Early Gladiators: 200s-100s BC
Though gladiator games were a natural extension of Rome's obsession with military prowess and conquest, gladiator combat is thought to have originated with the Etruscans, a people conquered by Rome who lived in modern-day Tuscany and Umbria. The Etruscans believed that blood offerings (munera, later used as a name for the Roman games) from a fight to the death were required to give peace to the spirits of the deceased.
Rome saw its first recorded combat in 264 BC, when patricians Marcus and Decimus Brutus had three pairs of slaves fight each other in a cattle market to honor the death of their father. But the association with funeral rituals didn't last. Gladiators-for-hire could bring in considerable income to their owners.
With time, gladiator games were not just the private domain of rich Romans seeking diversion, but were also prominently featured in the so-called panem et circenses or "bread and circuses." At these popular spectacles, the masses were entertained for free and came away with gifts of food. Fueled by their popular acclaim, as the gap between Rome's rich and poor widened, gladiator games became not just a commonplace sport . . . but an increasingly valuable political tool for aristocrats and rulers alike.
Gladiator Glory: 65 BC - 248 AD
The gladiator games first reached Hollywood-epic proportions under Julius Caesar, who gathered some 320 gladiator pairs for combat in 65 BC as part of his bid for absolute power. Under Caesar, the first state-funded gladiator games would be held - the first step in a long tradition by rulers of both the Roman Republic and Empire to use the games for their own purposes. To observe firsthand the fighting techniques of Thracians, Gauls and other conquered peoples, Caesar regularly staged games between POWs. The popular naumachia -- naval battles between thousands of gladiators - were another Caesarean innovation.
By the time of the reign of the first Roman emperor Augustus (27 BC - 14 AD), gladiator games had become a national, state-sponsored pastime. Emperor Claudius often jumped into the ring to needle gladiators to fight harder; Nero ordered hundreds of Roman senators and nobles to fight each other at a time. When the Colosseum opened in 80 AD, it was marked with 100 days of games that featured hundreds of gladiator fights, a ship battle and the slaughter of over an estimated 9,000 animals.
Within a century of the Colosseum's founding, gladiator games were being held nearly continuously throughout the Roman Empire. Untold thousands of animals and humans died in the process. By the time animal combat was abolished in the 6th century, the rush to supply the games had wiped out elephants from North Africa, lions from Mesopotamia, and hippopotamuses from Nubia.
But the rage for gladiators would not last. Pressures from barbarian forces on the Roman Empire's western frontiers were growing - pressures that Rome found increasingly difficult to subdue. In 248 AD, to mark the millennium of Rome's founding, Emperor Philip the Arab hosted three days of gladiator games at the Colosseum. It would be perhaps the last send-off for an era of gore and glory. As the empire focused its energies on repulsing barbarian attacks, public funds for gladiator spectacles would start to dwindle.
Gladiators Rebel: 73 BC - 71 BC
When gladiators come to mind, one name stands alone: Spartacus. This native of Thrace in Greece led a two-year uprising of gladiators, slaves and poor peasants that engulfed all of southern Italy and led to the defeat of five Roman armies. The so-called "Gladiator Wars" (73 BC - 71 BC) started at the gladiator school in Capua, south of Rome, where Spartacus, thought to be an army deserter, was in training. Armed with kitchen knives, Spartacus and 70 students managed to break out of the school and head for Mt. Vesuvius, where they slipped past soldiers sent in pursuit. In "Life of Crassus," the Roman historian Plutarch writes that Spartacus "not only had a great spirit and great physical strength, but was, much more than one would expect from his condition, most intelligent and cultured . . ." After Spartacus's death in battle with the politician and general Marcus Licinius Crassus, some 6,000 of his followers were crucified on the Appian Way between Capua and Rome. In the future, Rome would view gladiators warily: private individuals could only own a certain number of gladiators - eventually the state imposed a complete monopoly on gladiator schools - and gladiators entering the ring to hail the emperor or other high public officials were forbidden to enter with their weapons.
Decline of Games: 300s - 400s AD
In the end, Christianity dealt the decisive blow to the gladiator games. After Emperor Constantine made the new faith the Roman Empire's official religion in 337 AD, Christian gladiator critics became more outspoken. Their denunciations echoed earlier reservations expressed by emperor (Marcus Aurelius) and intellectual (Cicero, Seneca) alike.
The Christian position was influenced, no doubt, by their own experience in the arena. As a religious minority that did not recognize the Roman pantheon, Christians, like Jews, were suspect. Thousands are believed to have died in Rome's Colosseum, burned alive, tied onto racks for lions or leopards to devour, or otherwise used as prey for the wild animal hunts that were an essential part of the games.
The limitations on gladiators began slowly, but with great effect. In 200, women gladiators - always a source of debate - were banned from fighting. In 365, humans could no longer be thrown to wild animals - always a spectator high point. The imperial gladiator schools closed 34 years later.
In 404 AD, when spectators at the Colosseum killed a Christian named Tetramachus who had tried to stop a gladiator fight, Emperor Honorarius's action was swift: gladiator combat was banned.
Popular legend had tied the Colosseum's gladiator games with the survival of Rome. In the years that followed Honorarius' ban, city and arena both declined rapidly. Six years after the ban, barbarians sacked Rome. Eighteen years later, the Colosseum was damaged by an earthquake. Fifty-one years later, vandals sacked the city again. Just over 71 years after Honarius's gladiator ban, the last Roman emperor was deposed and the Roman Empire came finally to an end.
© 2003 Educational Broadcasting Corporation. All Rights Reserved.