Roman Gladiators

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Roman Gladiators
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Modern Stereotypes
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Thumbs Down!
Jean-Léon Gérôme. Police Verso (Thumbs Down),
1872
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Types of Evidence

• Literary (Mahoney)
• Material
• Artistic Representations
• Artifacts (Equipment)
• Tombstones
• Inscriptions

Terracotta Figurine of a Gladiator in the New
York Metropolitan Museum of Art Roman, 1st-2nd
century ADAccession 10.210.78
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Literary EvidenceThumbs Up!

• Juvenal. Satire 3.34-37
• The one-time horn players, traveling to
  municipal arenas, their puffed-out cheeks known
  in all the little towns, are now putting on their
  on munera, and when the crowd gives the order
  with upturned thumb, they kill just as the people
  want.

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Material Evidence
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Types of Gladiators
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Thraex
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Retiarius
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Place Your Bet!
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Some gladiatorial vocabulary

• tiro a gladiatorial recruit
• veteranus those gladiators who had fought at
  least once
• lanista a gladiatorial trainer
• armatura gladiatorial equipment
• myrmillo heavily-armed footman with a fish on
  his helmets
• Samnite heavily-armed footman
• secutor heavily-armed footman
• Thraex light-armed footman bearing a shield and
  reversed sickle
• retiarius unhelmeted footman armed with only
  tunic, net, trident and dagger
• essedarius chariot fighter
• familia a troop of gladiators
• ludus a place of residence and training of
  gladiators
• ludia female gladiator women associated with
  gladiators "a female slave attached to a
  gladiatorial ludus" (OLD)
• munus gladiatorial show

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Gladiatorial Scenes in Art
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Zliten Mosaic
Originally in a Roman seaside villa Now in
Archaeological Musuem Tripoli, Tunisia
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(No Transcript)
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Fragment of a Relief Showing Gladiators in the
New York Metropolitan Museum of Art Roman,
1st-3rd century ADRecorded ca. 1880 in the Vigna
Aquari in Rome.Accession 57.11.
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Gladiator cup, ca. 5080 A.D. NeronianEarly
FlavianicRoman Found at Montagnole, southern
France Now in New York Metropolitan Museum of
Art Glass H. 2 7/8 in. (7.3 cm), Diam. 3 1/8 in.
(7.9 cm)Gift of Henry G. Marquand, 1881
(81.10.245)
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Ancient Mosaic now in Bourghese Gallery, Rome
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Gladiator Mosaic Bad Kreuznach(Germany)
http//romanhistorybooksandmore.freeservers.com/p_
kreuzn_g.htm
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(No Transcript)
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Gladitorial Tombstones