Recognising Gladiators: Ⅰ the Most Popular Types of the Imperial Period

In many movies set in Imperial Rome, like the movie Gladiator (2000), the hero fights his opponent bareheaded, sometimes with nothing more than a sword. The opponents occasionally have weapons and protective gear that is based on archeological finds, but a lot of the time the film makers get creative and equip the actors with novelty items. The historical variety in gladiator types may give the impression that the choice of armor was decided at random, on a match-by-match basis with the gladiator schools constantly inventing new, original ways to dress up their fighters, but the fact of the matter is that the overwhelming majority of gladiators depicted on imperial Roman mosaics, funerary reliefs, graffiti and oil lamp are shown as one of only a handful of types. Especially if they are not fighting animals (in which case they would be called bestiarii), but other human beings.

The first four types (murmillō, secūtor, prōvocātor and eques) are equipped with weaponry similar to that of Roman soldiers. They all have a gladius (short sword) and the first three have a scutum (semi-cylindrical shield with horizontal centre grip of the type used by the Roman infantry) and the fourth one has a parma (round shield similar to the one used by Roman cavalry). Unlike the average Imperial soldier, the first three also have one short ocrea (greave) to protect the part of their left leg that is not covered by the scūtum, as this leg is nearest to the opponent. To avoid exposing the right arm during the execution of an attack, an arm guard or manica was used. Some seem to have been fashioned out of metal, others out of cloth. Equites (=plural of eques) are only occasionaly shown wearing ocreae or manicae. 

Both the thraex and the hoplomachus were based on the soldiers of foreign lands that were conquered by Rome: the Thracian warrior and the Greek hoplite respectively. As they had smaller shields, they required two long ocreae to protect their legs.

Finally there is the retiarius: He is not equipped with typical combat equipment, but rather with what looks like fishing equipment: a trident and a fishing net.

The seven types shown here did not randomly compete with one another. Roman art clearly shows that each type had a type (or a few types) they were typically pitted against.

Of course, there are far more types than this, but for one-on-one combat, these were the seven most popular types from the reign of emperor Augustus (27 BCE - 14 CE) onwards. Around this period, the descriptions of the different types became more detailled.　❶


More information on each type coming soon!
 
Source:
❶ Shadrake, Susanna (2005) 2011. The World of the Gladiator. Didcot: Tempus Publishing. Reprint, Stroud: The History Press: p84.