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A gladiator (Latin: gladiator ' swordsman ', from Latin gladius 'sword') was an armed combatant who entertained audiences in the Roman Republic and Roman Empire in violent confrontations with other gladiators, wild animals, and condemned criminals. Some gladiators were volunteers who risked their lives and their legal and social standing by ...
This is an accepted version of this page This is the latest accepted revision, reviewed on 20 January 2025. A retiarius ("net fighter") with a trident and cast net, fighting a secutor (79 AD mosaic). There were many different types of gladiators in ancient Rome. Some of the first gladiators had been prisoners-of-war, and so some of the earliest types of gladiators were experienced fighters ...
A retiarius stabs at a secutor with his trident in this mosaic from the villa at Nennig, c. 2nd–3rd century CE.. A retiarius (plural retiarii; literally, "net-man" in Latin) was a Roman gladiator who fought with equipment styled on that of a fisherman: a weighted net (rete (3rd decl.), hence the name), a three-pointed trident (fuscina or tridens), and a dagger ().
The Romans of the Classical period had no specific word for female gladiators as a type or class. [1] The earliest reference to a woman gladiator as gladiatrix is by a scholiast in the 4th–5th century, who mockingly wonders whether a woman undergoing training for a performance at the ludi for the Floralia, a festival known for racy performances by seminude dancers, wants to be a gladiatrix ...
He was a heavyweight gladiator called a murmillo. These fighters carried a large oblong shield , and used a sword with a broad, straight blade , about 18 inches long. [21] In 73 BC, Spartacus was among a group of gladiators plotting an escape. [22] About 70 [23] slaves were part of the plot.
This time around, the action unfolds 16 years after we closed the book on Russell Crowe's valiant gladiator Maximus, who shuffled off this mortal coil at the end of 2000's "Gladiator," leaving ...
The tower shield gave him an edge in defence and the gladius enabled him to thrust and swing at his enemies when in close range. The murmillones were also trained to kick their enemies with the thick padding worn around their legs. Examples of pairing murmillones with other gladiator types can be seen in frescoes and graffiti in Pompeii. In one ...
Another is not recorded in Europe until the Medici giraffe in 1486, [13] although they were first seen in Rome in 58 BC, [12] and were impressive enough to be detailed in the games of Augustus and Commodus, [14] there is no mention of hippopotami at Titus' games.