GLADIATORS, in Antiquity, persons who fought chiefly in the arena of the amphitheatre at Rome, for the entertainment of the people. The gladiators were generally slaves, and fought from necessity; though sometimes freemen took to the same profession, like our prize-fighters, for a livelihood. The Romans borrowed this cruel diversion from the Asiatics; and some suppose that there was policy in the practice, the frequent combats of gladiators tending to accustom the people to despise danger and death.

The origin of these combats seems obvious. From the earliest times it had been the custom to sacrifice captives, or prisoners of war, to the manes of the great men who had died in battle. Thus Achilles, in the Iliad, (lib. xxiii.), sacrificed twelve young Trojans to the manes of Patroclus; and in Virgil (lib. xi. ver. 81), Aeneas sent captives to Evander to be sacrificed at the funeral of his son Pallas. But in process of time they came also to sacrifice slaves at the funerals of all persons of condition; and this was even esteemed a necessary part of the ceremony; but as it would have appeared barbarous to massacre them like beasts, they were appointed to fight with each other, and to endeavour to save their own lives by killing their adversary. This seemed somewhat less inhuman, because there was a possibility of avoiding death, by an exertion of skill and courage. The profession of gladiator thus became an art; and hence arose masters of the art, men learned in fighting and exercise. These masters, whom the Latins called lanistoe, bought slaves to be trained up to this cruel trade, and afterwards sold them to such as had occasion to present the people with so horrible a show.

The exhibitions were at first performed near the sepulchre of the deceased, or around the funeral pile; but they were afterwards removed to the circus and amphitheatres, and became ordinary amusements. The first show of gladiators, called munus gladiatorium, was, according to Valerius Maximus, exhibited at Rome by Marcus and Decius Brutus, upon the death of their father, in the year of the city 490. On this occasion there were probably only three pairs of gladiators. In 537 the three sons of Μ. Aemilius Lepidus the augur, who had been thrice consul, entertained the people with the cruel pleasure of seeing twenty-two gladiators fight in the forum. In 547, the first Africanus diverted his army at New Carthage (Carthagena), with a show of gladiators, which he exhibited in honour of his father and uncle, who had begun the reduction of Spain. In process of time the Romans became so fond of these bloody entertainments, that not only the heir of any great and rich citizen lately deceased, but all the principal magistrates, presented the people with shows of this nature, to procure their favour. The aediles, praetors, consuls, and, above all, the candidates for offices, made their court to the people by entertaining them frequently with these fights; and even the priests were sometimes exhibitors of these barbarous shows; for we meet with the ludi pontificales in Suetonius (August, cap. 44), and with the ludi sacerdotales, in Pliny (Epist. lib. vii.). As for the emperors, it was so much their interest to ingratiate themselves with the populace, that they obliged them with combats of gladiators upon almost all occasions; and as these multiplied, the number of combatants likewise increased. Accordingly, Julius Caesar, in his aedileship, diverted the people with the exhibition of three hundred and twenty couples. Titus exhibited a show of gladiators, wild beasts, and representations of sea-fights, which lasted a hundred days; and Trajan continued a solemnity of this nature for a hundred and twenty-three days, during which time he brought out a thousand pairs of gladiators. Before this time, and under the republic, the number of gladiators was so great, that when the conspiracy of Catiline broke out, the senate ordered them to be dispersed into the garrisons and secured, lest they should join the disaffected party.

These sports at length became so common, and their consequences in a variety of respects proved so dangerous, that Cicero caused a law to be enacted that no person should exhibit a show of gladiators within two years before he appeared as a candidate for any office. Julius Caesar gave orders that only a certain number of men of this profession should be in Rome at a time; Augustus decreed that only two shows of gladiators should be presented in a year, [7:10:531]and never above sixty couples of combatants in a show; and Tiberius provided by an order of senate, that no person should have the privilege of gratifying the people with such a solemnity unless he was worth 500,000 sesterces. The same exhibitions were also regulated by Nerva. The Emperor Claudius restrained them to certain occasions; but he soon afterwards annulled what he had decreed; private persons began to exhibit them as usual, and some carried the brutal satisfaction so far as to have them at their ordinary feasts.

The master of the gladiators made them all swear that they would fight to death; and, if they failed, they were put to death by fire, swords, clubs, whips, or the like. It was a crime for the wretches to complain when they were wounded, or to ask for death or seek to avoid it when overcome; but it was usual for the emperor or the people to grant them life when they exhibited no signs of fear, but waited the fatal stroke with courage and intrepidity. Augustus even decreed that life should always be granted them.

From slaves and freemen the inhuman sport at length spread to people of rank and condition; so that Augustus was obliged to issue an edict providing that none of the senatorian order should become gladiators; and soon afterwards he imposed the same constraint on the knights. Nevertheless Nero is related to have brought upwards of four hundred senators and six hundred Roman knights upon the arena; though Lipsius supposes both these numbers to be falsified, and not without reason reduces them to forty senators and sixty knights. But Domitian refined on the practice of Nero, and exhibited combats of women in the night time.

Constantine the Great is said to have first prohibited the combats of gladiators in the East; at least he forbade those who were condemned to death for their crimes being employed in these exhibitions; and there is still extant an order to the profectus proctorii, dated at Berytus in Phoenicia the 1st of October 325.

The Emperor Honorius forbade them at Rome on occasion of the death of Telemachus, who coming from the East to Rome at the time of one of these spectacles, went down into the arena, and used all his endeavours to prevent the gladiators from continuing the sport; upon which the spectators of the carnage, fired with indignation, stoned him to death. It must be observed, however, that the practice was not entirely abolished in the West before the time of Theodoric king of the Ostrogoths. Honorius, on the occasion first mentioned, had prohibited them; but the prohibition does not seem to have been enforced. Theodoric, in the year 500, finally abolished them.

Some time before the day of combat, the person who presented the people with these shows gave notice of his intention by programmes or bills, containing the names of the gladiators, and the marks by which they were to be distinguished; for each had his peculiar badge, which was commonly a peacock’s feather, as appears from the scholiast of Juvenal on the 158th verse of the third satire, and also from Turnebus (Advers. lib. ii. cap 8). They also gave notice how long the shows would last, and how many couples of gladiators were to exhibit; and it even appears, from the seventh satire of the second book of Horace, that they sometimes made representations of these things in painting, as is practised among us by those who have any thing to exhibit at fairs.

The day being come, they began the entertainment by bringing two kinds of weapons; the first being staves or wooden foils, called rudes, and the second effective weapons, as swords, poniards, and the like. The first were called arma lusoria, or exercitoria ; the second decretoria, as being given by decree or sentence by the praetor, or by him at whose expense the spectacle was exhibited. They began to fence or skirmish with the first, which usually formed the prelude to the battle; and from these, when well warmed, they advanced to the second at the sound of the trumpets, with which they fought naked. Then they were said vertere arma. The terms of striking were petere et repetere ; of avoiding a blow, exire : and when one of the combatants received a remarkable wound, his adversary or the people cried out, Habet, or hoc habet. The first part of the engagement was called ventilare, proludere; and the second, dimicare ad certum, or versis armis pugnare ; and some authors think, with much probability, that it is to these two kinds of combat that St Paul alludes in the passage(1 Cor. ix. 26, 27) where he says, “Ifight not as one that beateth the air; but I keep my body, and bring it into subjection.”

If the vanquished surrendered his arms, it was not in the victor’s power to grant him life; it was the people during the time of the republic, and the prince or people during the time of the empire, who were alone empowered to grant this boon. The reward of the conqueror was a branch of palm tree, and a sum of money, probably collected amongst the spectators; sometimes they gave him his congé, or dismissed him by putting one of the wooden foils or rudes in his hand; and sometimes they even granted him his freedom, putting the pilaeus on his head. The sign or indication by which the spectators showed that they granted the favour, was premere pollicem, which Μ. Dacier takes to be a clenching of the figures of both hands between one another, and so holding the two thumbs upright, close together; and, when they desired to have the combat finished and the vanquished slain, verterunt pollicem, they bent back the thumb, as we learn from Juvenal. (Sat. iii. ver. 36.) The gladiators challenged or defied each other by showing the little finger; and, by extending this, or some other, during the combat, they owned themselves vanquished, and begged mercy from the people. Victi ostensam digiti veniam a populo postulabant, says the old scholiast on Perseus.