Of all of the topics I teach in my ancient history classes, few are as popular with the young people as the subject of gladiators. Hollywood has assisted this interest, and a number of recent movies have focused on the subject, with varying degrees of accuracy.
Gladiatorial combats in ancient Rome began sometime around 300 B.C., and even now the genesis of these bizarre public entertainments is debated.
They may have begun as a kind of ritualized human sacrifice to the gods of the dead, they may have begun as sacrifices to placate the souls of humans who died in Roman wars. Or they may have begun as a way of amusing soldiers who were obliged to kill off unwanted prisoners of war.
But from the third century B.C. to the early fifth century of the Christian era, they were without question the most popular form of public Roman entertainment.
Gladiatorial combats were not simply men fighting to the death in the arena. There were professional gladiators, who willingly entered the service of one of the many gladiatorial teams owned and operated by wealthy Roman politicians and businessmen. These men were strong, well-trained and valuable, and their masters would hire them out to fight for pay in the many arenas of ancient Rome.
But professional gladiators did not often fight other professional gladiators because they were too valuable to waste. Often poorer men, prisoners of war, slaves, convicts of crimes were condemned to go to the arena. For the amusement of the Roman mobs they were often simply slaughtered in ritualized combats. But there was always the chance that the condemned might overcome the better trained and stronger professional fighter, and herein was the fascination.
The games were attended by respectable Roman men, who would often take their sons to the combats to inculcate them into the Roman way of life. The Romans saw the world as dark and dangerous, and the struggle of life was depicted for them in the arena, as barbarian peoples were sent to the death by strong Roman warriors.
In this manner the young were taught of the need for constant vigilance, lest the Romans lose their grip and see their savage neighbors with mercy, and then fall before them by weakness. The Romans also liked to dress both their professional gladiators and the condemned up in archaic cloths and uniforms, to see their ancient enemies fight it out, as if we were to put men dressed as British redcoats in the arena with men dressed as the Kaiser’s infantry.
Married Roman women could attend the games with their husbands, but single women at the games were often assumed to be looking for an easy pickup. The first-century poet Ovid gave advice to naughty Roman men on how to meet such loose women at the games.
Upper-class Roman women could pay for an evening of romance, if we may call it that, with the professional gladiators in their cells. The Emperor Domitian was fond of watching women sent to the arena, and British women were believed to be particularly fierce.
There were well-educated pagan Romans who disdained the games, as they incited the passions and the ugly temper of the mobs.
The Roman statesman and adviser to the Emperor Nero, Lucius Seneca (4 B.C.-A.D. 65) wrote of the gladiatorial games to one of his younger friends as follows.
“The other day, I chanced to drop in at the midday games, expecting sport and wit and some relaxation to rest men’s eyes from the sight of human blood. Just the opposite was the case. Any fighting before that was as nothing; all trifles were now put aside – it was plain butchery.
“The men had nothing with which to protect themselves, for their whole bodies were open to the thrust, and every thrust told. The common people prefer this to matches on level terms or request performances. Of course they do. The blade is not parried by helmet or shield, and what use is skill or defense? All these merely postpone death.
“In the morning men are thrown to bears or lions, at midday to those who were previously watching them. The crowd cries for the killers to be paired with those who will kill them, and reserves the victor for yet another death. This is the only release the gladiators have. The whole business needs fire and steel to urge men on to fight. There was no escape for them. The slayer was kept fighting until he could be slain.
” `Kill him! Flog him! Burn him alive!’ (the spectators roared) `Why is he such a coward? Why won’t he rush on the steel? Why does he fall so meekly? Why won’t he die willingly?’
“Unhappy as I am, how have I deserved that I must look on such a scene as this? Do not, my Lucilius, attend the games, I pray you. Either you will be corrupted by the multitude, or, if you show disgust, be hated by them. So stay away.”
But the most ardent opponents of the gladiatorial games were, of course, the Christians, who were horrified both by the blood lust of the mobs and the reckless taking of human life. A number of the Christians had good reason to hate the games, as they were often flung into them.
But even the Christians had to acknowledge the power the gladiatorial games held over the mobs of Rome. St. Augustine at the end of the fourth century A.D. told the story of a young Christian man who was compelled against his will to attend the games.
The devout young man went to the games to enjoy a day with friends and thought he could avert his eyes and not share in the lust of the mobs, but the poor lad was soon overcome. Augustine wrote that the good Christian boy managed to keep his eyes shut in the games until the moment of an actual kill, when his ears heard the roar of the crowds, this swell of human voices seduced him.
Augustine said: “For in the fight, when one fell, a mighty cry of the whole people striking him strongly, overcome by curiosity, and as if prepared to despise and be superior to it whatsoever it were, even when seen, he opened his eyes, and was stricken with a deeper wound in his soul than the other, whom he desired to behold, was in his body; and he fell more miserably than he upon whose fall that mighty noise was raised, which entered through his ears, and unlocked his eyes, to make way for the striking and beating down of a soul, bold rather than resolute, and the weaker, in that it had presumed on itself, which ought to have relied on Thee.
“For so soon as he saw that blood, he therewith drunk down savageness; nor turned away, but fixed his eye, drinking in frenzy, unawares, and was delighted with that guilty fight, and intoxicated with the bloody pastime.”
It would be the influence of Christianity which discouraged the bloody gladiatorial combats, as well as the incredible expense in the declining years of the empire, which led to the end of the games. The Christians also opposed the practice of crucifixion, infanticide, abortion and slavery with some political success.
They were unable to persuade the Romans to give up on the equally popular practices of prostitution, divorce, gambling and, above all, the wildly popular chariot racing teams, which were almost as popular as the ancient gladiators.
But I would wager that if gladiators were legalized tonight, by this weekend huge crowds could be summoned to watch them in every city in our land. I am not sure we have changed that much since the days of Seneca and Augustine.
Gregory Elder, a Redlands resident, is a professor of history and humanities at Moreno Valley College and a Roman Catholic priest. Write to him at Professing Faith, P.O. Box 8102, Redlands, CA 92375-1302, or e-mail him at email@example.com.