GLADIATORS

Professional Fighters


Listen to this page.

The earliest gladiatorial battles were part of funeral rituals. The first known occasion was the funeral of the aristocrat Junius Brutus Pera in 264 BCE. As a way of attracting public attention, his sons arranged for three pairs of gladiators to fight to the death at the Forum Boarium in Rome. Gladiatorial competitions evolved into a popular way for aristocratic families both to honor their dead and to display political prestige. Over time the practice parted ways from its funerary origins and evolved into spectacles staged by the elite purely as expressions of power.

A chipped rectangular object consisting of two bas-reliefs, one above the other. Each relief shows a pair of figures in hand-to-hand combat. The figures have minimal detail, lacking any facial features or decorations.

Relief depicting gladiatorial combat. Roman, early 3rd century CE. Northern Necropolis, Hierapolis (present-day Turkey). Hierapolis Archaeology Museum: SEG 46-1661. Photo: Joan Lloveras / Alamy Stock Photo.

The sport spread throughout the Roman Empire, and surviving advertisements indicate that the wealthier the sponsor, the greater the number of gladiators, thus increasing the glamor of the event.

Open ovoid gray vessel covered with figures and designs in bas relief. On the side shown, two armed figures battle each other.

Gladiatorial combat and hunting scene, detail from “The Colchester Vase.” Roman, 175 CE. Ceramic. West Lodge, Colchester, England. H. 22.5 cm; Diam. 17.5 cm. Colchester Castle Museum: COLEM:PC.727. Photo: Smith Archive / Alamy Stock Photo.

After the first century BCE, most gladiatorial games in the capital, Rome, were sponsored by the emperor himself, but smaller scale events were put on throughout the empire by local patrons; in Galen’s day, the games in Pergamon were sponsored by a high priest on the occasion of a yearly festival (we do not know which one). These events were extremely popular and attended by broad segments of the population. They were hosted in amphitheaters, theaters, or arenas, and the audience members were seated according to their social status.

Gladiators were professional fighters who lived and trained together as a troupe. They were usually owned by a high priest, a professional coach, or a wealthy private investor. Most were enslaved people, but some gladiators were freeborn volunteers—likely incentivized to join the profession by the down payment received for taking a gladiatorial oath—yet they assumed the role of an enslaved person and submitted their lives to a troupe’s owner. What could be done against the body of the enslaved made for a violent, miserable fate, and what could be done to a gladiator was even worse; in fact, some owners even sold disobedient slaves to serve as gladiators as punishment. Membership within a troupe fluctuated as fighters were killed, new members enlisted, and successful gladiators retired.

Multiple male figures, armed and semi-nude, in various battle poses with short lines of text above their heads.

“Gladiator Mosaic.” Roman, 320–330 CE. Limestone and marble. Torre Nuova Estate, Via Casilina, Rome. H. 224.6 cm; W. 540.1 cm. Galleria Borghese. Photo: Scala / Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali / Art Resource, NY.

The fact that some gladiators lived until retirement tells us something about the practice: Although these were undoubtedly lethal events, it was not a total free-for-all and the battles had a strong athletic component. Gladiators fought one pair at a time following now-lost rules of engagement, and event sponsors tended to match fighters of equal ability with different fighting styles (wearing different types of armor or using different weapons) against each another.

Bronze-colored figurine in detailed armor, shown in three-quarter profile. The face is completely smooth and has no features.

Gladiator figurine. Roman, 1st–2nd century CE. Bronze. H. 10.7 cm. Rijksmuseum van Oudheden: M 1902/5.2. Photo: National Museum of Antiquities, Leiden. CC BY 4.0.

Today we can imagine that this would have made for a more interesting battle—combat tended to last around fifteen minutes—and it also increased the likelihood of a gladiator’s survival. Despite the violence of these events, it was in everyone’s best interest—spectators, gladiators, and sponsors—for gladiators to survive. Some successful warriors developed a fan following, the gladiators themselves describe their honorable sportsmanship on their epitaphs, and sponsors avoided having to pay for fighters who were killed (the owner of a killed gladiator might charge the owner of the surviving fighter up to a hundred times the value of the slain). Once a gladiator was defeated, it was ultimately the sponsor’s call if he should be killed or given a reprieve, a decision frequently based on the audience’s reactions. This decisive life-or-death moment is vividly represented in mosaics.

A dynamic battle scene with three figures dressed in red, gray, and white armor. Two gray ovals with red details in the center seem to hover among the figures.

A Thracian gladiator being held back from killing his adversary by the referee. Detail of the “Zliten Mosaic.” Roman, 1st–3rd century CE. Roman villa, Dar Buc Ammera à Zliten (near Leptis Magna, Libya). Archaeological Museum of Tripoli. Photo: © Gilles Mermet / Art Resource, NY.

Modern scholars have calculated that a gladiator’s chance of death in any particular confrontation (either in battle or from his wounds later on) was about one in nine.

White square mosaic with a black-and-white geometric border. The composition is divided into a top and bottom level. Both show men in armed combat; names appear above the figures.

Mosaic depicting gladiatorial combat. Roman, 3rd century CE. Marble and limestone. Museo Arqueológico Nacional, Madrid: 3600. Photo: Adam Eastland / Alamy Stock Photo.

The incentive to put on a good show without death but with an appearance of its risk was unquestionably financially motivated: gladiators were extraordinarily expensive. A fighter could often cost as much as a small building, and owners carefully oversaw their diet and training. Galen commented on the gladiators’ high-carbohydrate, vegetarian diets:

“The gladiators in my homeland eat mostly this food [fava beans and boiled barley] every day, becoming fleshy in the condition of their body—but the flesh is not compacted and dense, like pig’s meat, but rather somehow more flaccid.”

Contrary to the physiques of Hollywood’s gladiators, the extra fat that padded the real fighters’ bodies offered the men some protection from traumatic wounds but also a larger area to show bleeding flesh (without harm to more sensitive tissues like nerves or muscles). It was a macho look—the bulk and the blood—and gladiator-themed graffiti from Pompeii witnesses the sex appeal: “Celadus makes the girls swoon.”  

Multiple male figures, armed and semi-nude, in various battle poses with short lines of text above their heads.

Detail of the “Gladiator Mosaic.” Roman, 320–330 CE. Limestone and marble. Torre Nuova estate, Via Casilina, Rome. H. 224.6 cm; W. 540.1 cm. Galleria Borghese. Photo: Scala / Ministero per i Beni e le Attività culturali / Art Resource, NY.

The preparation for fighting was rigorous as well, and troupes had their own training schools with internal hierarchies through which gladiators advanced. In some troupes, fighters had trainers suited to their specific fighting style (a specialized trainer for each armor and weapon type), and larger barracks sometimes had their own training arena. In order for gladiators to grow accustomed to performing, they even trained in front of their fellow fighters with everyone watching.