Editing Gladiator (section)

===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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