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Hoplomachus, depicted on a Roman glass found in the Begram treasure. A hoplomachus (left) fights a thraex (right) (Terracotta, British Museum).. A hoplomachus (pl. hoplomachi) (hoplon meaning "equipment" in Greek) was a type of gladiator in ancient Rome, armed to resemble a Greek hoplite (soldier with heavy armor and helmet, a small, round, concave shield, a spear and a sword).
The hoplomachus (Romanised Greek for "armed fighter", Latin plural hoplomachii) wore quilted, trouser-like leg wrappings, loincloth, a belt, a pair of long shin-guards or greaves, an arm guard (manica) on the sword-arm, and a brimmed helmet that could be adorned with a plume of feathers on top and a single feather on each side. He was equipped ...
The murmillo usually fought the thraex (Thracian) or hoplomachus, with whom he shared some of the equipment (notably arm guards and all-enclosing helmet, and the dangerous short sword). A number of ancient authors, including Valerius Maximus and Quintillian , assert that he also regularly fought the retiarius .
It shows (left to right) a thraex fighting a murmillo, a hoplomachus standing with another murmillo (who is signaling his defeat to the referee), and one of a matched pair. A gladiator ( Latin : gladiator ' swordsman ' , from Latin gladius 'sword') was an armed combatant who entertained audiences in the Roman Republic and Roman Empire in ...
A Thraex (left) fighting a murmillo, mosaic from Bad Kreuznach, Germany. The Thraex (pl.: Thraeces), or Thracian, was a type of Roman gladiator armed in Thracian style. His equipment included a parmula, a small shield (about 60 × 65 cm) that might be rectangular, square or circular; and a sica, a short sword with a curved blade like a small version of the Dacian falx, intended to maim an ...
At this time, similar classes, the hoplomachus, murmillo, and the secutor first appear in texts. [4] [18] [20] It seems that the Samnite became specialized into these classes, although the means by which this happened is unclear. [4] [21] The Samnite and its successors all fought with a footsoldier's sword and shield. [18]
The dimachaeri (singular: dimachaerus) were a type of Roman gladiator that fought with two swords ().The name is a borrowing into Latin of Ancient Greek διμάχαιρος dimákhairos 'bearing two knives' (δι-di-'two' + μάχαιρα mákhaira 'knife').
Verus was a well-known gladiator during the reigns of the Emperors Vespasian and Titus in the later part of the 1st century. [1] [2] His combat with Priscus was the highlight of the opening day of the games conducted by Titus to inaugurate the Flavian Amphitheatre (later the Colosseum) in AD 80, and recorded in a laudatory poem by Martial — the only detailed description of a gladiatorial ...