Gladiator - Outline of The Games - Death, Disposal, and Remembrance

Death, Disposal, and Remembrance

The proximity of death defined the munus for all concerned. To die well, a gladiator should never ask for mercy, nor cry out. A "good death" redeemed a defeated gladiator from the dishonourable weakness and passivity of defeat, and provided a noble example to those who watched:

For death, when it stands near us, gives even to inexperienced men the courage not to seek to avoid the inevitable. So the gladiator, no matter how faint-hearted he has been throughout the fight, offers his throat to his opponent and directs the wavering blade to the vital spot. (Seneca. Epistles, 30.8)

Some mosaics show defeated gladiators kneeling in preparation for the moment of death. Seneca's "vital spot" seems to have meant the neck. Gladiator remains from Ephesus confirm this.

The body of a gladiator who had died well was placed on a couch of Libitina and removed from the arena with dignity. Once in the arena morgue, the corpse would have been stripped of armour, and probably had its throat cut to prove that dead was dead. The Christian author Tertullian, commenting on ludi meridiani in Roman Carthage during the peak era of the games, describes a more humiliating method of removal. One arena official, dressed as the "brother of Jove", Dis Pater (god of the underworld) strikes the corpse with a mallet. Another, dressed as Mercury, tests for life-signs with a heated "wand"; once confirmed as dead, the body is dragged from the arena. Whether these victims were gladiators or noxii is unknown. Modern pathological examination confirms the probably fatal use of a mallet on some, but not all the gladiator skulls found in a gladiators' cemetery. Kyle (1998) proposes that gladiators who disgraced themselves might have been subjected to the same indignities as noxii, denied the relative mercies of a quick death and dragged from the arena as carrion. Whether the corpse of such a gladiator could be redeemed from further ignominy by friends or familia is not known.

Few gladiators survived more than 10 matches or lived past the age of 30. One (Felix) is known to have lived to 45 and one retired gladiator lived to 90. George Ville calculated an average age at death at 27 for gladiators (based on headstone evidence), with mortality "among all who entered the arena" around the 1st century CE at 19/100. A rise in the risk of death for losers, from 1/5 to 1/4 between the early and later Imperial periods, seems to suggest missio was granted less often. Marcus Junkelmann disputes Ville's calculation for average age at death; the majority would have received no headstone, and would have died early in their careers, at 18–25 years of age. Historians Keith Hopkins and Mary Beard tentatively estimate a total of 400 arenas throughout the Roman Empire at its greatest extent, with a combined total of 8,000 deaths per annum from all causes, including execution, combat and accident.

Death and disposal therefore perpetuated the divisions and judgements of society. In the pre-Christian era, the highest status funerals involved expensive, prolonged cremation ceremonies, sometimes complete with a munus offering. At the opposite extreme, the noxii (and possibly other damnati) could be thrown into rivers or dumped unburied. This extended their damnatio beyond death into perpetual oblivion and their shade (manes) to restless wandering upon the earth as dreadful larvae or lemures. All others – citizens, slaves or free – were usually buried beyond the town or city limits to avoid the ritual and physical pollution of their community. Gladiators were segregated in separate cemeteries. Even for those whose death had brought honourable release, the taint of infamia was perpetual.

Memorials were a major expense, and testify only to those who prospered. Gladiators could subscribe to a union (collegia) which ensured proper burial, with compensation for wives and children. The gladiator's familia or one of its members (including lanistae, comrades, wives and children) sometimes paid.

Tomb inscriptions from the Eastern Roman Empire include these brief examples:

"The familia set this up in memory of Saturnilos."
"For Nikepharos, son of Synetos, Lakedaimonian, and for Narcissus the secutor. Titus Flavius Satyrus set up this monument in his memory from his own money."
"For Hermes. Paitraeites with his cell-mates set this up in memory".

The hand of Nemesis absolved a gladiator from the ignominy of defeat, and his memorial maintained his virtus in perpetuity as a skilled fighter, worth avenging:

"I, Victor, left-handed, lie here, but my homeland was in Thessalonica. Doom killed me, not the liar Pinnas. No longer let him boast. I had a fellow gladiator, Polyneikes, who killed Pinnas and avenged me. Claudius Thallus set up this memorial from what I left behind as a legacy."