by Natasha Sheldon

Created on: November 19, 2007   Last Updated: September 07, 2010

The rocks stars of the ancient world, gladiators attracted male and female fans from all walks of life. Paradoxically, they were also social anathema, slaves and social outcasts irrevocably stained by blood and death.

History

The exact origins of the games have been widely speculated. Based on linguistic and pictorial evidence, some believe their roots to lie in Etruscan culture. The word for a gladiator manager 'lanista' supposedly has its root in the Etruscan for executioner. Several Etruscan tomb frescoes also show a mysterious figure unleashing a hound on another man, similar to certain fights in the Roman arena.

This however is not a gladiatorial fight as we or the Romans understood it. Murals dating from the fourth century BC found in Campania show combatants fighting at funeral games. As the area was heavily populated by Greeks, this suggests a Greek origin or else the continuation of a tradition native amongst southern Italic tribes.

Whatever its origins, gladiatorial combat was associated with funerals. Many motifs of death surrounded the games, with dead gladiators being removed from the arena by officials dressed as mythological figures from the underworld who were associated with the task of escorting the souls of the dead. The earliest recorded games in Rome in 264BC were funeral games, when three pairs of gladiators fought at the funeral of D Iunius Pera.

Honouring the dead with games became an increasingly fashionable pursuit, although an essentially private one. This ended in the early imperial period, when the games became public events, designed to appease not dead ancestors but the living mob.

Death was polluting to the Romans and those who dealt in death were tainted by it. Because of their association with death, gladiators were beyond the pale socially speaking. They never quite lost this reputation. However, as the games became a way for politicians and emperors to gain the favour of the general populace, the image of the gladiator began to change. They became heroes as well as outcasts, fighting against the odds, epitomizing skill, bravery and the will to live. The gladiator as an icon was born.

Who was a Gladiator?

Initially, gladiators were composed of enslaved prisoners of war. Often they were criminals. Spartacus, contrary to popular belief, was an ex auxiliary condemned to slavery for desertion and banditry. Later, it became common for free volunteers to fight in the arena. Even members of the equestrian and senatorial order

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