There were a number of gladiator schools that trained gladiators for combat, there's interesting ruins of Ludus Magnus, the largest of them:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludus_Magnus
> Julius Caesar, wishing to further his political career in 65 B.C., staged a munus for his father (who had been dead for 20 years), during which 640 gladiators fought wearing armor made of solid silver.
How can people be so blood-thirsty that it's ok to sacrifice over 600 men for nothing more than a "spectacle"? It's really difficult to understand how a highly civilized society for the time could have almost no respect for human life.
It is hardly the only way the Romans lacked respect for human life. They were very willing to kill for many reasons.
They were a slave society and were particularly harsh on slaves, and particularly rebellious slaves. The cruelty of a society where crucifixion (scaleable, low labour cost, torturing to death) was a standard punishment is mind boggling.
Then there was all the rape (of slaves, it was fine, even children) and other cruelties.
It was subsequently decided that Sejanus’ remaining children should be executed, though the mass anger had abated and the majority had been placated by the previous deaths. They were therefore carried off to prison, the boy (Capito Aelianus) aware of his fate, the girl (Junilla) so innocent that she kept asking what she had done wrong and where they were taking her, that she would not do it again and surely could be punished with a trivial beating.
Historians of the time say that as it was thought to be unheard-of for capital punishment to be inflicted on a virgin, she was violated by the executioner, the noose beside her; both children were then strangled and their young bodies thrown down the Gemonian Stairs.
Maybe we misthink what civilized means. In the end it just means to be the group that wins and leaves the most widely circulated records.
Records from other groups are pretty rare and largely coloured by those later ones who came after them and can put lot of blame on them. While very well scrubbing their own wrong doings.
When Bush invaded Iraq, I remember a scene when the US military showed an areal video of some Iraqi vehicle to reporters: the vehicle got hit, boom it goes, and everybody cheered. It wasn't even some kind of "We have to do this because this is war," it was pure joy at the destruction and death of someone they've never met.
And I guess it's unfair to pick on the US for that - that kind of trait is pretty much universal. All you have to do is to see the other side as less than human.
I wasn't there; I was in college at that time, but I remember the attitude from military magazines, radio, etc. Iraqi soldiers in Kuwait were seen as universally guilty of "raping" Kuwait, and any who died deserved his punishment.
Gladiatorial combat was just a drop in the bucket. A single Roman mining operation in Spain [1] had tens of thousands of slaves working to death. Even the famous slave revolt of Spartacus ended with the spectacle of 6000 slaves crucified along the Appian Way [2].
I think that's the scary question for a lot of people. Many ignore it, some like to embrace violence like they've discovered something new (instead of old), and to show how edgy and dangerous they are.
We all have good and bad in us, we are biologically the same as those Romans, and as all the people who do good things. We can choose, and we can bring out the good (or bad) in each other. Look at the society we've built, where such things are unthinkable.
This was more like a fancy UFC fight. They could end in death and the Romans held public executions in the stadium, but people weren’t THAT bloodthirsty.
They were well trained professionals. And training time and feeding them is pretty expensive. Also building a brand and name recognition is hard if you keep losing your people.
If people want to see randos fighting they might as well go outside tavern or bar after closing time...
I can see why recommend this book as an example of human cruelty, but I think you should be aware of the author’s past when you recommend his work.
Jürgen Thorwald was a real former Nazi propagandist.
The German version of Defeat in the East was written only 10 years after another of his books has been published with a foreword of Hermann Göring in it. It is interesting as a contemporary document and Thorwald changed his public attitude after the defeat of the Reich - but it is by no means a reliable account of the war.
A modern work like Timothy Snyder‘s Bloodlands shows human cruelty in the same impactful way while being far more accurate. Again, my intention is not to put any agenda in your mouth but to give some (in my opinion very important) context regarding your recommendation.
Rome was not civilized by modern standards. They celebrated wars of conquest. They enslaved those who could not pay their capricious taxes. They were in Nietzsche’s phrasing acting out their will to power. A euphemism for doing whatever they can get away with.
Civilized is such an overloaded term. What you and other commenters are lamenting is a lack of human rights, not a lack of civilization.
We often take human rights for granted, but in antiquity (less so in the Middle ages) the only rights, that you could possess, were by virtue of your citizenship.
Actual trained gladiators, as opposed to convicts & such, generally did not fight to the death.They were expensive investments, so it was a big deal for an owner to throw that away.
1. Slaves were thought to be sub-human, and people largely didn't care about a handful of them dying. You don't have to go back all the way to ancient Rome to find that attitude among the general public. Many highly civilized societies as recently as 1800-1900 felt the same way.
2. A lot of gladiators were willing professionals, and had chosen the career with the risks in mind.
Decimation was the Roman practice of enforcing discipline of soldier by grouping them in group of 10, making them play the "draw the short straw" game and have the 9 winners kill the loser with stones.
If that's how they treated their own soldiers, imagine slaves.
Decimation was a punishment usually reserved for open rebellion and similar capital crimes. So if soldiers took up arms against Rome they’re not really their own soldiers anymore.
Not an excuse but decimation wasn’t a light punishment.
EDIT: the cases subcomments mention fall under the banner of "desertion" and/or refusal to follow orders (essentially rebellion), which, even in modern armies, carries a stiff penalty. Not quite decimation but its a serious crime.
I don’t know about fights like that but gladiators often didn’t fight to the death. It’s shockingly like major sports today — they sold commemorative cups and other art at the stadium for popular gladiators. Contestants dying was bad business.
Historically, one of the defining characteristics of "civilized" peoples has been their capacity for spectacular mass bloodshed. Sadly, there doesn't seem to be any meaningful correlation between the ability to create great art, poetry, architecture, etc. and respect for human life.
600 seems high, but in actually fight to death with actual weapons I would expect more than half to die eventually. That is being inflicted with wounds that result death soon after the other person or then just infections.
Trauma medicine and medicine in general was non-existent compared to today. So any open cuts or large amount of bleeding can easily kill person.
The morals of the ancient world would probably seem alien to anyone from the modern era. I can't remember the specifics but Roman literature reflected rather permissive attitudes to non-consensual sexual relations and relations with minors (eg a marriage age of 12). It's a hard thing to Google for without ending up on a watch list however.
> How can people be so blood-thirsty that it's ok to sacrifice over 600 men for nothing more than a "spectacle"?
Isn't the world today largely standing by and watching the mass slaughter of tens of thousands of mostly women and children? That has not valid military purpose.. It's just retribution, ethnic displacement and genocide.
Example: the Sderot night cinema [1]. No matter your position on the conflict, these are people who are treating the mass bomardment and death of civilians as popcorn-worthy entertainment.
Genetic heritage of the survivors of the transatlantic slave trade show a dark history of mass rape of enslaved women [2].
The occupation of Germany at the end of WW2 came with rape on a massive scale [3].
My point is that we, as people, stand by and let atrocities happen routinely so how are Roman atrocities really that different?
Oh, and 600 gladiators is really nothing. When Julius Caesar conquered Gaul, of the ~!3 million people, ~1 million were killed and another ~1 million were enslaved. The former province of Dacia ceased to exist. It is now modern day Romania. "Rome" is the root word there. The Dacians were literally wiped out.
> The morals of the ancient world would probably seem alien to anyone from the
> modern era. I can't remember the specifics but Roman literature reflected
> rather permissive attitudes to non-consensual sexual relations and relations
> with minors (eg a marriage age of 12). It's a hard thing to Google for without
> ending up on a watch list however.
I think that it can be a bit difficult to differentiate pro-forma traditions from what actually occurred. E.g. roman mores were quite different from ours but I'm not sure that marriage at 12 was much aside from an engagement. For exampl with later european marriages might have happened at similar ages but weren't actually consummated until the spouses where in their late teens or older. From a practical standpoint, if you marry someone to cement an alliance, it isn't a good look if you get them pregnant at 12 and they die in childbirth because they are too young to successfully deliver a baby.
Even terminology can be misleading as Naomi Wolfe famously found out when writing about homosexuality in Victorian Britain. She wrote about homosexuals being given the death penalty but was embarassed when an interviewer pointed out that one of the men she wrote about was tried and apparently given the death penalty multiple times over several years. Turns out when someone was tried and an entry of "death recorded" was made, it actually meant that their sentence was commuted to jail time or they were pardoned.
> How can people be so blood-thirsty that it's ok to sacrifice over 600 men for nothing more than a "spectacle"?
Is sacrificing 100,000 innocent civilians in hiroshima for spectacle any better?
> It's really difficult to understand how a highly civilized society for the time could have almost no respect for human life.
Ever read the Iliad? Or the hebrew bible? Besides, you become 'highly civilized' by killing everyone who disagrees with you and proclaiming yourself 'highly civilized'.
It's always been this way. Rome wasn't civilized. It was genocidal and brutal. The most genocidal and brutal of its time.
And if you think caesar was bad, augustus was far more brutal. But his savagery saved the 'civilized' roman empire.
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How can people be so blood-thirsty that it's ok to sacrifice over 600 men for nothing more than a "spectacle"? It's really difficult to understand how a highly civilized society for the time could have almost no respect for human life.
They were a slave society and were particularly harsh on slaves, and particularly rebellious slaves. The cruelty of a society where crucifixion (scaleable, low labour cost, torturing to death) was a standard punishment is mind boggling.
Then there was all the rape (of slaves, it was fine, even children) and other cruelties.
Civilized does not necessarily mean nice.
From Tacitus:
It was subsequently decided that Sejanus’ remaining children should be executed, though the mass anger had abated and the majority had been placated by the previous deaths. They were therefore carried off to prison, the boy (Capito Aelianus) aware of his fate, the girl (Junilla) so innocent that she kept asking what she had done wrong and where they were taking her, that she would not do it again and surely could be punished with a trivial beating. Historians of the time say that as it was thought to be unheard-of for capital punishment to be inflicted on a virgin, she was violated by the executioner, the noose beside her; both children were then strangled and their young bodies thrown down the Gemonian Stairs.
Records from other groups are pretty rare and largely coloured by those later ones who came after them and can put lot of blame on them. While very well scrubbing their own wrong doings.
Deleted Comment
And I guess it's unfair to pick on the US for that - that kind of trait is pretty much universal. All you have to do is to see the other side as less than human.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Las_M%C3%A9dulas
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appian_Way#The_crucifixion_of_...
We all have good and bad in us, we are biologically the same as those Romans, and as all the people who do good things. We can choose, and we can bring out the good (or bad) in each other. Look at the society we've built, where such things are unthinkable.
We are Neolithic animals with miraculous technology and far too little time to evolve at the same pace.
Homo homini lupus.
This was more like a fancy UFC fight. They could end in death and the Romans held public executions in the stadium, but people weren’t THAT bloodthirsty.
If people want to see randos fighting they might as well go outside tavern or bar after closing time...
As in, soldiers draw lots, one in ten get the short straw, and the ”lucky” nine-tenths beat the unlucky one-tenth of the regiment to death by hand.
Not a great time in our history.
https://www.amazon.com/Defeat-East-Juergen-Thorwald/dp/05531...
People are still the same. We're called "murder apes" for a reason.
Jürgen Thorwald was a real former Nazi propagandist.
The German version of Defeat in the East was written only 10 years after another of his books has been published with a foreword of Hermann Göring in it. It is interesting as a contemporary document and Thorwald changed his public attitude after the defeat of the Reich - but it is by no means a reliable account of the war.
A modern work like Timothy Snyder‘s Bloodlands shows human cruelty in the same impactful way while being far more accurate. Again, my intention is not to put any agenda in your mouth but to give some (in my opinion very important) context regarding your recommendation.
1. Slaves were thought to be sub-human, and people largely didn't care about a handful of them dying. You don't have to go back all the way to ancient Rome to find that attitude among the general public. Many highly civilized societies as recently as 1800-1900 felt the same way.
2. A lot of gladiators were willing professionals, and had chosen the career with the risks in mind.
If that's how they treated their own soldiers, imagine slaves.
Not an excuse but decimation wasn’t a light punishment.
EDIT: the cases subcomments mention fall under the banner of "desertion" and/or refusal to follow orders (essentially rebellion), which, even in modern armies, carries a stiff penalty. Not quite decimation but its a serious crime.
That said, it was 320 pairs of gladiators, so you'd assume 320 deaths or fewer, rather than "over 600".
Trauma medicine and medicine in general was non-existent compared to today. So any open cuts or large amount of bleeding can easily kill person.
> How can people be so blood-thirsty that it's ok to sacrifice over 600 men for nothing more than a "spectacle"?
Isn't the world today largely standing by and watching the mass slaughter of tens of thousands of mostly women and children? That has not valid military purpose.. It's just retribution, ethnic displacement and genocide.
Example: the Sderot night cinema [1]. No matter your position on the conflict, these are people who are treating the mass bomardment and death of civilians as popcorn-worthy entertainment.
Genetic heritage of the survivors of the transatlantic slave trade show a dark history of mass rape of enslaved women [2].
The occupation of Germany at the end of WW2 came with rape on a massive scale [3].
My point is that we, as people, stand by and let atrocities happen routinely so how are Roman atrocities really that different?
Oh, and 600 gladiators is really nothing. When Julius Caesar conquered Gaul, of the ~!3 million people, ~1 million were killed and another ~1 million were enslaved. The former province of Dacia ceased to exist. It is now modern day Romania. "Rome" is the root word there. The Dacians were literally wiped out.
[1]: https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/07/13/israel-sderot-ga...
[2]: https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/26/us/dna-transatlantic-slave-tr...
[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_occupation_of_...
I think that it can be a bit difficult to differentiate pro-forma traditions from what actually occurred. E.g. roman mores were quite different from ours but I'm not sure that marriage at 12 was much aside from an engagement. For exampl with later european marriages might have happened at similar ages but weren't actually consummated until the spouses where in their late teens or older. From a practical standpoint, if you marry someone to cement an alliance, it isn't a good look if you get them pregnant at 12 and they die in childbirth because they are too young to successfully deliver a baby.
Even terminology can be misleading as Naomi Wolfe famously found out when writing about homosexuality in Victorian Britain. She wrote about homosexuals being given the death penalty but was embarassed when an interviewer pointed out that one of the men she wrote about was tried and apparently given the death penalty multiple times over several years. Turns out when someone was tried and an entry of "death recorded" was made, it actually meant that their sentence was commuted to jail time or they were pardoned.
Is sacrificing 100,000 innocent civilians in hiroshima for spectacle any better?
> It's really difficult to understand how a highly civilized society for the time could have almost no respect for human life.
Ever read the Iliad? Or the hebrew bible? Besides, you become 'highly civilized' by killing everyone who disagrees with you and proclaiming yourself 'highly civilized'.
It's always been this way. Rome wasn't civilized. It was genocidal and brutal. The most genocidal and brutal of its time.
And if you think caesar was bad, augustus was far more brutal. But his savagery saved the 'civilized' roman empire.