You know, some Roman is unemployed, no prospects, a little suicidal but decides, "Why waste a healthy body like mine with suicide when I could become:
Anyone?
Q.E.D
September 28, 2004, 5:10pm
2
They sure did. In fact, it was apparently quite common, according to this :
Some free-born men, however, although they had not lost their citizen rights, voluntarily chose the profession and bound themselves body and soul to the owner of a gladiatorial troupe (lanista) by swearing an oath “to endure branding, chains, flogging or death by the sword” and to do whatever the master ordered (Petronius Sat. 117.5). It has been estimated that by the end of the Republic, about half of the gladiators were volunteers (auctorati), who took on the status of a slave for an agreed-upon period of time.
But why would a free man want to become a gladiator? When he took the gladiator’s oath, he agreed to be treated as a slave and suffered the ultimate social disgrace (infamia). Seneca describes the oath as “most shameful” (Ep. 37.1-2). As unattractive as this may sound to us, there were advantages. The candidate’s life took on new meaning. He became a member of a cohesive group that was known for its courage, good morale, and absolute fidelity to its master to the point of death. His life became a model of military discipline and through courageous behavior he was also now capable of achieving honor similar to that enjoyed by Roman soldiers on the battlefield.
I’ve heard gladiators described as the “rock stars” of their time. Not only did many volunteer to be gladiators, but many slave gladiators continued to fight even after they won their freedom. The emporer Commodus even went into the ring himself, a story that was thoroughly mangled in typical Hollywood style by the movie Gladiator. You can find a much more accurate description of Commodus here: http://www.roman-emperors.org/commod.htm
bonzer
September 28, 2004, 10:29pm
5
On Commodus in the amphitheatre, Gibbon is, as usual, too good not to quote:
With arrows whose point was shaped into the form of crescent, Commodus often intercepted the rapid career, and cut asunder the long, bony neck of the ostrich. A panther was let loose; and the archer waited till he had leaped upon a trembling malefactor. In the same instant the shaft flew, the beast dropped dead, and the man remained unhurt. The dens of the amphitheatre disgorged at once a hundred lions: a hundred darts from the unerring hand of Commodus laid them dead as they run raging round the Arena. Neither the huge bulk of the elephant, nor the scaly hide of the rhinoceros, could defend them from his stroke. Æthiopia and India yielded their most extraordinary productions; and several animals were slain in the amphitheatre, which had been seen only in the representations of art, or perhaps of fancy.(*) In all these exhibitions, the securest precautions were used to protect the person of the Roman Hercules from the desperate spring of any savage, who might possibly disregard the dignity of the emperor and the sanctity of the god.
So not exactly life-threatening as combats went. And, inevitably, Gibbon saves the best jab for the footnote (*), which begins:
Commodus killed a camelopardalis or Giraffe (Dion, I. lxxii. p. 1211), the tallest, the most gentle, and the most useless of the large quadrupeds.