GLADIATOR, iu antiquity, from gladius, a sword, was one who fought in the arena, at the amphitheater at Rome, and in other cities, for the amusement of the public. The gladiators were generally slaves, bought and trained for the purpose, by masters who made this their business. The custom is supposed to have been borrowed from the east, and to have had its origin in the practice of human sacrifices, or that of taking the lives of captives or prisoners of war, in honor of heroes who had died in battle. Thus, in the Iliad, we read that Achilles sacrificed twelve Trojan prisoners to the manes of his friend Patroclus, and Virgil speaks of captives sent to Evander, to be sacrificed at the fuueral of his son Pallas. The "great custom" of the king of Dahomey thus finds warrant in classic antiquity; and the North American Indians, iu putting their prisoners to death with tortures, have only refined upon an ancient barbarism.
After a time, all considerable funerals were solemnized by human sacrifices, which took the form of combats, in which, to increase the interest of the spectators, the pris oners were required to sacrifice each other; and as prisoners, and afterwards other slaves, were kept for this purpose, they were trained to fight with skill and courage, to make the spectacle more impressive. These contests first took place at funerals, but afterwards in the amphitheater; and in process of time, instead of a funeral rite, became a common amusement. The first we read of in Roman history was the show of a contest of three pairs of gladiators, given by Marcus and Decius Brutus, on the death of their father, in the year of Rome 490. In the year 537, a show of 22 pairs was given in the Forum. In 547, the first Africanus diverted his army at New Carthage with a gladia tdrial exhibition. The fashion now rapidly increased. Magistrates, public officers, can didates • for the popular suffrages, gave shows to the people, which consisted chiefly of these bloody and generally mortal encounters. The emperors exceeded all others in the extent and magnificence of these cruel spectacles. Julius Caesar gave a show of 320 couples; Titus gave a show of gladiators, wild-beasts, and sea-fights for 100 days; Trajan gave a show of 123 days, in which 2,000 men fought with and killed each other, or fought with wild-beasts for the amusement of the 70,000 Romans, patricians, and plebeians, the highest ladies and the lowest rabble, assembled in the Colosseum. A
vast number of slaves from all parts of the world were kept in Rome, and trained for these exhibitions. There were so many at the time of Cataline's conspiracy, that they vele thought dangerous to the public safety, and it was proposed to distribute them among the distant garrisons.
Efforts were made to limit the number of gladiators, and diminish the frequency of these shows. Cicero proposed a law, that no man should give one for two years before becoming a candidate for office. The emperor Augustus forbade more than two shows in a year, or that one should be given by a man worth less than half a million sesterces;, but it was difficult to restrain what had become a passion, and men even had such contests for the amusement of their guests at ordinary feasts.
These shows were announced by show-bills and pictures, like the plays of our thea ters. The gladiators were trained and sworn to fight to the death. If they showed cowardice, they were killed with tortures. They fought at first with wooden swords, and then with steel. When one of the combatants was disarmed, or upon the ground, the victor looked to the emperor, if present, or to the people, for the signal of death; if they raised their thumbs, his life was spared; if they turned them down, he executed the fatal mandate. A gladiator who had conquered was rewarded with a branch of palm, and sometimes with his freedom. Though the gladiators at first were slaves, freemen afterwards entered the profession, and even knights. Senators and knights fought in the shOws of Nero, and wpmen in those of Domitian. The emperor Constan tine prohibited the contests of gladiators, 325 A.D.: but they could not at once be abolished. In the reign of Honorius, Telemachus went into the arena to stop the fight, when the people stoned him. They were finally abolished by Theoclorie, 500 A.D.