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"In the 1st century A.D. we know [the] death rate perfectly: the study of the results of gladiator fights painted on the walls of Pompeii say that out of 5 fights, one ended with the death of the ...
The famous “thumbs down” gesture probably didn’t mean death. If a gladiator was seriously wounded or threw down his weapon in defeat, his fate was left in the hands of the spectators.
While the bloodshed on film and TV adaptations might persuade us otherwise, leading speaker on gladiatorial life and historical consultant Alexander Mariotti insists that death in the ancient Roman arena was “an absolute rarity”.
Gladiators did not always fight to the death. In fact, many gladiatorial bouts ended without fatalities, especially if the crowd favored a particular gladiator. The decision to kill or spare a defeated gladiator was made by the event organizers or the emperor.
Contrary to popular belief, not many gladiators actually fought to the death. Some historians say one in five died in battle, others one in ten, yet most only lived to their mid-twenties anyway – shocking when compared to today’s average!
In 216 B.C., more than 40 gladiators fought to the death at the funeral of the consul Marcus Aemilius Lepidus. Less than four decades later, in 183 B.C., the funeral of the statesman Publius...
Far from being a saint though, when a friend died in battle, Spartacus, in the old custom, arranged for three hundred Roman prisoners to fight gladiator contests in honour of his fallen comrade. After two years of revolt, the armies of Marcus Licinius Crassus finally cornered and quashed the rebels in Apulia in the south of Italy.
The Romans believed that the first gladiators were slaves who were made to fight to the death at the funeral of a distinguished aristocrat, Junius Brutus Pera, in 264 BC. This spectacle was...
The fights were not necessarily to the death. Gladiators were skilled professionals and that made it economically undesirable for their owners, who had spent considerable resources on their upkeep and training, to see their stock butchered at a rate of 50% for every spectacle.
Most gladiators didn’t fight to the death. For every 10 gladiators who entered the ring, scholars estimate nine lived to see another day.