“Unveiling the Blood and Glory: The Untold Realities of Life as a Gladiator in Ancient Rome”
This all brings us to what a day at the games was actually like more specifically. For starters, these were usually free events, as most expenses were paid by the person putting on the show – the editor – or by the editor splitting the bill with the city.
It was also an all-day affair beginning in the morning. A procession opened the games in which the editor and gladiators were paraded to the audience. This was usually considered the most boring part of the card and was not advertised. That said, the procession was still an important part of the games, as it was where the editor showed off for the audience, attempting to curry favor for the event they were, in essence, sponsoring. Afterwards there was typically a beast-hunt. The beast-hunts were welcomed and while they weren’t the main event, as mentioned, they were enjoyed by the high and low classes alike.
In the afternoon were the noonday spectacles, usually execution events. The editor purchased prisoners from the local prisons to be executed in various ways. Noonday spectacles could be recreations of Roman victories for larger arenas, and smaller scale combat between condemned men for smaller arenas. Usually these men were forced to fight animals, gladiators, or each other. Other times they were executed in basic ways like hanging and burning, or in more vicious and elaborate ways such as having a stake shoved through the back of the head, or quartering. The memory of the noonday spectacle lives largely in Christian lore as many early Christians were executed rather brutally during this portion of the event. Aristocrats and intellectuals usually disliked the levels of bloodshed of this part of the games and went home for lunch to return later when the gladiators came out.
