Welcome to Historical Tidbit Thursdays. For the next few weeks, we'll follow the timeline presented in the book, "A History of Weaponry" by John O'Bryan. Last week we took a look at the ancient Roman weapons. This week we'll delve more into the Gladiators, one of my favorite topics in Roman history.
The Gladiator events were the most popular forms of entertainment in ancient Rome. Successful gladiators were highly revered and became like celebrities. Each gladiator depicted a different persona in the arena and would usually fight a complementary persona. These are the most common personas:
Amazones - female gladiators whose helmets showed off their gender; mostly used for novelty or entertainment.
Andabata - wore a helmet that blocked his vision, mostly for ridicule
Cestus - one who boxed with an iron-studded hand wrap
Crupellarius - very heavily armored, completely covered, and not very mobile
Dimachaerus - fought with two swords
Eques - fought on horseback with lances then would dismount and fight with gladius
Essedarius - drove a Celtic war chariot around the arena to crush people
Hoplomachus - heavily armored, modeled after the Greek Hoplite; used a spear and gladius
Laquearius - lightly armored who used a short sword and a lasso
Retiarius - unarmored warrior with a weighted net and a trident
Sagittarius - mounted archer; had to be very accurate to avoid accidentally shooting a spectator
Scissores - used dual-tipped scissor-like blades
Thraex - swordsman who carried a curved blade sica and a rectangular shield
Source:
A History of Weaponry by John O'Bryan; ISBN#978-1-4521-1054-7
Photo Credit: Gladiators - https://www.curriculumvisions.com/search/C/colosseum/colosseum.html
In the Third Season of the video documentary series Cities of the Underworld, Don Wildman takes us inside some unusual places such as Las Vegas' Secret Sin City, Hitler's Trenches, Alcatraz Down Under and four disc's worth of other explorations.
The episode we're reviewing today is the "Gladiators: Blood Sport" where Don inspects crypts and chambers used for worship and the training school.
Ludus Magnus is the largest training ground with tunnels to the Colosseum. It was over 100 yards long and over three stories high with walls of gleaming marble. The complex contained barracks, kitchens, medical facilities, weapons factory and was strictly guarded (especially since a lot of gladiators were slaves).
Weapons mimiced those of conquered foreign armies.
Spartacus was a Thracian slave, forced into gladiatorial school. He revolted with 80 others, taking carts of weapons and kitchen knives. Eventually he had over 120,000 men and fought for 2 years. However, they were outnumbered by the Roman army and Spartacus died. The rebels were impaled along the main road, Via Appia (Appian Way) (people are also buried along this road). Weapon-handling became very closely guarded after this.
Gladiatorial games were financed by Senators and wealthy men to gain more prestige among fellow men and to garner support for political careers. Julius Caesar regularly borrowed money to pay for game to increase his popularity.
The first gladiatorial games were held at the Old Cattle Market where two men fought to the death during a small funerary ceremony.
Average lifespan for a gladiator was 25 years even with the best foods and medical services available at the time. Gladiators were buried according to "position".
The last gladiatorial game was held in 404 AD.
Cities of the Underworld is a video series that goes beyond the normal touristy spots of a city to the foundations (under ground) and explores catacombs, crypts and other fascinating secrets. In Season 1, we are shown places such as Scotland's Sin City (Edinburgh), Hitler's Underground Lair (Berlin), Rome's Catacombs, London's Lost Cities, Dracula's Underground (Bucharest), Beneath Vesuvius (Naples, Italy) and lot others.
In 79 AD, Mount Vesuvius erupted, sending ash miles away and completely covering Pompeii. The eruption lasted over 24 hours reaching temperatures up to 1300 degrees Fahrenheit. Gas or smoke suffocated most of the people. In a lot of places, the volcanic ash got rained upon and created massive mudslides. One marketplace was found twenty feet below Naples because of the mudslide.
The ash-mud preserved a lot of historical sites, which is great for archaeologists today because they can dig into the layers and see what life was like during that time. Pompeii is famous for the people frozen in time by ash.
Tufa bricks (made of volcanic rock-ash) were strong enough to cut and be used for building projects.
People built over the previous sites (covered by mud/ash). One example was San Gudioso. Underneath the ground were fourth century catacombs carved out of the tufa and niches carved into the walls for the crypts. On top of this, a church was built in the 16th century.
