Roman Gladiators: Part 3 - Lions, Leopards and Bears - Oh My!

There are a few similarities in going out to a sporting event today and going to a gladiator spectacle back then. First, it was for the consumer, so they did their best to make it pleasant. Amphitheaters had cushions and awnings to keep it cool and comfortable. The wealthy sat closer up while the poor sat high up in the nosebleeds (I wonder if they had signs up like at a waterpark; "the first three rows may get covered in splattered flesh and blood!"). There were concession stands to feed the people. There was even a halftime show, as the gladiator shows tended to be full day events; the difference here is instead of Katy Perry dancing around with men in hilarious shark costumes, there were public executions. Past or present, that's probably the time I'd step out to take a leak. If it weren't for my abject fear of public washrooms, that is.

An oddly fitting Simpsons line for Christians becoming
martyrs in the arena.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnLLOhhi8aU

So, what are they watching? If you remember correctly, I said two blogs ago that many of the fights that occurred in the gladiator arena were far, far more shocking than the traditional depiction you would expect in books and movies. It was the sheer volume of death that was so incredible, and the way the Romans would search far and wide just to provide variety for the bloodbath made it all the more gruesomely spectacular.

By 300 B.C., animals became the newest attraction. Killing a man? Yeah, that's cool and all, and I'm sure it's really exciting, but killing a bear? Now that'll get people talking. Due to the Roman Empire's colossal reach and scope, animals were brought in from all over. Soon, elephants would be fighting while a hundred lions - yes, a hundred - were slaughtered the next day. Next would be rhinos, 150 leopards, and five crocodiles. They would bring in apes, as well. All of this was just one emperor's arena event. Nero, for example, had 400 bears and 300 lions killed in a day. Those are numbers that are so incredible I can hardly picture it. These are animals I think of in small numbers, sparsely populated across large areas of vast forests or open savanna, not all packed into an arena to fight it out with people or each other. In the Colosseum one year, 9000 animals were killed in games that stretched well over weeks. Naturally, this was unsustainable as when you completely wipe clean an ecosystem it tends not to repopulate all that quickly. The excessive hunting displaced the animals, moving them south and out of reach of the empire's deadly grasp towards the end of the gladiator games' run.

The process in bringing these animals was, of course, exceedingly dangerous, expensive, and difficult. First, they would trap the animals in all corners of the empire. That was the easy part. The trick was managing to get a colossal, violent, angry animal onto a boat without having the ease of being able to slaughter it first. Imagine packing an elephant onto a boat created at the time of the Roman Empire; surely no easy task. The requirements of space, food and manpower would severely tax those that had to bring them over, and all of this was before the arena even occurred. From there, they would have to keep them in temporary holding cells before they would release them through a rather ingenious method of lowering them from a platform into a thin hallway in which they have only one direction to go - straight into the arena. None of the animals would survive. The poor may or may not have feasted on the meat of the animals, but that's still up for debate (I'd admit that if I had the chance, yeah, I'd eat a lion. Just to say I have the heart of a lion in me).

In addition to Christians, criminals were also sacrificed
to the animals for entertainment. This criminal had developed
a primitive Segway to try to outpace the leopards, although
it appears ineffective.

The animals were typically reserved for a morning timeslot, a prelude to the main event. Along with the animal fights and hunts, there were comedic bits, competitive athletics, and other such entertainers. Once that finished up, they'd have the public executions until they were ready to bring on the gladiators themselves (Kiss Cam technology for halftime filler was yet to be invented).

Coming out to a flourish of music (an acoustic version of Welcome to the Jungle, I presume), the gladiators would then take the stage. Since there were massive numbers of small amphitheaters all over the empire, many of the fights were simply what one would expect; a small group of gladiators that would fight one-on-one to the enjoyment of a crowd. However, in the larger arenas (the Colosseum and otherwise) there would occasionally be staged battles symbolizing great wars the Romans had succeeded in. Some would have literally thousands of men fighting to the death. Now, this was no Civil War reenactment (which may or may not only exist on television), but it was instead very real. The largest such example was in 52 A.D. under emperor Claudius, in which 19,000 people fought in a massive ship battle, fighting until they would decide to stop it after enough had died. How many that would be is unclear, but I imagine it wouldn't be just a scant few. The Romans liked their bloodshed.

Once the games had concluded, they would call in the next wave; the janitorial staff. Human and animal carcasses were everywhere, and the task of clearing them all out was anything but minor. The lunchtime executions were simply thrown into the nearest river, an unceremonious end and meant to disgrace the dead. The gladiators would at least be buried, but typically in a mass grave. The more successful, moderately wealthy ones could occasionally afford a gravestone.

Years later, humanity would avenge this man's death
by always eating Animal Crackers' heads first.

The last casualty was the games themselves. Once the empire split into east and west, the games died out in in the two segments for different reasons. The west got poor; bringing in animals (which eventually switched to the cheaper option of herbivores, as they were easy to collect but much less fun to watch being killed), feeding and housing gladiators, and the upkeep of the arena in general was an expensive endeavour and eventually they just couldn't afford it. The east was completely different; emperor Constantine was one of the first to favour Christians, and under their influence, he began to weaken the games. Eventually they replaced the pagans, and mauling countless animals and humans in a bloodied mass of violence and destruction just didn't say "Christian values", marking the end of the age of gladiators.

It was, however, the birth of the Christian party-pooper.

Roman Gladiators: Part 1 - From Private to Public

There are plenty of the "cool" parts of history that don't live up to the hype, usually due to entertainment media that skews how the facts were to liven it up a little. Typically those things become associated with the actual history, waiting around until some jerk who hates fun pipes up and says "well, actually, that isn't how it is". Vikings are a good example; they weren't massive people with horned helmets, but rather average sized, and had helmets that were most definitely not pointy. However, muscle-bound warriors yelling and helmet-stabbing is far more entertaining, and that's the image we have of them. See: the Minnesota Vikings. As for stunningly large moustaches, that may only be associated with that logo. For more examples, look to 90% of movies that have "based on a true story" at the beginning. People take liberties. That's not necessarily a problem, but it does make learning the real history a downer more often than not.

There are, however, a number of historical ones that most definitely live up to the hype. The historical concept of gladiators not only reaches it, but exceeds it. We're not talking one-on-one battles between a few guys, which is personally how I pictured gladiator fights (although that did, of course, happen) but we're also talking massive pitched battles, occurring only for entertainment; animals from all over the empire brought in incredible numbers to fight against both man and each other; emperors going into the ring to show they're as tough as anyone else; and, for the ladies (or for those gentlemen that were more focussed on Gerard Butler's abs during 300 rather than his killing ability), we're talking men that were such perfect physical specimens that they would wear armour around most of their bodies but their torso, just to show how jacked they were. A gladiator fight as they're seen in the public imagination would be tiresome and mundane compared to the real thing.

I'm sorry ancient pottery makers,  but your depiction
of gladiators standing and idly having a chat
is not helping my "gladiator fights were crazy over
the top" argument.

To be fair, that's how they were at their peak. Their beginnings were much more humble, an idea stolen from other civilizations than the Romans - which is why we know little of how it started, as they wouldn't want to admit it - that was all about a few people fighting to the death at funerals. They believed the blood of prisoners would help ease the passage into death for more important or wealthy folk. Back then, at a funeral, everyone was apparently wishing for more death.

Having a gladiator match at your funeral meant you were somewhat of a big deal, similar to having a large, expensive funeral would be now. Replace "number of flower bouquets" with "number of slaughtered prisoners" and you're on the right track. It was a social symbol, a means to show that the deceased had money, lived a good life, and the people who had the dead's legacy passed to them would show that by throwing a big gladiator party, so to speak. The more gladiators there were, the more popular the person; the real big-wigs at the time would have hundreds of gladiators fighting to the death at their funerals, presumably making it so their spirits would float to the afterlife on a sea of cries of pain and a river of blood: a most pleasant passing. I can see why that was so popular.

"Pardon me, gentlemen, but were we allowed to wear armour?
Oh, woe is me, I don't think I'm getting out of this one", said the
man second from the right.

Around the third or fourth century B.C., the Romans decided that they liked these fights so much that they should start making it a public event. After Julius Caesar's assassination (who personally held a gladiator match with as many as 320 fighters to honour his father during his reign), they used gladiator fights to appease a public that may not have been overly pleased with the assassination of their leader. Suddenly, watching two prisoners battle to the death for the amusement of those watching was no longer just for high society.

One of, if not the only, pre-1900s painting that
doesn't instantly bore me to tears.

All the blood and guts turned out to be a massive success. The games became so popular that amphitheatres were in almost every decently sized town, and visited by people from all walks of life. The emperor would put on the games as a show of solidarity with the people (well, save for those that were killed, I guess) as well as to demonstrate his control not only over the people of Rome but over the animals in the empire.

 In the largest cities the fights would typically be run by the emperor himself, but in smaller ones a wealthy man would take the reins and hold a show. It had to be in the smaller towns because if the fights grew too large, you may be falling out of the emperor's favour; the people who held gladiator fights tended to be rather popular, and growing too popular was taken as a threat. That meant that the largest, most grand fights were held typically in Rome and always on behalf of whomever was the emperor at the time. Under Augustus' rule, his show was said to have had ten thousand fight each other, and 3500 animals killed as well. With the eventual building of the colosseum, 50,000 would come to watch the fights.

So, who was fighting? What kind of fights did they have? Was that loser from the Spartacus television show who fought with a net a real thing? Tune in next time.