For the history buffs among us ...

From the extensive write-up in the Radio Times, sounds like at least one was one of the bestiarii, or beast-fighters, since one skeleton has serious bite wounds likely to be those from a lion or a bear. So we must've imported wild animals for the purpose of combat, too. God knows what Health & Safety would make of it!

"I'm sorry, Maximus Profitus, but you'll have to put muzzles on those things. Can't have anyone getting hurt, now, can we? And that bloke with the trident - has he got a fishing licence? NO? Well, you'd better get him one before tonight's show, or there'll be a bloody big fine, I can tell you... "
 
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krizon said:
From the extensive write-up in the Radio Times, sounds like at least one was one of the bestiarii, or beast-fighters, since one skeleton has serious bite wounds likely to be those from a lion or a bear. So we must've imported wild animals for the purpose of combat, too. God knows what Health & Safety would make of it!

"I'm sorry, Maximus Profitus, but you'll have to put muzzles on those things. Can't have anyone getting hurt, now, can we? And that bloke with the trident - has he got a fishing licence? NO? Well, you'd better get him one before tonight's show, or there'll be a bloody big fine, I can tell you... "
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There was no need to import these beasts.
You know as well as I do it must have been that most evil and vicious beast that the World has ever known; the red fox. It needs 15 couple of hounds and God only knows how many hominids who are incapable of walking to despatch it to Valhalla!
 
Very interesting and informative programme. I guess if I'd been a captive enslaved into gladiatorial combat, I'd have asked if I could be the Equitus, please. Failing that, and if I were of a commanding size, the Murmillo. I didn't realise that the Bestiarius was the most-despised of the lot - you'd think anyone facing up to lions rampant might've been rather higher up the tree than a bloke with a fishing net and Neptune's prongs. Also, not much incentive once you learned that the evening's fun and games were 'si remissione' and especially at York, where the special of the day - and indeed the speciality of the city - was decapitation of the losers.

You can imagine the tourist brochures, can't you: "York! Come and lose your head where others are losing theirs!" "You think you've had a bad day? Relax, and watch others have a much worse time!"
 
krizon said:
...the Bestiarius was the most-despised of the lot ...QUOTE]

Usually a criminal, untrained, low investment and therefore dispensable.

Good way to deal with those who rape and murder. Let them face up to something that fights back and has a better chance of winning.

Seriously though, what awful times they must have been. Absolutely no mercy for those who transgressed or, more unfortunately, fell into hard times from a high position in society. Quite a lot of men in Rome sold themselves as gladiators to clear their debts.

Some gladiators were so good and beloved of the crowd, that they were able to buy their freedom. By all accounts, they were the pin-up boys of the Roman amphitheatre. Not surprising, looking at those physiques, and they would have been showmen, too. No wonder they used to make the women sit in the upper seats of the amphitheatre!

Apparently, they had a pension scheme (for those who lived long enough), which was extended to wives/partners and any offspring, while their medical care was better than many. Quite a bit of surgical expertise arose from the injuries sustained in battle and the amphitheatre. (Apparently some surgical instruments have not changed all that much in appearance since those times.)

Very hard and brutal times, but interesting. Wouldn't have liked to have lived then, though.
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I was amazed by the number of ampitheatres and the figure of 1,000,000 participating gladiators quoted, across the Roman-held countries. You have to be impressed by the distances captives were hauled to be sold into slavery of one sort or another, male and female. When it's still a big deal for some people to take a safe holiday to a totally well-serviced country like Morocco, it's amazing to think that all those centuries ago, Moroccans and other North Africans were involved in the slave trade, as buyers, sellers, and victims, depending on happenstance. With so much emphasis on the much later capture and sale of only sub-Saharan Africans to service the growing colonisation of various newly-found countries, we can easily forget that slavery seems to go back to the earliest points of recorded time. The Egyptians certainly pressed slaves into service, as did the great South American civilizations, following capture raids. And if we think that 'legal' slavery finished with the emancipation of American slaves, we'd be wrong. Saudi Arabia signed its final emancipation document in 1961.

As for slavery, it continues today in the form of trafficking young women and children for sexual purposes including pornography, domestic, agricultural and industrial workers, as well as young boys abducted and pressed into militia groups in parts of Africa.
 
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