Gladiators were fighters during the period of ancient Rome. The name derives from the” gladius”, that is a small and short sword used very often during the fights. Usually the gladiators were slaves or war prisoners or people who were convicted of some crime. In some rare cases they were free attracted by the noble prizes that were up for grabs.
Like I said some gladiators decided to turn this into a real profession, because they were seeking glory and money, and to reach this goal most of the times they attended specific schools that taught them how to fight (following the rules of the arena) and what to do after a victory or a defeat. In fact they taught also how to “lose” with dignity, the rules expected that the defeated gladiator had to expose his throat to the enemy waiting for the final and deadly hit.
Meanwhile the victorious gladiator was awarded with lot of money and usually he was overwhelm with fame around the city, the most honorable gift that a slave could receive was clearly also his freedom, but this happened only if he had a long story of victories in the arena or if he distinguished himself during the brutal “game”.
Now let’s talk a little bit about the games that the gladiators had to face. We have to say that the gladiators fought only around 10 or maximum 12 times in a year (clearly this if they were able to survive). The fighting were organized by the politicians and this was one of the most convenient ways to gain consents. The fights were organized every weekend but the topics of the fighting were every time different, usually were recreated important battles of the Roman army other times were recreated naval battles and at last but not least (like you can see in the image) gladiators had to fight with dangerous animals like for example lions, tigers, cheetahs etc…
For every fight there was a specific category of gladiator, in fact existed various types of fighters, here is a list of the most common:
- The mirmillo: who had an helm, a sword and a shield
- The secutor: who was the guy that usually had to fight the mirmillo, his technique was running with his sword against the other gladiator
- The essedariis: that were gladiators (usually they were two) and they were on a “biga” (typical roman war wagon)
- And the Saggitarius: that like the zodiac sign were armed with a bow and arrows
These are only few between all the types of gladiators that existed, in fact if you are interested you can search all the other types.
The fighting were brutal and usually were finished with the death of one of the two gladiators.
We don’t know who decided the fate of the fighters in fact usually in the battles there was always an unlucky “side” of fighters that had a really low possibility of victory, from some experts this honor was given at the organizers of the games.
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gladiator