CIRCA 2ND CENTURY A.D.

Perhaps no other aspect of ancient Roman culture has captured the modern imagination as much as the gladiator. As L. Jacobelli remarks (Gladiators at Pompeii, p. 6), gladiatorial games originated from funerary rites held for prominent officials. The deceased would stipulate in his will to offer games that would perpetuate his memory and “render the ceremony unforgettable.” By the end of the Roman Republic, these games (known as munera gladiatoria) became a form of popular entertainment and a tool of political propaganda. The munera later spread across the Roman Empire and worked to unite a culturally-diverse populace.

Gladiators were divided into various categories, defined by their armour and style of fighting. With his crested helmet, curved rectangular shield (scutum), and protective arm- and loincloth (mancia and subligaculum), this gladiator can be categorized as a murmillo. Named for a fish (murma), whose image was drawn on his helmet, the murmillo originally fought against the retiarius, or net-fighter, who worked to ensnare his opponent. The murmillo later fought against the Thracian and hoplomachus (see p. 15 in Jacobelli, op. cit.).

In stone, depictions of gladiators are most often confined to funerary stele and architectural reliefs. For a relief with murmillo fighting a thraex, now in the Antkensammlung Berlin, see fig. 55 in E. Köhne and C. Ewigleben, Gladiators and Caesars: The Power of Spectacle in Ancient Rome. For a fragmentary funerary relief with a murmillo, see E. Pfuhl and H. Möbius, Die ostgriechischen Grabreliefs, vol. II, no. 1238.