🏺Gladiatorial games in Pompeii

 🔱🗡️Gladiatorial games in Pompeii💪🔥⚔️

Gladiatorial combat, known as munera gladiatoria, was one of the most popular spectacles in the Roman world, and Pompeii was no exception. The city acquired a masonry amphitheater as early as around 80 BC, one of the oldest of its kind, even predating Rome's first masonry amphitheater.

✅Pompeii's amphitheater, called Spectacula by the city's inhabitants, was built with the financial contribution of magistrates C. Quinctius Valgus and Marcus Porcius. The original structure was made of opera incerta and opera quasi reticulatum, building techniques that used small stones arranged irregularly. After the earthquake in 62 AD, the vaults of the annular corridors were damaged and later restored with brick arches.

✅The amphitheater was elliptical in plan and included:

The arena: the central space designated for fighting.

The cavea: the tiers of steps that surrounded the arena, where spectators sat.

Access to the amphitheater was free for the citizens of Pompeii, who were given special admission cards. The best seats, in the lower part of the cavea, were reserved for the authorities and the city's most important figures. To protect spectators from the sun, the amphitheater was equipped with a velarium, a movable canvas cover supported by flagpoles and operated with ropes. The presence of the velarium was often publicized in announcements of performances.

✅Gladiators, who fought in the arena amid cheering crowds, came from different categories:

Prisoners of war.

Slaves.

Criminals sentenced to death.

They were organized in special schools called Ludi and lived in barracks-prisons where they trained hard. Gladiatorial schools were widespread throughout the Roman world, but those in Campania were particularly famous.

The fate of gladiators was often cruel. The public, with a thumbs-down gesture, decided whether the defeated gladiator should be killed or spared. Audience involvement was extremely high, and violent clashes between fans were not uncommon.

One such episode, which occurred in Pompeii in 59 CE, involved Pompeian fans and those from the nearby city of Nuceria, resulting in an actual massacre. The episode, recounted by the historian Tacitus, is also depicted in a painting in the Archaeological Museum in Naples.

In addition to gladiatorial fights, venationes, hunting spectacles in which men faced ferocious beasts such as lions, tigers, and bears, also took place in the amphitheater. Sometimes the animals were made to fight each other or trained to perform entertaining acts. To make the spectacles more realistic, complex sets were created to imitate exotic landscapes.

Gladiatorial games, despite their popularity, came under criticism for their cruelty. In 404 AD, thanks in part to the protests of figures such as the philosopher Seneca, gladiatorial combat was finally banned.

Drawings of gladiators made by children, discovered in a house in Pompeii, testify to how even the youngest children were exposed to the violence of gladiatorial spectacles.

The story of the gladiators and the amphitheater in Pompeii gives us a fascinating yet disturbing insight into Roman society. It shows us how violence and spectacle were intrinsically linked in the culture of the time, and how even children were not immune to this influence.

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