Gladiator

Read the following except and answer the questions that follow:
Chapter II: The First Gladiators

The first known gladiatorial combat in Rome took place at the funeral of a nobleman named Junius Brutus in 264 b.c. His sons Marcus and Decimus revived an ancient Etruscan custom of having slaves fight at the funeral of a great leader in the belief that such a sacrifice would please the gods. During the ceremony, which took place in the Forum Boarium, or cattle market, three pairs of slaves were forced to fight to the death. This strange custom grew in popularity as more rich and powerful men presented these displays as part of the ceremonies to honor their dead.

In 216 b.c., twenty-two pairs of slaves fought at the funeral of a man named Marcus Lepidus. Sixty pairs fought when Publicus Licinius died in 183 b.c. These slave fighters were now known as bustiarii, funeral men. As Rome’s taste for slave fights grew, so did the occasions that required them. If a family’s reputation could be enhanced by these displays, then so could a politician’s chance of election or a general’s popularity. It became clear that an ambitious Roman could buy a crowd’s attention, ensure his social standing, and demonstrate his power over life and death.

By the time of Julius Caesar, any direct association with funerals and religion was gone, and these fighters, now known as gladiators, meaning swordsmen, were a powerful force in Roman politics. Caesar’s genius at entertaining the masses with extravagant gladiatorial displays equaled his skills as a general and a politician. He bought the affection of the people with magnificent banquets and spectacles that were open and free to the public. He showered his political supporters and his legionaries (soldiers) with gold. All this gave Caesar unlimited power and established the precedent of keeping the populace occupied with triumphal processions, chariot races, and gladiator shows. The bigger the event, the more impressed the people were. In 46 b.c. Caesar staged a battle between two armies, each with 500 men, 30 cavalrymen, and 20 battle elephants. He topped that with a naval battle with 1,000 sailors and 2,000 oarsman, staged on a huge artificial lake dug just for that purpose.

These gladiatorial combats affirmed Julius Caesar’s power and, to him, the cost in gold and human lives was worth it. Augustus Caesar, in 22 b.c., brought all games in Rome under his direct control, making them a state monopoly. He realized that the games were too important a political tool to be exploited by anyone else.

Chapter XI: The End of the Gladiators

From the first recorded gladiator fights in 264 b.c. to their final abolition almost seven hundred years later, countless thousands died in the arena, all victims of some of the greatest exhibitions of brutality in history. The culture that produced the gladiators also created the atmosphere that eventually led to their extinction.

Like all great empires, Rome reached the height of its power and then, over a long period of time, began to collapse. It became impossible to maintain the huge armies needed to protect its border from invaders, the vast number of people ruled by the empire became unmanageable, and the bureaucracy required to keep the government running became bloated and corrupt. The later emperors lacked the absolute power to demand the money and resources required to stage shows as extravagant as the ones given when Rome was at its apex.

Although Rome’s glory faded over the centuries, Rome was still the major power of its time, and its subjects still expected to be amused by great shows. As time went on, novel acts were harder to create and exotic animals harder to obtain, and the shows became slightly less spectacular. The blood of innocent men and beasts continued to spill, however, and the crowds continued to enjoy the sight of pain and suffering.

It took the rise of a new faith to change the attitudes of ruler and ruled alike enough to stop gladiatorial combat. Christianity was born in the Roman Empire and found many converts among the poor and powerless. The pagan gods of Rome and the emperors who made themselves gods ruled the people with an attitude of total and merciless authority. These new Christians that preached peace and love often found themselves facing death in the arena when they refused to worship the emperor or his gods. The empire unknowingly aided the growth of this new faith. Every attempt to stop the spread of Christianity with the threat of persecution and death seemed to encourage more converts. These converts began to realize that the pain and terror inflicted in the arena was at odds with the gentle and merciful words of their new religion.

Christianity gained its more powerful convert in a.d. 312 when the emperor Constantine the Great adopted the faith and declared Christianity the state religion. He issued an edict abolishing gladiatorial combat in a.d. 323. This edict further stated that those condemned to the arena should serve their sentences in the mines instead. This was a humanitarian gesture in theory only, because forced labor in the mines was nearly as deadly as combat in the arena, though far less dramatic. This ban, however, was not enforced. Constantine himself allowed several gladiator shows to be given, contradicting his own law. It is proof of the powerful attraction of the games that even a great leader like Constantine could not or would not stop them completely. Crowds still filled amphitheaters all over the empire to watch gladiators do their bloody work. Christianity needed more time to wipe out all the pagan beliefs of Rome; even some of the gladiators were Christians. It wasn’t until a.d. 367 that the emperor Valentinian I stopped the condemnation of Christians to the gladiator schools. Although emperor Honorius closed the gladiator schools in a.d. 399, the games still seemed to be thriving.

Five years later, a tragic event finally put an end to the gladiators. In a.d. 404, a Christian monk named Telemachus jumped into an arena in Rome and tried to separate two combatants. The crowd went berserk, climbed over the walls into the arena, and tore the monk limb from limb. In response to this ugly incident, the emperor Honorius immediately and permanently banned all gladiator combats. Unlike Constantine, he enforced the law.

The era of the gladiator was over. Though the Roman Empire was officially a Christian state for ninety-two years before gladiators were abolished, Christianity was primarily responsible for bringing an end to gladiator combats. Violence and cruelty would continue to be all too common in history, but never again would the amphitheater fill with people gathered to watch men kill each other for sport.

Who was responsible for the first-known combat between gladiators in Rome, and why did the custom grow? Cite evidence from the first paragraph of the text to support your answer.

 In what ways did gladiatorial combat change between the time of Julius Caesar in 46 B.C. and Constantine the Great in A.D. 312? Cite evidence from Chapters II and XI to support your answer.

When did emperor Honorius ban all gladiatorial combat? Explain his reasons for banning all combat between gladiators and cite evidence from the sixth paragraph of Chapter XI to support your explanation.