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This gallery features images of Roman gladiators. In ancient Rome, gladiators were professional combatants who entertained audiences in the Roman Republic and Roman Empire by violently confronting other gladiators and wild animals. They fought in hugely popular organised games held in large purpose-built arenas throughout the Roman Empire. Gladiator spectacles were one of the most-watched forms of popular entertainment in the Roman world.
The earliest gladiator contests occurred in Paestum in southern Italy in the 4th century BCE, but the first recorded gladiator fight in Rome was in 246 BCE, at the funeral of a man called Junius Brutus. The combat included three pairs of slaves and took place in the Forum Boarium. In 65 BCE, Julius Caesar paid for shows, which had 320 pairs of gladiators fighting against each other, and a wooden amphitheatre was built for the occasion. The shows extended from one day to as many as a hundred, under the Roman emperorTitus, and the emperor Trajan in his Roman triumph (107 CE) had 5,000 pairs of gladiators.
Most gladiators were slaves captured in war or condemned prisoners. As fights were usually to the death, gladiators had a short life expectancy. They were trained in special schools called ludi. Victors in the contests, particularly those with many fights behind them, became heroes and led glamorous lives. There were different types of gladiators, and their weapons or armour often helped identify them.
Romanmosaic, showing a retiarius (net-fighter) named Kalendio and a secutor named Astyanax engaged in a fight to death. The lanista, master of gladiators, cheers them on. The outcome is shown above and confirmed by the inscriptions; the word VICIT appears beside Astyanax, and beside Kalendio's name is an O with a line through it, an abbreviation for Obiit or death. 3rd century CE.
Gladiators fought in oval-shaped amphitheatres, specially designed for gladiatorial combats. The most famous amphitheatre was the Colosseum (or Flavian Amphitheatre), built in the 1st century CE in Rome. The massive arena could hold about 50,000 spectators. However, until the 1st century CE, gladiators fought in the Forum Romanum, the Circus Maximus, and other arenas with stands made of wood.
What was the venatio?
The venatio was a form of gladiator entertainment in Roman amphitheatres, which included the hunting and slaying of wild animals, such as lions, bears, elephants, leopards, tigers, boars, and many others. The lion was extremely popular in venationes. Julius Caesar (l. 100-44 BCE) is said to have celebrated the consecration of his forum in Rome with the slaughter of 400 lions in one venatio.
Were there female gladiators?
Historians believe that women also fought as gladiators until it was outlawed in the 3rd century CE. The Roman historians Cassius Dio (l. 155-235 CE) and Suetonius (l. 69-130 CE) mention female gladiators in their writings. Archaeological evidence includes a marble relief found at Halicarnassus (now in the British Museum), which depicts two female gladiators facing each other and holding swords and shields.
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This image was first published on Flickr.
Original image by Carole Raddato. Uploaded by Carole Raddato, published on 26 November 2014. The copyright holder has published this content under the following license: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike. This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon a work even for commercial reasons, as long as they credit the author and license their new creations under the identical terms. When republishing on the web a hyperlink back to the original content source URL must be included. Please note that content linked from this page may have different licensing terms.
