‘Gladiator’ is a film favorite for many, but it isn’t quite historically accurate. One example is refusing to fight. Gladiators who were scheduled for battle were required to fight in the arena no matter what. Any who refused would be attacked by the slave manager and his team, who used whips and red hot metal rods. Oftentimes, the only way not to fight was to commit suicide before a match.
Because gladiators were housed, trained, and fed, it was considered a large loss for their owners to have one killed in the arena. Therefore, most gladiator battles weren’t actually “to the death”. There were many loopholes in order for gladiators to walk away with their lives. For example, if a fight grew boring it could end in a stalemate while the games moved onto another match. Or, on the opposite end of the spectrum, if a fight was wonderfully entertaining they would both leave with honors for putting on such a good show.
Gladiators were essentially the rock stars of Ancient Rome. They had female “groupies”, which would often find ways into the barracks where the fighters lived, most of the time by giving bribes. Surprisingly, these behaviors weren’t carried out by lower-class women; it was wealthy women. It may have been frowned upon for them to fraternize with gladiators, but that didn’t stop them. There’s even record of a Roman Senator’s wife running off with her gladiator lover.
There were only so many ways gladiators could kill each other, so in order to keep things interesting the Andabate were created. They wore helmets, like usual gladiators, but with no opening for the eyes, forcing them to fight blind. They weren’t trained gladiators though, instead the punishment was reserved for criminals sentenced to death for the amusement of the audience.
Occasionally, the Colosseum would be flooded for “sea” battles. The idea was invented by Julius Caesar, who had a lake built specifically for the water battles, though the lake was only available to the wealthy spectators. One of the largest gladiator sea battles, fought on Julius Caesar’s lake, had 3000 men fighting on 12 Roman galleys. The water battles in the Colosseum paled in comparison, since the water was relatively shallow.
There were of course large battles in the arena, but most matches weren’t all that epic. A typical gladiator match was a simple fight between two combatants in an open arena. After all, gladiators were extremely expensive, so fielding many of them at the same time required a lot of money. The large-scale matches, such as the “sea” battles, were saved for special occasions or only the richest of spectators.
Occasionally, Roman emperors fought in the arena. One of the most infamous was Commodus, who thought himself a magnificent warrior, and would often fight in the arena against gladiators who were clearly at a disadvantage so he would win. Once he began to put cripples and amputees into the ring the people turned on him, and he was eventually assassinated.
When gladiators were enslaved they were forced to do more than fight. Their masters essentially owned their bodies in every way, and would also sell them out as sex workers. This wasn’t always seen as a bad thing by gladiators though. They were expected to use their bodies as “instruments of carnal lust”, which some even saw as a perk of the job.
Between the adrenaline, the violence, and the overly muscular gladiators, the games were almost like an aphrodisiac for the crowds (especially the women). According to Ovid, the best place to meet a Roman woman was actually at the gladiator games because there were always so many present. He even described it as a “romantic atmosphere”. In an attempt to combat flirting and the potential wandering eye, Augustus moved women to the upper level of the amphitheater in Rome, but it didn’t do much.
Many gladiators had different specialties. Oftentimes, their specialties depended on where they were from. One specialized class of gladiators were the ‘retarii’, whose style was based on the practices of fishermen. They would use a net and trident in the arena. While fighting, the retarii attempted to evade heavily armed and armored gladiators, capture them with the net, and then run them through with their trident.
Animals in the arena weren’t all that common, and they usually weren’t fighting gladiators. Instead, animals were used in special hunt events with ‘venatores’ warriors who used spears and archery to kill animals from a distance. Or, criminals were put in the arena as punishment knowing they were about to be slaughtered to death by a lion, crocodile, elephant, etc.
via: Ranker/ Weird History
