Butchered to make a Roman holiday.
The ludus gladiatorius[878] began as a humane institution amongst the Etruscans, who, instead of slaughtering, upon the funeral pyre, slaves and war-captives, like Achilles and Pyrrhus, allowed them to fight for their lives. The munus at Rome, moreover, was originally confined to public funerals, and it was an abuse which allowed it at private interments, at entertainments, and at holiday festivals in general.
According to Livy[879] ‘when Scipio exhibited gladiators at Carthage’ (b.c. 546) ‘they were not slaves or men who sold their blood, the usual stuff of the Lanista’s school.’[880] The service was voluntary and gratuitous. Combatants were often sent by petty princes to show the courage of their people; others came forward in compliment to the General, and some decided their disputes by the Sword. Amongst persons of distinction were Corbis and Orsua, cousins-german, who determined to fight out their claims to the city called Ibes, and they ‘exhibited to the army a most interesting spectacle,’ the elder swordsman easily mastering the artless attacks of the younger.
THE ROMAN GLADIATOR.
Even when the gladiators at Rome were condemned criminals and captives whose lives were forfeited by the old laws of war, some humanity remained. Although the malefactors doomed ad gladium were to be slain within the year, those sent only ad ludum might obtain their discharge within three years. And under the Empire to join the shows became ‘fashionable:’ Severus was compelled to forbid freeborn citizens, knights, senators, and even women from entering the arena.
The life of the gladiator was one to make the ‘honest poor’ curse their lot. He was trained in the best climates, and fed with the most succulent food (sagina gladiatoria): hence Cicero[881] calls rude health and good condition ‘gladiatoria totius corporis firmitas.’ He became one of a familia or brotherhood after taking the oath, which Montaigne gives from Petronius (117):—‘Nous jurons de nous laisser enchainer, brusler, battre et tuer de glaive, et de souffrir tout ce que les gladiateurs légitimes souffrent de leur maîtres, engageant très-religieusement le corps et l’âme à son service.’ In other words, he had plenty of society and he was disciplined. Under the Lanista he practised daily at the schools, and the ludus matutinus near the Cœliolus or little Cœlian Hill was frequented by all classes.[882] Here he ‘fought the air’ (ἀέρα δέρειν), a Σκιαμαχία like our fighting the sack; he contended with the rudis (rod or wooden Sword); he cut at the Palus, the ‘post-practice’ of German universities and modern regiments, and he strengthened back and shoulders with the Halteres (dumb-bells, dombelles), and with other artifices. Thus a wound, fatal to a man out of training, would only disable one in such splendid condition.[883] Pliny,[884] indeed, makes light of his danger. Speaking of C. Curio’s two pivot-theatres, which during representations could be wheeled inwards or outwards, this model grumbler declares: ‘The safety of the gladiators was almost less compromised than that of the Roman people, which allowed itself to be thus whirled round from side to side.’
If worsted in combat and sentenced to receive the Sword (ferrum recipere), the gladiator, prepared for his fate, met it with manly firmness. When the down-turned thumbs granted mercy, the vanquished got his missio or discharge for the day. Augustus humanely abolished the barbarity of shows sine missione, where no quarter was given. The victor was presented with palms, whence plurimarum palmarum gladiator; and with cash, which doubtless commended him to the other sex. We read of old gladiators, showing that the career was not necessarily fatal. These veterans, and sometimes novices who had fought only in a few munera, were, at the request of the people, discharged the service by the Editor or Exhibitor of the games. They were then presented with a Rudis (rude donati), and, as Rudiarii lived happily ever afterwards.
We have also notices of distinguished gladiators. Diogenes Laertius[885] does not disdain to mention as the fourth Epicurus, ‘lastly, a gladiator.’ Spartacus, Crixus, and Œnomaus broke out of Lentulus’ fencing-school, escaped from Capua, and made a camp at Vesuvius; they used the Swords made out of iron plundered in the slave-houses to such effect that Athenæus declares, ‘If Spartacus had not died in battle, he would have caused no ordinary trouble to our countrymen, as Eunus did in Sicily.’[886]
Gladiatorial shows were first exhibited (b.c. 246) in the Forum Boarium by Marcus and D. Brutus at their father’s funeral, during the Saturnalia (our Christmas) and the Minerva feasts.[887] They were abolished by Constantine ‘the Great’ (a.d. 306–33), but the edict seemed to give them fresh life; Frank prisoners were slaughtered by the hundred in the arena of Trèves. They were finally suppressed (a.d. 404) by Honorius, who made a martyr of the monk Telemachus. I need hardly relate how this meddling ecclesiastic rushed into the amphitheatre to separate the combatants, and was incontinently stoned by ‘the house.’
But the time had come for abolishing these glorious spectacula; as mostly happens, long custom and familiarity had merged the use into the abuse, and caused Lactantius to exclaim ‘tollenda est nobis!’ The misuse had begun under Divus Cæsar, who collected so many gladiators for the fights that his enemies became alarmed, and restricted the number. Caligula, the ‘Bootling,’ was devoted to the sport, and made some gladiators captains of his German guards. He deprived the ‘Mirmillones’[888] of certain weapons. One Columbus coming off victorious in a fight, but slightly hurt, he caused the wound to be infused with poison, which got the name of Columbinum. The nervous Claudius (‘Caldius’) assisted at the spectacula ‘muffled up in a pallium, a new fashion!’ Having spared, at the intercession of his four sons, a conquered prize-fighter, he sent a billet round the house reminding the spectators how much it behoved them to get children, since these could procure favour and security for a gladiator. In later years he became savage. If a combatant chanced to fall, especially one of the Retiarii, he ordered him to be butchered that he might enjoy the look of the face in the agonies of death. Two combatants happening to kill each other, he ordered some little knives to be made of their Swords. He also delighted in seeing Bestiarii, and he made the sport most brutal and sanguinary. Nero, during his ‘golden quinquennium,’ ordered that no gladiators, even condemned criminals, should be slain; and he persuaded four hundred senators and six hundred knights, some of unbroken fortunes and unblemished fame, to fight in the arena. He espoused the cause of the Thraces or Parmularians, and often joined in the popular demonstrations in favour of the Prasine or ‘green faction,’ without, however, compromising his dignity or doing injustice. In his later and crueller days,[889] hearing the master of a family of gladiators say that a Thrax was a match for a Mirmillo, but not so for the exhibitor of the games, he had him dragged from the benches into the arena and exposed to the dogs, with this label, ‘A Parmularian guilty of speaking blasphemy.’ And, as ‘Mero’ scandalised the world by his passion for singing and harping, so Commodus degraded himself by amateur gladiatorship. He was cunning of fence, but in the most cowardly way. A powerful man and a practised gymnast, he wore impenetrable armour and fought with a heavy Sword, whereas his antagonists were allowed only blades of tin and lead. Even the humane Trajan[890] exhibited after his victories some ten thousand Dacian ‘monomachists.’ The militarism of the Romans, however, made them familiar with butchery. Thus Tacitus[891] says: ‘The Germans gratified us with the spectacle of a battle in which above sixty thousand men were slain.’ This ‘gladiatorial show’ took place near the canal of Drusus, where the Roman guard on the Rhine commanded a view of the other shore.