06-23-2006, 11:06 AM
I agree with you, Conal and Gashford, that this hypothesis of a "cursus honorum gladiatorium" as describes by the two French authors seems rather odd, that's why I posted it here because I stumbled across that when reading the book and wanted to know whay you other gladiator buffs think about it.
Especially I don't see the point in changing the type of gladiator one fights in once he became more or less good in fighting in another type, because you need to become good to survive the arena and that you could become only through year long experience. That is shown by the fact that the highest mortality rates were among the tirones.
The reason for the rarity of equites and essedarii was that it was very costly esp. to maintain horses so only big ludi might have had horses for their equites. The chariot for the essedarii wasn't cheap either but at least had no constant costs as for the horses.
Especially I don't see the point in changing the type of gladiator one fights in once he became more or less good in fighting in another type, because you need to become good to survive the arena and that you could become only through year long experience. That is shown by the fact that the highest mortality rates were among the tirones.
The reason for the rarity of equites and essedarii was that it was very costly esp. to maintain horses so only big ludi might have had horses for their equites. The chariot for the essedarii wasn't cheap either but at least had no constant costs as for the horses.
