Medusa

i guess i have to repeat myself again: the uneqal arm length DOES NOT point to gladiators as i can tell you from my own training. in one hand i carry a heavy scutum in the other a sword. even for the other types of gladiators, you definitely train both arms. wide feet may point to persons running around barefoot a lot, but gladiators weren't the only ones with barefeet, what about slaves, poor people...? large size points to a non-italic origin, but we are talking about britain and not the italian motherland. also many of the conquered peoples like celts and germanic peoples were sold as slaves. also the people inn the gaulish and germanic provinces remained taller than italians even though they adopted the roman life style. also there were some roman volunteers signing up as gladiators. there was no minimum size to become gladiator, unlike modern boxing and martial arts there were no weight categories. so the size of a person does not tell you anything about his or her profession. good healed injuries may point to gladiators or the military but a beheaded person coul have been a deserter having been catched and put to death in a spectacle warning all soldiers better not to desert...

if you had followed my previous post you will surely have noticed that i doubt than any of the bones found in york were of gladiators. i strongly believe that all of them belong to condemned criminals. this means there would have been no mixture between gladiator graves and those of noxii at all.

what do you consider as late empire? i would say the fourth century was a time when for the losing gladiator it became more likely to receive the coup de gr

And that and also other points which i have listed above therefore point strongly in the direction that they found a graveyard of condemned criminals and not of gladiators e.g. trained fighters. the harvard professor kathleen coleman dedicated an article to midday executions called "fatal charades: roman executions staged as mythological enactments" published THE JOURNAL OF ROMAN STUDIES 80, 44-73, 1990. the afternoon part of the munus were the gladiator fights which should be seen as kind of displays of swordmanship, kind of martial *art* and not senseless hacking to death. as unathentic the film "gladiator" is in one point it was right, when the audience was dipleased when maximus killed his opponents too quickly. gladiators should entertain but not by any kind of senseless hacking to death in a drama setting but by their fight to skill. so any kind of theatrical parts of the show were reserved for the executions.

sure there might be local variations esp. when it comes to the pairings of gladiators. but a scene which you describe something like a drama sounds to me also to a condemnation of criminals which are known to have been set in kind of dramas. please bear also in mind that the editor of the games had to pay the lanista who rented the gladiators to him for the show an extra fee fo each fallen gladiator. the lanista needed this as a compensation for all the time he had put into the training etc. of the gladiator. therefore it was also a matter of available funds if to send a surrendered gladiator to death or not. i still disagree with you that charun with the hammer was connected to gladiators.

A gladiator who surrendered gave a sign of surrender by dropping the shield if he had one and raised the left hand. the summa rudis (referee) interupted the fight immediately and now all waited for the final signal from the editor of the games if this gladiator had fought bravely and hence received mercy. if he was so heavily wounded that he could not he surely would be carried out of the arena. it is attested from inscriptions that gladiators that they left the arena alive but died afterwards of their wounds. if the editor decided that the man who surrendered should die it was expected from the gladiator to receive the coup de gr

i watched now the dvd of the documentary which ghost of clayton was so kind to send me. i would like to share with you guys also the comments i have made at roman army talk: after i received a copy of this tv show quite some time ago i finally had time to watch it yesterday taking some notes to the following points (some of them already mentioned by others here): 1) junkelmann defines the bestiarius as the animal keeper, the actual beast fighter would be named venator.hoewever, it is wrong to say that the beast fighter was untrained and therefore most likely condemned to death. although not as popular as gladiators they were also trained. in rome they had their own school, the ludus matutinus ("the morning school" as beast fights usually took place in the morning). 2) as was already pointed out by conal, i, too wondered when they referred to the alleged murmillo if he did wear a manica or if a sword could cut through it under certain circumstances. they did not say anything about it. then they said the blunt wound come from a scutum crashing down on the arm of the man lying on the floor. the movie scene showed a murmillo causing these injuries to a thraex, so why do they say it the other way around? in my opinion its very thin to conclude from injuries the exact gladiator type. 3) the alleged thraex died thruogh the hammer blow of the arena attendant dressed as charun. the roblem is that only noxii (condemned criminals) were killed like that. fallen gladiators were carried out on a stretcher from the arena and their throat was slit behind the scenes to make sure they are not feigning their death. 4) it didn't make sense to me that esp. secutores were recruited from slaves and had to wear foot shackle even when fighting in the arena. 5) thinking that young man from the equestrian order (called equites) signing up as gladiators fighting on horseback (also called equites) seems very far-stretched. it was disgraceful esp. for members of the senatorial and equestrian class to appear publicly as gladiators, they would lose all their rights to run for office etc. the movie scene showed on gladiator already dismounted while the other one still sat on horseback. presumably the equites started their fight on horseback and then both dismounted to continue fighting on foot. 6) imho all gladiators need their right and left arms more or less equally, also the retiarius who switches the trident from left to right after the net is thrown, so that a young net fighter has one longer arm is also far-stretched. also gladiators were killed honorably this means they would never be beheaded. after watching this documentary i see my previously stated doubts confirmed. saying that they found graves of gladiators is more attractive to the media than roman mass graves of criminals were found. and two links: http://www.yorkarchaeology.co.uk/headless-romans/index.htm http://www.iadb.co.uk/driffield6/driffield6.php

i wouldn't neceessarily want to talk to some person but more strolling around and observe the common people. buy some food at a tavern. and of course since i'm doing gladiatorial re-enactment go to a ludus and see if our reconstructions of weapons and armor and the pairing of gladiators are correct. watch their training and trying in the evening the infamous gladiator porridge. would it really taste that bad as the recipe i tried out? preferably i would visit the rome of the 1st century ad.

I would show him especially the area around Frankfurt with the remains of the limes and the forts like Saalburg and then to Frankfurt with its ugly skyscrapers. That would be definitely a shock. But then I would show him my hometown Hamburg and tell him that here the Romans never settled but only went on an expedition up the river Elbe.

I would show him a modern soccer stadium and tell him about the fan festivals during the World Cup where thousands of people watched the matches together. I assume he would be jealous that such things did not exist back in his time so the people who did not get a ticket for a gladiator show weren't that disappointed. They surely would have went to a tavern or public space to watch it there with other fans who could not get a ticket.

I watched of course yesterday's match of Germany vs. Uruguay although it was just the match for the bronze medal. But Octopus Paul had predicted this victory. For today his tip is Spain, what I believe, too. But who knows, this World Cup was so full of surprises, maybe the Netherlands win in the end ;-)

Blood lust Hey, what other answer did you expect from a gladiator re-enactor???!!! ;-)

Germany won 4:0 against Argentina. I didn't expect such a clear result, but was hoping of course that "my" team would win. In this state of fitness and capability I guess they could win the semi final (no matter if Spain or Paraguay will be the opponent) and the final will be the Netherlands against Germany ;-)

Nope didn't expect that either. When betting at work I said Brazil will become World Champion... hhhmmm this is the World Cup of many surprises. Wonder how the match Uruguay vs. Ghana will end because at the moment it is a draw 1:1.

Anywhere near an amphitheater ;-)

Yesterday that had a documentary about this on the German TV channel ZDF about this topic and it was very interesting (as long as you didn't look at the movies scenes which weren't too many anyhow). BTW Christoph Sch

Except for those bronze strips they don't have any indication of how much decorated the coffin was, there's no wood left, so they don't even know of what kind of wood it is. Just because this woman seemed to have led the life of a hard worker, it's too thin to think she was a gladiatrix. There were many other "jobs" as well, esp. among the low classes and slaves, which consisted of hard labor for men and women alike. But it's the same thing as with this York excavation, the word "gladiator" just sells better. In this case there is even less evedince pointing towards the arena than at the found of the female grave in London some years ago, where at least some grave objects pointed towards the arena.

I saw a lecture by Hazel Dodge at the Amphitheatre Conference in Chester in 2007. Of course I'd be interested in her new book so count me in.

So far I bettet on the wrong teams at the betting at work and at my favorite pub. I guess I won't win the jackpot in the end.

Well, if there are no more newbies left because they all end up as cannon fodder as you've said then in the end there would be no old experienced fighters also because they either die as well or resign from the arena. The training was aimed to become a good fighter and of course giving the newbies a chance to to build up a career as gladiator. The costs invested in training, food, accomodation, ammenities were too high just to "breed" "cannon fodder". There were gregatim (mass fights) for which tirones were used but these were not frequently. More frequently was the duel man against man and only one pair at a time. In German I would say to your above statement "da bei

It is true that the throat of gladiators killed in the arena (no matter if killed during the fight or if they received the coup de gr

Maty was faster than me to reply to the topic of "mercy killings" of gladiators and hence has said everything. If the skeletons found at York had grave goods with them I would rather think they are of venatores because the lion bite (or bite from a large carnivore) points into that direction. The corpses of noxii were dumped somewhere without any grave goods and gravestones etc.

I post here basically what I have written also at RAT referring to the article by "The Guardian": When reading this it seems to me that either they are talking about venatores (beast fighters) or noxi (condemned criminals). To me it sounds unlikely that a gladiator has a well trained right (sword) arm because as I can tell from my own experience a gladiator needs also a well trained left (shield) arm. To me this sounds more like a laborer of monotonous work such as a smith or any other craftsman etc. or a field worker. Decapitation and hammer blows also point towards noxi because gladiators acc. to Junkelmann did not receive the hammer blow but only the noxi. Scars of animal bites of large carnivores point towards venatores or also noxi. Burial objects point to venatores as it would be unlikely that condemned criminals would receive a proper funeral.

Gladiatorial bouts were supervised by two umpires, the summa rudis and the secunda rudis. Those two watched that the gladiators were sticking to the rules and if a fight was interrupted because one of the combattants surrendered the victor had to obey this otherwise he would not have had much of his victory but sent to "Hades" instead of the loser. Pictures of umpires stopping a fight are to be seen on reliefs or mosaics.