Gladiatorial Combat In Rome :: Gladiators, Chariots, Roman Games

Gladiatorial contests (munera gladitoria), hold a cardinal place in ourperception of roman behavior. They were also a heavy(p) influence on how Romansthemselves ordered their lives. Attending the games was one of the practicesthat went with being a Roman. The Etruscans who introduced this type ofcontest in the sixth century BC, are assign with its development but its theRomans who made it famous. A surviving feature of the Roman games was when agladiator fell he was hauled out of the arena by a slave dressed as the Etruscandeath-demon Charun. The slave would carry a hammer which was the demonsattribute. Moreover, the Latin term for a trainer-manager of gladiators(lanista), was believed to be an Etruscan word. (450) Gladiators of Ancientcapital of Italy lived their lives to the absolute fullest.Gladiatorial duels had originated from funeral games given in order tosatisfy the loose mans need for blood, and for centuries their principle make were funerals. The first gladiatorial co mbats therefore, took placeat the graves of those being honored, but once they became public spectaclesthey travel into amphitheaters. (283) As for the gladiators themselves, an auraof religious sacrifice continued to hang close to their combats. Obviously mostspectators just enjoyed the massacre without any remorseful reflections. flushancient writers felt no pity, they were aware that gladiators had originatedfrom these holocausts in honor of the dead. What was offered to mollify thedead was counted as a funeral rite. It is called munus (a service) from being aservice due. The ancients feeling that by this sort of spectacle they rendereda service to the dead, after they had made it a more cultured form of cruelty.The belief was that the souls of the dead are appeased with gracious blood, theyuse to sacrifice captives or slaves of poor quality at funerals. afterwards itseemed good to obscure their impiety by making it a pleasure. (6170) So afterthe acquired person had been tra ined to fight as best they can, their instructionwas to learn to be killed For such reasons gladiators were sometimes known asbustuarii or funeral men. Throughout many centuries of Roman history, thesecommemorations of the dead were still among the principle occasions for suchcombats. Men writing their wills often made provisions for gladiatorial duelsin connection with their funerals. Early in the first century AD, the battalion ofPollentia forcibly prevented the burial of an official, until his heirs had beencompelled to provide money for a gladiators show. (1174)It was in Campania and Lucania that the gladiatorial games came to their