Posted on 02/23/2006 6:31:14 PM PST by wagglebee
LONDON (Reuters) - Gladiators may have fought and died to entertain others in the brutality of the Roman arena but they appear to have abided by a strict code of conduct which avoided savage violence, forensic scientists say.
Tests on the remains of 67 gladiators found in tombs at Ephesus in Turkey, center of power for ancient Rome's eastern empire, show they stuck to well defined rules of combat and avoided gory free-for-alls.
Injuries to the front of each skull suggested that each opponent used just one type of weapon per bout of face-to-face contact, two Austrian researchers report in a paper to be published in Forensic Science International.
Savage violence and mutilation, typical of battlefields 2,000 years ago, were out of order.
And the losers appear to have died quickly.
Despite the fact that most gladiators wore helmets, 10 of the remains showed the fighters had died of squarish hammer-like blows to the side of the head, possibly the work of a backstage executioner who finished off wounded losers after the fight.
The report confirms the picture given of battles in the arena by Roman artwork, which suggests gladiators were well matched and followed rules enforced by two referees.
Kathleen Coleman of Harvard University, who was historical consultant for Ridley Scott's film "Gladiator," agreed with the findings of the report.
"The fact that none of the gladiators' skulls was subjected to a repeated battering does seem to confirm that discipline was exercised in gladiatorial combat and its aftermath," she was quoted by New Scientist magazine as saying.
The scientists, Karl Grosschmidt of the Medical University of Vienna and Fabian Kanz of the Austrian Archaeological Institute, used special X-ray scans and microscopic analysis to investigate the gladiators' deaths.
The bones were uncovered in 1993 and are thought to date from the second century AD.
GGG Ping.
So does it seem that they just finished off the wounded ones? Ouch.
So if youre wounded..youve already lost according to the rules.
Ouch!
I've always wondered if there wasn't a humane method of euthanizing soldiers critically wounded in battle during Roman times. It seems needlessly cruel to keep a valiant warrior alive and in extreme pain in a day when no medicine or anodynes were available and death was inevitable, whether it came quickly and mercifully or with grim delay.
I've read that if you were victorious, your friends would help you, or help you die depending on the situation. If you were on the losing side it could be anything, for instance Native American women would often torture to death those men that were too weak to defend themselves, whereas healthier wounded could be brought home to entertain the whole tribe.
They did break the legs of crucified criminals so they'd die sooner ... seems like it would fit that they'd also finish off wounded gladiators.
ann
Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on or off the
"Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list or GGG weekly digest
-- Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)
related topics:
Veni Vidi, Veggie...(Roman Gladiators)
The Telegraph (UK) | 2-3-2004 | Tom Leonard
Posted on 03/01/2004 9:03:18 PM EST by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1088735/posts
Gladiators - More Showbusiness Than Slaughter
Scotsman | 1-20-2005 | James Reynolds
Posted on 01/20/2005 7:46:25 PM EST by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1325022/posts
bttt
Passing this article onto those interested in the topic.
Lionel Casson was my prof for Classics back at NYU. Best perfessor I ever had.
Killing the badly wounded was a part of battlefield cleanup at least through the renaisancs.
Christians weren't si wussie about mercy killings in the old days.
So9
I guess it would depend upon the wound. A lot of wounds were fatal, even if not immediately. Wounds that would be survivable probably didn't merit the death because there was a lot of money invested in a gladiator.
The only account of that is in the Bible and appears to have been a special case to hasten death before the Sabbath. Typically a crucified individual would take days to die, which is why this method of execution was reserved for rebels and those who really pissed off the Romans (odds are, the two "thieves" in the gospels were nothing of the sort because thieves were not crucified).
And I'd agree.
After the 6CE revolt of Judas the Galilean, the survivors went across the border. Hiding in the caves and hills of Galilee they would come out and harass the forces of Herod Antipas.
The Jews of Josephus' time called them 'robbers', but they were actually revolutionaries.
"Nowadays, they call it "Divorce Court".
Often a quick death would be preferable to that horror
Do you like gladiator movies?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.