GLADIATORS (from Lat. gladius, sword), professional com batants who fought to the death in Roman public shows. That this form of spectacle, which is almost peculiar to Rome and the Roman provinces, was originally borrowed from Etruria is shown by various indications. On an Etruscan tomb discovered at Tar quinii there is a representation of gladiatorial games; the slaves employed to carry off the dead bodies from the arena wore masks representing the Etruscan Charon ; and we learn from Isidore of Seville (Origines, x.) that the name for a trainer of gladiators (lanista) is an Etruscan word meaning butcher or executioner. The older Roman name for the fighters was bustuarii.
The first gladiators are said, on the authority of Valerius Max imus (ii. 4. 7.), to have been exhibited at Rome in the Forum Boarium in 264 B.C. by Marcus and Decimus Brutus at the fu neral of their father. On this occasion only three pairs fought, but the taste for these games spread rapidly, and the number of combatants grew apace. In 174 B.C. Titus Flamininus celebrated his father's obsequies by a three-days' fight, in which 74 gladia tors took part. Julius Caesar engaged such extravagant numbers for his aedileship that his political opponents took fright and carried a decree of the senate imposing a certain limit of numbers, but notwithstanding this restriction he was able to exhibit no less than 30o pairs. During the later days of the republic the gladia tors were constant element of danger to the public peace. The more turbulent spirits among the nobility had each his band of gladiators to act as a bodyguard, and the armed troops of Clo dius, Milo and Catiline played the same part in Roman history as the armed retainers of the feudal barons or the condottieri of the Italian republics. Under the empire, notwithstanding sump tuary enactments, the passion for the arena steadily increased. Augustus, indeed, limited the shows to two a year, and forbade a praetor to exhibit more than 120 gladiators, yet allusions in Horace (Sat. ii. 3. 85) and Persius (vi. 48) show that loo pairs was the fashionable number for private entertainments; and in the Marmor Ancyranum the emperor states that more than io,000 men had fought during his reign. Claudius was devoted to this pastime, and would sit from morning till night in his chair of state, descending now and then to the arena to coax or force the reluctant gladiators to resume their bloody work. Under Nero senators and even well-born women appeared as combatants. Even the emperor Titus ordered a show which lasted loo days; and Trajan, in celebration of his triumph over Decebalus, exhibited 5,000 pairs of gladiators. Domitian at the Saturnalia of A.D. 90 arranged a battle between dwarfs and women. Even women of high birth fought in the arena, and it was not till A.D. 200 that the practice was forbidden by edict. How widely the taste for these sanguinary spectacles extended throughout the Ro man provinces is attested by monuments, inscriptions and the remains of vast amphi theatres. From Britain to Syria there was not a town of any size that could not boast its arena and annual games. After Italy, Gaul, North Africa and Spain were most famous for their amphitheatres; and Greece was the only Roman province where the institution never thoroughly took root.
Gladiators were commonly drawn either from prisoners of war, or slaves or crim inals condemned to death. Thus in the first class we read of tattooed Britons in their war chariots, Thracians with their peculiar bucklers and scimitars, Moors from the vil lages round Atlas and negroes from central Africa, exhibited in the Colosseum. Down to the time of the empire only greater malefactors, such as brigands and incendiaries, were condemned to the arena; but by Caligula, Claudius and Nero this punish ment was extended to minor offences, such as fraud and pecula tion, in order to supply the growing demand for victims. For the first century of the empire it was lawful for masters to sell their slaves as gladiators, but this was forbidden by Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius. Besides these three regular classes, the ranks were recruited by a considerable number of freedmen and Roman citizens who had squandered their estates and voluntarily took the auctoramentum gladiatorium, by which for a stated time they bound themselves to the lanista. Even men of birth and fortune not seldom entered the lists, either for the pure love of fighting or to gratify the whim of some dissolute emperor; and one em peror, Commodus, actually appeared in person in the arena.
Gladiators were trained in schools (ludi) owned either by the state or by private citizens, and though the trade of a lanista was considered disgraceful, to own gladiators and let them out for hire was reckoned a legitimate branch of commerce. Thus Cicero, in his letters to Atticus, congratulates his friend on the good bargain he has made in purchasing a band, and urges that he might easily recoup himself by consenting to let them out twice. Men recruited mainly from slaves and criminals, whose lives hung on a thread, must have been more dangerous charac ters than modern galley slaves or convicts; and, though highly fed and carefully tended, they were of necessity subject to an iron discipline. In the school of gladiators discovered at Pompeii, of the 63 skeletons buried in the cells many were in irons. But hard as was the gladiators' lot (so hard that special precautions had to be taken to prevent suicide) it had its consolations. A successful gladiator enjoyed far greater fame than any modern prize-fighter or athlete. He was presented with broad pieces, chains and jewelled helmets, such as may be seen in the museum at Naples; poets like Martial sang his prowess; his portrait was multiplied on vases, lamps and gems ; and high-born ladies con tended for his favours.
There were various classes of gladiators, distinguished by their arms or modes of fighting. The Samnites fought with the national weapons—a large oblong shield, a vizor, a plumed helmet and a short sword. The Thraces had a small round buckler and a dagger curved like a scythe; they were generally pitted against the Mir millones, who were armed in Gallic fashion with helmet, sword and shield, and were so called from the fish (µopµvXos or /µop/. pos) which served as the crest of their helmet. In like manner the Retiarius was matched with the Secutor; the former had nothing on but a short tunic or apron, and sought to entangle his pursuer, who was fully armed, with the cast-net (iaculum) that he carried in his right hand ; and if successful, he despatched him with the trident (tridens, fuscina) that he carried in his left. We may also mention the Andabatae who are believed to have fought on horse back and wore helmets with closed vizors; the Dimachaeri of the later empire, who carried a short sword in each hand; the Es sedarii, who fought from chariots like the ancient Britons; the Hoplomachi, who wore a complete suit of armour ; and the La quearii, who tried to lasso their antagonists.
The shows were announced some days before they took place by bills affixed to the walls of houses and public buildings, copies of which were also sold in the streets. These bills gave the names of the chief pairs of competitors, the date of the show, the name of the giver and the different kinds of combats. The spectacle began with a procession of the gladiators through the arena, after which their swords were examined by the giver of the show. The proceedings opened with a sham fight (praelusio, prolusio) with wooden swords and javelins. The signal for real fighting was given by the sound of the trumpet, those who showed fear being driven on to the arena with whips and red-hot irons. When a gladiator was wounded, the spectators shouted "habet" (he is wounded) ; if he was at the mercy of his adversary, he lifted up his forefinger to implore the clemency of the people, with whom (in the later times of the republic) the giver left the decision as to his life or death. If the spectators were in favour of mercy, they waved their handkerchiefs; if they desired the death of the con quered gladiator, they turned their thumbs downwards. (A dif ferent account is given by Mayor on Juvenal iii. 36, who says: "Those who wished the death of the conquered gladiator turned their thumbs towards their breasts, as a signal to his opponents to stab him; those who wished him to be spared turned their thumbs downwards as a signal for dropping the sword.") The reward of victory consisted of branches of palm, sometimes of money. Gladiators who had exercised their calling for a long time, or such as displayed special skill and bravery, were pre sented with a wooden sword (rudis), and discharged from service. The first Christian emperor was persuaded to issue an edict abol ishing gladiatorial games (325), yet in 404 we read of an exhi bition of gladiators to celebrate the triumph of Honorius over the Goths, and it is said that they were not totally extinct in the West till the time of Theodoric.
The attention of archaeologists has been recently directed to the tesserae of gladiators. These tesserae, of which about 6o exist in various museums, are small oblong tablets of ivory or bone, with an inscription on each of the four sides. The first line con tains a name in the nominative case, presumably that of the gladiator; the second line a name in the genitive, that of the patronus or dominus; the third line begins with the letters SP (for spectatus=approved), which shows that the gladiator had passed his preliminary trials; this is followed by a day of a Roman month ; and in the fourth line are the names of the consuls of a particular year.