“Unveiling the Blood and Glory: The Untold Realities of Life as a Gladiator in Ancient Rome”
Moving on to people who fought animals in the arena, these were not considered gladiators, though they were eventually sourced from the same pool of slaves and trained in similar schools. However, they were called venatores and they were seen as slightly more respectable than their gladiator colleagues- hunters who fought against all sorts of animals, but mostly predators.
To fit the bill, they fought wearing the clothes and equipment of a hunter: a tunic, a spear for thrusting, and a spear for throwing. Venatores could come from all over the empire, and typically were well versed in how to handle animals exotic to wherever they were fighting.
Another class of beast fighter, named – well – beast fighter, is more linked in the mind of the spectators to the gladiator. In all likelihood, these were gladiators that started to fight in events meant for venatores, sort of a crossover spectacle. That said, there is a lot of disagreement between scholars as to what the beast men were. Some scholars say they fought with heavy armor for a time, others say light armor. Some say the term is used to refer to people thrown to animals as an execution, while others say the beast men were assistants to the venatores and trained the animals.
Yet another class of beast fighter consists of the animals themselves. Some events pitted exotic animals against each other. Animals found in the arena included leopards, lions, rhinos, bulls, bears, and others. Venatores, beast men, and animals were also susceptible to the crowd’s bloodthirst, and they could be condemned or spared in the arena. Events involving animals were well regarded, and the crowds both high and low appreciated seeing animals from far off lands. In fact, so popular were these animal spectacles that hunting animals for the arena led to the extinction of some animals such as the Nile Hippopotamus.
