SANDS OF DEATH

Taranaki Daily News, 21 February 1931, Page 13 (Supplement)

SANDS OF DEATH

THE APPETITE OF ROME

(By

“Senex.”)

Pompeii, still revealing to twentieth century eyes, as excavations continue, the secrets of the first days of the Christian era, has not disclosed the nobler and loftier side alone of the Roman people. The sentry discovered at his post, staff in hand, dauntless in the face of death, typifies both the rigid discipline of the Roman arms which carried sthe eagles to the far corners of the known world and the deathless courage of the earlier republican citizen to whose spirit Rome owed her place. The sixty-three gladiators, many manacled, found buried in the cells of their training school, bring to the fore the baser fibres in the stuff that Rome was made of.

Roofless now the tiny cells of the gladiators’ barracks no longer have their once forbidding appearance. A warm Italian sun shines into them and sweetens them. The barracks are a rectangular structure with the cells lining the four sides and giving on to the quadrangle, which was used as an exercise and training ground and is now an orderly clump 'of shady trees and bushes. A pleasant spot it is to linger in now that' the kind hand of Nature has partly recovered her own and hidden the man-made blemishes. ’ Yet it was once probably a prison for a cut-throat gang of wretched slaves, prisoners of war, desperate criminals who cared not a sesterce for their lives, and still more desperate and dissolute citizens who valued their skins no more than their good names. For it was with these that the gladiatorial ranks of Rome and her municipalities were kept filled. Even in the early days of the empire, before Pompeii had been overwhelmed by the eruption of Vesuvius in the year 70, the passion for the arena had grown to such an extent that every means had to be resorted to in order to supply the increasing demand for victims to satisfy the bloodlust of the populace. The practice of professional combatants who foiight to the death is thought to have been introduced to Rome from the Etrurians, the Latins’ northern neighbours who had evolved an earlier civilisation. The first exhibition is said to have been held in Rome in 264 B.C. at a funeral where only three gladiators fought to entertain the mourners. Taste for the games, as the contests were called, spread and the number of combatants increased. More than one instance is recorded of the obsequies of a parent being celebrated by a son with an elaborate show of gladiators. Soon the games became a public institution and their production became part of the duties of one of the Roman magistrates, the aedile. The aedileship was merely one of the stepping-stones to the supreme office of the Roman state, the consulship. Consequently, ambitious aspirants to higher ranks found a lavish display of the games a useful method of attracting the favour of the fickle populace. Under the empire the passion for shows and mummery developed in intensity and at the same time degenerated into an appetite for blood. The sport, if such it can be called, spread with the legions and from Britain to Syria there was not a town of any size which could not boast its arena and annual games. The greatest of all was Rome. After Italy, Gaul, North Africa and Spain were the provinces most famous for their amphitheatres. With the widening of the empire came the lengthening of its battlefront and a greater variety and number of prisoners were sent to Italy*. Many were sold to the owners of schools of gladiators so that soon the sands of the arena saw tattooed, woad-painted Britons in their war chariots; Thracians with their bucklers and scimitars, Parthians from the hot desert sands, Moors from the villages round Atlas and negroes from the heart of Africa —gathered like sp many strange dishes from the farthest corners of the world that Rome swayed to whet the appetite of the ra&ble of the eternal citj\ The gladiators were trained in schools owned either by the state or by private citizens. Recruited from slaves or criminals whose lives hung on a thread they were dangerous characters and though they were well fed and carefully tended like prize show animals they were necessarily subject to an iron discipline. This is borne out by the discovery of irons on some of' the skeletons unearthed at Pompeii. Their lot was hard, so hard that special precautions were taken to prevent suicide, but ithad its consolations in the wide fame and possible honourable discharge that a successful gladiator. would enjoy. Tlie shows were not simply contests (between pairs of combatants carrying the Roman soldier's arms. The peculiar styles and varieties of attack and defence of. every known nation were exploited. The Samnites fought with their, national weapons,, a large oblong shield, visor, plumed helmet .and short sword, the Thracians with a small round buckler and a dagger curved like a scythe. Others were armed with the •Gallic helmet, sword and shield. Nor did pairs of combatants similarly arm* ed engage each other. Every possible variety of attack was pitted against any of the other methods. Men wearing only an apron and armed with a cast net and a trident'met a fully armed warrior whom they strove to entangle in their net and despatch with th,eir trident. If the cast failed they were quickly killed by the opponent unless they could successfully dodge and take up a position again. Some fought wearing helmets with closed visors, perhaps on horse-back, a blind man's buff with death as the penalty. There were those who fought with a short stabbing sword in each hand, those who fought from chariots, those who wore a complete suit of armour and those who, with a lassoo only, endeavoured to overcome their armed opponents. The prize for lavish display must be handed to the Emperor Claudius. Towards the close of his reign he paraded an extraordinary spectacle on the Fucine Lake. He summoned the whole of •Italy to witness from surrounding hills the manoeuvres of two fleets . armed with thousands of gladiators; while vessels filled with soldiers were posted on the shores to prevent desertion and cut off retreat. The emperor is said not to have been satisfied with a peaceful display but ordered the attack to recommence in earnest. One authority says that when the men hesitated to attack one another he ordered, his flotilla to charge through them and cut them in pieces. To such depths had the lower passions descended that nothing short of wholesale massacre could excite the appetites of a blood-crazed people.