The Roman Gladiators

This essay will show how the Romans categorized others in ways that allowed them to use those others in any way they desired. The Romans exploited a variety of different people while they ruled the Mediterranean. This essay is going to show how the Roman specifically used the: criminals for entertainment, Christians for prosecution, gladiators for entertainment as well. The first groups this essay will comment on are the criminals. Romans condemned criminals to public execution, which “shows that one purpose of humiliating the miscreant was to alienate him from his entire social context, so that the spectators, were united in a feeling of moral superiority,” (Coleman, K. 47). This secondary source argues that the Romans used criminals to validate their moral superiority and behavior in society. The Roman validation through the public execution of criminals is one of the exploitations for the criminals themselves. Similarly, the Romans used condemned criminals to demonstrate a type of judicial process that had to be carried out when an individual broke the law. In this case, the …show more content…
One ancient account points out the paradox by stating: “Take the treatment…those idolized charioteers, actors, athletes, and gladiators…for the very same skill for which they glorify them, they debase and degrade them; worse, they publicly condemn them to dishonor and depravation of civil rights” (Tertullian, On the Spectacles 22.3-4). That is, the Romans glorified infames, but stripped away citizen rights from them. At the same time, gladiators could be spared because “the gladiator may lower his weaponry and try the pity of the people” (Seneca, Letters, 37). The evidence shows that even though a gladiator had infamia, he was still capable of having a minimal amount of control. The control that is implied by this is that a gladiator controls the level of entertainment and demonstration of skill that he puts on during the