Who Were the Gladiators?
The Gladiators were originally the condemned criminals, the prisoners of war, and the unwanted slaves of the Romans. They were invented to entertain people at funerals. Two Gladiators would fight to the death and then whoever died got a funeral until you ran out of people. Later, the sport was introduced and taken to the Colosseum as entertainment for the Emperor and the people of Rome. The floor was covered in sand [harena, in Latin] to soak up the Gladiator’s blood. This meant that there wasn’t so much cleaning up to do after a bloody day in the arena. If a Gladiator had the honour of winning a fight, then the emperor and the crowd would say if the loser would live or die by using their thumbs. If the majority had their thumbs up, the loser would live. But if the majority had their thumbs down, the loser would die. Then the winner would stand in front of the Emperor’s box and would be presented with a golden dish and later on, a golden palm leaf for winning. One Gladiator called Spartacus even lead a revolution against Rome! He escaped from the Gladiator camp he was in, with the other Gladiators who wanted to escape. They led the attack after dark, when everyone but the guards were asleep. They stole knives and other implements from the kitchen and 80 out of 200 Gladiators escaped. In the streets surrounding the camp they found wagons full of Gladiator weapons. When the guards came out to try and recapture the escaped Gladiators, they were defeated easily by the group of escapees with the Gladiator weapons. Once the Gladiators had defeated the guards, they picked the stronger, better, weapons and marched to Vesuvius, all the while picking up rogue slaves. They made camp in the crater of the volcano and stayed there for a while. Eventually the legionares found them, and made camp on the only road off of Vesuvius, thinking that the Gladiators would never be able to escape. But they underestimated Spartacus as he was already thinking of a way out of this sticky situation. In the end, the Gladiators discovered a thick growth of vines at the other end of the crater. Using these they climbed down and broke a few of the vines to make a rope to send the supplies down to the others. Meanwhile the legionares didn’t know that the Gladiators had escaped down the other side of the volcano. The Gladiators were planning to attack the legionares from the sides. This was a great tactical plan as the legionares would not be expecting to be attacked as they still didn’t know what was going on. It was a massacre as they dropped on the legions of Romans from behind. In the end, Spartacus retired from raiding and became a teacher in Gladiator school. He is admired to this very day for his cunning and bravery.