Bakalarska_prace_-_Lukas_Kratochvil

arena in third century BC. Equites are horse riders belonging to the medium armoured gladiators. They were fighting only with another equites. For fighting on horseback, they were armed by lance hasta and for fighting on foot they were using gladius. For protection, they were equipped by middle-large round shield parma equestris. Equites disappeared from the arena in fourth century BC.

At the end of the Republic came into the arena the provocator. He was medium armoured gladiator. He was fighting with gladius and middle-large shield. His adversary was another provocator.

In the first century AD appeared on stage the retiarius. Light armoured gladiator, the only one without helmet. He was fighting with trident fuscina, net rete and dagger pugio. His only adversary was secutor. Popularity of the pair retiarius – secutor rose very fast and became soon the most popular gladiatorial pair, even more than the pair thraex – murmillo, which had been the most favourite pair until that time. Retiarius remained in the arena to the end of the games. In the first century AD showed also up the paegnarius, his gladiatorial classification is controversial, because his purpouse was only to entertain the crowd only with blunt weapons. In the second century AD appeared the dimachaerus. Possible translation of this name is “two-handed”. He was fighting with weapons in both hands, pair of daggers or swords. He was garbed in chain or scale male. His adversary was probably also dimachaerus or arbelas.

There are also gladiators whose presence in the arena was registered but whom we are not able to categorize in a period: sagittarius - bowman, laquerarius - probably variation of retiarius and crupellarius - the only known fact is that he was whole garbed in steel.

From the early fifth century AD, the fame of gladiators and games declined, and also declined the interest in this theme, anyway. Gladiators were in focus again in the eighteenth century, when the gladiatorial barracks were excavated in 1766 in Pompeii: there, the largest quantity of archaeological material until nowadays was preserved. Also the nineteenth century was under the sign of figurative and literary depictions of the gladiatorial theme. The twentieth century continued with movies in which gladiators were mainly Hollywood characters: therefore, their popularity with the great public lasts so far.

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2.4Thraex

The thraex as a type of gladiator appeared for the first time in the arena in first half of the 1st century BC. He is connected with the Mithridatic Wars, when a great number of war prisoners from Thrace was caught by the Roman army. It happens quite often that ethnic Thracian origin is mistaken with gladiator type, whose strictly defined armature – arms, equipment and fighting style − had nothing to do with that of Thracian warriors20. Men who were fighting as this type of gladiator could probably be both Roman ex-citizens and trueborn Thracians. The best known representative of this armature in the history of gladiatorial games was Spartacus, the gladiator who, arousing a revolt from Lentulus Batiatus’ ludus gladiatorius in Capua, became the leader of the slaves in the Third Servile War, sending a shudder through the whole Italy in 79 BC21. This incident changed the view of society on gladiators. Spartacus had probably Thracian ethnical origin, but he was also a thraex by type of armature.

There is a lack of historical sources about gladiator fighting style, which could inform us about used technique or style of fighting as good as the still extant Anonymous Fechtbuch

-Manuscript I.33, a 13th-century German sword & buckler manual22. To the 2nd century dates

Artemidorus’ Oneirocritica, a work on dreams: when a man dreams of fighting as a gladiator, such dream announce the marriage with a kind of woman corresponding to the used armature or to the oppponent against whom one fights23. For instance, to thraex corresponds a rich, cunning and eager to excel woman: “rich” because thraex is protected by a good armour,

“cunning”, because thraex fights with a curved blade, “eager to excel”, because he acts aggressively. The thraex armature begged to this style of fight abbr. Chapter 4

Since its entry in the arena in the first half of the 1st century BC, the pair thraex and murmillo was the most popular and most often offered to the audience. Its popularity surpassed that of the pair retiarius versus secutor as late as the 1st century AD. Many emperors admired specific types of gladiators and had their favourites among them. Emperor

20Nossov 2009, p. 68.

21Because of the amplitude of the topic, please refer directly to Strauss, Barry. The Spartacus War. New York - London: Simon & Schuster, 2009.

22Tower of London manuscript I.33; Royal Library Museum, British Museum No. 14 E iii, No. 20, D. vi. Some examples of the sketches illustrating different techniques can be found at http://www.thearma.org/Manuals/i33/i33.htm (last access: 4.6.2012).

23Artemidorus Daldianus, Oneirocritica 2.33

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Caligula, for example, idolized just thraex. He even designated a thraex as the commander of his personal guards24.

The armature of thraex is easily identifiable either from archeological finds or depicted on reliefs and mosaics. Typical was the helmet (galea)25 with the head of a griffin, a wide brim and a gridded visor. The griffin was believed to be an animal incarnating Nemesis, the goddess of retribution: a lot of small temples placed in amphitheatres were dedicated to this goddess26. The griffin head was placed on the top of the crest of the helmet. Such crest was entirely decorated with a feather pattern, which formed the appearance of the griffin’s body. Moreover, the crest was adorned with a plume of feathers (crista). In accordance with the type of helmet, there were two small holes, one on each side of the crest, used for inserting long feathers (pinnae).

On the right arm he had a protective armour called manica, which could be either only quilted and stitched, or covered with tiny metallic plates, as the manica of the Roman legionnairs. Later it could also be scaled. On both legs the thraex wore greaves (ocreae)27, which reached the half of the thigh. The ocreae were fastened or tied on the back-side of the calf. Under such leg protectors there were stitched bandages (fasciae), from the ankles to the waist. The fasciae provided an additional protection for the legs and also functioned as pads for the greaves. The thraex, not differently from most of gladiators, wore a loincloth around his waist, the subligaculum (Fig. 1), fastened with a wide belt called balteus. His chest was bared. The weapon used by the thraex was a curved sword called sica. A small square shield (parmula) was used for defense. The whole equipment weighed 16-20 kg: this categorized the thraex as a heavily armed gladiator.

The usual adversary of the thraex was the myrmillo28. Less common was the pair thraex – hoplomachus. More frequent was the pair myrmillo – hoplomachus. Armour and weapons of each type of gladiator were designed for providing both advantages and disadvantages to their users. The thraex had only a small shield, but this disadvantage was compensated by his high ocreae. By way of contrast, the myrmillo was fighting with the type of sword known as gladius and the great rectangular shield (scutum), usually used by Roman

24Suetonius, Life of Caligula 55: «He made some gladiators captains of his German guards»

(http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0132%3Alife%3Dcal.%3Achapter %3D55; last access: 4.6.2012).

25Galea is a general term for “helmet”, both for gladiators and for Roman soldiers.

26Nossov 2009, p. 156-157.

27General term for “greaves”.

28Other spelling can be mirmillo, murmillo mormillo.

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legionnairs. The myrmillo wore on his left leg only a small protector and on his armed arm a stitched or plated (scaled) manica. His helmet had a wide brim and was stylized to the shape of a dorsal fish fin. It could be decorated with feathers and, compared to the thraex’s helmet, also with horsehair. His armature categorized also the myrmillo as a heavily armed gladiator.

To the same category belonged the hoplomachus, whose equipment was identical to thraex’s one, only their weapons being different. In connection with the thraex a special attention must be paid to the hoplomachus.

Fig. 1. Style of wearing subligaculum (after: http://historia-del- vestido.blogspot.cz/2011/05/la-indumentaria-de-la- antigua-roma.html last visit: 28. 06. 2012)

2.5Similarities and differences: the hoplomachus

The hoplomachus appeared in the arena in the late Imperial period. This heavily armed type of gladiator should resemble a Greek hoplite29, more or less stylized in accordance with the typical appearance of gladiators. He held in his right hand a spear (hasta) and defended himself by a small round shield (parmula): its handle, designed according to the model of the

29 Term for the citizen-soldier of an ancient Greek polis.

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Greek shield hoplon (even if the hoplomachus’ shield was much smaller then Greek hoplon or aspis), allowed a hoplomachus to hold a short sword or dagger as a secondary weapon in his left hand (Fig. 2). His side weapon was not the exact copy of the Greek sword (xyphos), but more likely a shorter version of the Roman gladius or dagger (pugio). He had, like the thraex, a manica on his armed arm, and a pair of high greaves. His helmet was similar to the thraex’s type, but without the griffin-shaped crest, which characterized specifically the thraex. The crest of his helmet was decorated with feathers or horsehair30. Due to the same type of equipment, at first sight hoplomachus and thraex can be easily mistakable. This begs the question whether each of these gladiators had his own armature or if it was duplicated for both of them.

Fig. 2. Bronze statue of hoplomachus, Berlin, Staatliche Museen –

Antikensammlung (after: Junkelmann M. Das Spiel mit der Todt –

So kämpften Roms Gladiatoren 2000)

30 Junkelmann 2000, p. 120-123

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3. The Finds

3.1 Galea (“Helmet”)

Most of the original finds of thraex’s helmets were found in Pompeii in 1766-1767, in the ludus gladiatorius (“gladiators’ school”). During this excavation several pieces of various gladiatorial helmets were found: today, only fifteen survive, split between the Museo Archeologico nazionale in Naples and the Louvre in Paris. Only one of them was made in iron and belonged to the gladiator type secutor. All the other helmets were in bronze, so that we can assume that the thraex’s helmet was always made in bronze.

The helmet passed through a few stages of development well described by Marcus Junkelmann31. The thraex’s helmet is − both in original, and in other artistic media depicting gladiators − easily recognizable thanks to the griffin head on the top of the crest, and is therefore unmistakable with other gladiator type helmets. Junkelmann states32 that the antecedent of the thraex’s helmets found in Pompeii was the combination of Attic and Boeotian helmets, created in the Late Republic (Fig. 3). In such period, typically, gladiators fought with their faces uncovered.

Fig. 3. Helm of Attic type with griffin head 300 BC, California Getty Villa, Malibu (after: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lazymodeler/6342800943 / last visit: 28. 06. 2012)

31Junkelmann 2000, p. 63-64.

32Junkelmann 2000, p. 59-61.

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The next stage of development is the shape called by Junkelmann Pompeii Subtype H733 which had a straight brim and round visors, unlike Pompeii Subtype H1234 and Pompeii Subtype H1335, which have a bent brim and whose visors are greater, triangular and with an upper edge following the brim. Other differences are in the attaching of visors, crest structure and in the system of closing the front mask. To the construction and decorative details is devoted, here below, Chapter 5. It is obvious, according to the finds from Pompeii, that the former and latter types of helmets were used contemporarily36. The weight of the helmets found Pompeii ranges between 3.3 and 6.8 kg: the average weight is approximately 4 kg37. Average thickness of material is approximately 1,5 mm.

33Entry 3.1.A.2

34Entry 3.1.A.1

35Entry 3.1.A.3

36Nossov 2009, p. 84-85.

37Gladiators and Caesars. The Power of Spectacle in Ancient Rome 2000, p. 40.

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3.1.A. Entries

3.1.A.1. Thraex’s Helmet Subtype Pompeii H12

Location: France. Paris, Musée de Louvre.

Inventory no.: 1108.

Material: Bronze.

Measures: Height: with visor and crest: 38 cm; visor alone 23 cm; length: 40 cm; width: 33.4 cm; thickness of the gridded eye cover: 1.8-2.3 mm.

State of preservation: Good.

Provenance: Pompeii, Quadriporticus of the Theatre (gladiators’ barracks).

Dating: Probably AD 50-75.

Description: Bronze helmet richly decorated, with a griffin head on the top of the crest and a silver-plated Medusa head on the part of the cap protecting the head over the forehead. The sides of the crest are decorated in detail with small overlapping feathers. Moreover on the helmet sides there are two feather holders. The surface of the helmet is partly decorated with tin embedded links and dents. The grill covering the upper part of the face and the shape of the visor are typical for the 1st century AD. The helmet is decorated by embossing (relieves), perforation and engraving (details).

Bibliography: Wahl, J. Gladiatorenhelm-Beschläge vom Limes. Germania, 55, 1977, p. 116, no. 2, pl. 20, 2 and pl. 23; Les Gladiateurs. Musée archéologique: éditions Lattes, 1987, p.

122-123, no. 20; Schutz und Zier. Helme aus dem Antikenmuseum Berlin und Waffen anderer Sammlungen, Antikenmuseum Basel und Sammlung Ludwig. Basel: Antikenmuseum Basel und Sammlung Ludwig, 1989, p. 96, no. 89.

Figs 3.1.A.1.1-2. Thraex’s helmet subtype Pompeii H12 (after: http://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/helmet-thracian-gladiator; last visit: 05. 06. 2012)

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Fig. 3.1.A.1.3. Detail of the hinge (photograph by the Author)

Fig. 3.1.A.1.4. Detail of the hinge cover (photograph by the Author)

Fig. 3.1.A.1.5. Detail of the silver plated Medusa head on the forehead (photograph by the Author)

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Fig. 3.1.A.1.6. Detail of the crest (photograph by the Author)

Fig. 3.1.A.1.6. Detail of the visor (photograph by the Author)

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