The First Gladiatorial Games in Rome

The first gladiatorial games in Rome were in 264 BC and they became a very popular form of public spectacle quickly. They were originally associated with funeral rituals, but in they Republic they were related to the winter and spring equinoxes. The gladiators involved faced death when entering the arena and attempted to triumph over it, but were usually not victorious.

Many people today relate these games to the sports played in modern times. Although some things about the Roman Gladiatorial games prove similar to sports today, they much more closely parallel modern movies and the desire to view violence.

Gladiatorial Spectacles were a way of life in the imperial period of ancient Roman civilization.

Advertisements were painted on the sides of buildings to announce the massacres, states sponsored these events, and people fled to the coliseum in masses to observe. Even those that were opposed often got sucked in, addicted to seeing the bloodshed.Writer and Scholar Augustine described the transformation of his friend, Alypius, who claimed that he was opposed to going, but after being convinced by his friends he attended the event.

He claimed that he wasn’t going to pay attention, but “As soon as he saw the blood, he drank in the savagery.” However, few even rejected the idea in thefirst place, most of the city was obsessed with seeing the most brutal disembodiments imaginable. Although not many, there were some people that criticized the Gladiatorial spectacles, mostly scholars, based on the inhumane cruelty and encouragement of violence.

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One author, Seneca the Younger, wrote about how going to these events makes people numb to violence, which, in effect, leads to a more sadistic society. He also believes that the gladiator, weather a prisoner, slave, or freedman, does not deserve this kind of punishment no matter what…