The gladiators used both forms of Swords, the straight two-edged blade and the curved.[892] The Dimacheri carried, as the name denotes, two weapons: these may have been either two Swords of the same size, as carried by the Japanese,[893] or possibly Sword and dagger, a practice long preserved on the shores of the Mediterranean. The same may be said of the duos gladios borne by the Gaul whom Torquatus slew. The Hoplomachi, armed cap-a-pie, must also have been Swordsmen. The Mirmillo[894] was weaponed with a curved blade, cutting inside (‘gladio incurvo et falcato’): in Montfaucon, he carries a long convex shield and a Sica or short-Sword.[895] Opposed to the Mirmillo was the Retiarius, armed with net and trident: Cortez found net-soldiers in Mexico, as was natural to fishermen. Winckelmann shows a fight between the two: Retiarius has netted his fish and proceeds to use the fuscina or tridens, while a toga’d Lanista, rod in hand, stands behind him and points out where to strike.
The Samnites were distinguished by the oblong tribal scutum[896] and the leaf-shaped Greek Sword: so says the Comte de Caylus; but on the monument erected by Caracalla to Bato, the weapon is straight up and down. The Thræces or Threces (Thracians proper)[897] had round shields, and instead of the huge Swords noted by Livy, the short knife called by Juvenal falx supina.[898] The Thracian’s Sword closely resembles that used in the Isle of Cos. Winckelmann[899] gives a combat between two Thracians, each backed up by his Lanista. We find also a naked Gladiator, with Sword and shield, fighting another in breast-belt, apron (subligaculum), and boots, with a shield and a three-thonged flagellum or scourge.
The Gladiators were an order distinct from the Bestiarii (θηριομάχοι) who fought against wild beasts; these were exhibited in the Forum, those in the Circus. Again, Bestiarii, who can boast that St. Paul once belonged to them, must not be confounded with the criminals thrown ad leones, without means of defence, like Mentor, Androclus, and early Christian communists.[900] The beast-fighters had their scholæ bestiarum or bestiariorum where they practised weapons, and they received auctoramentum or pay. The arms were various: mostly they are shown with a Sword in one hand, a veil in the other, and the left leg protected by greaves. Under Divus Cæsar criminals for the first time encountered wild beasts with silver weapons. The modern survival is the Spanish bull-fight. Gladiatorism lasted in England after a fashion till the days of Addison; amongst professional Swordsmen, the highest surviving name is that of
——the great Figg, by the prize-fighting swains
The monarch acknowledged of Mary’bone plains.[901]
To conclude this discursus on gladiatorism. Most popular sports are cruel, but we must not confound, as is often done, cruelty with brutality. The former may accompany greatness of intellect, the latter is the characteristic of debasement. Every nation is disposed to ‘fie-fie’ its neighbour’s favourite diversion. The English fox-hunter and pigeon-shooter[902] are severe upon bull-fighting and cock-fighting—the classical and Oriental pastime preserved in Spain and in Spanish South America.[903] The boxer, who imitates, at a humble distance, the Cestus-play of the Greeks and Romans, looks scandalised at la boxe Française, with its garnishing of savate; and at the Brazilian capoeira, who butts with his woolly head. And so vice versâ. Absence or presence of fair play should, methinks, condemn or justify all the various forms of sport which are not mere or pure barbarities. And, applying this test, we shall not harsh judge the gladiatorial games of Rome.
I now proceed to describe the Sword amongst the Romans, a simpler subject than in Greece.
As the so-termed founding of Rome took place during the early Iron Age of Southern Europe, it is probable that the citizens, like their predecessors the Etruscans, originally made their blades of copper and bronze, the leaf-shape being borrowed from the Greeks, as we see it retained by the gladiators. The material would last into the Age of Steel, but even in her early years Rome must have preferred the harder metal. Pliny expressly tells us that Porsena, after his short-lived conquest, prohibited the future masters of the world from using iron except in agriculture; it was hardly safe to handle a stylus. Polybius notes that in his day bronze was entirely restricted to defensive armour—helmets, breast-plates, and greaves. All offensive weapons, swords and spears, were either made of, or tipped with, steel. To this superiority of material we may attribute the Roman successes in the second Punic war (b.c. 218–201), and their conquest of the gallant Gauls, when their foes could oppose nothing better than bronze. They had reason to call a Sword ferrum.[904]
THE SWORD IN ROME.
The Romans called the Sword Ensis, Gladius, and Spatha. The two former are used as synonyms by Quinctilian,[905] but the first presently became poetical. The derivations are eminently unsatisfactory. Voss would find Ensis in ἔγχος, hasta; Sanskritists in Asi, a Sword, the Zend Anh. Gladius is popularly drawn a clade ferenda, quasi cladius (Varro and Littleton); Voss prefers κλάδον (ramus), a young branch, the earliest Sword: to others it appears a congener of the Keltic Clad, the destroyer. Of the derivation of ‘Spatha’ I have already treated: Suetonius[906] makes it equivalent to Machaira; but this word and its diminutive Machærium are loosely used.