With the recent release of the sequel for the much beloved Gladiator (2000) film, most of the discussions surrounding it pertained to glaring historical inaccuracies and liberties taken for the sake of the story.
This has brought some attention to how gladiators and gladiatorial combat were truly conducted in real life. Despite being one of the most decadent and cruel spectacles in human history, the realities were far from what was believed in modern pop culture, to the extent that even the original Gladiator film was rife with liberties taken for the sake of entertainment and to align with the public’s idea of gladiatorial combat.
As ancient and poorly documented as it is, the origin of the real life tradition of gladiatorial combat is debated. Most theories trace the tradition back to either the Ancient Etruscan or Campanian civilisations, with evidence supporting both having practised it but not being the concrete first instance of it.
These ritualistic combats, known as munera, were originally thought to appease the spirits of the deceased. The Romans adopted this practice, with the first recorded gladiatorial contest in Rome taking place in 264 BCE. This event, organised by the sons of Decimus Junius Brutus Pera, involved combat between three pairs of gladiators and was held to commemorate their father’s death.
Transformation
By the late Republic, gladiatorial games had transformed what started as private funerary rites into public spectacles. Politicians and wealthy elites organized lavish games to win favor with the masses, often using them as tools for political gain. At their peak, elites seeking support would postpone funeral rights for their relatives until election season, as an excuse to throw extravagant gladiatorial shows.
In the later years of Ancient Rome, owning gladiators was the same as owning political power. Julius Caesar, for example, famously staged extravagant games featuring hundreds of gladiators clad in expensive armour to solidify his popularity, with flimsy justifications like funeral rites for his father who had already been dead for decades.
The construction of permanent amphitheaters, like the Colosseum in 80 CE, marked the peak of gladiatorial entertainment. These grand arenas could host tens of thousands of spectators, showcasing not only gladiator duels but also animal hunts (venationes), naval battles (naumachiae), and executions.
Gladiators were typically slaves, prisoners of war, or criminals, though some free men volunteered, seeking fame and fortune. During the later years of the Roman Republic, these volunteers, called auctorati, would have made up around half of all gladiators.
Celebrity-like status
They trained in specialised schools called ludi, where they learned combat skills under strict discipline. Despite their low social status, successful gladiators could achieve celebrity-like status, earning adoration from the public and, occasionally, their freedom through the symbolic wooden sword, the rudis.
Though a vast majority of gladiators were men, female gladiators also existed albeit very rarely, as an exotic and novel absurdity more than anything, and the practice would be banned earlier than the greater tradition would be much later. Some emperors were also known to have participated in gladiatorial combat, though obviously at much less risk.
Combat in the arena was brutal but not always to the death. Gladiators were valuable investments for their owners and were expected to compete many times over within their careers, so matches were often designed to showcase skill rather than result in fatalities. However, the games were undeniably violent, reflecting Roman society’s appetite for spectacle and its desensitisation to human suffering.
Spectators preferred combat between combatants of similar skill, in drawn-out, bloody fights, as opposed to one-sided massacres. Defeat did not always mean death either, with many surviving at the mercy of the crowd or judge. Later on, it became too costly to lose gladiators, so skilled participants were likely to survive, even if they lost.
By the 3rd century CE, the popularity of gladiatorial games began to wane. The economic strain of hosting large-scale events, coupled with changing societal values, contributed to their decline. The rise of Christianity, which opposed the games as an immoral pagan ritual, further hastened their end. Emperor Honorius officially banned gladiatorial combat in 404 CE after a monk, Telemachus, attempted to stop a match and was killed by the crowd. Despite their end, gladiators left an indelible mark on history. They have been romanticised in literature, art, and modern media, symbolising courage, resilience, and the dark allure of spectacle.
