Pompeii

by Mary Beard

  Satrius Valens and his son (assuming that it was they who chose the wording) make no mention of one other extra that many wealthy sponsors of the games include: sparsiones. This is a term that can mean anything ‘sprinkled’ or ‘showered’ over the audience. Sometimes it was perfumed water sprayed over the audience in their seats, sometimes little presents thrown into the crowd (as at a modern Christmas pantomime before Health and Safety regulations prohibited it). Such a flourish was perhaps beyond even this family’s generosity, over five days.

  Nor do they mention, as some do, any special occasion or commemoration linked to their shows. One of the most intriguing of these is found in the single day of displays put on by Cnaius Alleius Nigidius Maius ‘at the dedication of the painting work’. No one is exactly sure what this ‘painting work’ was. But one nice suggestion is that these shows were a day of celebration to commemorate the completion of those splendid paintings that once covered the circuit wall of the arena.

  We can fill out the picture given by the advertisement thanks to a number of paintings and sculptures from the town which depict the games in the Amphitheatre and occasionally the festivities and rituals that surrounded them. A precious piece of evidence comes from one of the town’s cemeteries and must once have adorned an expensive tomb (Ill. 93). It includes three bands of sculpture. The bottom band depicts a wild-beast hunt. Part of the spectacle appears to consist of animals fighting each other. A pair of dogs are busy attacking a goat and a wild boar. The human combatants concentrate on the larger animals. One is skewering a bull, another is about to dispatch a boar. One has lost out in his encounter with a bear, which is already taking a large bite out of him, to the despair of two attendants.

  93. Different elements of the gladiatorial games are shown on each register of this sculpture. On the top level: the procession leading to the Amphitheatre. In the middle: the gladiatorial fights themselves. Below: in the animal contests one human fighter on the right is being finished off by a bear, while on the left a bull is being killed.

  The middle and widest band shows various groups of gladiators, some in the midst of fighting, some claiming victory, some collapsed in defeat. The most striking thing about the scene is that there are as many attendants and officials in the ring as there are gladiators. No fewer than five are supporting a fighter who has almost fallen to the ground. Five more, on the right, are looking after a pair who are taking a break: one is having treatment on his wounded leg; the other is being giving refreshments. There is something disconcertingly like modern sportsmen and their trainers in this image.

  Even more interesting is the upper band of sculpture. For this shows the grand preliminaries to the games which – in our fascination with, or disgust at, the gory sides of the occasion – it is all too easy to forget. The whole proceedings started with a procession through the streets of the town. Here we see it when it has already reached the Amphitheatre, as the awnings at the upper corners must indicate. On the right, leading the way are two musicians and three lictors, staff who are mentioned elsewhere as being assigned to local duoviri. Behind them comes a curious platform, carried on the shoulders of four men. On top of it two figures, models presumably, crouch around an anvil, one holding a hammer in the air and about to strike. You might expect the gods to be honoured in this procession (and indeed statues of deities were often carried on platforms much like this in religious and civic processions), but what are these little blacksmiths doing here? The best suggestion is that this is intended to celebrate their metal-working, the skill on which the whole occasion depended. Next in line is a man carrying a placard, perhaps naming the sponsor of the show or the reason for its performance, and next someone carrying a palm, the symbol of victory. Then comes a man dressed in a toga. This is almost certainly the sponsor himself, who is followed in turn by a procession of men parading the gladiators’ armour, piece by piece, the fruit of the blacksmiths’ labours. Bringing up the rear are a trumpeter and two more attendants leading horses decked in obviously ceremonial trappings, for a festival occasion.

  This is a rare glimpse of the rituals, the varied spectacles, the community involvement – from sponsor to blacksmiths – which gave a context to these bloody games. Was all this also stopped when shows were banned in Pompeii for ten years in 59? Whatever the reason for the riot (whether a combination of fraying tempers, local rivalry and alcohol-fuelled exuberance, or something more sinister), such a total ban would have hit very hard at the life of the town, its shared pursuits, its structures of patronage and hierarchy.

  The answer is probably not. Tacitus’ Latin account is vague on this point: he refers only to the prohibition on ‘any public gathering of that kind’. But a handful of surviving advertisements give notice of forthcoming games which are to include wild-beast hunts, athletes, awnings and sparsiones. This was everything the audience might have hoped for – except the gladiators. The nearest thing to them are the ‘athletes’. Almost certainly these advertisements refer to shows held between 59 and 69. The ban, in other words, applied to the gladiators alone. The rest continued much as normal, even if many Pompeians no doubt felt that athletes and even wild beasts were a poor substitute for the star attraction. In fact, one of the shows concerned is the celebration presented by Nigidius Maius for the ‘dedication of the painting work’. If that ‘painting work’ really was the decoration of the arena’s curtain wall, it must have seemed a sad irony to be dedicating those splendid images of gladiators in combat at a show that could present no gladiators at all.

  Heartthrobs of the girls

  So far we have seen the shows from the point of view of spectators and sponsors. But what about the gladiators and beast-fighters themselves? Who were they? How were they organised? Can we reconstruct anything of their perspective on the Amphitheatre? Was the life of a gladiator bound to be bloody and short?

  Gladiators were almost always men. Although modern scholars have often become very excited at the transgressive prospect of female gladiators, in truth there are only a handful of plausible candidates from anywhere in the Roman world. There are none at all in Pompeii. In terms of formal, legal status, gladiators were at the bottom of the pile of Roman society. Many were slaves, others were condemned criminals: those were the conscripts, willing or unwilling. A few others were volunteers. For signing up as a gladiator might have been one of the very few routes out of total destitution in the Roman world. Survival, in the short term at least, might be bought at a high price that amounted to more than just danger. It would have involved a loss of day-to-day freedom almost akin to slavery itself, under the control of the troupe manager or, in Latin, lanista.

  The lanista was a crucial middleman in the whole business (and for them it was a business) of gladiatorial shows and beast hunts. The elite sponsors of the games did not keep their own gladiators for display. When they wanted to put on a show, they would have negotiated a price with one of these troupe managers. Trade was probably not so brisk that there would have been a very large number to choose from, but in Pompeii itself we know the names of three lanistae operating in the last forty years of the city’s life.

  The best attested is a man called Numerius Festus Ampliatus. An advertisement on the wall of the Basilica in the Forum, for example, gives notice that ‘the gladiatorial “family” [familia] of Numerius Festus Ampliatus will fight again ... on 15 and 16 May’. As is normal, Ampliatus’ troupe is called his ‘family’ or ‘household’ (more an indication of the wide range of meanings of the Latin familia than the barefaced euphemism it might seem). The fact that no sponsor is named may suggest that this show was a purely commercial occasion, capitalising – as the word ‘again’ hints – on some earlier success. He certainly had more than a local Pompeian trade. Another advertisement publicises the appearance of his familia at the town of Formiae, which lies to the north, halfway to Rome.

  The job of the lanista involved acquiring the gladiators for his troupe, which would presumably have meant scouting for talent at local
slave auctions. But once acquired they needed training. Gladiators were expected to perform in various specialist roles, and with different types of equipment. The ‘Thracian’ (Thrax), for example, fought with a short curved sword and a small shield. The ‘fish-heads’ (murmillones, so called after the emblem of a fish on their helmets) had a large, long shield. The ‘net-man’ (retiarius) fought with a trident and a net, in which he tried to ensnare his opponent. The art of the lanista must have been in training up his men to these roles, then making clever fighting combinations: a fish-head against a net-man was, for example, a popular combination.

  Occasionally, he might hire in extra men from other gladiatorial troupes, to fill gaps or to acquire a star fighter temporarily. One graffito, now detached from its original wall and in the Naples Museum, seems almost to replicate a show’s programme originally stretching over four days. It gives the name of the lanista, Marcus Mesonius, then it lists the different bouts, giving the names of the gladiators and who won. A number of them are described as ‘Julian’ or ‘Neronian’ gladiators, meaning that they had been trained at the emperor’s own gladiatorial training school at Capua. They must have been either permanent or temporary hirings by Mesonius. It would be hard to avoid the comparison with the British football transfer market – but for the fact that the job in question was real fighting, not kicking a ball around a pitch.

  The lanista probably also trained the beast-fighters (employed on much the same terms as the gladiators proper) as well as acquiring the animals for the hunt. The advertisement for Ampliatus’ ‘repeat show’ certainly includes a hunt and, in any case, the animals may not have required any particular expertise to acquire and house. At Rome itself the emperors occasionally put such exotic animals as lions, elephants or rhinoceroses on display (and to death) – acquired and transported, we know not how, from distant parts of the empire. In 1850, to bring a young hippo from Egypt to London, it took a specially built steamer, with a 2000 litre water tank, and a host of keepers and smaller animals for its food. How the Roman imperial agents managed similar transport is a complete mystery. But at Pompeii, there was nothing nearly so exotic. All the evidence we have suggests that the beasts were obtained locally; and even then dogs and goats were commoner than bulls and bears. The truth is that the Pompeian arena was stocked more like a modern ‘children’s corner’ of a zoo than a wild-game park.

  Gladiators and beast-fighters mostly lived on the job. Two places in Pompeii have been identified as gladiatorial barracks. How exactly the gladiators lived in these places, how many of them there were, and under what degree of imprisonment is very unclear – and much less certain than the movie image in Spartacus or Gladiator would suggest. Nor is it certain whether they were the permanent base for a single familia, or temporary housing for any troupes passing through. But both buildings have a very close connection with gladiators.

  94. This large open space, with accommodation around it, provided a base for gladiators in the last period of the city’s life – to judge at least from the gladiatorial equipment (Ill. 95) found there.

  The first is what was originally a sizeable private house in the north of the city, converted in the early first century CE to house gladiators in rooms around a large peristyle, which would (or so we imagine) have been used for training. The gladiatorial connection is absolutely clear, thanks to more than a hundred graffiti by or about gladiators plastered around the peristyle. But this building was not in use in the final years of the city. Maybe after the earthquake of 62, or perhaps when trade picked up after the end of the gladiatorial ban, gladiators took up residence in what had been a large colonnaded open space connected to the Large Theatre.

  This seems to have consisted in a large training area with rooms for the fighters around the edge of the complex (Ill. 94). Many of these had an internal wooden gallery, making a two-level apartment, though it would still have been cramped for two or three gladiators sharing. No traces of beds have been found, which suggests that, at best, they slept on mattresses, directly on the floor. This picture can be filled out by suggesting that some of the larger rooms on the east side may have provided communal, social space, with an apartment for the lanista or one of his sub-managers above. Maybe. But in truth there is little evidence for that beyond modern fantasy. There was even one room which may have served as a prison or punishment area, complete with iron shackles – though the skeletons found there during the excavations in the eighteenth century were not apparently chained in this way, and to be honest the shackles did not necessarily have anything to do with the gladiators.

  95. One of the bronze helmets found in the gladiators’ accommodation. Like the others, it is so richly decorated (here with an image of the goddess ‘Rome’) and in such good condition, that it is hard to imagine that it has seen active combat. Much more likely it is part of the gladiators’ ceremonial or parade dress.

  How are we so certain that these were gladiatorial quarters? The simple answer lies in the extraordinary finds of bronze gladiatorial armour and weapons in ten of the rooms around the peristyle. These added up to fifteen richly decorated bronze helmets, fourteen shinguards, six shoulder-guards, as well as a small assortment of daggers and other weapons. Most of these are richly decorated, with scenes from classical myth or emblems of Roman power. One helmet, for example (Ill. 95), displays a personification of Rome itself, surrounded by defeated barbarians, prisoners and trophies of victory. Strikingly they are all in a perfect state. Not one shows any sign of ever having been used in fighting. These may well have been the parade collection, such as we saw carried along in the representation of the opening procession at the games. If so, nothing survives of their day-to-day fighting equipment.

  The prospects for these gladiators were grim, but not quite as bad as we might fear. The good news for them was that they were an expensive commodity. Many of them would have been bought at a price; and all of them would have used up many of the lanista’s resources in their training and keep. He would not want to waste them. Even if gladiatorial shows in which no one was ever killed would hardly be crowd-pullers, and even if the sponsor wanted his money’s worth, it would be in the troupe manager’s interests to keep the deaths to a minimum. It would surely have been part of the deal between lanista and sponsor that when a fighter lost, more often than not the sponsor should give a lead to the crowd in allowing him to be reprieved, not to put him to death there and then. Needless to say, that must have been the instinct of the gladiators too. Training and living together, and no doubt becoming friends, they would hardly have been going all out for the kill.

  96. This vivid record of three gladiatorial bouts at Nola (the place is mentioned next to the topmost pair of fighters) was found scrawled on the outside of a tomb. One of the fighters is a first-timer. The middle register features M(arcus) Attilius who is marked down as a ‘novice’ (‘T’ for tiro). After his first victory (‘V’ stands for vicit), he goes on to win his second fight against the more experienced L(ucius) Raecius Felix. The musicians shown at the top remind us of what a noisy occasion these games must have been.

  That is certainly the picture we get from the Pompeian graffiti which record the results of particular bouts of fighting. One of the most evocative examples is a set of drawings with accompanying captions found on a tomb, depicting a four-day series of games at nearby Nola (Ill. 96). The gladiators are a mixture of old hands, with thirteen or fourteen fights to their name, and a novice undertaking his first two fights. None of the losers are killed, for next to each of their pictures there appears the letter ‘M’ for missus, or ‘reprieved’. From the record of the gladiators’ ‘form’ that is also recorded (‘fought 14, victories 12’) we can tell that two of the losers had been spared at least twice before. In the show presented by Mesonius, on one day nine pairs of gladiators fought. Out of these eighteen, we can still identify eight outright victors, five men reprieved and three men killed. Occasionally a Pompeian gladiator is recorded as fighting more than fifty fights.
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br />   Nonetheless, even if defeat often did not mean death, the loss of life must have been by our standards considerable. To put exactly the same figures in a less upbeat way, three dead out of a total of eighteen gladiators, suggests a death rate of about 1 in 6 in each show. Small as the sample is, it fits with the overall record of numbers of fights fought by each gladiator for whom that total is recorded. True, there are a few old-stagers, but only a quarter of those we know have more than ten fights to their name. If we reckon, the other way round, that three quarters would have died before their tenth fight, that means a loss rate of some 13 per cent per fight. Even assuming that they did not fight very often (two or three shows a year is one estimate), if they entered the arena at the age of seventeen they could expect to be dead by the time they were twenty-five.

  But if longevity did not come with a gladiatorial career, celebrity perhaps did. There were clearly some star gladiators whose names were paraded on the advertisements for shows, including one beast-fighter too, called Felix, whose match against some bears was specially highlighted in one notice. The figures of gladiators, in their distinctive armour, are also found throughout the town, and in every medium you can think of. They turn up as little figurines, as images on pottery lamps, and forming the handles of bronze bowls. One statue of a gladiator, more than a metre high, seems to have done duty as a kind of trade mark, or inn sign, at one tavern near the Amphitheatre. Gladiators would have seen their own images all over the place.

  It is also commonly said that they had enormous sex appeal for the women of Pompeii and elsewhere in the Roman world. The satirist Juvenal writes of some imaginary upper-class Roman lady who runs off with the great brutish figure of a gladiator, obviously attracted by the ancient equivalent of ‘rough trade’, and by the glamour that his dangerous life brought. The Roman imagination certainly saw the gladiator in these terms. But we find a cautionary tale when we try to follow this fantasy through to the real life of Pompeii. We have already seen (p. 5) that the myth of the upmarket Pompeian lady being caught red-handed in the gladiatorial barracks, with her gladiator lover, is just that: a myth. But some of the other evidence for the sex appeal of the gladiators requires a second look too.