Cheat and Survive
Steven Tuck of the University of Miami has recently studied some 158 pictures of ancient gladiators - found on everything from mosaics, wall paintings and oil lamps to gems - and compared them with mediaeval manuals on fighting techniques to reach the conclusion that Roman gladiators fought to thrill the crowd, not to kill each other.
It is certainly true that gladiators played to the gallery, and for a very good reason. If a gladiator was defeated he had the right to appeal to the spectators for mercy and if he had put up a good fight he was much more likely to be given the thumbs up than if he had failed to entertain.
It is also true that most gladiatorial contests did not result in death. Trainers touring the provinces with a string of gladiators would have had very short tours if, at the end of every show, they had been left with half the number of performers they started with! In any case, training a gladiator was expensive, if for no other reason that you had to feed him during the process. It made no sense to have him killed off in his first fight.
We also know this from the fact that some contracts have survived in which the person putting on the show specifies that the battles have to be "to the death", a stipulation that would be unnecessary if death had been the result of every gladiatorial contest.
However Steven Tuck is certainly wrong in suggesting that by the 2nd century AD death and bleeding was no longer part of the entertainment. The literary evidence is clear that in fact contests became more and more brutal until they were nothing more than excuses for wholesale murder. The difference is that it was not the expensive and popular gladiators who were killed: they did the killing and the victims were criminals or prisoners of war with weapons thrust into their hands but who stood little or no chance against the experienced professionals facing them.
Like a modern TV audience, the spectators who crowded into the arenas that dotted the Roman Empire were avid for blood and death. In order to satisfy their craving there was certainly plenty of blood, but injured gladiators were spared to recover (if possible) and fight again another day. Even if they had been given the thumbs down, a sword-thrust could be carefully delivered to miss the vital organs, and it was not at all unknown for a "dead" gladiator to appear later in the provinces under another name.
In addition there was the tendency for those of little brain to become wildly excited over the outcomes of sporting events and frequently these individuals supported their ignorant opinions with money - and where there is gambling, there will be corruption. Clearly it was difficult to persuade a gladiator to allow himself to be killed so that his backers could make a killing, but relatively easy to persuade him to "take a dive" - to fake defeat and death.
During the reign of Caligula a match between five retiarii and five secutores was "fixed" and the secutores despatched their net and trident wielding opponents with such brisk efficiency that the crowd of spectators, who had wagered heavily on the retiarii who usually won, began to boo. Alarmed by the mob's anger, the emperor gave the thumbs down signal and one of the "fatally wounded" retiarii, infuriated by this double-cross, leaped up, grabbed his trident and managed to kill all five of the secutores, who were busy bowing to the royal box. The scandal was enormous.
