Gladiator Types Explained Through Roman Art)

Nothing captures the popular imagination of ancient Rome quite like gladiators. They are its most iconic symbols. But how do we actually know what their armor and weapons looked like? Our visual knowledge comes from two main sources. Archaeological finds of real gladiatorial equipment and Roman art that depicts them in action. In this video we'll mostly look at mosaics and frescoes and what they reveal about the different types of gladiators and how they fought in the arena. One of the most famous gladiator mosaics is this one. It depicts a retiarius on the left and a secutor on the right, a classic pairing of gladiator types. The secutor, which means pursuer and is the Latin root for the English word persecutor, was heavily armed, with a fully enclosed helmet, a large shield, and a gladius, a short sword designed for close combat, and the weapon that gives gladiators their name. He was often matched with a retiarius, who by contrast was lightly armed, quick, and nimble. The retiarius symbolized a fisherman and had a trident, a dagger as backup, and a fishing net. The trident was used by ancient fishermen to spear fish and was also the weapon of Poseidon and Neptune, making the sea symbolism obvious to any Roman viewer. In the middle is a referee, known in Latin as a summa rudis. The summa rudis ensured that the fighters obeyed the rules and that the combat remained fair. He could stop the fight if a gladiator was injured or disobedient and penalized those who broke the rules. He wore a white tunic and carried a staff called the rudis, the visible mark of his authority as the senior referee in the arena. The quick-moving retiarius would run circles around the heavy, slow secutor and try to catch him with his net. Once he managed to trap and disable him, he could go in for the kill with his trident. This mosaic from Spain shows two different moments of the same fight, almost like an ancient graphic novel or comic strip. Even their names are labeled, the retiarius is Calendio and the secutor is Astyanax. Perhaps Calendio fell to the ground after casting his net and capturing Astyanax, only to get back up and strike with his trident, which Astyanax blocks with his shield. But whichever way this fight unfolded, the mosaic gives us the outcome, Astyanax won, indicated by the word vikit or wikit, next to his name, the victor. Calendio by contrast has a Greek theta symbol beside his, which the Romans used to indicate death. Names and outcomes are often labeled, and these may be real fighters who once fought in the arena, making these mosaics not just works of art, but possible historical documents. This mosaic, found just outside Rome, shows the same pairing, a secutor downed on the ground with his shield beside him, and a retiarius moving in for the kill, this time not with his trident, but with his dagger. Not all fights ended in death, but this mosaic shows who did get killed, along with their names. The winning retiarius is named Astacius, the fallen secutor is Astivus, and Rodan is also marked as dead, suggesting this mosaic may be a record of real fights that took place. The retiarius was one of the more interesting gladiator types, completely unlike the others. His character was sometimes seen as less masculine and more effeminate, but that may have made him even more intriguing to the crowds. Lightly armed and barely armored, he might seem disadvantaged, yet he relied on agility, speed and cleverness to defeat his heavily armed opponents, and these mosaics show that he often succeeded, proving that wit could sometimes win over brute force. In the next chapter, we'll look at what Roman art shows us about these heavier, more classic types of gladiators. Being a gladiator was a tough job, constant hard training, no family life, the same bland diet every day, and the fear of death in the arena. 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So the Samnite and Gallus types gradually disappeared. And in their place arose the Murmillo, a heavily armed gladiator who had a neutral, non-ethnic identity. He was named after a type of fish, because of the crest on his helmet that resembled a fin. The Murmillo was one of the heaviest gladiator types, armed with a gladius, a large shield called a scutum, and greaves to protect his shins. He was most often paired with the Thracian, another type based on a conquered people, the Thracians of the lower Danube basin, in what is today Bulgaria and northern Greece. The Thracian, or Thrax, never evolved into something else, possibly because the Thracians were less Romanized than the Samnites and Gauls. They retained an air of exotic otherness in the Roman mind, so they could remain a symbolic enemy in the arena. They were armed with the sicca, a curved sword used by the Thracians and Dacians. By the imperial period, however, that ethnic connotation had largely disappeared as well, and the Thrax came to represent only his weaponry and fighting style, as opposed to an ethnicity. We also have this rare example of a fresco with gladiators from Pompeii, one of the most important sites for Roman wall paintings. Sometimes it's hard to make out exactly which gladiator types are depicted, but based on their helmets, the figure on the left appears to be a Thracian with a feathered crest, while on the right we see a fallen Muromilo with a metal crest. This mosaic from Germany shows the same pairing again, frozen at the moment of impact, the Muromilo's shield mid-swing, smashing the Thracian's shield to the side, like an ancient action shot captured in stone. Another interesting gladiator type based on a conquered people was the Hoplomachus, modeled on a Greek or Macedonian hoplite. He possibly appeared as a gladiator after Rome defeated the last Greek kingdoms during the Macedonian Wars, the campaigns that gradually absorbed Greece as a Roman territory. In the arena, he evoked that epic Greek warrior. Just like a hoplite, the Hoplomachus carried a spear, but his shield was much smaller than the large shields hoplites were so notorious for. It's important to remember, however, that these gladiator types were symbolic, not literal representations of conquered peoples. There were other types of gladiators, but they're not all represented in Roman art, or it's not always clear which is which, like in this fresco from Pompeii. It's hard to identify them, but the fresco is so well preserved that it's worth showing, especially given how rare gladiator art is. And the arena wasn't limited to just gladiators. Animal hunters, known as venatores, were also a major part of the spectacle, facing wild animals imported from across the empire. Roman art shows this vividly, like this fresco from Spain, showing a venator confronting a female lion with nothing but a spear, seconds before the kill. To modern eyes, this looks like pure cruelty. But for Roman audiences, they were spectacles of domination, man proving his mastery over nature, like these two guys working together to bring down a tiger. This is a 6th century mosaic from Constantinople, showing that this activity went on well until late antiquity in the Eastern Roman Empire, even after gladiatorial combats had declined and were eventually banned.