Gladiatorial Games: Politics, Religion, and Power in Rome

Introduction

In ancient Rome, the gladiator games were a popular form of entertainment—but they were also much more than this and served multiple purposes within Roman civilization. The games were used both by Roman authorities and by the slaves of Rome (the gladiators themselves) as a tool, each wielded for a different aim. Roman religious leaders and politicians used the games as well for their own ends. While the combats that took place in the arenas dazzled audiences, the violence and spectacle were really but one aspect of the contests. An examination of the underlying social, political, religious, and economic subtexts of the gladiator games reveals much about the nature of ancient Roman society. This paper identifies the four main purposes of the gladiatorial games in ancient Rome—the expression of political influence, the expression of religion, a means of emphasizing the Empire's power, and grounds for slaves to find reason to revolt—and shows how these purposes were interwoven throughout the coliseums where these brutal contests were conducted.

Context and Origins of the Gladiatorial Games

The gladiator games were not a Roman invention but rather a tool that the Romans borrowed—like so many other tools in their society—from other cultures. Gladiatorial contests were first found among the Etruscans, and the Romans first incorporated them into their culture at the funeral of Junius Brutus Decimus in 43 BC. Though initially the games were held as a form of honoring the dead, the contests and their subtexts began to take on deeper meanings for all involved. A cult of celebrity grew around the gladiators themselves so that they resembled modern-day rock stars or professional athletes, even though they lacked status and freedom. The gladiators had their fan clubs and admirers. Graffiti could frequently be found around the city of Rome honoring them and their deeds in the arena. Their popularity prompted some who were not even slaves to sign up as gladiators—after all, it was a career that did not go unnoticed by the public, and if one was skilled at his trade, he could enjoy the celebrity and fame that followed. Out of this environment, however, multiple purposes for the games emerged, as politicians, Roman leaders, religious figures, and slaves all took to using the games for their own ends.

Political Power and the Games

Politicians in Rome understood the power of the gladiator games and used their appeal to curry favor with the electorate. By hosting the gladiator games, which "fell outside the ordinary games and thus had to be funded by private individuals,"² politicians could throw these lavish spectacles for the public and in turn obtain patronage at election time. As Philip Thomas notes, "the aristocracy paid gladly as this excluded the less privileged from a political career."³ In other words, the games were used by politicians as a means of monopolizing political power: only those who could afford to host these lavish contests could woo the public's favor, and if one hoped to have a political career in Rome, he would have to be wealthy. While tickets were free, one still had to obtain a ticket, and these were often handed out as political favors—a practice not all statesmen agreed with. Cicero, for instance, viewed this as a form of political corruption and even tried to get the hosting of gladiatorial contests banned for politicians who aimed to run for office within two years of the games being held.⁴

Though many politicians used the gladiator games to communicate a political message and win public esteem, others felt this went against the time-honored tradition of the games—namely, that they were to be held to pay respect to the memory of the dead. Tertullian describes the belief that the ancients held with regard to this matter: "The ancients thought that in this solemnity they rendered offices to the dead…for formerly, in the belief that the souls of the departed were appeased by human blood, they were in the habit of buying captives or slaves of wicked disposition, and immolating them in their funeral obsequies."⁵ Out of this custom, the gladiator games emerged: "those, therefore, whom they had provided for the combat, and then trained in arms as best they could, only that they might learn to die, they, on the funeral day, killed at the places of sepulture."⁶ The gladiator contests, in short, were meant to carry spiritual significance—but as time went on, politicians who could afford to pay for the events saw that the public could essentially be "bought" by being given access to the contests. The politicians thus secured for themselves a strong following that they deliberately linked to the spiritual dimension of the games.

There was also another way that politicians used the games to communicate their message—through the seating arrangements within the Coliseum itself. The seating arrangements essentially communicated the different aspects of power: richer politicians and members of the elite class sat in a special area, while ordinary, lower-class citizens sat far away. A dominant social hierarchy was projected by the system of seating within the Coliseum, and the games thus helped to reinforce this class structure. Inevitably, the politicians and their associates occupied the best seats and were therefore visible to all the rest of the citizenry, appearing to hold all power and sway. Roger Dunkle notes that "not surprisingly, senators, the most prestigious class of citizens at Rome, were first to be singled out for priority seating at spectacles…[they] had the best seats, closest to the action, in the orchestra of the theatre or in the lowest part of the amphitheatre."⁷ By being so visibly displayed before the public, the politicians managed to perpetually appear larger than life, equal to the spectacle about to unfold before thousands of admiring spectators. In this manner, the politicians of Rome communicated their own prestige and importance, and the principal reason ordinary citizens should look up to them: they alone held all the power.

Conclusion

The gladiator games were not just a form of entertainment for the Roman people: they were a means of communicating multiple messages by multiple groups of people, from the wealthy and powerful to the slaves who were forced to fight. These purposes were fourfold. First was the message of politics—that politicians were powerful and could essentially bribe the people with access to the games in exchange for their votes. Second was the message of religion—a central theme of the games, which celebrated Death and used the stories of the gods and goddesses to reinforce the spectacle and "purity" of killing. Third was the message of power—the notion that Rome was so great it could afford to spend lavishly on the games, waste human life, and destroy the beasts of other regions. Fourth was the message of opposition—the idea that not all believed in or accepted the brutality of the games, which was the motivation for the slave rebellion and the "Spartacus War" against the Roman state.

All of these purposes reveal, at heart, a conflicted Rome: a Rome riddled with contrary impulses, whether manifested by Cicero objecting to the politicians' use of game tickets as bribes, by the bloodlust of the priests and the powerful who clamored for more killing and sanctified it with their prayers, or by the honorable slaves who refused to take part. These games were not merely a form of entertainment. They were more: they were the embodiment of the culture of Rome, with all its contradictions wrapped up into one brutal spectacle. They were a reflection of Rome's disordered mind and spirit—an Empire that had risen up out of nothing to become the greatest power on Earth, totally consumed with itself, and revealing that consumption in carnage.