Gladiator training as a hobby

[Sean Manning]

What would be a good reference on training gladiatorial arms as a hobby? Juvenal and Petronius have several references to people in +II Italy owning a gladiator's kit and training as a pastime, not as preparation for potentially lethal combat in the arena.

I've heard the name Junkelman come up before in discussions of gladiators, and I have a list of half a dozen general references on gladiators, so I will try those if nobody suggest anything.

[jvrjenivs]

Junkelmann is purely about the proffesional gladiators. Not about private combat by rich people in 'weapon handling/gladiator combat'

I'm not sure if there is written anything on it, other then references to rich people (or suns of richt people) who got private training. At least I don't know any discussion of it in Junkelmann, Shadrake, Nossov and some others.

[Jona Lendering]

Hardwig Aerts may know a thing or two: here.

[Sean Manning]

I'm not sure if there is written anything on it, other then references to rich people (or suns of richt people) who got private training. At least I don't know any discussion of it in Junkelmann, Shadrake, Nossov and some others.

Since I'm a grad student, that phrase is music to my ears. It wasn't just rich people (at least in fiction): there is a teenaged slave in Petronius who seems to own Thracian arms (although the text is unclear). The class of Romans who drove the book market were just most interested in elites who shamed themselves by performing in public.

I will also check Poliakoff.

I'm having trouble putting my thoughts into words, but people often dismiss martial arts (or training) which isn't rough enough or isn't aimed at the right sort of violence. You see this when sports stylists boast of their brutal training and testing, and duelling stylists boast that they are learning to win real fights not some game, and self defense stylists mock them both for not being prepared for a mugging or a rape attempt. So I'm not surprised if scholars focus on real gladiators, doing something so unusual, rather than on mock combat with similar equipment.

[M. Demetrius]

There is a pretty strenuous gladiator school in Hungary. http://www.gladiator.at/index2en.html
You could get a "sort of" taste of what it might have been like there, though I suppose the money to get there could be hard to come up with. Just a thought.

[Sean Manning]

I think gladiator reenactors today could be an interesting parallel, since they also train to put on a show but don't expect to be killed or maimed (except for bruises and broken hands). I'll keep those Hungarians in the back of my mind when I'm finally planning a European trip.

This might be worth a conference paper or an article somewhere. But first I should read up the modern literature on gladiators, and see if I can dig up other ancient sources than the first two.

[M. Demetrius]

Also, Ars Dimicandi (many members on this forum) http://www.arsdimicandi.net/ has a bunch of you tube videos, and from them you might get some ideas. You're right, though, the training we might endure is not a serious as that which the ancient gladiators did. They were putting on a show, but there was real blood expected. Sometimes a competitor gave all there was.