08-13-2014, 07:23 PM
Quote:I don't agree with your interpretation that gladiators would have a high status; I think Roman society saw them as below most others. Infamia's civic disabilities are in my opinion overemphasized (although during the Republic it is very difficult to do that; the games went on during the Empire) just look at the social disabilities. The law made very real relegation of Gladiators to a status beneath most other people and with the people who Romans looked down on/didn't like and their place in anything from public celebrations to the voting booth reflected that.
You have to look it from two different points: For the society gladiators were infamia which means by becoming a gladiator (even as a free Roman citizen) you lost some rights e.g. the right to vote, to canditate for an office, to enrol in the army. But for those auctorati signings up at a gladiator school I think these rights weren't important for them any how esp. when they came from lower class.
In the arena though gladiators were celebrated as our today's sports stars, you could buy merchandise (oil lamps, statuettes) or fans were scratching graffiti into the walls depicting the outcome of the latest bout of their favorite gladiator.
Like I have said before in this thread: What we have to keep in mind in this thread is what we are talking about: gladiators or mythical enactments during the noontime program which were executions. At the mythical enactments it was from the beginning clear who had to die.
