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Hi
Do we know anything about gladiators that took part in naval battles? From what I have been able to read it sounds like they were more condemned criminals then trained gladiators but I am not sure. How were the armed and armored? Are there any descriptions? I know the attempt was often to recreate historical battles like between the Greeks and Persians so were the sailors dressed appropriately? Or were they dressed as regular gladiators? Howwere the different ship distinguished by sides? I have looked through all my books but they seem more interested in describing how the lakes were made then the actual fighting
Joel
Joel
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I wouldn't call the men who fought in the naumachia (naval battles) "gladiators" as they were criminals who were supposed to fight to the death without receiving any training. There were supposed to slaughter each other in some kind of "sea battles". There are some attested naumachia under the reign of Claudius and under Domitian.
The definition of "gladiator" is a trained sword fighter who showed his swordmanship in duels in the arena during an event called munus. It does not matter if this man was a slave, prisoner of war or a volunteer. This is the main difference to the condemned criminals which received in most cases a sentence ad bestias (to the beasts) but who could have been used for naumachiae as well.
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Hi
I understand Caeser and Augustus also constructed a huge lakes for naumachia. During the one that Claudius gave wasn't it the only recorded instance of the fighters actually giving him the "we who are about to die salute you" speech to which he replied "or maybe not"? I also understood that over 500,000 people attended the show?
My knowledge of naval warfare of the period is spotty but I don't think you would construct an artificial lake, stock it with biremes and trimenes, fill them with criminals, and push them off to battle without any type of training and equipment. Someone must have been shown how to handle the ships and at least the rudiments of naval warfare. Otherwise you would have all that expense and a very poor show. They must have carried weapons of some type, naval battles were mostly decided by ramming and boarding, neither of which is easy to do without some training, so rudimentary training may also have been given.
Although I agree not gladiators in the traditional sense or type but I was wondering if anyone is aware of contemporary accounts that are more descriptive of the actual battles themselves?
Joel
Joel
