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Roman writing as a whole demonstrates a deep ambivalence towards the gladiatoria munera. In 167 AD, troop depletions by plague and desertion may have prompted Marcus Aurelius to draft gladiators at his own expense. Opposite him on the field, Vitellius’s army was swollen by levies of slaves, plebs and gladiators. In AD 69, the Year of the Four Emperors, Otho’s troops at Bedriacum included 2000 gladiators. As the Republic wore on, the term of military service increased from ten to the sixteen years formalised by Augustus in the Principate.

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At Pompeii’s amphitheatre, during Nero’s reign, the trading of insults between Pompeians and Nucerian spectators during public ludi led to stone throwing and riots. He would not allow women to view even the gladiators except from the upper seats, though it had been the custom for men and women to sit together at such shows. A show of gladiators was to be exhibited before the people in the market-place, and most of the magistrates erected scaffolds round about, with an intention of letting them for advantage. Some “unfree” gladiators bequeathed money and personal property to wives and children, possibly via a sympathetic owner or familia; some had their own slaves and gave them their freedom.

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• Next came the ludi meridiani, which were of variable content but usually involved executions of noxii, some of whom were condemned to be subjects of fatal re-enactments, based on Greek or Roman myths.
• He would not allow women to view even the gladiators except from the upper seats, though it had been the custom for men and women to sit together at such shows.
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• Gladiatorial games, usually linked with beast shows, spread throughout the republic and beyond.
• In the mid-republican munus, each type seems to have fought against a similar or identical type.

In any event, the final decision of death or life belonged to the editor, who signalled his choice with a gesture described by Roman sources as pollice verso meaning “with a turned thumb”; a description too imprecise for reconstruction of the gesture or its symbolism. An outstanding fighter might receive a laurel crown and money from an appreciative crowd but for anyone originally condemned ad ludum the greatest reward was manumission (emancipation), symbolised by the gift of a wooden training sword or staff (rudis) from the editor. The Zliten mosaic in Libya (circa 80–100 AD) shows musicians playing an accompaniment to provincial games (with gladiators, bestiarii, or venatores and prisoners attacked by beasts). Even among the ordinarii, match winners might have to fight a new, well-rested opponent, either a tertiarius (“third choice gladiator”) by prearrangement; or a “substitute” gladiator (suppositicius) who fought at the whim of the editor as an unadvertised, unexpected “extra”. In late Republican munera, between 10 and 13 matches could have been fought on one day; this assumes one match at a time in the course of an afternoon. The gladiators may have held informal warm-up matches, using blunted or dummy weapons—some munera, however, may have used blunted weapons throughout.

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Walls in the 2nd century BC “Agora of the Italians” at Delos were decorated with paintings of gladiators. Images of gladiators were found throughout the Republic and Empire, among all classes. For he, following the example of no previous general, with teachers summoned from the gladiatorial training school of C.

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• The Punic Wars of the late 3rd century BC—in particular the near-catastrophic defeat of Roman arms at Cannae—had long-lasting effects on the Republic, its citizen armies, and the development of the gladiatorial munera.
• In the same century, an epigraph praises one of Ostia’s local elite as the first to “arm women” in the history of its games.
• These groups usually focus on portraying mock gladiatorial combat in as accurate a manner as possible.
• Some of the best preserved gladiator graffiti are from Pompeii and Herculaneum, in public areas including Pompeii’s Forum and amphitheater, and in the private residences of the upper, middle and lower classes.
• Under Augustus’ rule, the demand for gladiators began to exceed supply, and matches sine missione were officially banned; an economical, pragmatic development that happened to match popular notions of “natural justice”.

The enthusiastic adoption of munera gladiatoria by Rome’s Iberian allies shows how easily, and how early, the culture of the gladiator munus permeated places far from Rome itself. In 216 BC, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, late consul and augur, was honoured by his sons with three days of munera gladiatoria in the Forum Romanum, using twenty-two pairs of gladiators. Tomb frescoes from the Campanian city of Paestum (4th century BC) show paired fighters, with helmets, spears and shields, in a propitiatory funeral blood-rite that anticipates early Roman gladiator games. For some modern scholars, reappraisal of pictorial evidence supports a Campanian origin, or at least a borrowing, for the games and gladiators. Early literary sources seldom agree on the origins of gladiators and the gladiator games.
Legislation by Claudius required that quaestors, the lowest rank of Roman magistrate, personally subsidise two-thirds of the costs of games for their small-town communities—in effect, both an advertisement of their personal generosity and a part-purchase of their office. The earliest munera took place at or near the tomb of the deceased and these were organised by their munerator (who made the offering). In the Byzantine Empire, theatrical shows and chariot races continued to attract the crowds, and drew a generous imperial subsidy. By this time, interest in gladiator contests had waned throughout the Roman world.

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Many gladiator epitaphs claim Nemesis, fate, deception or treachery as the instrument of their death, never the superior skills of the flesh-and-blood adversary who defeated and killed them. Rather, she seems to have represented a kind of “Imperial Fortuna” who dispensed Imperial retribution on the one hand, and Imperially subsidised gifts on the other—including the munera. Modern scholarship offers little support for the once-prevalent notion that gladiators, venatores and bestiarii were personally or professionally dedicated to the cult of lanista the Graeco-Roman goddess Nemesis. Ordinary citizens, slaves and freedmen were usually buried beyond the town or city limits, to avoid the ritual and physical pollution of the living; professional gladiators had their own, separate cemeteries. Modern pathological examination confirms the probably fatal use of a mallet on some, but not all the gladiator skulls found in a gladiators’ cemetery.
As a soldier committed his life (voluntarily, at least in theory) to the greater cause of Rome’s victory, he was not expected to survive defeat. As Wiedemann points out, December was also the month for the Saturnalia, Saturn’s festival, in which death was linked to renewal, and the lowest were honoured as the highest. They included a provincial magnate’s five-day munus of thirty pairs, plus beast hunts. Many, if not most, involved venationes, and in the later empire some may have been only that.
One gladiator was even granted “citizenship” to several Greek cities of the Eastern Roman world. A rescript of Hadrian reminded magistrates that “those sentenced to the sword” (execution) should be despatched immediately “or at least within the year”, and those sentenced to the ludi should not be discharged before five years, or three years if granted manumission. “He vows to endure to be burned, to be bound, to be beaten, and to be killed by the sword.” The gladiator’s oath as cited by Petronius (Satyricon, 117). Regular massage and high quality medical care helped mitigate an otherwise very severe training regimen.
Even the most complex and sophisticated munera of the Imperial era evoked the ancient, ancestral dii manes of the underworld and were framed by the protective, lawful rites of sacrificium. During the Civil Wars that led to the Principate, Octavian (later Augustus) acquired the personal gladiator troop of his erstwhile opponent, Mark Antony. A career as a volunteer gladiator may have seemed an attractive option for some. Roman military discipline was ferocious; severe enough to provoke mutiny, despite the consequences. The dearth of freemen necessitated a new kind of enlistment; 8,000 sturdy youths from amongst the slaves were armed at the public cost, after they had each been asked whether they were willing to serve or no.

So the gladiator, no matter how faint-hearted he has been throughout the fight, offers his throat to his opponent and directs the wavering blade to the vital spot. For death, when it stands near us, gives even to inexperienced men the courage not to seek to avoid the inevitable. Once a band of five retiarii in tunics, matched against the same number of secutores, yielded without a struggle; but when their death was ordered, one of them caught up his trident and slew all the victors. By common custom, the spectators decided whether or not a losing gladiator should be spared, and chose the winner in the rare event of a standing tie. Martial describes a match between Priscus and Verus, who fought so evenly and bravely for so long that when both acknowledged defeat at the same instant, Titus awarded victory and a rudis to each.
He had more available in Capua but the senate, mindful of the recent Spartacus revolt and fearful of Caesar’s burgeoning private armies and rising popularity, imposed a limit of 320 pairs as the maximum number of gladiators any citizen could keep in Rome. In 65 BC, newly elected curule aedile Julius Caesar held games that he justified as munus to his father, who had been dead for 20 years. Where traditional ludi had been dedicated to a deity, such as Jupiter, the munera could be dedicated to an aristocratic sponsor’s divine or heroic ancestor.

The magistrate editor entered among a retinue who carried the arms and armour to be used; the gladiators presumably came in last. A procession (pompa) entered the arena, led by lictors who bore the fasces that signified the magistrate-editor’s power over life and death. The night before the munus, the gladiators were given a banquet and opportunity to order their personal and private affairs; Futrell notes its similarity to a ritualistic or sacramental “last meal”. Female gladiators probably submitted to the same regulations and training as their male counterparts. Other novelties introduced around this time included gladiators who fought from chariots or carts, or from horseback. In the mid-republican munus, each type seems to have fought against a similar or identical type.
For enthusiasts and gamblers, a more detailed program (libellus) was distributed on the day of the munus, showing the names, types and match records of gladiator pairs, and their order of appearance. Most of his performances as a gladiator were bloodless affairs, fought with wooden swords; he invariably won. Commodus was a fanatical participant at the ludi, and compelled Rome’s elite to attend his performances as gladiator, bestiarius or venator. Some regarded female gladiators of any type or class as a symptom of corrupted Roman appetites, morals and womanhood. Cassius Dio takes pains to point out that when the much admired emperor Titus used female gladiators, they were of acceptably low class. Roman morality required that all gladiators be of the lowest social classes, and emperors who failed to respect this distinction earned the scorn of posterity.