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08-23-2002, 08:21 AM

Hello, 
 
Apologies for the long post. 
Here's an abridged list of the errors I found in "Gladiators". 
I have cut out some of the smaller things. In particular, 
whenever he uses a Latin or Greek word [even some 
English words too...], assume it's wrong; either wrong case, wrong spelling or wrong meaning. 
 
At my request, a friend sent this list off to Osprey with 
a covering letter. They said they were "concerned to hear" that we had found errors and "promised" they would fix the book up at "reprint time". Yeah, we'll see. 
 
They also said to us that they had sent their book to an "authority on the subject" for proof reading before publication. Sure... 
 
Have fun, 
 
-- Susan 
 
 
Errata and comments on Osprey Warrior 39 "Gladiators 100BC ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å“ AD 200" 
===================================================================== 
 
 
p. 7 
Chronology 
"29 BC Amphitheatre of Titus Statilius Taurus built of wood in Rome." 
TaurusÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢ amphitheatre was built of *stone*. Dio Cassius 51, 23: 
"theatron kunigetikon ...lithonon" ("...a hunting theatre [a Greek term for 
amphitheatre] of stone...") 
 
 
p. 15 
"fighting men" 
The skeletons are male. No more can be said. It is also apparent that the gladiatorial 
barracks were used at the time of the eruption as shelter by all and sundry. These guys could have been anyone. 
 
p. 16 
"...classical play The Satyricon" 
Satyricon is a novel (avant la lettre), not a classical play. 
 
 
p. 17 
"Uri, vinciri, uerberari, ferroque necari" ("to endure burning with fire, shackling with 
chains, to be whipped with rods and killed with steel") 
You must be consistent in the use of "u" as a consonant in Latin. The translation is too 
flowery also: "To be burned, to be bound, to be beaten, to die by the sword". Other 
attested versions of the oath leave out the reference to beating. 
 
 
p. 19 
"unctores (masseuses)" unctores means [male] masseurs. Masseuse in English implies 
female. 
 
p. 21 
"...a two metre-high (6Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â½ ft) wooden post..." 
The stake is 6 [Roman] feet high which is only 170cm. The reference to stakes as 
gladiatorial training devices comes from Vegetius, "Epitome rei militaris." I,11 
"...pali defigebantur in terram...et sex pedibus eminerent" ("...they fix a stake in the 
ground...with six feet protruding") 
 
 
p. 23 
 
"In the arena the...retiarii [sic]...stalked the...myrmillo...the combats of the Thracian 
against the secutor" 
There is no evidence that retiarii ever fought myrmillones (as such). No pictorial 
evidence exists for such a match. It is argued whether secutores are just myrmillones 
since they are similarly armed but differ in only the helmet style worn. However, in 
contemporary evidence they do seem to have been regarded as something separate. 
Thracians certainly never typically fought secutores. 
 
"half-man, half-fish" 
This is nonsense. Myrmillones show no "fishy" attributes whatsoever. Your authorÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢s 
"dorsal-fin shaped crest" is a piece of creative/associative thinking also. The piscine 
etymology of the myrmillo name does not rest on any firm evidence. 
 
"It does not seem likely that gladiators wore this garment under their tunics every day". 
Subligaculum was normal Roman underwear. It seems rather likely that they did wear it 
every day. 
 
 
p. 25 
"crupellarius...heavy armour, almost certainly padded fabric...The legionaries had to 
[use] military pickaxes" 
Three things speak against this assertion: 
1. "padded fabric" can scarcely be described as "heavy armour". 
2. One does not need a pickaxe to defeat "padded fabric" armour. 
3. Crupellarii are attested only in Tacitus who explicitly says that they wore metal 
armour. cf. Tacitus "Annales" III, 43: "[gladiatores]...quibus more gentico, 
continuum ferri tegimen crupellarios vocant, inferendis ictibus inhabilis, accipiendi 
impenetrabilis" ("[gladiators]... called crupellarii who, in the local manner, were 
entirely encased in iron and , although they were ill-adapted to inflict wounds, they 
were impervious to receiving them") 
 
 
p. 27 
"...it is said to have influenced the development of a similar armour issued to the legions 
in the field" 
There is not a scrap of evidence for this assertion of influence (either way). All you can 
observe is that gladiators and soldiers wore similar pieces of armour. 
 
p. 28 
"The manicae may have been made in two separate ways" 
All evidence for how Roman arm-guards were constructed shows that the lames 
overlapped upwards. There is nothing to substantiate this "two separate ways" assertion. 
 
"The manicae...horizontal threat" 
This entire passage is unsubstantiated speculation. It is based on no contemporary 
evidence and its premises and conclusions are only barely supportable in this context. 
The categorization of the directions which various weapons threatened from is particular 
nonsense. 
 
p. 29 
"perhaps they acted as a visual scorecard" 
This is pure imagination on the authorÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢s part. This fact should be acknowledged in the 
text. 
 
p. 32 
"Without his net, the retiarius was probably doomed" 
This is nonsense. The retiarius also has a dagger, and practical experiments have shown 
that the trident is a very formidable (not just "effective") weapon when wielded in both 
hands. 
 
"The ivory grip" The grip is bone, not ivory. 
 
p. 41 
"The essedaria [sic] fought from the essedium" 
It should be essedarii and the existence of chariot fighting gladiators is now largely 
discounted. No pictorial representations at all of these are known (save for one, in which 
a venator is driving) although they are spoken of in literary sources (where, however, the 
context could just as easily also refer to venationes). 
 
"They may also have faced wild beasts" 
The only pictorial evidence for a chariot fighter in the arena is one in which beasts are 
being fought. 
 
"A mosaic...shows" 
It is an engraved glass cup, not a mosaic. 
 
p. 42 
"The helmet...found in a Smyrna grave" 
No gladiatorial helmets have been found in graves in Smyrna. 
 
"dressed as Hermes Psychopompus" 
There is no conclusive evidence of this at gladiatorial contests. 
 
p. 43 
"The bodies of criminals ...were cut up...to feed to the wild animals" 
The bodies of criminals were either buried [there is archaeological evidence of this at 
more than one site] or thrown into rivers [the traditional Roman disposal technique for 
the bodies of executed criminals]. The cutting up is mentioned only once [by Suetonius] 
as an extraordinary and remarkable thing which Caligula ordered. 
 
"round shield" Square shield. 
 
 
p. 44 
"gladiatorial shields may have been provided simply for decoration...no reason to 
assume that gladiatorial shields would be any different in construction" 
In this passage the poor author seems to be completely unable to make his mind up what 
he thinks! The notion that the shields were "provided simply for decoration" is too utterly 
ridiculous to even bother going to the effort to. The author here is clearly over indulging 
in idle and unsubstantiated speculation. 
 
"would make a combat either very long or very dull..." ...or rather would force the 
combatants to exert themselves and use skill to circumvent it. This was the whole point of 
the matching of different equipments and styles of fighting in contests! 
 
"29 doomed gladiators" 
These men were condemned Saxon prisoners of war, not professional gladiators. 
 
p. 48 
"...the faceless myrmillo fish creature" 
This "fish-creature" metaphor is far too much overplayed in the book. 
 
"The Hollywood image of thumbs down for death is a purely modern notion invented by 
film directors..." 
Actually the evidence indicates only that a "turned thumb" indicated death. An upturned 
thumb (called pollux infestus) was an insulting or bad luck symbol to the Romans (I 
understand it is still such in parts of Italy today). The "turned thumb" to indicate death in 
the arena was called pollux versus. This is attested in Juvenal Satires 3,36: "munera nunc 
edunt et, verso pollice, vulgus cum iubet, occidunt populariter" ("now they give munera 
and, with a turn of the thumb, win favour by slaughtering in accordance with the whims 
of the mob"). So it is clear that "turning oneÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢s thumb" indicated death for a fighter. 
Whether the "turning" is merely the act of extending the thumb or of turning the hand in 
some direction is not known for sure (and is disputed). Some believe that a merely 
extended thumb was not demonstrative enough and expect a hand movement to be 
involved too. Their stance is reinforced by the notion of "turning", which does not seem 
to fit the action of merely extending a thumb. It is also suggested that the thumb 
symbolized the sword (for reasons to do with the shared phallic symbolism of the two 
objects in the Roman mind) and that a movement was made to mimic the action of 
dealing the final blow, which was typically downwards. This "downwards mimicking 
gesture" is, however, conjectured and is not corroborated by any evidence. In the total 
absence of any sort of pictorial evidence, more than this cannot be said except that the 
notion that "thumbs down meant death" cannot, in the face of what little other evidence 
there is, be dismissed quite so lightly. 
 
"The winners (vincit)" 
vincit does not mean "winners". You need to use the word victores 
 
"Carcopino states..." 
"Carcopino" is not listed in the bibliography, and in any case you cannot use the assertion 
of a secondary source as an authority like this. 
 
 
p. 49 
"Ave Caesar, morituri te salutamus" 
This form of the "salute" is of course inaccurate. The "salute" is taken from SuetoniusÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢ 
"De vita Caesarum" XXI, 6: "Sed cum proclamantibus naumachiariis: ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã‹Å“Ave imperator, 
morituri te salutant!ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢ respondisset: ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã‹Å“Aut nonÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢" 
 
 
"2,000 combat soldiers" 
They were prisoners of war and condemned criminals. Not "combat soldiers" 
 
p. 50 
"the now famous gladiatorial salute" 
There is no evidence that this was ever used by gladiators. It is attested once only [in 
Suetonius. "De Vita Caesarum" XXI, 6] spoken by condemned men at a naumachia (as 
your author rightly says). However, condemned men (noxii) are not "gladiators" in the 
technical sense of the topic of this book. The evidence in fact shows that it is wrong to 
equate gladiatorial combats with death and sacrifice and so the use of such a salute is 
actually rather unlikely to have been used by gladiators. For both these reasons, it is 
therefore incorrect to call it a "gladiatorial salute". 
 
 
p. 51 
 
"[tickets] would have been distributed free" 
Actually tickets for the shows were not free. The evidence pertaining to ticketing and 
seating arrangements in amphitheatres is complex. Some small number of tickets were 
given away free to the upper classes (this was a survival of the traditional republican 
practice), but other blocks of seating were owned by groups (guilds and associations) 
who hired them out and others (the majority) were for sale. On occasions on which they 
were given away free for all (for example once by Caligula as recorded in Dio and once 
by Claudius as recorded by Suetonius) it was unusual enough to excite comment (and 
people camped out all night to be at the front of the queue to get them). There are also 
inscriptions which explicitly mention "money derived from entrance fees to gladiatorial 
shows" 
 
Locarii are not "they who give a location" in the sense of performing the offices of an 
usher. They are actually "ticket-scalpers"; people who buy up seats and sell them on at 
an inflated price. The only attestation of locarii in the context of [amphi]theatres is in 
MartialÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢s Epigrams: V, XXIV, 9 "Hermes divitiae locariorum" ("Hermes [a famous 
gladiator] darling of the ticket-scalpers") . Locarius is defined in analogy to locarium 
which is "money paid to hire space to pitch a market stall". 
 
 
p. 52 
"CaligulaÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢s, now infamous, orders in the Colosseum" 
The Colosseum was not built until 40 years after Caligula died! 
 
"even at the highest, poorest status seating. The audience could see the battle clearly" 
Actually from the back rows of seats the combatants in an arena appear vanishingly 
small, even at modestly sized amphitheatres like Pompeii, Trier, Nimes or Xanten. 
I know, IÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢ve been to all of these. 
 
p. 54 
"Assuming...criminal classes" 
You do not need to "assume". The edicta munerum at Pompeii often clearly state that 
noxii (sometimes cruciani = cruciarii ie. crucifixions) will be part of the programme. 
 
p. 55 
"lorarii" is wrong here. You must use lora ("whips"). Lorarii are "people with whips". 
 
"The current view is that fist and thumb jabbing upward...meant kill him" 
See my notes to p. 48 
"...the thumb down meant weapons to the ground" seems rather too contrived (even 
more so than the suggestion that the thumb gesture mimicked the fatal sword thrust) and 
in any case is not based on any contemporary evidence. 
 
 
Glossary 
======== 
 
Balteus technically means a sword belt [cf. Quintillian 11, 3,140 Dict Antiq. Also Varro, 
Servius and Caesar] and is also used in poetry to mean a womanÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢s girdle. The word you 
should really use for a manÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢s belt around the waist is cingulum. 
 
Fasciae is plural yet your definition is singular. 
 
Meridiana is wrong. It is meridiani 
 
Noxii "condemned criminals forced to fight to the death" "condemned criminals 
executed in various ways in public in the arena" would be more strictly accurate. They 
did not always have to fight each other. 
 
Praecone The correct singular form is praeco 
 
Tirone The correct singular form is tiro 
 
Vellarium The correct spelling is velarium 
 
 
Illustrations and captions 
========================== 
p. 4 "scisorores" is wrong. It is scissor 
 
p. 5 "Taiamonius". On the original mosaic the gladiatorÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢s name is clearly Talamonius. 
He also has a sword in his left hand (not a spear shaft as the illustration shows) and is 
clearly not a retiarius as the caption asserts. He has a greave on his left leg and his right 
arm is armoured. But for his helmet he is, in other words, dressed exactly as the secutores 
on the mosaic. The actual retiarii on the mosaic also wear a galerus on their left arms. 
 
p. 7 "...the secutor Belurefons." On the mosaic his name is clearly Bellerofons 
 
 
p. 9 "Podium fighters" There was no such thing as a "podium fighter" 
 
p. 10 "Dwarf gladiator in bronze...wears the equipment of a hoplomachus" 
The figure is quite clearly not dressed as a gladiator! He is clearly wearing a muscled 
cuirass with pteruges and an open faced helmet. He is obviously dressed as a hero or a 
general or something similar. 
 
p. 17 "retiarius (Knendio)...secutor Astinax" 
On the original mosaic the combatantsÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢ names are clearly Kalendio and Astyanax 
 
p. 18 
"Fighting...a wild bear...Flamma won his freedom four times" 
He is not fighting a wild bear! On the original it clearly says "Ursus tibicen" ("The flute- 
playing bear") beside the bear and "Pul[l]us cornicen" ("The horn-blowing chicken") 
beside his companion. They are [most probably] the band dressed as animals. Not only is 
the caption horrendously wrong but it also misses a chance to introduce the RomanÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢s love 
of vulgar burlesque and pantomime of which this is an excellent example. 
I shall pass over the fact that it is also most unlikely that this is the same Flamma who 
kept returning to the arena. 
 
p. 27 
The "copy" is a crude travesty of the original [Arch 66 at WLM Stuttgart]. I suspect that 
the author just made this himself quickly from clay then photographed it. The original of 
this is relatively elegant and shows the griffon crest of the thraex clearly. The copy does 
not. 
 
p. 29 
"Vestorious" It should be Vestorius 
 
"...these two myrmillo fighters" 
The figure on the left in this painting is very clearly a thraex. The author here misses a 
chance to draw attention to a contemporary image of a gladiator wearing embroidered 
trousers. 
 
p. 43 
The "copy" is a crude travesty of the original [MA 4492 in the Louvre]. The "copy in 
private collection" label is rather pompous and presumably is there for verisimilitude. In 
this case by neglecting to copy the inscription they miss the opportunity to mention that 
this is a monument dedicated to the fallen by his widow. 
 
p. 45 
In my opinion, this picture is a totally irrelevant "space filler". 
 
p. 54 
In my opinion this photo is entirely irrelevant to the topic. The corridor in the picture is 
not even anywhere near the amphitheatre (although it is quite near the gladiatorial 
barracks). I have been there. 
 
p. 56 
"...the pairing of retiarius and secutor was most common" It is actually the only pairing 
in the context of the pons which is attested in any of the sources. 
 
p. 59 The gladiatorÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢s name is M[arcus] Attilius, not "Mattilius" 
 
p. 61 
The "copy" is a crude travesty of the original [Brit. Museum. Inv nr.GR 1965.1ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â‚¬Â

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