Gladiators Informative Essay

Facts By: Brian Macarus English 11

They weren’t always slaves.

Not all gladiators were slaves. While most early gladiators were captured people and slaves who had committed crimes, significant inscriptions show that when the 1st century A.D. the demographics had begun to change. Lured by the thrill of battle and the roar of the groups of people, and lots of free men began signing contracts with gladiator schools in the hope of winning glory and prize money. These warriors were often desperate men or ex-soldiers skilled in fighting, but some were upper-class, like patricians, knights, and sometimes even senators.

Gladiatorial bouts were originally part of funeral ceremonies.

Many ancient writers described the Roman games as a import from …show more content…

Movies and TV shows often suggest gladiatorial fights as a just a bloody massacre, but most bouts happened under pretty strict rules. Contests were normally one-on-one combat between two men of same size and equal experience. Referees attended to the action, and usually ended the fight as soon as one of the gladiators was seriously injured. A bout could even end in a tie if the crowd was not entertained by a long and boring battle, and in rare cases, both of the gladiators were allowed to leave the arena with honor if the contestants had put on an exhilarating show for the spectators.
Since gladiators were really expensive to take care of (house, feed, train), their agents or promoters hated when their gladiators were needlessly killed. Trainers sometimes tell their fighters to wound, instead of kill, and the gladiators themselves may have taken it upon each other and themselves to avoid seriously injuring their brother gladiators. But the life of a gladiator was still normally very brutal and short. Most didn’t live past thei mid-20’s, and it has been estimated that somewhere between 1/5 of a gladiators bouts left one of its participants dead.

The well-known “thumbs down” hand sign most likely didn’t mean