Gladiatorial Combat (Munus)
Armed combat between gladiators in the Roman world, whose first munus in Rome Smith's dictionary places in 264 BC.
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About Gladiatorial Combat (Munus)
Gladiatorial combat was armed combat between gladiators in the Roman world. Poliakoff, according to Carter, excluded it from the ancient combat sports as a form of war staged for spectators, whereas Carter sees it as a contest of martial skill bound by rules. According to Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities of 1875, the staging of games was called munus. According to Livy's Periochae 16, Decimus Iunius Brutus held the first gladiatorial munus in honour of his deceased father, and Valerius Maximus states that it took place in the Forum Boarium under the consuls Appius Claudius and Quintus Fulvius. Smith's dictionary places the first appearance of gladiators in Rome in 264 BC.
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According to the Parco archeologico del Colosseo, gladiators were mostly prisoners of war or slaves, but sometimes freedmen or free volunteers. According to Smith's dictionary, they trained in schools called ludi under the direction of lanistae. The Colosseum lists sixteen known classes of gladiators and counts among the main pairings the murmillo against the thraex and the retiarius against the secutor. According to Carter, ordinary bouts were fought until one gladiator signalled surrender by raising a finger, ad digitum, and according to the Colosseum the defeated man could receive a reprieve called missio. Constantine banned gladiators by a law of 325, but according to Smith's dictionary the games continued until the time of Honorius. Theodoret of Cyrrhus reports that Honorius ended the spectacle after spectators stoned the monk Telemachus, who tried in the arena to separate the fighters.
History
Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities of 1875 states that gladiatorial games were supposedly first held by the Etruscans and arose from the custom of killing slaves and captives at funeral pyres. According to Livy's Periocha 16, Decimus Iunius Brutus held the first gladiatorial munus in honour of his deceased father. Valerius Maximus, writing in the first century AD, states that the first munus in Rome took place in the Forum Boarium under the consuls Appius Claudius and Quintus Fulvius, and was given by Marcus and Decimus, sons of Brutus Pera, to honour their father's ashes. According to the Parco archeologico del Colosseo, gladiators were mostly prisoners of war or slaves, sometimes freedmen or free volunteers, usually recruited at 17 to 18 years of age, and they rarely lived to thirty. Constantine's law of 1 October 325 rejects bloody spectacles in civil peace and bans gladiators entirely. According to Smith's dictionary, the games continued until the time of Honorius, who suppressed them definitively. Theodoret of Cyrrhus describes how the monk Telemachus entered the arena in Rome to separate the fighting gladiators, the spectators stoned him, and Honorius then ended the spectacle.
How it differs
Carter in 2006 states that Poliakoff in 1987 excluded gladiatorial combat from ancient combat sports as a form of war for spectators, whereas Carter understands it as a contest of martial prowess bound by rules. According to Carter, gladiatorial combat took over the gesture of surrender with a raised finger from Greek combat sports. The Parco archeologico del Colosseo states that gladiators were divided into sixteen known classes, and it presents as the three main pairings murmillo against thraex, retiarius against secutor and murmillo against hoplomachus. Smith's dictionary of 1875 lists further types: andabatae fighting in helmets without eye openings, essedarii fighting from chariots like Gauls and Britons, equites on horseback, laqueatores with a noose and meridiani, lightly armed gladiators fighting at midday.
Technique
Smith's dictionary of 1875 describes the retiarius as a gladiator with a three-pronged spear, the tridens or fuscina, and a net, the rete, in a short tunic and without head covering. According to it, murmillones were named after the image of a fish on the helmet, had Gallic arms, which is why they were also called Galli, and usually faced retiarii or Thracians. According to the dictionary, Thracians had a round shield and a short curved sword, the sica. According to some authors, the secutor was so named because he pursued the retiarius when the latter missed with the net. Hoplomachi fought in full armour and Lipsius considered them identical with the Samnites. Carter, in 2006, states that a left-handed gladiator was called scaeva in Latin and that gladiators boasted of it on tombstones, and that the emperor Commodus performed as a left-handed secutor. According to Carter, Martial praises the gladiator Hermes as trained to win without wounding. Kanz and Grossschmidt found that about 16 % of gladiators from Ephesus had healed skull injuries and about 15 % fatal head injuries.
Training
Smith's dictionary of 1875 states that gladiators lived in schools called ludi, where lanistae trained them, and the whole group of gladiators of one lanista was called a familia. According to Carter, training was specialised by type of weaponry, and inscriptions attest the teachers doctor secutorum, doctor murmillonum, doctor hoplomachorum and doctor thraecum. Valerius Maximus states that the consul Publius Rutilius summoned gladiator instructors from the school of Gaius Aurelius Scaurus and was the first to teach the legions a finer technique of guarding and directing a blow. According to the Parco archeologico del Colosseo, the emperor Domitian founded the Ludus Magnus, the largest and only gladiatorial barracks in Rome with surviving structures, which held about a thousand gladiators. Lösch and colleagues found in PLOS ONE in 2014 that gladiators from Ephesus ate C3 plants as their staple, such as wheat and barley, with a high share of vegetables, which matches the mocking nickname hordearii. The authors say a higher strontium to calcium ratio possibly suggests a frequent drink made from plant ash mentioned in ancient texts.
Ranks and progression
According to Carter in 2006, gladiator epitaphs usually state the type of weaponry, the rank and the number of fights or victories. He says the secutor Urbicus reached the highest rank of secutores, primus palus, after 13 fights. According to Carter, gladiators on an inscription from Claudiopolis in Bithynia had up to 65 victories. Successful gladiators could retire and return for a private contract, and Tiberius reportedly offered veterans, called rudiarii, 100,000 sesterces. Smith's dictionary of 1875 states that old gladiators were released at the request of the people by the editor of the games and received a wooden sword, the rudis, which is why the released were called rudiarii.
Competition
According to Smith's dictionary of 1875, games were called munus and the organiser editor, munerator or dominus. According to Carter (2006), gladiators were usually hired from a lanista, and on injury or death the hire turned into a sale at a price up to fifty times higher. Under the Empire, according to him, fights were directed by referees, the summa rudis and secunda rudis, in white tunics with purple stripes and with a long staff. According to Carter, an ordinary bout continued until one gladiator signalled surrender with a raised finger, ad digitum, and either one won or both were released standing, stantes missi. According to Ville, the death of a professional was not the usual outcome. Smith's dictionary states that in games sine missione the lives of the defeated were never spared and that Augustus forbade them, but Carter interprets sine missione most likely only to mean that missio was not possible until there was a clear winner. According to the Parco archeologico del Colosseo, the victor received a palm branch and a wreath. From the absence of multiple fatal injuries on a single individual from Ephesus, Kanz and Grossschmidt infer strict observance of the rules of combat.
Today
According to Michael Eiland's 2004 review, Marcus Junkelmann describes in the chapters on experimental archaeology in his 2000 book Gladiators and Caesars that helmets made after ancient models suffer little or no damage when struck with a sword at full force. According to Junkelmann, the swords were so short that blades could cross only rarely. According to the same review, gladiator helmets found in Pompeii weighed 4 kg on average. From July 2023 to January 2024, the Parco archeologico del Colosseo held an exhibition on gladiators in a restored underground passage between the Colosseum and the Ludus Magnus. It displayed replicas of helmets, including a replica of the bronze Julio-Claudian murmillo helmet from the gladiator barracks in Pompeii.
Did you know
According to Carter in 2006, Martial describes a bout between Priscus and Verus that Titus ran as sine missione, until both gave up at the same time and both were declared winners. Carter also discusses the tombstone of the secutor Urbicus from Milan, who fought thirteen times and died at 22, and whose epitaph advises killing the one you have defeated, which is almost unique among hundreds of gladiator epitaphs. The gladiator Diodorus of Amisus, according to Carter, blames his death on the treacherous trick of the summa rudis referee, who let the bout continue after his victory. Many epitaphs from the Greek East boast that the gladiator never harmed anyone. Smith's dictionary states that under the Empire, horsemen, senators and women also appeared in the arena, and that Septimius Severus banned women's bouts. Cosmos Magazine reports that the gladiator cemetery in Ephesus was discovered in 1993 by archaeologists of the Austrian Archaeological Institute about 300 metres from the stadium, and that one skull bore two holes 5 cm apart, which according to the magazine correspond to a trident stab.
Frequently asked questions
When was the first gladiatorial combat held in Rome?
According to Valerius Maximus, Marcus and Decimus, sons of Brutus Pera, held the first munus in Rome in the Forum Boarium, and Smith's dictionary of 1875 places it in 264 BC.
Did gladiators always have to die in combat?
According to Ville, to whom Carter (2006) refers, the death of a professional was not the usual outcome, and an ordinary bout ended with surrender with a raised finger, after which both gladiators could be released standing.
Who trained the gladiators?
According to Smith's dictionary of 1875, gladiators were trained in the ludi schools by lanistae, and Carter (2006) mentions specialist teachers by weapon type, for example the doctor secutorum or doctor thraecum.
Similar styles
Selected by overlap in the style profile, not by historical lineage.