12-09-2006, 06:49 PM
Since Christian asked everybody to do a summary of his/her lecture I'll start with that although my lecture was the second on Saturday morning.
I was giving a short introduction to gladiators, starting with the origin of the gladiatorial games which are not clear if they are of Etruscan origin or if the originate in Campania where later on the most renowned gladiator schools (ludi) were located. The first recorded gladiatorial bouts in Rome were hold in the year 264 BC at the funeral of a patrician but it can be assumed that a tradition like this did not come out of nowhere, so that there might have been gladiator fights before in Rome but were simply not recorded.
Then I had a look at some Imperial gladiator types describing their armatura by showing this foil on the overhead projector (sorry, due to this being a pdf-file it can be only downloaded :oops: )
Then I talked about how gladiators were seen by Roman Society. They were admired in the arena very much and they represented the Roman moral quality virtus. Therefore a gladiator fight counted more than a theatrical display because that was for pure entertainment only. But outside the arena gladiators were seen as disgraced people (infamia). Nonetheless many citizens still felt attracted for the various reasons to fight as a gladiator in the arena as a volunteer (auctoratus) although due to the infamia they gave up rights such as running for office, being called for military service and were deleted from the property owning lists.
This is just a very brief summary because I would like to present this in detail in the Ancient Warfare Mag if Jasper sees it fits.
I was giving a short introduction to gladiators, starting with the origin of the gladiatorial games which are not clear if they are of Etruscan origin or if the originate in Campania where later on the most renowned gladiator schools (ludi) were located. The first recorded gladiatorial bouts in Rome were hold in the year 264 BC at the funeral of a patrician but it can be assumed that a tradition like this did not come out of nowhere, so that there might have been gladiator fights before in Rome but were simply not recorded.
Then I had a look at some Imperial gladiator types describing their armatura by showing this foil on the overhead projector (sorry, due to this being a pdf-file it can be only downloaded :oops: )
Then I talked about how gladiators were seen by Roman Society. They were admired in the arena very much and they represented the Roman moral quality virtus. Therefore a gladiator fight counted more than a theatrical display because that was for pure entertainment only. But outside the arena gladiators were seen as disgraced people (infamia). Nonetheless many citizens still felt attracted for the various reasons to fight as a gladiator in the arena as a volunteer (auctoratus) although due to the infamia they gave up rights such as running for office, being called for military service and were deleted from the property owning lists.
This is just a very brief summary because I would like to present this in detail in the Ancient Warfare Mag if Jasper sees it fits.
