Cultural Mirror of the Roman Empire: GladiatorsJoin now to read essay Cultural Mirror of the Roman Empire: GladiatorsCultural mirror of the Roman Empire: GladiatorsIn most of the societies sport games have a precious place for people because they are seen as a way of amusement. The favorite sport game may differ from society to society according to their life styles and characteristics. For example, the most popular game in U.S.A is American football, which may prove us the violence in American people; where as the most popular game in Turkey is soccer, which may prove us the fanatic side of Turkish people. Although it may not be seen as a sport game today, the most popular game in Roman Empire was the gladiatorial games and it was treated as a sport game in ancient times. The interest shown to these games by the Roman citizens may tell us something about their cultural belongings such as violence and warfare. In my paper, I will basically discuss different parts of the gladiatorial games such as; advantages of being a gladiator, the reason for the popularity of the games, how the emperors used the games as a way of propaganda, objections to these games by the writers of the ancient times, emergence of female gladiators, the sponsorship of the games, metaphorical meaning of a gladiator, volunteer gladiators and some other interesting aspects of the gladiators and gladiatorial games.
First of all, to understand the relationship between the gladiatorial games and Roman culture; we have to know who the gladiators were, what they were doing in the arena and why people were coming to watch these violent games. The most common source for gladiators was the captured soldiers of the enemies who were the prisoners of war. Slaves who were bought to become a gladiator were a good source as well. Also the criminals of the empire were used as gladiators. Beside all of these sources, interesting enough, normal citizens could become gladiators by their own will. (Roman Civilization, the gladiator). The gladiators were usually fighting with each other and in most of the cases; which is a tragedy, they were forced to kill their own friends to live and to satisfy their masters, the spectators and of course; the emperor. “They were fighting with the man whom they were sharing their drink” (Barton, 1989, p.17). The spectators were the citizens who attended the games to be satisfied and in expectation of having a fine day. They were coming to Rome from the different regions of Italy as well as from foreign countries (Baker, 2000, p.156). They were, actually, the hidden deciders of the death or the survival of the gladiators. It is generally thought that the spectators let the gladiator live when they put their thumbs up and decide the death by putting their thumbs down but it is still unknown, which sign really meant which decision (Post, 1892, p.214).
After these brief descriptions about the permanent members of the gladiatorial games, its time to get deeper. At this point of the discussion, its logical to wonder the real meaning of gladiators for Roman citizens. The most important cultural value for Roman people was to kill and die well. As being an ancient empire and a premodern society, Romans faced high mortality rates. A twenty years old Roman citizen would probably think that he would not be able to live until he is thirty so, his goal would probably be to die in an honorable way, as his cultural belongings and his society offers him to do so. Obviously, this was what the gladiators were exactly doing in the battlefields (Roman Civilization, the gladiator). They were killing to survive and finally reach their freedom or dying in an honorable way. They were admired because of their bravery and willingness to die (Dunkle, 2002). The gladiators were used, as metaphors for such words like: power, honor, fierce, unstoppable or irresistible. For example, in the 2nd BC Terence used the expression “with the spirit of the gladiator” meaning “without hope or fear” in his writing named “Phormia”. Even after six centuries, the metaphor for gladiators didnt change and it still had the same meaning (Barton, 1989, p.4).
As we all can predict, the emergence of the gladiatorial games was derived from the subconscious feelings of violence and warfare that the Roman people had. These games were seen as a tool for amusement by most of the Romans. Roman citizens would attend the games to prove that they were a part of the successful warrior state, Roman Empire. Warfare was actually a need for them. It is interesting enough that the attendance to the gladiatorial games have extremely increased during the first two centuries AD when there was peace all over the empire and there was no opportunity to have a real warfare. At these times, gladiatorial games were just what Roman people needed. They were satisfying their needs by watching gladiators killing each other. It was also known that the gladiatorial
is a form of art-making. An art-form uses a process of applying techniques to paint a depiction of the battle, but is very much a form of entertainment. As we have seen in previous studies, gladiatorial games are not simply physical forms of entertainment, but rather psychological forms of entertainment. Some people are able to get off of this very hard rock and start playing the game before coming out of gladiatorial training. You can find many videos of these games at youtube, youtube.com/user/daveyclarper . At this site, there is also a YouTube link to a few of the games used by gladiators and it contains over 70 years of history and information which is accessible for anyone to play. This is why the information on these games is so important, as it aids the reader in going through the history, study, and discovery of the gladiator games. However, the more I read about the gladiator fighting, the more I began to develop understanding this, and I found myself questioning the historical accuracy of the use of gladiators. The reason why there is so much misinformation about the actual combat of gladiators, when there is no real war being fought and only fighting is taking place. As stated previously, I started by reading over a thousand “documentaries” written by gladiators in this period because I was starting to understand the gladiatorial games much more and I found they were not really martial arts, but martial arts designed to be used by men to kill. However, as we can see, in these days, gladiators only need to use gladiators to kill in order to participate in gladiator competitions. A good example of what I found here was the one which takes people by surprise into the gladiator arena. A gladiator has to kill a bunch of men before they can fight and to gain their trust. Some gladiators are so disgusted by this that they take it upon themselves to prove to the galleys that gladiators are the cause of their disgust. While in reality they are mostly fighting men who have committed heinous crimes to get their money back. It is also worth noting that the man or female who comes to kill is a member of the gladiatorial competition, is a member of the Roman military, or is in any way related by blood to them. If that were so, he or she would be the cause of their disgust, not a member of the gladiator competition. So, if a woman becomes gladiator, then her gladiator has already become a male, and she is already a lover of the men of Rome. It is then up to woman to stop this corruption of the gladiator who has joined the competition. Therefore, I am convinced that gladiatorial competition is based off of the gladiator’s own feelings rather than the actual military nature of his or her role in it. Because of this, I began to believe that it is more difficult to get a gladiator to commit genocide against their fellow prisoners of war, because you cannot kill people because they are of