Social life (CGH)

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For most gladiators, social life is non-existent. As slaves, they have no right to expect one. Sometimes their owners will parade them in front of their peers in order to impress these colleagues, but otherwise they are dependent on one another for their social interaction. The stable can provide a semblance of an ordinary social life, but there is a limited potential for intermingling, as each gladiator is, at heart, dissatisfied with his lot.
Those few gladiators who rule their own lives can determine the course of their social lives. However, as gladiators, they must become accustomed to a certain amount of notoriety. Unless they mask themselves entirely while fighting (an uncomfortable proposition, to say the least), they will be recognized. If a known gladiator is good enough, he will develop a following of sorts, a group of people who adore him and follow his every move whenever possible.
Gladiators suffer a strange reaction from most people. Since it is traditionally the occupation of slaves, freemen look down on the gladiator at the same time that they revere him for his exploits. They will take in a gladiator both out of fear and veneration, yet despise him at the same time for selling his freedom for the entertainment of others. "Vet even then they hardly realize that his price is merely more obvious than theirs, that they too are chained as surely as he, and often for less purpose.
Among nobles, gladiators are tolerated as amusements and tools for keeping the rabble pacified. Even with these prejudices at the forefront, most nobles are secretly enthralled with the gladiator's sheer physical prowess. The owner freely demonstrates his prizes to his peers, knowing the envy this is likely to arouse. The nobles fascination often far outstrips their contempt for the gladiator, revealed in the longing glances of the ladies and the jealous ones of the men.
Even those nobles with gladiators cannot help but envy the gladiator. In a world of subtlety, the gladiator lives life to its fullest, always staring death in the face. Each moment could be his last, and so he is determined to make the most of each that he has remaining. The gladiators world is brutal and direct, not a land of feigned emotions and false alliances. The nobles, even as they despise the base gladiator, suffer jealous pangs at what they perceive as the simplicity of his life.
Small wonder then, that several nobles have been known to renounce their friends for their time in the ring. Though this means they become immediate outcasts in their social group, they find they begin to enjoy life beyond the faded decadence of the other nobles. Some cities immediately demote the noble who enters the arena, seizing his property and assets, stripping him of his title, and turning him out into the streets.
Still, compared to the heady thrill of the arena, this means nothing initially. Only after the noble finds the scheming and base betrayal he thought he had left behind still affects him personally does he realize that he has thrown away his life. Experienced ex-noble gladiators are among the most bitter of a bitter lot; many without the courage to try to better themselves give up here, dying in the arena without offering much of a struggle. Only those with true strength of character last long after they discover the disloyalty they left behind for the glory of the arena merely wears a different form here.
It is only among other gladiators that gladiators find full acceptance, and sometimes not even then. The experienced gladiators realize what their life means, what their eventual destiny is likely to be. It is a grim acceptance, and not always a friendly one. 'Vet only the gladiators realize what it is to be a gladiator, only the gladiators know what their lives truly mean amid all the mean squabbling for life around them.
The answer is chilling in its bluntness: their lives mean almost nothing, even as they mean nearly everything to others. They offer a chance for others to see what their fate will be, a chance for liberation for the day. They are the proxies who act for the crowd's will.
The life of a gladiator is a lonely one, yet one they are willing to live. Even when they escape to find freedom and friends, they bear with them the scars of their time in the arena. It is no wonder that most gladiators are sullen and taciturn; they have seen the futility of their lives, and most of them accept it. They are not, for the most part, very good company socially, but they are indispensable when danger threatens.