Invisible Romans (44 page)

Florus won at Nuceria on July 28th. On August 15th he came out on top at Herculaneum. (
CIL
4.4299, Pompeii)

Chances of survival might actually increase as the fighter progressed, not only because his skills were honed by experience, but because his owner/manager would protect his investment as the price per fight increased. Perhaps he would create matches against easier opponents, perhaps he would have the other gladiator ‘throw’ the match, perhaps he would manage a ‘draw with honor’ (
missio)
rather than a mortal defeat. But the evidence of gladiators who earned the official release from service, the wooden sword (
rudis),
offers an impression of relatively numerous victories: The three examples epigraphy gives of their victories detail numbers ranging from seven to eighteen. These men thus earned their release fairly quickly. With so little data to go on, I can only say that some successful gladiators had long careers, some short; it is impossible to know the reason why this would be so in individual cases, or even what an overall, generalized picture might actually be.

The life of a gladiator was significantly shorter than ordinary people’s in other occupations, that is for certain: While a person who reached the age of twenty might expect to live to forty-five or so, on average, of the fifteen gladiators just noted, only two lived past age thirty, and while most seem to have died in the arena, not all did. This evaluation is confirmed by the gladiator graveyard discovered at Ephesus, Turkey, in 1997: Almost all the sixty-seven skeletons were males under thirty. To judge by the descriptions of the physical deformities of gladiators the physician/researcher Galen examined as a medical assistant to gladiators, and the traumas discovered on the Ephesus remains, those who lived suffered from serious injuries, which probably helps to explain why even those who survived fights did not live long lives.

The gladiator did not make his life worse in pursuing this career. The trade-off is clear: life at immediate risk in return for a life not otherwise accessible. But even the life risk has its positive side: By training and innate physical ability – ‘athleticism’ as it is called today – a man could have a greater degree of control over his fate than, say, as a day-laborer
or even as a soldier. That control might be chimerical, but a strong young man, perhaps already predisposed to thinking himself indestructible in the way of youth, could be forgiven for believing in it, especially in the face of a world with so few options for propulsion into the stratosphere of public recognition and (at least relatively) good living conditions.

In spite of this reality, ancient elite sources and modern sources emphasize, one could almost say fixate on, the stigma – what the Romans called
infamia
– attached to becoming a gladiator
auctoratus,
voluntarily; the same dishonor, it is claimed, came to the voluntary beast fighter (
venator, bestiarius).
This fixation arises from the ancient elite’s obsession with status and dignity and a modern willingness to accept this obsession as a guiding light in interpreting the lives of gladiators. It is true that this attitude existed among some of the ordinary people as well. For example, the dream interpreter Artemidorus interweaves this in a dream analysis:

A man dreamed he was being carried aloft by some people in a bread-kneading trough filled with human blood, and he ate some that had congealed. Then his mother confronted him and said, ‘My child, you dishonor me.’ Then he further dreamed that the men carrying him set him down and he went to his home. Then in reality he enrolled as a gladiator and fought many years in fights to the finish. For to feast on human blood portended his would be the raw and unholy nourishment of human blood, and the words of his mother foretold the dishonor of his life. The bearing in a kneading trough portended the constant and unceasing danger he would be in, for everything put into such a trough must be consumed. His good luck in his fights might have run out, except that he laid down his profession and returned to his home. For after a long time, with some of his friends strenuously pressing him, he gave up being a gladiator. (
Dreams
5.58)

Infamia
was an inchoate concept at best, and certainly not a legal formula; nonetheless it was used as a catch-all to label many forms of behavior that seemed to undermine the basic social contract. For example, conviction in criminal court or, in many cases, civil court, led to
infamia.
Reprehensible actions such as bankruptcy, personally
harming someone else (
iniuria),
and dishonorable discharge from the army produced the same result. Certain occupations did as well, specifically being a pimp or prostitute and, what is of interest here, being a ‘gladiator pimp’ (
lanista)
or an actual gladiator.

From elite literature one could be forgiven for thinking that the infamy of gladiators was a terrible thing to experience. Tertullian, carrying here both the animus of the elite and of the Christian, writes:

The [elite] sponsors and managers of the spectacles bring out the charioteers, actors, athletes, and gladiators – men arousing the greatest passion to whom men give their souls and women their bodies as well. On account of such men the organizers commit themselves to the very things they criticize [in their salons] and the very skills they glorify; they then take as an excuse to denigrate and put down the men who exhibit them. Indeed, even more – these elites openly condemn them through social stigma and restricting their civil rights, keeping them from the senate, the public speakers’ platform, the senatorial and equestrian orders, from all other positions and from certain other distinctions as well. What perversity! They adore whom they punish, they despise whom they approve, they praise the talent to the skies, but harshly criticize the talented. (
On Spectacles
22)

Gladiators are sentenced ‘to some rocky outcrop of infamy, with all vestiges of decent dignity stripped away’ (
On Spectacles
23).

But both legally and practically any stigma widely shared by the elite mentality is virtually meaningless in the lives of ordinary people; in truth for the gladiator the practical result of being labeled ‘infamous’ by action or occupation is small indeed. First of all, there is no conviction on a charge of ‘infamy.’ ‘Infamy’ accompanies a legally punished or socially disapproved action, but no one is brought up on the charge. Once ‘infamy’ adheres, however, there are legal repercussions. For example, a person could not represent someone else in a legal action, or be a witness in a prosecution, or have someone else represent him – he had to defend on his own behalf. Nor could he bring charges in court – but then, neither could minors, women, wards, freedmen (if their patron was involved), or sitting magistrates. Of course, as Tertullian notes, a gladiator could not be a senator or an equestrian or a local
magistrate – but what gladiator would have dreamed, or cared, or even thought about that? The common people watching wouldn’t care at all, either – after all, the social structure meant that in practice they were not eligible for such things, and they were not even infamous! ‘Infamy’ might get a gladiator excluded from a cemetery, but that would depend on the feelings of the owner, and how he felt about burials of tainted persons in his graveyard. If a gladiator were so careless or luckless as to be caught
in flagrante,
the abused husband could treat him like a slave, i.e. he could kill him on the spot – but this perhaps comes more from the assimilation to slavery that the gladiator’s oath has wrought. Finally, a gladiator could not become a soldier (‘infamous men don’t serve in the army’), but a person would choose between going into the army and becoming a gladiator, so the issue of joining the army after becoming a gladiator was not a common problem; the few examples all appear in elite rhetorical exercises and are clearly created for effect. In sum, the practical ramifications of being declared ‘infamous’ because of being a gladiator touched no important part of most gladiators’ lives – and certainly would not have lessened the pleasure of the audience, or their enthusiastic adoration of the stars of the arena.

These disparities between a supposed infamy and little evidence of it in the reaction of ordinary people come across most clearly in gladiatorial epitaphs. These are numerous, and provide much information. But what is most striking is that almost alone of those citizens supposedly infamous – morticians, slave dealers, whores, pimps, and gladiatorial managers – the gladiators’ epitaphs are indistinguishable from those of other ordinary people in content and sentiments expressed; only the epitaphs of actors, another entertainer dear to the hearts of the crowd and again labeled ‘infamous’ by the elite, replicate this. In other words, gladiators made no effort to hide their profession, but rather foregrounded it. This is because they were proud of it, and its impres-siveness overwhelmed any supposed stigma it might theoretically have carried.

That the stigma was fundamentally an elite concoction is revealed by a telltale notice in the legal material. The jurist Ulpian says that arena fighters who do not take pay do not gain
infamia:
‘… those who fight in the arena for the sake of demonstrating their manly courage (
virtus),
doing this without pay, men of old held not to acquire
infamia’ (Digest
3.1.1.6). So the fundamental concern was not the pollution of blood, but the pollution of dependence – doing something for hire. It perhaps hardly needs to be pointed out that ordinary people worked for money all the time; their lives depended on it. There is no reason they should have shared the narrow vision of the elite when it came to stigmatizing the fighters on that ground.

For the gladiator slave who was freed by a Roman citizen in the course of his service, there was a more severe and very practical penalty than a supposed ‘infamy’ – he was denied the Roman citizenship that should accompany his freedom. Here the elite decree of stigma could be enforced, for freeing a slave could be a legal procedure. But the slave did not enter the profession of his own volition, as the
auctoratus
did. For the volunteer, any social penalty he might incur from fellow men who might either be taken up into the elite mentality or be genuinely disgusted at the blood and gore was light indeed, especially compared to the notoriety, even fame, he automatically possessed as a result of his chosen profession.

While in the service, a gladiator was associated with a
familia
unless he was a freelance operator. The
familia
(literally, ‘household’) was an organized living and training arrangement, sometimes housed, as at Pompeii, in a specially constructed building, sometimes with gladiators housed in a town and training and eating together. While it is not possible to confirm that the gladiator graveyard uncovered in Ephesus in 1997 was the property of a single
familia,
the fact that sixty-seven gladiators and probably a veteran fighter turned trainer – perhaps even manager as well – were buried together suggests that this might be the case.

The
familia
resembled, as gladiators did in so many other ways, military conditions. There were ‘ranks.’ A newcomer, having just sworn his oath and joined the establishment, was a
novicius.
As he trained, he gained the sobriquet of
tiro
– the word for a raw army recruit as well. This ‘rank’ remained until after the first fight, when normally one tiro was pitted against another. Not that this was always the case. An inscription from Pompeii tells of a tiro who went up against an experienced fighter – and won, not once, but twice in the same games:

Marcus Attilius tiro won. Hilarus of the Neronian
familia
who had fought 14 times with 12 victories was the loser. Marcus Attilius having fought once and won, won again. This time Lucius Raecius Felix, who before had fought 12 times and won 12 times, lost. (
CIL
4.10236)

And another example of early success is:

Spiculus of the Neronian
familia,
a tiro, killed Aptonetus, a free volunteer, who had won 14 times previously. (
CIL
4.1474, Pompeii)

Once spurs had, so to speak, been won as a successful tiro, a career was assured. The gladiator could fight as long as he was alive and marketable, whether with a manager or, if released, self-leased, on his own. But at least sometimes retired gladiators went on to be trainers, perhaps even managers; the old gladiator buried among the young ones at Ephesus seems to be an example of this.

Living conditions might or might not live up to high expectations. Some accommodations were cramped; men slept on cots or on the floor on mattresses. In other situations, conditions were probably better. The two gladiatorial training residences (
ludi)
extant now, both at Pompeii, are relatively airy, not enclosed – and weapons seem to have been unguarded. In other words, gladiators living there could come and go as they pleased, and the manager evidently was not concerned about the men seizing arms and leading a revolt à la Spartacus. Food was supplied abundantly, if rather boringly: the favored meal was a very carbohydrate-heavy gruel called
sagina.
Galen says that this was made of beans and barley – gladiators were sometimes nicknamed
hordearii
– ‘barleymen.’ Rabbinic sources also mention that beans were a staple of the gladiator’s diet. This combination of grain and beans developed a strong frame and lots of musculature. Forensic study of gladiator bones found in Ephesus confirms the diet that the ancient sources describe; the intention was to ‘bulk up’ the men, and to provide fat as protection to the bones.

Trainers were on hand, likely veteran fighters themselves, to coach the specialized fighting modes such as the
thrax
or the
secutor.
And there were medical personnel. The most famous was the doctor/researcher Galen, who used his experience in treating gladiators’ wounds to learn
about human anatomy. In sum, the arrangements resembled very much those of a military camp – although the gladiators’ food was reputed to be better.