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| Mosaic - Galleria Borghese - from Borghesiana IV d.C |
The Munera and the origin of the gladiatorial games
Munera (mùnera) comes from the latin word "Munus" (manus), which means "being offered".
Being offered to whom? To the "Dis Manibus" who were the spirits of the dead that had became infernal gods.
According to many historians, the gladiatorial games were held at funerals of nobleman, and descended from the Etruscan custom of making human sacrifices to honor the Manes.
The Roman historian Livy, on the contrary, stated that the games originated in Campania, the region around Naples. This option, however, should not conflict with the Etruscan one, since the Etruscans had had colonies and influence in Campania. Another theory which has recently gained acceptance gives the Samnium, a region in central Italy, as the place of origin of the games. Moreover, the first gladiators wore the traditional Samnite weapons and attire. Later on, the gladiators' types diversified into different familiae, that sometimes reproduced the outfits of the fighters of distant countries.
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| Frieze of the funerary monument of Lusius Storax from the Archaeological Museum La Civitella di Chieti dating back to the middle of the I a.D |
Whatever the origin may be, the first record of a gladiatorial fight dates back to 264 BC, when the sons of Brutus Pera offered such a spectacle in Rome to honour the memory of their father.
With time passing by, human sacrifice were sobstituted with tombstones on which appeared the letters D.M., which stood for "Dis Manibus" (for the Manes) an abbreviation that continued to appear even in Christian inscriptions.
It may also be interesting to know that when a new town was founded, a round hole would be dug and a stone called a lapis manalis (lapis manalis) would be placed in the foundations, representing a gate to the underworld.
In a short time, gladiatorial games, instead of being just held at funerals, became an opportunity to increase the personal prestige of rich politicians who started offering games in order to get the favour (and the votes) of the plebeians, whose vote was decisive for their public careers.
The religious nature of the games was lost with the time, until any pretext was good enough to regale the populace with combats.
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| Mosaic - Galleria Borghese - from Borghesiana IV d.C |
The shows grew in quantity and splendour: Julius Caesar himself gave a munus with more than 300 pairs of gladiators.
The taste of the spectacles changed as well: the public wanted to be astounded, so silver armors, exotic animals, choreographies, music and "special effects" were used. Even the sand of the arena received its share of special effects, by the addition of coloured stones: we know that the Circus Maximus was embellished with petra specolare (a translucent selenite) and that there Caligula and Nero in special occasions mixed the sand with minium (red lead) and crisocolla (green-blue copper oxide).
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| Mosaic - Galleria Borghese - from Borghesiana IV d.C |
During the games gifts were offered to the spectators; small balls or tablets, with the image of the gift stamped on it, were thrown to the public. One could win food, a slave, or even a house or a ship. And then there was the sparsio: to refresh the people petals of flowers and perfumes were thrown from above.
In order to prevent political curraption, it was decided to set the maximum number of public gladiators games to no more than 10 per year. Obviously thought, in addition to public games, there were numerous private ones, but this is obviously another story.
Not only gladiators: at the end of the Empire there were 177 "spectacle" days per year (10 for the gladiators, 66 for the circus and 101 for theatre plays). The games became almost an everyday matter, and during Caesar’s time a hunt was added to the gladiatorial combats to enrich the spectacle.
Many laws dealt with the matter, starting from the republican times. One of the constant themes of the regulations seems to have been the desire to limit the organisation of games by the newly rich, enriched merchants and liberti, that posed a threat to the incumbent rich. They could afford enormous expenses in order to become popular and be accepted by the public and the high society.
This class movement was a social phenomenon that came together with the improvement of the economy in a peaceful Mediterranean.
In the year 22 BC a law was passed to reduce the number of games offered by private citizens: an authorisation by the Senate was made compulsory, and one could not organise more than two games a year, with no more than 120 gladiators each time.
In 61 AD a law was passed which entrusted the organisation of the games to the emperors and fixed the occasions (public events and official dedications) in which they could be produced. Later on, the emperors furtherly increased the monopolistic nature of the organisation of the munera, which became something like a public service: in Rome practically all the games were offered to the people, at least formally, by the emperor, through a procurator.
The games were dedicated to the emperor, no longer to the memory of the dead. The gladiators belonging to the emperor were called fiscales, or Cesarianii.
In the city of Rome, the emperors set up a Ministry of Games with organisational and financial powers over the venationes and the munera. The organisation of the games was supervised by magistrates, called curatores. The production of the show was entrusted to an editor, who contacted the lanista (the owner of the schools of gladiators) and advertised the program.
In all of the Empire provinces, given the enormous expense of the munera, and their frequency, the provincial magistrates were obliged by city laws to offer munera on behalf of the emperor. This was often for them a big financial and organisational pain, even if they could use a fixed amount of public money.
The magistrates that had already offered games could add to their title the one of munerarii (it seems that it was Caesar August himself to invent the title).
The production of the machines that appeared on the arena from the underground and unfolded producing an instant scenery, were built nearby - from Vespasian to Hadrian - in the Summum Choragium on the Summa Sacra Via. When that place was destined to the grandiose temple of Venus and Roma, the Summum Choragium was transferred nearby, in the region of the city called after the temple of Isis and Serapis (now around Via Labicana).
A knight of the equestrian order was at the head of the Ludus Magnus, the main gladiatorial school of Rome. The other schools in Italy and over the empire were directed by officers called procuratores familiarum gladiatoriarum.
The last gladiatorial game in the Colosseum is recorded in AD 438, when the games were abolished by the emperor Valentinian III.
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| Fresco from Pompei, I a.D |
Gladiators
were generally fit slaves, criminals condemned to death or prisoners of war, who in the Roman world had no right whatsoever, and whose life was considered expendable. The supply of gladiators didn't meet the demand, so the custom was adopted to send fugitive slaves to the schools.
Since the slave was absolute property of his master, there were many instances in which he could be condemned ad ludum (to the fight).
In this case the condemned man received a training in the ludus like all the other gladiators. He fought on an equal basis, and in any case after three years - if he survived - he did not have to fight anymore.
This situation was different from that of those CRIMINALS condemned to die in the arena without any hope of surviving, like the ones condemned ad bestias or those ad gladium ludi damnati, who were thrown in, sword in hand, to kill another captive completely unarmed, only to be disarmed after the killing and meet another condemned, and so on until only the last criminal remained.
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| Mausoleo Fiano Romano I a.D. |
In some cases, particularly cruel emperors could send people to die on a whim: we know that Claudius ordered an officer to go down in the arena, dressed as he was (in a toga), and that Caligula threw all the inmates of a prison as food to the beasts, just because there was a shortage of meat.
Starting from the first century AD a minority of free men, called auctorati, took fighting in the arena as a profession. They renounced to their state of freedom and became – for the period of the enrolment – slaves ranked in the legal category of the infames.
Starting from the first century AD a minority of free men, called auctorati, took fighting in the arena as a profession. They renounced to their state of freedom and became – for the period of the enrolment – slaves ranked in the legal category of the infames.
Regardless of the social scorn, free men took the gladiatorial career because of a taste for danger or love of the arms, or just because they were financially ruined and needed the enrolment bonus, but in general the reason for a spontaneous enrolment was the hope of recovering one’s fortunes by means of a lucky career.
With time the attitude changed, when even emperors like Nero, Caligula, and Commodus entered in the arena to fight.
The law ruled that free men could enrol only after a formal declaration in front of the tribunus plebis, but this rule – whose purpose was to guarantee free men against their own impulsive decisions, became later on a simple formality.
Gladiators started their career by submitting (or by being sold) to the lanista.
The lanista, who in the Roman world was officially considered one the vilest professions (even lower than pimps, actors and butchers), had the right of life and death over them.
The gladiator swore to "endure the whip, the branding iron and death by the sword"; these terrible punishments were meant to curb any hint of rebellion and to "brainwash" the fighters so that they would be convinced that overcoming any test was their only salvation.
The training lasted 4 years, since the public had become very demanding, and only then was the gladiator ready to enter the arena.
There were different specializations (familiae) of gladiators, according to the outfit and the weapons used. With the expansion of the empire many different kind of soldiers of the peoples conquered by Rome were represented, and of course also the training was specialized. In the ludus, the gladiator used for the training a wooden sword called rudis, and also training weapons heavier than normal ones. In the school, the future gladiator learnt the art of swordsmanship by doctores, who were former ex-gladiators, each one specialised in a category of gladiator.
We know of 15 definite classes of gladiators (Auguet), but there are some monuments that reproduce classes of fighters we don’t know about, and sometimes it is difficult to categorize the different specializations, since there must have been variations within the same class. One must also think that gladiatorial shows lasted for five centuries, therefore there must have been some changes during the ages. However, scholars strongly disagree about the classification of the gladiators: the documents are few and we lack a general description of the subject.
In any case, the pairs of gladiators who fought in the arena were fixed: usually the fight was balanced, in the sense that a gladiator provided with more offensive weapons had less means of defence.
Fighting techniques followed traditional patterns or figures, therefore the combat was an art well known to the public, who expected a professional performance and could approve and disapprove of the manoeuvres of the gladiators like we do today when we watch sports. The public hated monotony and repetition and appreciated the courage and the display of bravery.
It seems that the first type of gladiator was the Samnite (from Samnium, a region of Italy), later also called Secutor. He was an attacking gladiator, wearing a small shield and the gladius.
In the centuries the form of the secutor developed into the Hoplomachus, with a bigger shield. Another variation of the secutor could have been the Provocator, probably wearing a round shield and a lance, and the Thrax, or Thracian, who was protected by metal and leather, had a small shield and the sica, a curved sabre (sword).
The Retiarius had a net to throw on the opponent, a trident and a sword. Sometimes, he was put against the Myrmillo, that wore a fish-like helmet (note the symbolic opposition of net and fish) and had a big shield for defence. When he fought he was practically naked. In any case, authors strongly disagree on the subject, given the scarcity of sources and the subtle variations on the same themes.
There were also the essedarii, fighting from chariots, like we have seen in the movie The Gladiator, the equites, on horses covered by a cuirass, who fought with a lance, the dimachaeri, without a shield and with a sword in each hand, the laquearii, with a kind of lassoo, the andabates, almost impenetrable, protected as he was by a coat of mail, the pegmares, who made an exhibition with the swords, like modern fencing, et cetera... There were, apparently, also female gladiators; they are mentioned in literature and there even is a bas relief, found in Alikarnassos,that shows two female fighters: Amazon and Achillia. However, the scholars wonder how and where these woman could be trained in the arts of fighting, as the schools were reserved to men.
Another categorization divides gladiators according to the kind of show: there were the meridiani, who fought in the morning, the cubiculari, who fought during banquets, the catervari, who "a modo pugnae, scilicet ... confusi mixtique pugnant per catervas" that means "the ones who fight all together in a bunch and in confusion".
Titus in Caesarea decided to throw into the arena many prisoners of war, some to the beasts, some others to the catervas, and some more were ordered to fight against each other.
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| Frieze of the funerary monument of Lusius Storax from the Archaeological Museum La Civitella di Chieti dating back to the middle of the I a.D |