History Chapter 17 - The Gladiators PDF

# Chapter 17 - The Gladiators The bloody wound Of the gladiator Gurgles out life's end. The cries of acclimations from the stands Fill the sky with raging tigers. Waving their arms about to incite the masses The aging notables add an air of dignity to the arena. Making their separate entries they...

# Chapter 17 - The Gladiators The bloody wound Of the gladiator Gurgles out life's end. The cries of acclimations from the stands Fill the sky with raging tigers. Waving their arms about to incite the masses The aging notables add an air of dignity to the arena. Making their separate entries they KNEEL over the still-warm corpses Of the young. Their withered lips they pose Upon the fresh flowing wounds And, to prolong their lives - so they believe, Suck, ravenously suck out the blood, blood, blood. Fresh blood from the sun Flowing into filthy veins As into sewage pipes, And thus the Heart of the Nation is abandoned. (Visar Zhiti) Gladiatorial entertainment demonstrated a violent and bloody part of the Roman psyche, one that contrasted sharply with the citizens' vision of themselves as the pinnacle of sophistication and intelligence. Though the members of the republic, as well as the later empire, enjoyed attending theatrical performances, watching dancers, and listening to the compositions of talented musicians, it was the gladiator competitions that really pulled in the crowds. The massive Colosseum was completed in 80 CE for the primary purpose of serving Rome's unquenchable thirst for blood and showmanship. Able to hold 50,000 audience members, the Colosseum was the most sophisticated theater in the ancient world. Playwrights used the massive theater to recreate famous battles and mythological stories of the gods, public executions were carried out there in full view of the clamoring public, and in the early days of the new Colosseum, the floor was flooded for impressive reenactments of sea battles. Underground, a complex series of tunnels and chambers were constructed to house slaves and an array of animals that were used in the performances. The slaves, captured from all corners of the Roman Empire, were forced into hand-to-hand combat, first in training and then on the grand stage. These slaves did not always necessarily fight to the death, but eventually, they would most likely meet their end by the sword. New recruits learned the right combat tactics over time, and some even held their own against opponent after opponent in the arena, gaining the respect and adoration of the city. Various classes of gladiators battled in Rome's arenas. Based on a fighter's experience and rank among the other gladiators, he might have been a thraex or murmillo - that is, a foot soldier armed with a shield and sword and fitted with armor, or a fighter lacking most body armor but sporting a finned helmet, a three-foot shield, and a long sword. He might also have been an eques, the sort of fighter who entered the arena on horseback, or an essedarius, who fought from a chariot. The murmillo fights were the most popular with audiences, but there was a great deal of variety available for the gladiatorial aficionado. Some men were set up to fight lions, wolves, and other animals, while some fought one another with nothing more than a trident and a net. Christians were famously thrown in against lions without anything to defend themselves with. Though most of the fighters were men, women also fought in the arenas during the 1st and 2nd centuries CE, until they were banned from entering by Emperor Septimius Severus. Until 200 CE, they suffered alongside their male slave counterparts but were often sent in merely to make the patriarchal audience members laugh at their supposed inadequacies in battle. It was not unusual for female fighters to find themselves pitted against male dwarves, though usually, they fought one another. In every batch of new fighters, one might be destined for fame. One such gladiator was Spartacus, a rebellious slave from the northern Italian kingdom of Thrace. Having possibly served in a section of the Roman army, Spartacus was for some reason stripped of his rank and made a slave under the foot of aristocratic Rome. Eventually, he was sold and taken to Lentulus Batiatus, the owner of the realm's largest gladiatorial training grounds near the city of Capua. Alongside the other men, Spartacus was forced to take an oath that he would follow orders or risk corporal punishment. That probably didn't seem to matter much to the groups of men who regularly marched into Capua to fill the space left by the uncountable dead fighters. One way or another, they were doomed to die at the hands of the trainers or each other. Although the men probably bunked together in dark, tiny rooms underground, they were not inclined to befriend one another. There were various reasons they kept themselves emotionally distant; the first was simply a mixture of languages that made communication among the recruits quite difficult. Secondly, the men knew that when they were put into the arena to kill each other, they couldn't face taking down a friend. It was better to follow the rules and stay alive by slaughtering strangers. Spartacus thought differently. He dared to pit himself against the powers that be and rallied his fellow slaves to rise up against their masters in force. Spartacus enacted one of the most memorable escapes in Roman history. Together with a small force of at least seventy gladiators, Spartacus and his men plundered the Capua camp's kitchen for knives before fighting their way ruthlessly out of the training center and into the streets, where they commandeered several wagons loaded with armor and weapons. The men plundered Capua and recruited many more slaves before retreating into relative safety on Mount Vesuvius where they regrouped and made further plans. The gladiators' rebellion sparked the Third Servile War of the Roman Republic. It was the last of the great slave rebellions against the powerful republic and perhaps the most shocking. Spartacus and most of his companions weren't content merely to slink away to find their own personal freedom, especially after Roman soldiers pursued them to Mount Vesuvius and laid siege to the volcano. Not ready to give up, the gladiators crafted ropes from vines atop the mountain and climbed stealthily down the opposite side, attacking the soldiers' camp before retreating once more. In the next attack, the rebels managed not only to vanquish the soldiers but to arm themselves with the very weapons meant to end the rebellion. Excited by the great success of the slave army, tens of thousands of Rome's bonded laborers fled the homes of their masters and joined the ranks of the gladiator army. Spartacus, Crixus, and Oenomaus became the party's leaders, who together led some 40,000 slaves and other recruits to fight their way out of Italy. The group then split, with some heading northwest toward Gaul and the rest intending to return to Thrace. Though the former slaves had proved themselves capable of dodging attacks and potentially finding their way to safety, Spartacus' group of mostly Thracian slaves had second thoughts about abandoning the powerful army they'd formed. The army no longer answered to the whims of Spartacus and decided amongst themselves to use its strength to pillage the country. In his biography of Crassus, Plutarch wrote of Spartacus' movements during the Third Servile War: ...he marched his army towards the Alps, intending, when he had passed them, that every man should go to his own home, some to Thrace, some to Gaul. But they, grown confident in their numbers, and puffed by with their success, would give no obedience to him, but went about and ravaged Italy; so that now the senate was not only moved at the indignity and baseness, both of the enemy and of the insurrection, but, looking upon it as a matter of alarm and dangerous consequence. Bolstered by their continued success, the slave army considered the brash tactic of sacking Rome itself, but eventually, logic dictated that they remain out of the capital. Instead, they moved into the south of Italy. While the rebellious force considered its next move, Rome's consuls sent Marcus Crassus to crush the rebellion. All throughout 71 CE, Crassus' 40,000 soldiers chased Spartacus and his followers across Italy, until finally, with the help of Pompey the Great's army returning from Hispaniola, the rebels were captured and slaughtered. [Spartacus,] pushing his way towards Crassus himself through many flying weapons and wounded men, he did not indeed reach him, but slew two centurions who fell upon him together. Finally, after his companions had taken to flight, he stood alone, surrounded by his foes, and was still defending himself when he was cut down. Some 6,000 surviving slaves were crucified along the road back to Rome while others were thrown back into the gladiator camps. Though the defeat of the slaves seems crushingly thorough, some contemporaries and historians like to speculate that Spartacus himself managed to escape once more. The last recorded gladiatorial competition in Rome was in the year 399 CE when they were banned by Emperor Honorius.