Ludi: Mediæval Games

Merels

Merellus was the Latin name for “game piece”, which may have been corrupted in English to “morris” and given rise to several similarly named games. The popular Roman game Terni Lapilli (“Three Pebbles”) is considered the ancestor of “Three Men’s Morris” which, by extension produced “Six Men’s Morris”, popular in Italy, France and England during the Middle Ages but obsolete by 1600, and “Nine Men’s Morris” or “Merels”. There is even a “Twelve Men’s Morris” that adds four diagonal lines to the board and gives each player twelve gaming pieces.

These games are also known as “Mill” or “Morris” in English and as “Mérelles” in French, “Morels” in Spanish, “Mühle” in German, “Mølle” in Norwegian, “Linea” in Italy and “Luk Tsut Ki” in China. As for the English names, it is believed they are derivations of the French word “merel” which means marker itself derived from the Latin merellus.

The game is played on a board consisting of three concentric squares connected by lines from the middle of each of the inner square's sides to the middle of the corresponding outer square's side. Pieces are played on the corner points and on the points where lines intersect so there are 24 playable points. Accompanying the board there should be 9 black pieces and 9 white pieces usually in the form of round counters.

The basic aim is to make “mills” - vertical or horizontal lines of three stones in a row. Every time this is achieved, an opponent's piece is removed, the overall objective being to reduce the number of opponent's pieces to less than three or to render the opponent unable to play. To begin the board is empty. A coin toss decides which player will play white as white moves first and thus has a slight advantage.

Gameplay: Play is in two phases.

• 
  To begin, players each take turns to place a piece of their own colour on any unoccupied point until all eighteen pieces have been played. After that, turns alternate and consist of a player moving one piece along a line to an adjacent vacant point.

• During both phases, whenever a player achieves a “mill”, that player immediately removes from the board one piece belonging to their opponent that does not form part of a “mill”.

• If all the opponent’s pieces form ‘“mills”, then an exception is made and the player is allowed to remove any one piece.

• It is only upon the formation of a “mill” that a piece is captured, but a player will often break a “mill” by moving a piece out of it and then, in a subsequent turn, return the piece back thus forming a new “mill” and capturing another opponent’s piece.

• Captured pieces are never replayed onto the board and remain captured for the remainder of the game.

• The game is finished when a player loses either by being reduced to two pieces or by being unable to move.

Sometimes a “wild” rule is played for when a player is reduced to only three pieces. In this case, any player with only three pieces remaining is allowed to move from any point to any other point on the board regardless of lines or whether the destination point is adjacent.

Chess

Chess is the most popular board game in history, originating in 6th-century India as a game simulating a battle. Its earliest form was known as chaturanga meaning “four-limbed” in reference to the four ancient divisions of the Indian army: infantry, cavalry, elephantry and chariotry. The different pieces were imbued with different powers reflecting the military regiments on which they were modelled. Chess percolated westward to become a popular game in the Middle Ages amongst the European nobility, hence its sobriquet “the game of kings”, as well as the military, clerics and wealthy households. In doing so the earlier game pieces became the pawns, knights, bishops and rooks familiar to European players. What was once a vizier piece was replaced by the more dynamic queen, influenced by the rise of powerful queens in Europe. 

In the 12th-century young men were taught chess as a lesson in combat, mirroring its Indian origins, and many poets used the game to symbolise fortune or destiny. The 10th-century Abbasid scholar al-Masudi described how chess was used to train military strategy and mathematics. In the later Middle Ages chess became popular as an allegory of love amongst poets and artists. Perhaps the best example being the late 14th-century French poem Echecs Amoureux which includes a long description of a game of chess between a lady and her suitor. Over 200 years later, in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Ferdinand and Miranda are discovered clearly flirting over the chessboard.

Gameplay: 

Chess is so well-known and popular that describing the gameplay is best left to the numerous books and online resources already available. That said, you probably know that a game ends when one player’s “king is helpless”. Of course you did. But did you know that Persian players would indicate this with the exclamation Shah mãt which was adopted into English as “checkmate”.

Rithmomachia

Rithmomachia, or the “philosopher’s game”, became important to higher education in Europe around the 11th-century. The game was thought to represent, in aesthetic form, the formal number theory of Greek polymath Pythagoras. The game was a favourite pastime of monks and clerics as church leaders believed it had enlightening qualities. In his 16th-century book “Utopia”, Thomas More has his citizens playing Rithmomachia instead of morally bankrupt games such as dice.

Pythagoras’ mathematical number theory held sway over European scholarship for more than a thousand years. He claimed “all is numbers” but apparently did not believe in all numbers favouring only rational (or whole) numbers such as 1, 2, 3 and simple fractions such as ½ as the foundation of the universe. The mathematical adherents of Pythagoras esteemed rational numbers so much that they actively tried to conceal the existence of irrational numbers (non-repeating decimals including Pi). It is even reputed that they assassinated the Greek philosopher Hippasus who had stumbled on the irrational challengers. The Pythagorean cult set European scholarship back by hundreds of years until, by the 17th-century, new techniques borrowed from India and Persia reinvigorated European mathematics. As Pythagoras’ ideas fell out of favour so too did Rithmomachia’s popularity.

Gameplay: 

Rithmomachia is similar in gameplay to chess. Its different pieces move according to distinct rules and like chess, players vie to capture their opponent’s pieces. Unlike chess, each Rithmomachia piece is inscribed with a number that dictates where and how pieces must be positioned to capture other pieces. To win, a player must arrange several of their pieces on their opponent’s side of the board in a mathematical progression, for example, 2-4-8.

References:

Clancy, K., (2024), “War and pieces”, BBC History Magazine (July edition), pp. 27-31.

Williams, S., (2005), BBC History Magazine Volume 6, Number 2, p. 43.

Ludi: War games

It can be argued that the face of modern Europe was changed by Kriegsspiel or “war game”. In the 18th-century German military strategists meddled with chess, itself an abstraction of war, to create a more realistic military planning tool. Inspired by the success of the scientific method in so many other fields, they hoped to recast war as a science. The game they devised was Kriegsspiel, with which they aimed to test and workshop new strategies. The chess board was first expanded to thousands of squares, colour-coded to represent different terrains. As map-making technology improved, the game was played on scaled maps of actual battlefields that allowed officers to plan their real campaigns in detail.

Each turn of play represented two minutes of warfare, and wooden block troops were constrained to move a realistic distance in that time. Casualty tables derived from actual battle data were used by umpires to predict each simulated action’s effects. As in modern tabletop wargaming, dice throws randomised and determined the damage inflicted by each attack. Kriegsspiel resulted in a remarkably accurate prediction engine allowing German officers to cohere the first German empire in the late 19th-century. Most modern militaries use some form of game simulation in their training and planning.

In 1913 author HG Wells published a simple tabletop war game he called “Little Wars”. As an acknowledged pacifist this seems a little odd, but he hoped that playing at war and witnessing its horrors in miniature would encourage people to avoid it for real. In due course Wells’ Little Wars gave rise to a plethora of new tabletop war games that culminated in Dungeons and Dragons and countless role-playing video games. The impact of playing war games has been far reaching even influencing modern policy. The nuclear war simulation game “Proud Prophet” was played by top US officials in 1983. Every outcome was so harrowing that the exercise convinced President Ronald Reagan’s administration to open arms control negotiations with the Soviet Union.

Bon appétit!

Reference:

Clancy, K., (2024), “War and pieces”, BBC History Magazine (July edition), pp. 27-31.

Why did the ancient Greeks exercise naked?

At the age of 12, ancient Greek boys would begin training at the gumnasion or gymnasium. Having a physically fit body was extremely important to the Greeks, and physical training was essential for improving one’s appearance, preparing for war, and maintaining good health in old age.

Much like today, the gumnasion (γυμνάσιον; meaning ‘training ground’) was a public place or institution used for exercise and communal bathing (thermae). Physical training and maintenance of health and strength were important parts of children's early education, something that was carried into adulthood. But an ancient Greek gumnasion was more than just a place to exercise. The Greek gymnasiums were also used for scholarly and philosophical pursuits hosting lectures and discussions on philosophy, literature, and music, and there were public libraries nearby. In gumansia the boys of wealthy families learned to ride horses as well as training in other sports including wrestling ('pale’), using a bow and a sling, and swimming. The palaestra was the part of the gymnasium devoted to wrestling, boxing and ball games. The supervision of these institutions was entrusted to public officials (gumnasiarchs) who responsible for the conduct of sports and games at public festivals, supervised the competitors, and directed the schools.

Athletes exercised, trained and competed nude, a practice said to encourage aesthetic appreciation of the male body and as a tribute to the gods. Given that gumnasia were for men only, there was no fear of the sexes being shocked or offended by nudity.

The name gumnasion derives from the ancient Greek word gumnós meaning ‘unclad’, ‘without armour’, or in modern terms ‘naked’. Gumnós is also the root of the verb gumnazo (γυμνάζω), whose meaning is ‘to train naked’, ‘train in gymnastic exercise’, or more generally ‘to train, to exercise’. 

The English word gymnast, first recorded in 1594, is derived from the Greek gumnastēs (γυμναστής), but in Greek this word means the teachers, coaches and trainers of the athletes, not the athletes themselves or those exercising. But why did Greek men exercise naked? According to the late Neil Faulkner FSA, many explanations are offered (Faulkner, 2012, 33):

• The 5th-century BC historian Thucydides credits the Spartans with introducing the custom of ‘publicly stripping and anointing themselves with oil in their gymnastic exercises’.

• Some contend it was the Athenians who passed a law making nakedness compulsory after a runner leading a footrace tripped and fell when his loincloth unravelled.

• Alternatively, according to Pausanias [1], the example was set in the Olympiad of 720 BC when Orsippos of Megara also lost his loincloth, only he went on to win the stadion race. Or was it Akanthos of Sparta who did the same?

With so many different origin stories it seems safe to say that none of the Greeks were sure when and why athletic nakedness began. Nudity had certainly not always been the case as the heroes of Homer’s tales, set, we think, in the early 12th-century BC, did not strip off for games. According to Faulkner, it seems the practice dates from some time after 750 BC (Faulkner, 2012, 34).

In his book ‘A Visitor's Guide to the Ancient Olympics’, Faulkner offers three possible explanations, the first being purely practical. One way you could identify a Greek athlete heading to the gumnasion was from the personal kit everyone carried: an oil flask (aryballos), strigil (stlengis), and a sponge (spongos). It was the Greek practice to coat the skin in oil before exercise (cf. the Spartans above), and to scrape the oil, sweat and dust off afterwards before washing at a basin. While the oil acted as a sunblock and kept dirt out of the pores, it would have made a mess of clothing. Going naked then makes sense.

A second explanation suggests that going without clothes had a ritual significance. We know the Olympic Games were dedicated to Zeus and its festivals rooted in ritual and symbolism. Perhaps athletes entering the Games shed their clothes to appear naked before Zeus to eventually emerge purified and transformed by the festival’s end.

Perhaps nakedness somehow represented Greek ideals of democracy. All athletes were citizens of their polis (‘city-state’) enjoying legal protection and political rights. Admittedly, the actual extent of democracy varied considerably compared to our modern notions, but the flaunting of one’s wealth was seen as uncouth. Stripping off the trappings of prosperity and affluence meant rich and poorer citizens could appear, on the skin’s surface at least, as equals.

Yet perhaps the answer is even simpler. Unlike today’s multi-million dollar businesses manufacturing and retailing specialised sports clothing to satisfy the health conscious or fashion trends, the average ancient Greek owned far fewer clothes. Why ruin them by getting their khiton ('tunic') drenched in perspiration? After all the Greek climate is warm and comfortable enough to go sans clothing, and it seems the ancient Greeks had fewer hang ups over nudity. Moreover, given the ancient Greeks apparent uncertainty as to why the practice started perhaps they did what humans have done for millennia to explain the unknown - athletes going naked became a ritual to appease the gods.

References:

Faulkner, N., (2012), ‘A Visitor’s Guide to the Ancient Olympics’, London: Yale University Press.

Pausanias, 5.6.7-8. Translation by W.H.S. Jones and H.A. Ormerod, Cambridge, 1918.

Endnotes: 

1. Greek traveller, geographer and historian of the 2nd-century AD. He is famous for his ‘Description of Greece’ (Ἑλλάδος Περιήγησις, Hellados Periegesis), a lengthy work that describes ancient Greece from his first hand observations.

2. Kallipateira was a granddaughter of Damagetos, king of Ialysos. Her father, Diagoras of Rhodes, was a celebrated boxer and Olympic victor. In fact, Diagoras won the boxing at several Panhellenic games and was honoured by Pindar in his ‘Olympian Ode vii’. Kallipateira’s brothers were also Panhellenic champions: Damagetos won pankration events and Akousilaos won in boxing. Her younger brother Dorieus was the most successful, winning the pankration at 21 different Panhellenic games.

Ludi: the ancient Egyptian game of Aseb

Aseb is the Egyptian version of the ancient Middle Eastern game called ‘The Game of 20 Squares’. Aseb is related to the ‘Royal Game of Ur’ in its more archaic forms, and probably arrived in Egypt from ancient Sumer, during the 17th Dynasty. Outside Egypt, versions of Aseb have also been found in Sudan, Crete, and even in India.

It is a race game, in the same category as Senet and the ‘Royal Game of Ur’, but with a much shorter playing duration being somewhat quicker and simpler. Aseb is mostly a game of chance with little strategy involved.

Involving two players, the game includes a board divided into 20 squares arranged into three rows of four columns, plus a line of eight squares. Five cone-like pieces, five round spindle pieces, and four two-sided tally sticks are included in the game. The latter serve as dice with one of the stick’s sides being rounded.

In some versions of Aseb, either a single four-sided knucklebone, a single four-sided stick, or a single four-sided conical die is used instead of the tally sticks. This slightly changes the game, because such dice offer an equal probability of scoring any of the dice values whereas tally sticks do not.

Gameplay: The game starts with all the pieces located off the board, on the long fields adjacent to the line squares. All four throwing sticks are cast just once in a single turn; additional throws are not allowed. The score is determined as follows:

• If one tally stick lands on its flat side and the other three land on their round side, then the score is 1.

• If two tally sticks land on their flat side and the other two landed on their round side, then the score is 2.

• If three tally sticks land on their flat side and the fourth one lands on its round side, then the score is 3.

• If all four tally sticks land on their flat sides, then the maximum score of 4 is achieved.

• If all four tally sticks land on their rounded sides, the score does not count and the player needs to throw the sticks again.

To determine which player starts the game, both players throw the tally sticks and whoever scores 1 moves first. That player throws the tally sticks again to determine how many squares to move, either one to four. With each throw of the sticks, players can either add a piece to the board or move a piece which is already on the board.

Players begin by moving pieces into squares 1 to 4 and 17 to 20, depending on their initial tally stick score. Squares can be occupied by only one piece at any time. Subsequently, they can choose to move any of their pieces during a turn, providing the move is allowed. Gaming pieces can only move forward.

A player’s pieces are not allowed to pass their own pieces. So, if a player’s piece is blocking the path of the next, the following piece must stop on a preceding empty square, even if the tally score would have placed it further down the path.

If a player’s piece lands on a square occupied by an opponent’s piece, then the opponent’s piece is removed from the board and must start from the beginning. There are no safe squares in Aseb from where a piece cannot be removed from the board, except for the first four squares of each player’s path on the short rows (1 to 4 and 17 to 20) where the opponent’s pieces cannot enter the board.

If a player cannot make a move because all available squares are occupied, then they skip a turn.

There are five marked squares known as ‘Houses’ (numbers 4, 5, 9, 13 and 20 as labelled above). If a player lands on any of them, they get a second turn.

A player must throw the exact number needed for a given piece to move off the board. For example, if a player’s piece is on either squares 5, 6, 7 or 8, then they must score 1, 2, 3 or 4 respectively to exit the board. If the player’s score is different and they cannot make any other moves or move off the board, they skip a turn. The player who moves all of their five pieces off the board wins the game.

Dispelling Some Myths: Gladiators

Gladiators were the sporting heroes of the ancient world. The archaeological record shows them celebrated in everything from mosaics to graffiti. Motifs of gladiators are found on nearly a third of all oil lamps from Roman archaeological digs throughout the Empire. But who were they? How much did they risk each time they entered the arena? What were their chances of getting out alive?

This most Roman of entertainments was not their brainchild. That dubious honour goes to the Etruscans, an ancient Italian people who emerged near the beginning of the first millennium BC. At Etruscan funerals, gladiators fought in bouts to the death perhaps as a form of human sacrifice. Since the Romans derived much of their customs from the Etruscans it was perhaps inevitable that, as they became the dominant force on the Italian peninsula, they would embrace gladiatorial contests. While the origin of Roman gladiatorial combat is open to debate, there is evidence for it becoming part of funeral rites (known as munera [1]) during the Punic Wars of the 3rd-century BC. The fighters in these early munera fought with swords, hence the name. Decimus Junius Brutus, later a consul, was said to have been the first to put on a gladiator show to honour his dead father in c. 264-262 BC. Thereafter munera rapidly became an essential feature of politics and social life in the Roman world. In 65 BC, Gaius Julius Caesar used his position as aedile (junior magistrate) to begin a programme of public shows to secure, in the words of the historian Suetonius, “the goodwill of the masses”. Caesar laid on 320 gladiatorial bouts and animal fights in both his own name and in association with fellow aedile, Marcus Bibukus. Of course, being Caesar, he did so in such a way that it ensured it was widely assumed the occasions were all his own work. The 320 bouts may seem a lot, but the number represents a reduction in Caesar’s original plans. He had organised such a large number that his political opponents in the Senate were terrified by the thought of some many armed men in Rome on Caesar’s payroll. A law was thus passed capping the number of bouts. The fears were well founded as gladiators would later supply muscle to thuggish politicians in the late Republic. In 57 BC, the notorious senator Publius Clodius Pulcher employed a gang of gladiators to rush those assembled to vote on a measure. They attacked and killed some of the crowd.

The popularity of gladiatorial games led to ever more lavish and costly ones featuring armed combatants entertaining audiences in the Roman Republic and Roman Empire in violent confrontations with other gladiators, wild animals, and condemned criminals. Irrespective of their origin, gladiators offered spectators an example of Rome's martial ethics and, in fighting or dying well, they could inspire admiration and popular acclaim.

All were slaves  If you have watched Ridley Scott’s 2000 film “Gladiator”, or the more recent “Gladiator II” (2024), you can be forgiven for thinking that all fighters in the arena were slaves. In one sense, this is true. The vast majority fighting in the arena were there under duress, drawn mainly from the ranks of criminals or prisoners-of-war. A few might achieve “celebrity status” [2] - if contemporary high and low art (such as graffiti) is anything to be believed - but in the strict social hierarchy of the Roman world, all gladiators were counted among the infames [3]. In Roman law, anyone condemned to the arena or the gladiator schools (damnati ad ludum) was a servus poenae (slave of the penalty), and considered under a sentence of death unless manumitted (freed).

Only slaves found guilty of specific offences could be sentenced to the arena while citizens found guilty of certain offences could be stripped of citizenship, formally enslaved, then sentenced. Slaves, once freed, could be legally reverted to slavery in certain circumstances. Arena punishment could be given for banditry, theft, arson, and for treasons such as rebellion, census evasion to avoid paying due taxes, and refusal to swear lawful oaths.

Offenders seen as particularly obnoxious to the state (noxii) received the most humiliating punishments. By the 1st-century BC, noxii were being condemned to the beasts (damnati ad bestias) in the arena with little chance of survival, or were simply forced to kill each other. By the early Imperial era, some were compelled to participate in humiliating and novel forms of mythological or historical enactment, culminating in their execution. Those judged less harshly might be condemned ad ludum venatorium (combat with animals) or ad gladiatorium (combat with gladiators) and armed as thought appropriate. These damnati at least might put on a good show and retrieve some respect and, very rarely, survive to fight another day. Some may even have become “proper” gladiators. Yet, as infames, gladiators were largely despised as slaves, socially marginalised, and segregated even in death.

‘He vows to endure to be burned, to be bound, to be beaten, and to be killed by the sword’ (Petronius. Satyricon, 117)

We know from contemporary accounts that some gladiators were volunteers who risked their lives and their legal and social standing as freemen by appearing in the arena. Their reasons for giving up their freedom and risking serious injury or death in the arena may have been many and varied. A condemned bankrupt or debtor, for example, might be accepted as novice (novicius) whereupon he could negotiate with his lanista (manager of gladiators) or editor (sponsor of the games) for the partial or complete payment of his debt. For some, the potential rewards and the opportunity to escape poverty were motivation enough. For others, perhaps it was the fame and celebrity status that appealed. A few may have entered the arena purely for the thrill or love of fighting.

In the Imperial era, these volunteers required a magistrate's permission to join a ludus (gladiator school) as auctorati. If granted, the school's physician assessed their suitability. Their contract (auctoramentum) stipulated how often they were to perform, their fighting style and earnings. Faced with runaway re-enlistment fees for skilled auctorati, the emperor Marcus Aurelius set an upper limit at 12,000 sesterces. Among the most admired auctorati were those who, having been granted manumission, volunteered to continue fighting in the arena. Some of these may have been highly trained and experienced specialists for whom there was no other practical choice open to them. The legal status of auctorati - whether slave or free - remains uncertain.

Bound by sacred oath  All prospective gladiators, whether volunteer or condemned, were bound to service by a sacred oath (sacramentum) vowing “to endure to be burned, to be bound, to be beaten, and to be killed by the sword” (Petronius, Satyricon, 117).  Novices trained under teachers (doctores) who were most likely retired gladiators skilled in particular fighting styles. Lethal weapons were prohibited in the schools - weighted, blunt wooden versions were probably used. Fighting techniques were probably learned through constant rehearsal as choreographed “numbers” to produce the preferred elegant, economical style. Training included preparation for a stoical, unflinching death.

Gladiators were typically accommodated in cells, arranged in barrack-like buildings set around a central practice arena. Once in the school their training required intense commitment, and discipline could be extreme, even lethal. Those who performed well, however, could ascend through a hierarchy of grades (sing. palus) in which primus palus was the highest [4]. Indeed, Juvenal describes the segregation of gladiators according to type and status reinforcing the idea that within the schools were rigid hierarchies: “even the lowest scum of the arena observe this rule; even in prison they are separate.” As most combatants were from the same school, segregation kept potential opponents separate and safe from each other until they enter the arena.

There were many different types of gladiator. One of the most recognizable was the retarius, a term derived from rete meaning “net”, who wore no helmet and darted about the arena equipped with a net, a trident and a dagger. The murmillo, armed with a sword and small shield, was named after the Greek saltwater fish mormylos because of the long, high crest on his helmet. A retarius fighting a murmillo was a popular pairing symbolising the “net man”, or “fisherman”, hunting the “fish”. The retarius could also be pitted against the secutor (“pursuer”) armed with a sword and large shield. The latter wore a plain helmet with no crest, protecting him from being snagged by the retarius’ net, which also had two smaller eyeholes as defence against his opponent’s trident. Gladiator specialisation was based on physical attributes. The most heavily armed had to be strong, while the likes of retarii needed to be quick, sure-footed and agile. Ethnicity may also have been a factor since part of the entertainment was role-playing. Gladiator bouts were as much about theatrics as violence: in modern terms, mostly MMA with a dash of WWE [5].

To the Death  Gladiator deaths in the arena were probably not as high as many modern commentators often portray. Gladiators were expensive to provide for and train, and perhaps to protect the investment, most only fought two or three times per year.

A gladiator’s price was fixed according to his rank, status and degree of success, with their market value being highly relevant if they died in the arena. His death became a chargeable item by which the owner, usually the lanista, would be recompensed. In the 1st-century AD a common day-labourer in Rome typically could expect to be paid two sesterces per day. Compare that with a first grade gladiator in the lowest class of munera who may have commanded a maximum price of 5,000 sestertii which, according to Susanna Shadrake, is the equivalent of about £32,000 today. This is hardly a trivial sum of money or investment to be carelessly discarded (Shadrake, 2005, 91).

The Emperor Augustus for example, prohibited combats sine missio (in this sense “without mercy”), or to the death. This was partly to recognise the investment value of a skilled fighter but mostly to limit extravagant displays and the political value to those staging contests (editores) by influencing voters with lavish entertainment. In the 1st-century AD, the chances of survival have been estimated at 9:1 based on analysing the results of contests. If a gladiator lost, the ratio reduced to 4:1 and ultimately depended on a successful appeal for missio (“mercy”). Under later emperors, however, a gladiator’s chances of survival deteriorated as more and more fights were to the death.

If a gladiator survived three years of fighting in the arena, however, he would win his freedom. Those who did often became teachers in the gladiator school; and one of the skeletons excavated at Ephesus in Türkiye appears to be that of a retired fighter (Kupper & Jones, 2007). None of this denies the facts that gladiators died in the arena, just that their chances of survival varied at different times.

Men only  For convenience we have used the male pronoun throughout, but this usefully reveals another “Hollywood” myth: that gladiators were all men. To be fair to the film “Gladiator” there is a scene where the hero Maximus (played by Russel Crowe) and an all-male band of fighters face at least one chariot borne gladiatrix (“swordswoman”; pl. gladiatrices). Even so, it was thought for some time that scenes such as that portrayed in the film and women fighting in the arena were a rare occurrence and dismissed as mere novelty acts.

Ancient voices  Yet we know women did perform in the arena as we have several contemporary eyewitness accounts. According to the biographer Suetonius, for example, writing of games held by Emperor Domitian (reigned AD 81 - AD 96) states that women as well as men took part as gladiators (Suetonius, Life of Domitian, 4.1). Around the same time Tacitus informs us that “many women of rank…disgraced themselves in the arena” in gladiatorial games held by Emperor Nero (Tacitus, Annals, 15.32). During a festival in honour of Emperor Nero’s mother, Cassius Dio also notes that women of both senatorial and equestrian rank “drove horses, killed wild beasts and fought as gladiators, some willingly, some sore against their will” (Dio, Roman History, 62.17.3). It should be noted that the involvement of elite women was more of an issue of status rather than gender, as the participation of elite men was shocking as well. In Roman society the upper classes must not entertain lower classes, as the former were at risk of being seen as beneath their observers.

Legislation during the earlier reign of Emperor Augustus is a major clue. It threatened freeborn females with infamia should they participate as gladiators. Much later, around AD 200, Emperor Septimius Severus’ enacted a law forbidding fights between women in Rome’s Flavian Amphitheatre (“The Coliseum”). Significantly, laws are rarely pre-emptive, and historians such as Murray (2003) and McCullough (2008) both agree that legislation in general existed to curb behaviour that was socially unacceptable. In essence, for punishment to be warranted, the crime must have occurred. Both pieces of legislation therefore imply that female gladiators existed.

Sculptural evidence  A bronze sculpture from the 1st-century AD (see right), kept at the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbein in Germany, was long thought to be a woman holding a cleaning tool known as a strigil. In 2011 the statuette was re-evaluated by a Spanish scholar and it now thought she was more likely a female gladiator raising a short, curved sword called a sica aloft in triumph. Significantly, she is also bare-chested, as gladiators typically fought (Beck, 2022).

One of the best pieces of evidence is in the collection of The British Museum. It is a 2nd-century AD carved marble relief, recovered from Halicarnassus in Türkiye, commemorating either the release from service or the discharge after a draw of two female gladiators named “Amazon” and “Achillia” (see right). Their stage names are inscribed below each figure on the platform upon which both fighters are standing. At their feet, to each side of the platform, are either the heads of two spectators or the fighters’ helmets. Unfortunately, these objects cannot be positively identified although the latter is favoured as the better explanation given the context. Although missing the head, the figure on the right is the clearest indicator that the two are gladiatrices as “Achillia” is the female derivation of “Achilles”, the Homeric hero of the “Iliad” [6]. Kathleen Coleman also points out the peculiarity of the women's names as a clear reference to the myth of Achilles and Penthesileia, queen of the Amazons. It could be that this pair of female gladiators often fought each other as a re-enactment of mythological scenes (Coleman, 2000, 487-500).

Both fighters are armed with the same equipment as male gladiators, albeit without helmets, and are advancing to attack with swords and shields. Both are wearing padded leg protection and something similar on their sword arm. Apart from body defences, each figure wears subligaria, the elaborately folded loincloth held in place with a wide belt (Latin: balteus). The term subligaria derives from the verb subligare meaning “to bind below” (sub under + ligare to bind). As shown right, to secure such garments a “long piece of material has to be tied around the waist and then [passed] between the thighs, leaving a section of cloth to emerge at the front, tucking [it] under the knot at the front waist fastening, and out over the crotch area, like an apron” (Shadrake, 2005, 168). Viewed from behind the loincloth has “unflatteringly [been] referred to as a ‘nappy’ or ‘diaper’” (Shadrake, 2005, 168). Most importantly, the wearing of subligaria accorded with the Italian custom of preserving modesty by covering the genitals.

That said modesty seems have been forgone as, like the aforementioned bronze statuette, each woman’s torso appears to be naked from the waist up. While this seems to have been the case with most categories of gladiator, did women perform topless? If they did, is this one of the reasons gladiatrices were thought of as simply a “titillating spectacle”? Or were Amazon and Achillia depicted bare breasted simply to advertise their gender? Either way, fighting topless in the arena would be impractical and uncomfortable and thus the wearing of a breast band called a strophium [7], as worn by women exercising in the mosaic from Villa Casale, Sicily (pictured below), seems much more likely. The lack of definitive evidence makes it difficult to draw any safe conclusions, however.

Reading the bones  Excavations in 2007 identified what scientists believe is the first discovery of an identifiable graveyard for gladiators at Ephesus in Türkiye, once a major city of the Roman world (Deggin, 2015). Marked by three gravestones depicting gladiators, the Ephesus graves yielded thousands of bones from which researchers identified around 67 individuals, mostly aged between 20 and 30 years old. Analysis of their skeletal remains and the injuries present on the bones gave new insights into how the deceased lived, fought and died. Most strikingly was the observation that several “gladiators” bore wounds that had healed during their lifetimes. Apart from being evidence that gladiators were valued enough to received good medical care, it was noted that they had not suffered multiple wounds as might be expected in a melee or close-quarters combat. The observable evidence seemingly proves they fought in organised duels, following rules that were enforced by a referee.

It seems fairly evident that gladiators needed some looking after. For example, we know the Greek physician and philosopher Claudius Galen’s first professional appointment was as a surgeon to gladiators [8]. In AD 157, aged 28, he had returned to Pergamon as physician to the gladiators of the High Priest of Asia. Over his four years in post, he learned the importance of diet, fitness, hygiene, and preventive measures, as well as living anatomy, and the treatment of fractures and severe trauma, referring to their wounds as “windows into the body”. Only five deaths among the gladiators occurred while Galen held the position, compared to sixty in his predecessor's time, a result that is in general ascribed to the attention he paid to their wounds.

We know that gladiators generally fought one-on-one, with armour and weaponry designed to give conflicting advantages. For example, and as previously mentioned, “a lightly armoured, helmetless gladiator with a net and trident, a “retarius”, would typically be matched with a slower moving, more heavily armoured fighter armed with a large helmet, sword and shield” (Deggin, 2015). Most matches employed a senior referee (summa rudis) and one or more assistants, who are often shown in mosaics with long staffs (rudes) to caution or separate opponents at some crucial point in the match. Referees were usually retired gladiators whose decisions, judgement and discretion were, for the most part, respected; they could stop bouts entirely, or pause them to allow the combatants rest, refreshment and a rub-down. The parallels with modern boxing matches divided into rounds and with corner men are inescapable.

Britannia  Gladiatorial fights may have begun life as a niche activity at Etruscan funerals, but over the following centuries they were exported to every corner of the expanding Roman empire. Far-flung Britannia was not exempt as evidenced by the physical remains of amphitheatres found in London, Chester, Cirencester, Silchester, Dorchester, and Caerleon. The Colchester Vase [9], dating to AD 175, depicts two gladiators, Memnon and Valentinus (believed to be their stage names) in action. The latter, the retarius Valentinus, is shown with a raised forefinger indicting his submission to his secutor opponent, Memnon. An inscription on the vase reads: “Memnon Valentinus of Legion XXX”, who were probably notable local gladiators in their day (the late second century).

For the most part, amphitheatres in Romano-Britain were built by creating turf embankments and digging out the arena. By the early second century, the Cirencester example had been formed by digging out and adapting a quarry on the south-west side of the town. Stone walls were used to create revetments, entrance passageways (vomitoria, sing. vomitorium), and the arena wall. Dorchester’s amphitheatre was made by adapting a Neolithic henge monument that rather conveniently supplied ready-formed earth embankments around an arena-shaped and sized enclosure. Beneath the Guildhall in London lies its amphitheatre, which once lay close to the fort of the governor of Britannia’s garrison. It is open to the public today. Likewise, visitors can wander around the arena of Legio II Augusta’s amphitheatre in Caerleon, South Wales. Within the stone-revetted, earthen embankments gladiators would have fought to entertain the garrison’s soldiers and local citizens. They would have sat on wooden benches, long since rotted away, that may have seated 5,000 or 6,000 spectators - enough space for the entire Second Legion. Caerleon’s amphitheatre may have doubled as a venue for speeches to the troops and for formal military exercises or displays.

The Dover Street Woman  In 2000, the discovery of the “Great Dover Street Woman” was announced following excavations in 1996 at 165 Great Dover Street, Southwark in London (Bateman, 2008, 194-198). Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) identified the grave of a Romano-British woman dating from the early 2nd- to mid-3rd-century AD. She had received a bustum funeral, a form of cremation above a pit into which her remains eventually fell and were then covered. Although a style of burial rare in Roman Britain, a small amount of human bone survived from which analysis of a pelvis fragment concluded the skeleton was of a female in her 20s. Added to the grave fill after the cremation were eight unburnt ceramic oil lamps and eight tazze [10]. Evidence was also found for molten glass, gold textile, burnt pinecones, chicken, bread, and dates forming part of the cremation ritual (Bateman, 2008, 194-198).

Archaeologists at MOLA proposed that the remains might represent the first female gladiator discovered. The presence of a gladiatorial image on one of the oil lamps, three others showing the Egyptian god Anubis who is associated with the passage of the dead to the underworld, and the style of the burial were suggestive of this interpretation (Bateman, 2008, 194-198). In the 2000 report of the excavations by MOLA, Angela Wardle concluded that while the interpretation of this cremation as a gladiator “can only be speculative...it is certainly possible” (Wardle, 2000, 27-30). This interpretation is contested because the excavated evidence is far too speculative. As Alexandra Sills points out: “attempts to identify the remains of Roman women as gladiators, such as the Great Dover Street lady of London, are often influenced by the desire for a good story rather than conclusive material evidence” (Sills, 2021). Sadly, in an era where funding for archaeological work is tied inextricably to headline grabbing public relations, one can see why such a tenuous gladiator connection was seized upon. Without further conclusive proof perhaps Nick Bateman is right to conclude that the burial was more likely to represent a complex religious and ritual process which incorporated gladiatorial images rather than representing the life experience of the woman as a gladiator (Bateman, 2008, 194-198). Perhaps the final word on gladiatrices should go to Susanna Shadrake, author of “The World of the Gladiator”, who points out: “the subject of female gladiators has always aroused strong emotions; then as now, they have been seen as aberrations or novelties” (Shadrake, 2005, 185). As mentioned previously, there are a few references to women fighters in the literary sources, and some evidence from inscriptions on monuments. From such evidence it is reasonable to say gladiatrices clearly existed “as an authentic gladiatorial category rather than a fevered fantasy” (Shadrake, 2005, 185). Such proof of their existence however does not guarantee how frequently women appeared in the arena.

We have only briefly touched the subject of gladiators, but hopefully we have dispelled three of the common misconceptions or myths about them. Not everyone who entered the arena began life as a slave, although volunteering to do so invited a form of public disgrace. Both men and women fought but not always to the death as movies might lead us to believe. That is not to say it was a life without risk as all combat is inherently dangerous. Yet one cannot help wondering whether it is the thrill of the dangers that continues to attract audiences to this day.

References:

Bateman, N., (2008), “Death, women, and the afterlife: some thoughts on a burial in Southwark”, in John Clark; Jonathan Cotton; Jenny Hall; Roz Sherris; Hedley Swain (eds.), “Londinium and Beyond: Essays on Roman London and its Hinterland for Harvey Sheldon” (PDF), CBA Research Report 156, Council for British Archaeology.

Beck, M., (2022), “Did Women Fight as Gladiators in Ancient Rome?”, available online (accessed May 2nd, 2022).

Coleman, K., (2000), “Missio at Halicarnassus”, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 100.

Deggin, C., (2015), “The secret lives of Turkey’s gladiators”, Property Turkey, available online (accessed May 2nd, 2022).

Irving, L., (2018), “Thumbs Up for Female Gladiators”, available online (accessed May 2nd, 2022).

Kupper, M. and Jones, H., (2007), “Gladiators' graveyard discovered”, Timewatch, BBC News, available online (accessed May 2nd, 2022).

McCullough, A., (2008), “Female Gladiators in Imperial Rome: Literary Context and Historical Fact”, The Classical World 101:2, pp. 197-209.

Murray, S. R., (2003), “Female Gladiators of the Ancient Roman World”, The Journal of Combative Sport, July Issue, pp. 1-16.

Shadrake, S. (2005), “The World of the Gladiator”, Stroud: Tempus.

Sills, A., (2021), “Were there female gladiators?”, BadAncient, available online (accessed May4th, 2022).

Wardle, A., (2000), “Funerary rites, burial practice and belief”, in Mackinder, A. (ed.), ‘Romano-British Cemetery on Watling Street: Excavations at 165 Great Dover Street, Southwark, London’, MOLA Studies Series 4, Museum of London Archaeology.

Ancient sources:

Cassius Dio, Roman History, Book 62.

Suetonius, Life of Domitian.

Tacitus, Annals, Book 15, 1-32.

Endnotes:

1. Munera were public works and entertainments provided for the benefit of the Roman people by individuals of high status and wealth. Munera (sing. munus) means “duty, obligation” in the sense that an individual had a responsibility to provide a service or contribution to his community. The word was often a synonym for gladiatorial combat, which was originally sponsored as a funeral tribute at the tomb of a deceased Roman magnate by his heir. Munera depended on the private largesse of individuals, in contrast to ludi, which were games, athletic contests or spectacles sponsored by the state.

2. Gladiators’ value as entertainers was commemorated in precious and commonplace objects throughout the Roman world.

3. In ancient Roman society, infamia (in-, “not”, and fama “reputation”) was a loss of legal or social standing; in effect public disgrace. In Roman law a censor or praetor could impose infamia whereby a person was officially excluded from the legal protections enjoyed by a Roman citizen. More generally, especially during the Republic and Principate, infamia was informal damage to one's esteem or reputation. Such a person was known as an infamis (pl. infames).

4. Latin palus, meaning “stake” or “post”, is probably a reference to the post erected in ludi for gladiators, or in army training grounds for soldiers, to practice sword cuts and thrusts.

5. Mixed martial arts (MMA) is a full-contact fighting sport based on striking and grappling, incorporating techniques from various combat sports from around the world. In line with other professional wrestling promotions, WWE shows are not true contests but entertainment-based performance theatre, featuring storyline-driven, scripted, and partially choreographed matches. The more theatrical nature does not belie that WWE matches often include moves which can put performers at risk of injury, even death, if not performed correctly.

6. The epic poem recounting the tale of the Greek siege of Troy.

7. Also known as fascia pectoralis, fasciola, taenia, or mamillare.

8. Considered to be one of the most accomplished of all medical researchers of antiquity, Galen influenced the development of various scientific disciplines, including anatomy, physiology, pathology, pharmacology, and neurology, as well as philosophy and logic. His understanding of anatomy and medicine was principally influenced by the then-current theory of the four humours, namely black bile, yellow bile, blood, and phlegm. Galen's views dominated and influenced Western medical science for more than 1,300 years.

9. The Colchester Vase was discovered in a Roman-era grave in 1853, which held the deceased's cremated remains. Renowned as one of the finest pieces of Roman-British pottery in existence, it is currently part of the Colchester Castle Museum collection.

10. A tazza (pl. tazze) is a wide but shallow saucer-like dish either mounted on a stem and foot or on a foot alone. The word has been generally adopted by archaeologists and connoisseurs for this type of vessel, which is used either for drinking, serving small items of food, or just for display. Tazze are commonly made in metal, glass, or ceramics, but may be made of other materials.