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Gladiators - Fighting

A show of gladiators was called munera, and the person who exhibited (edebat) it, editor, numerator, et dominus, who was honored during the day of exhibition, if a private person, with the official signs of a magistrate. Gladiators were sometimes exhibited at the funeral pyre, and sometimes in the forum, but more frequently in the amphitheater. The games wore advertised in advance by means of notices painted on the walls of public and private houses, and even on the tombstones that lined the approaches to the towns and cities. Some are worded in very general terms, announcing merely the name of the giver of the games with the date. Others promise in addition to the awnings that the dust will be kept down in the arena by sprinkling. Sometimes when the troop was particularly good the names of the gladiators were announced in pairs as they would be matched together, with details as to their equipment, the school in which each had been trained, the number of his previous battles, etc. To such a notice on one of the walls in Pompeii some one added after the show the result of each combat. The letters before the names of the gladiators were added after the exhibition by some interested spectator, and stand for vicit, periit, and missus ("beaten, but spared"). Other announcements added to such particulars as those given above the statement that other pairs than those mentioned would fight each day, this being meant to excite the curiosity and interest of the people.

Of other games that were sometimes given in the amphitheaters something has been said in connection with the circus. The most important were the venationes, hunts of wild beasts. These were sometimes killed by men trained to hunt them, sometimes made to kill each other. As the amphitheater was primarily intended for the butchery of men, the venationes given in it gradually but surely took the form of man-hunts. The victims were condemned criminals, some of them guilty of crimes that deserved death, some of them sentenced on trumped up charges, some of them (and among these were women and children) condemned "to the lions" for political or religious convictions. Sometimes they were supplied with weapons, sometimes they were exposed unarmed, even fettered or bound to stakes, sometimes the ingenuity of their executioners found additional torments for them by making them play the parts of the sufferers in the tragedies of mythology.

The day before the exhibition a Banquet (cena libera) was given to the gladiators and they received visits from their friends and admirers. The games took place in the afternoon. After the editor muneris had taken his place, the gladiators marched in procession around the arena, pausing before him to give the famous greeting: morituri te salutant. All then retired from the arena to return in pairs according to the published program. The show began with a series of sham combats, the prolusio, with blunt weapons. When the people had had enough of this the trumpets gave the signal for the real exhibition to begin. Those reluctant to fight were driven into the arena with whips or hot iron bars. If one of the combatants was clearly overpowered without being actually killed, he might appeal for mercy by holding up his finger to the editor. It was customary to refer the plea to the people, who waved cloths or napkins to show that they wished it to be granted, or pointed their thumbs downward as a signal for death. The gladiator who was refused release (missio) received the death blow from his opponent without resistance. Combats where all must fight to the death were said to be sine missione, but these were forbidden by Augustus. The body of the dead man was dragged away through the porta Libitinensis, sand was sprinkled or raked over the blood, and the contests were continued until all had fought.

Before making his first public appearance the gladiator was technically called a tiro. After his first victory he received a token of wood or ivory, which had upon it his name and that of his master or trainer, a date, and the letters Sp, Spect, SpecTat, or Spectavit, meaning perhaps populus spectdvit. When after many victories he had proved himself to be the best of his class, or second best, in his familia, he received the title of primus, or secundus, palus. When he had won his freedom he was given a wooden sword (rudis). From this the titles prima rudis and secunda rudis seem to have been given to those who were afterwards employed as training masters (doctores) in the schools. The rewards given to famous gladiators by their masters and backers took the form of valuable prizes and gifts of money. These may not have been so generous as those given to the aurigae, but they were enough to enable them to live in luxury the rest of their lives.

The class of men who followed this profession probably found their most acceptable reward in the immediate and lasting notoriety that their strength and courage brought them. That they did not shrink from the infamia that the profession entailed is shown by the fact that they did not try to hide their connection with the amphitheater. On the contrary, their gravestones record their classes and the number of their victories, and have often cut upon them their likenesses with the rudis in their hands.

When a gladiator was wounded, the spectators shouted Habet (he is wounded) ; if he was at the mercy of his adversary, he lifted up his forefinger to implore the clemency of the people, with whom (in the later times of the republic) the giver left the decision as to his life or death. There seems to be little reason to doubt that, in republican times, the decision lay sometimes, if not always, with the editor muneris. Even during the empire, after the decision for life or death was tacitly referred by the editor to the crowd, it is likely that he, taking his cue from the crowd, gave the signal to the victorious gladiator.

Some of the most disputed questions concerning the missio of the Roman gladiator have to do with the interpretation of certain vexed phrases. Especially to be mentioned are pollicem vertere, pollicem corner iere, pollicem premere and pollex itifestus. How radically our modern authorities differ as to the meaning of these terms is evident from the variety of opinions entertained as to the response made to the vanquished gladiator begging for his life. Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, 3d edition, vol. I, p. 917: "His [the gladiator's] fate depended upon the people, who turned up their thumbs if they wished him to be killed. . . . There is no clear evidence that the wish that mercy should be shown was expressed by pressing down the thumbs: this was indicated rather by waving handkerchiefs." Guhl and Koner, Life of the Greeks and Romans described from Antique Monuments ; translated from the 3d German edition (p. 560): "In case the spectators lifted their clenched fists (versopollice), the fight had to be continued; the waving of handkerchiefs was the sign of mercy granted." Falke, Greece and Rome : their Life and Art, N. Y., 1882; translated from the German edition (p. 289): "It stood in the pleasure of the people to grant them their lives, but usually they gave the sign of death by stretching out the hands with extended thumbs." Dyer, Pompeii, 3d edit., N. Y., 1871 (p. 228): "This signal was the turning down the thumbs," Dyer adding, "as is well known."