; I brought it on again. In the first Act I pleased; when in the meantime a rumor spread that gladiators were about to be exhibited; the populace flock together, make a tumult, clamor aloud, and fight for their places: meantime, I was unable to maintain my place.<ref>Terence. ''Hecyra'', Prologue II.</ref>
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[[File:Graffito of a gladiatorial scene from Pompeii, Naples National Archaeological Museum (15269619095).jpg|thumb|upright|150px|Graffito of a gladiatorial scene from Pompeii, Naples]]
Images of gladiators were found throughout the Republic and Empire, among all classes. Walls in the 2nd century BC "Agora of the Italians" at [[Delos]] were decorated with paintings of gladiators. 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''. 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. Earlier periods provide only occasional, perhaps exceptional examples.<ref name="Brown, 181">{{harvnb|Richlin|1992|loc=Shelby Brown, "Death As Decoration: Scenes of the Arena on Roman Domestic Mosaics", p. 181}}.</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Welch|2007|p=2}}.</ref> The [[Gladiator Mosaic]] in the [[Galleria Borghese]] displays several gladiator types, and the [[Bignor Roman Villa]] mosaic from [[Roman Britain|Provincial Britain]] shows [[Cupid]]s as gladiators. Souvenir ceramics were produced depicting named gladiators in combat; similar images of higher quality, were available on more expensive articles in high quality ceramic, glass or silver.

Some of the best preserved gladiator graffiti are from Pompeii and [[Herculaneum]], in public areas including Pompeii's Forum and [[Amphitheatre of Pompeii|amphitheater]], and in the private residences of the upper, middle and lower classes.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Ancient Graffiti Project|url=http://ancientgraffiti.org/Graffiti/results |access-date=2022-04-07 |website=ancientgraffiti.org}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Keegan |first=Peter |date=2005 |title=Writing and drawing on the walls of Pompeii: how the study of graffiti relates to the HSC ancient history core syllabus for 2006 |url=https://researchers.mq.edu.au/en/publications/writing-and-drawing-on-the-walls-of-pompeii-how-the-study-of-graf |journal=Ancient History: Resources for Teachers |language=English |volume=35 |issue=1 |pages=37–64 |issn=1032-3686}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Christesen |first1=Paul |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=laULAQAAQBAJ&dq=gladiator+graffiti+pompeii&pg=PA422 |title=A Companion to Sport and Spectacle in Greek and Roman Antiquity |last2=Kyle |first2=Donald G. |year=2014 |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |isbn=978-1444339529 |language=en}}</ref>
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[[Pliny the Elder]] gives vivid examples of the popularity of gladiator portraiture in [[Antium]] and an artistic treat laid on by an adoptive aristocrat for the solidly plebeian citizens of the Roman [[Aventine Hill|Aventine]]:

<blockquote>
When a [[freedman]] of Nero was giving a gladiatorial show at [[Antium]], the public porticoes were covered with paintings, so we are told, containing life-like portraits of all the gladiators and assistants. This portraiture of gladiators has been the highest interest in art for many centuries now, but it was Gaius Terentius who began the practice of having pictures made of gladiatorial shows and exhibited in public; in honour of his grandfather who had adopted him he provided thirty pairs of Gladiators in the Forum for three consecutive days, and exhibited a picture of the matches in the Grove of Diana.<ref>Pliny. ''Natural History'', 30.32 (cited in {{harvnb|Welch|2007|p=21}}).</ref>
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