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Gladiators

Page 16

by M. C. Bishop


  What is perhaps surprising to a modern reader is that the

  subsequent adoption of Christianity as the state religion by

  Constantine did not instantly see the banning of gladiatorial

  combat. However, this is to misunderstand the context of the

  times and the everyday brutality with which the inhabitants of

  the Roman Empire were familiar. The voices raised against the

  games, which had always been there, became more insistent and

  148 | GLADIATORS

  Retiarius (‘net fi ghter’)

  • Armour: shoulderguard

  • Special feature: net, trident

  • Period: Imperial

  • Common opponent: arbelas; essedarius;

  murmillo; secutor

  now had scripture to back them up, but as yet they had not been

  very successful.

  In fact, Constantine did produce a rescript (a response for

  clarifi cation on a specifi c legal question) in AD 325 related to

  curtailing deaths in the arena. However, it was not aimed at

  gladiators as such, but rather at those condemned to the arena

  ( damnatio ad ludum ) as a method of execution – the same group

  that made Seneca so uncomfortable. Th is form of punishment

  was still going on in AD 315, when the vicarius of Africa, one

  Domitius Celsus, provided a rescript changing the sentence

  for kidnappers from being condemned to the mines ( damnatio

  ad metallum ) to being condemned to the games ( damnatio

  ad ludum ). He specifi cally ruled that they be handed over to

  an Imperial ludus and that they die without going through

  gladiatorial training.

  In a famous (or perhaps, more correctly, infamous) passage,

  the 4th-century AD Christian writer Augustine of Hippo tells

  the story of his student Alypius of Th agaste (who later went

  on to become a bishop) as a warning against the corrupting

  infl uence of the games:

  He, retaining that worldly way which his parents had taught him

  to follow, had preceded me to Rome in order to study law, and

  CHApTeR 7: THe enD Of THe GLADIATORS | 149

  there he became extraordinarily obsessed with gladiatorial shows.

  For, being utterly opposed to and detesting such spectacles, he

  one day happened to meet various friends and fellow-students

  returning from dinner, and they with a friendly violence led him,

  vehemently objecting and resisting, into the amphitheatre, on a

  day of these cruel and deadly shows, as he protested: ‘Th ough you

  drag me in and keep me there, can you force me to pay attention

  and watch these shows? So I shall not be there whilst there and

  will overcome both you and them.’ Hearing this, they dragged him

  on regardless, possibly hoping to see whether he could do as he

  said. When they had arrived there and had taken their places, the

  whole place became excited with the inhuman sports. He, however,

  shutting his eyes, trying to ignore this evil; if only he had shut his

  ears too! For, when someone fell in combat, a mighty cry from the

  whole audience stirring him strongly, he, overcome by curiosity,

  and prepared as it were to despise and overcome it, no matter what

  it were, opened his eyes, and was struck with a deeper wound in

  his soul than the other, whom he desired to see, was in his body;

  and he fell more miserably than the man whose fall had caused the

  mighty uproar, which entered through his ears, and unlocked his

  eyes, to make way for the striking and beating down of his soul,

  which was now bold rather than valiant; and so much the weaker in

  that it presumed on itself, which ought to have depended on You.

  For, as soon as he saw blood, he developed a sort of savagery. He did

  not look away, but stared, drinking in madness unconsciously, and

  was delighted with the guilty contest, and drunk with the bloody

  Sagittarius (‘archer’)

  • Armour: unknown

  • Special feature: composite bow

  • Period: Imperial

  • Common opponent: unknown

  150 | GLADIATORS

  events. And he was no longer the same as he had been when he

  came in, but was now one of the crowd and a true companion

  for those who had brought him in. Need I say more? He looked,

  shouted, became excited, and took away with him the obsession

  which would drive him to return, not only with those who first

  tempted him, but also in fact ahead of them, bringing others with

  him. (Augustine, Confessions 6.8)

  late instances

  One of the most famous depictions of gladiatorial combat –

  the Borghese mosaic from Torrenova, just outside Rome (see

  p. 141) – has been dated to the first half of the 4th century

  AD. From the level of detail it depicts, it seems safe to say that

  gladiatorial combat with a range of armaturae was not only

  familiar to the artist but in fact acutely observed. Indeed, in AD

  337, Constantine received a request from the town of Hispellum

  in Spain to perform a sacrifice and hold gladiatorial games in his

  honour. He responded by denying permission for the sacrifice as

  un-Christian, but allowing the gladiatorial combat. The Church

  declared that gladiators and lanistae could no longer be baptised.

  Even so, in 354, the annual December games were still held in

  Rome, according to the Calendar of Philocalus.

  The continued existence of gladiators is to some extent

  confirmed by the fact that, in AD 367, Pope Demasius employed

  a troop of gladiators in his bodyguard. In 392, Dio Chrystostom

  mentions gladiatorial performances in Antioch, whilst the local

  bishop in Apamea (Syria) hired gladiators to help him destroy

  pagan temples. Nevertheless, it is generally thought that munera

  largely vanished from the East after the middle of the 4th century

  AD, continuing in just the Western Empire, although even

  there, Valentinian I (AD 364–75) ended the condemnation of

  criminals to gladiatorial schools. The Imperial training barracks

  in Rome are last mentioned in AD 397 and it has been suggested

  that they may have closed soon after. The historian Ammianus

  CHapter 7: tHe end of tHe gladiators | 151

  Marcellinus, writing in the latter part of the 4th century AD on

  the laziness of the common people, included a list of types of

  public show when making his point:

  And it has now come to this, that in place of the lively sound of

  approval from men appointed to applaud, at every public show an

  actor of afterpieces, a beast-baiter, a charioteer, every kind of player,

  and the magistrates of higher and lower rank, and even matrons,

  are greeted with the shout ‘You should be these fellows’ teachers!’

  but what they ought to learn no one is able to explain. (Ammianus

  Marcellinus 28.4.33)

  The omission of gladiators may be significant. However, it

  was not until AD 404 that gladiatorial games were supposedly

  formally banned by the Emperor Honorius (AD 384–423),

  although doubt has even been cast over this. The only legislation

  from Honorius’ time dealt with exiling gladiators who moved

  from training schools to the households of senators, possibly to
>
  prevent them being used as armed bodyguards for the nobility.

  Similarly, there have been claims that a decree of Valentinian III

  (AD 425–55) in around AD 440 actually brought about the end

  of gladiatorial combat but the evidence for this is lacking.

  Rather than being legislated out of existence, gladiatorial games

  may just have declined in popularity as tastes changed. Wild

  beast hunts and chariot racing continued and the latter were still

  to be found in Constantinople up to the beginning of the 13th

  century. The 5th-century AD Christian writer Prudentius seems

  to have had no issues with animal hunts:

  Command that the dead bodies of wretched men be not offered

  in sacrifice. Let no man fall at Rome that his suffering may give

  pleasure, nor [the Vestal] Virgins delight their eyes with slaughter

  upon slaughter. Let the ill-famed arena be content now with wild

  beasts only, and no more make a sport of murder with blood-stained

  weapons. (Prudentius, Against Symmachus 2.1126–9)

  152 | GLADIATORS

  The range of exotic animals declined as Rome’s fortunes failed

  and her empire started to crumble. What was once a sign of

  the extent of her control now became a warning of its limits.

  Nevertheless, animal hunts continued with beasts that could be

  obtained nearer to home. There are records of venationes in AD

  519 and 523 by the consuls and it is suggested that this was done

  with the approval of Theodoric. He subsequently wrote to the

  consul Anicius Maximus deploring the show, whilst conceding

  that they remained popular with the common people.

  Indeed, the one area of gladiatorial combat that seems to have

  continued into the medieval period, right through to the modern

  day, is bull fighting, precisely because Christian thinkers were by

  and large untroubled with the welfare of animals. Roman arenas

  such as Arles and Nîmes in France are still used for bull fights

  nowadays (although in Spain open plazas were preferred until

  comparatively recently). Bull fighting has remained popular from

  the medieval period onwards in certain selected provincial areas,

  but now there are indications that it is declining in popularity.

  A recent poll claimed that only 9.5% of Spaniards paid to visit a

  bullfight in 2015, placing it tenth behind attending the cinema,

  monuments, museums, public libraries, football matches,

  modern music concerts, exhibitions, the theatre and art galleries.

  The day may soon come when this last vestige of the munera has

  vanished and there are doubtless many who will wonder why it

  has taken so long. Which brings us right back to the ambivalence

  of both the Romans and the modern public towards gladiatorial

  games, that fine balance between horror and fascination that

  ensures it is now still a topic of conversation.

  Perhaps this is also the appropriate point to reflect upon

  not why gladiators died out, but how they managed to last so

  long. Societies and their institutions inevitably evolve and the

  Romans, for all their innate conservatism, were no different.

  Just as the Roman army at any stage was radically different from

  what it had been a century before or would be in one hundred

  CHApTeR 7: THe enD Of THe GLADIATORS | 153

  years’ time, so the institution of gladiatorial combat changed.

  What is intriguing is how it ceased to evolve under the High and

  Late Empire, but rather appeared to freeze in the form it had

  adopted under the early emperors. Why was this? We cannot

  know for sure, but it seems unlikely that it was down to just

  one factor and was most likely a result of a combination of

  circumstances, some of which we may be able to identify, whilst

  others remain obscure. The formalisation of locations for the

  games may well have played a significant part, particularly once

  the Colosseum had been constructed and inaugurated. Once

  ad hoc venues were no longer needed, the structure itself could

  become part of the institution. Similarly, the types of gladiator

  underwent their most active phase of change towards the end of

  the Republic and the beginning of the Empire. Old types (like

  the Samnite and Gaul) were dropped and new ones (such as the

  retiarius) adopted. After that, however, there was developmental

  stagnation that lasted into the Late Roman period, so perhaps it

  is not surprising that ultimately there was no need for legislation

  to finish off gladiatorial combat as it had already doomed itself

  to irrelevance. In which case, the objections of the Christian

  thinkers may have been symptomatic, rather than a cause, of

  its end.

  154 | GLADIATORS

  SOURCES

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  Note oN traNslatioNs

  With the exception of the quotation from Vegetius and

  most of the inscriptions, which are my own translations, all

  of the texts cited here are derived from public domain works

  freely available on the internet. These are usually old Loeb

  texts, many of which have been transcribed through the efforts

  of Bill Thayer, who deserves acknowledgement for his stalwart

  contribution to the dissemination of valuable source material. In

  one or two places I have tweaked the English to render the text

  less dated. Readers wishing to find links for all of the sources

  cited here, both textual and visual, should visit http://tinyurl.

  com/GladiatorsFTTD for more information.

  Note oN traNslatioNs | 157

  iNdex

  andabata (gladiator fighting blind)

  crupellarius (gladiator covered in

  11, 29, 84

  steel) 45, 58, 86–7

  arbelas (‘hide-scraper’) 48, 79, 84,

  96, 144, 149

  dimachaerus (‘two swords’) 69, 87

  Augustus, emperor 41–4, 56, 74, 77, Diocletian, emperor 64–5

  101, 142

  eques, equites (‘horseman/men’) 32,

  bestiarius (‘beast-fighter’) 10, 31, 73,

  34, 67, 73, 87–8, 90, 125, 126,

  74, 75, 84–6, 99, 124

  135, 136

  essedarius (‘charioteer’) 76, 79, 88,

  Caerleon amphitheatre, Wales 102–4

  136, 144, 149

  Caesar, Julius 11, 35, 36, 38–40, 42,

  50, 85, 88, 120

  Forum Romanum, Rome 19–20,

  Caligula (Gaius), emperor 47–8,

  26, 101

 

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