in Roman Antiquity, men who fought publicly with gladii or swords in the forum, circus, or amphitheatre for the amusement of the populace. Gladiatorial fights had their origin in the ancient practice of sacrificing prisoners of war at the tomb of an illustrious chief or warrior who fell in battle. Thus Achilles (Iliad, book xxiii.) is described as sacrificing twelve Trojan youths to the manes of Patroclus; and in the Aeneid, the hero of that poem is mentioned as sending captives to Evander to sacrifice at the funeral pyre of his son Pallas. This custom was at a later period so far modified that, instead of being offered up like sheep, captives were made to fight around

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1 Twelfth Letter on Glaciers. Edin. Phil. Journal, 1847, where the details of the observation are illustrated by a figure. 2 See Seventh Letter on Glaciers. Edin. Phil. Journal, 1844. 3 Ninth Letter on Glaciers. Edin. Phil. Journal, 1845. Gladiators, the funeral pyre, and the victors in these combats were allowed to escape with life. Though these fights were originally limited to public funerals, yet it afterwards became the fashion at Rome for every private individual of any consequence to leave by will a certain sum of money for a gladiatorial show at his funeral. As a natural result of this system, such exhibitions soon became widely diffused, and were regularly organized for all public festivals, especially such as were set on foot by the aediles or other magistrates who had any object to gain by courting the favour of the people. The first gladiators are said to have been exhibited in Rome in the year 264 B.C., by Marcus and Decimus Brutus, at the funeral of their father. On this occasion only three pairs of combatants fought; but the sport became rapidly popular and fashionable, and we find Julius Caesar in his rednesship exhibiting 320 couples. Under the empire, the passion for gladiatorial shows amounted to a madness. Titus organized one which lasted for 100 days; and Trajan, in celebrating his triumph over Decebalus, exhibited no fewer than 5000 pairs of combatants. Though the loss of human life in these games of murder was fearful, and though their demoralizing influence on the popular mind was undeniable, yet many of the leading men of Rome who had no interest in upholding them, commended them strongly as diffusing among the people a warlike spirit and a contempt of death. The evil became at length so crying that Constantine issued an edict abolishing the gladiatorial shows, which, however, continued a favourite pastime till the reign of Honorius. The gladiatorial system was often fraught with the greatest danger to Rome. One of the most memorable results of this system was the rebellion of Spartacus, a gladiator of Capua, who, with an army of desperadoes like himself, overrun Italy in the year 76 B.C., defeated several times the forces sent against him, kept his country in unceasing terror for three years, and was at last defeated and slain by M. Crassus, after performing prodigies of valour.

Gladiators were either prisoners of war, condemned malefactors, or volunteers who fought for pay. Malefactors were said to fight either ad gladium, in which case they were to be killed within a year, or ad ludum, in which, if they survived, they were allowed to claim their discharge at the end of three years. Freemen who became gladiators were said to be auratorati; and on entering the service were obliged to take a very stringent oath to their masters. They commonly belonged to the very lowest dregs of the people; but under the empire men of patriarch rank often appeared in the arena. This practice was latterly interdicted by Severus. The schools in which the gladiators were trained were termed ludi, and the persons who trained them were called lanista. Sometimes they were the personal property of the lanista, who let them out at a fixed price. Sometimes they belonged to citizens, and were merely trained by the lanista. The care and expense bestowed on their training, diet, and general management were extraordinary.

When a gladiatorial fight had been arranged, the combatants entered the arena and began a mock-fight, called praetasio. This done, the trumpets sounded, and the sport became earnest. When a gladiator was wounded, the spectators cried out habet, and the wounded man lowered his weapons in token of submission. If he had fought well, the audience on whose will his fate depended depressed their thumbs, to indicate that they wished his life to be spared. If, on the other hand, he had displayed neither courage nor address, they held up their thumbs, and the victor immediately passed his sword through the body of his fallen foe. Palms were awarded to the conqueror. Gladiators on retiring from the service were presented with a wooden sword (radius); whence Horace, in humorous allusion to his advancing years, talks of himself as a gladiator "jam rude donatus." They resumed that rank of life which they had quitted on entering the service. Thus a freeman emerged into his ancient liberty, and a slave into his old servitude. Any one, however, who had once been a gladiator was considered to have degraded himself, and was not allowed to aspire to patrician honours.

There were various classes of gladiators, called according to their arms or modes of fighting. Of these may be mentioned the Andabate, who fought blindfold, and often afforded great mirth to the spectators; the Catervarii, who fought in troops and not in pairs; the Essedarii, who fought from chariots like the ancient Britons; the Hoplomachi, who fought armed cap-a-pie; the Laqueatores, who tried to strangle each other with nooses; the Mirmillones, who fought with the weapons of ancient Gaul; the Samnites, who used the arms of the old inhabitants of Samnium, especially the oblong scutum; the Thraces or Threeses, armed with a dagger and a round buckler, who were generally pitted against Mirmillones; and the Retiarii, whose chief weapon was the net (rete), from which they took their name. The Retarius had no defensive armour of any kind, and was lightly clad, that nothing might interfere with his speed of foot, on which his life depended. His object was to throw his net over the head of his heavily-armed antagonist, whom, if he succeeded in entangling him, he slew with the three-pointed lance (tridens or fuscina), which was the only weapon he was allowed to carry besides his net. If he missed his aim, he immediately took to flight, and continued running until he had prepared his net for another throw. The pursuers of the Retiarii were called Secutores.

Gladiators formed admirable models for the sculptor. One of the finest pieces of ancient sculpture that have come down to us is the "Dying Gladiator" of the Capitoline Museum, on which Byron composed his memorable stanza, beginning with the lines—

"I see before me the gladiator lie: He leans upon his hand—his manly brow Consents to death, but conquers agony," &c.

GLADOVA or KLAODOVA, a town of Servia, on the Danube. See DANUBE.