Wargames

by Martin van Creveld

  Whatever the truth, different interpretations concerning the early fights’ precise function are still possible. Strabo apart, we have the testimony of Silius Italicus, a Roman poet who flourished toward the end of the first century AD. “It was [the Campanians’] ancient custom to enliven their banquets with bloodshed, and to combine with their feasting the horrid sight of armed men fighting; often the combatants fell dead above the very cups of the revelers, and their tables were stained with streams of blood.”9 The goal, in other words, was pure entertainment of the crudest sort, as befitted the spoiled inhabitants of a famously rich country such as Campania. The Romans, we are told, behaved differently; both Livy and his contemporary, the historian Valerius Maximus, date the earliest Roman gladiatorial fights to 264 BC, i.e. the year when the First Punic War got underway. Both tell us that one Decimus Iunius Brutus Scaeva, along with his brother, had three pairs of gladiators fight to the death in Rome’s “cattle market” (Forum Boarium) as a tribute to their deceased father.10 Presumably they refer to the former consul (292 BC) Brutus Pera, though modern historians have also considered other possibilities. In this way they emphasize the religious roots of the fights which neither Nicolas nor Strabo mention.

  The term used by Livy to describe the games is munus, a sacred obligation to the dead. By calling the fighters bustuarii, from bustum, a funeral pyre or grave, the orator and statesman Cicero also suggests a religious connotation. For as long as the shows existed, the official directly responsible for organizing them never lost his title of procurator munerum. To the late second-century AD historian Cassius Dio, the fact that Augustus’ longtime companion and partner in government, Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, always took care to hold them at the time they were due was proof of his piety.11

  After 246, the next time a gladiatorial fight is mentioned is in 216 BC, the year in which the Romans suffered their disastrous defeat at the hands of Hannibal at Cannae.12 Again it was the sons of a deceased ex-consul, Aemilius Lepidus, who organized the show. From this point on, both the number of occasions when fights were staged and the number of the gladiators who participated in each one seems to have grown steadily. In 200 BC, twenty-five pairs of gladiators fought at the funeral games held for Marcus Valerius Laevinus (consul, 210). In 183 the number rose to sixty, whereas in 174 a number of fights were staged, the largest of which involved no fewer than seventy-four.13 Among the organizers (editores) of these and subsequent shows were some of Rome’s most important field commanders; indeed it is probably for this reason, rather than because of anything special that happened in them, that Livy, as our principal source, mentions them. Both Titus Flamininus, the general who prevailed over Philip V of Macedonia in 197 BC, and Aemilius Paulus, who defeated Philip’s son Perseus and finally destroyed the kingdom in question twenty-nine years later, gave shows.

  Over two and a half centuries separate the outbreak of the first Punic War, when the earliest known shows were held, from the death of Augustus in AD 14. Since in his political testament Augustus was the first to suggest that territorial expansion should come to an end, the period in question saw Roman imperialism at its height. With rivers of booty and countless prisoners coming, many aristocratic families became incredibly wealthy. Among other things, this fact was reflected in the size of the shows that they held. In 65 BC Julius Caesar, though already almost forty years old (he was born in 102 BC), was still an aspiring politician occupying a comparatively junior position. To advance himself he was planning a show involving no fewer than 320 pairs of gladiators. His excuse was the need to honor his father who, however, had died many years before. This time the Senate, aware that the city of Rome did not have a proper police force, intervened. It feared the result might be public disorder – perhaps, indeed, an attempt at a coup d’état – and limited the number of fighters.14

  Nineteen years later, having conquered both Gaul and Egypt, defeated all his opponents in the various civil wars, and while serving as a dictator, Caesar’s power had reached the point where he was no longer obliged to pay heed to such restrictions. Suetonius, the early second-century AD historian, says that he organized two armies of gladiators. Each consisted of five hundred infantrymen, twenty elephants, and three hundred cavalrymen; they fought in a facility erected especially for the purpose in the Campus Martius, the field where the consuls used to assemble their troops before going to war. Still not content, he had an artificial lake dug. On it warships with two, three, and even four rows of oars as well as “a large number of fighters” clashed. Caesar, incidentally, was also the first to hold a show in honor of a woman, his daughter Julia.

  Originally the shows had been held by private individuals on their own initiative. To the extent that they were opened to the wider public, tickets had been sold in order to generate a profit. Things changed in 122 BC when Gaius Gracchus, who was serving as a people’s tribune, broke with the tradition and arranged for free seats to be distributed instead. Though his fellow tribunes did not take kindly to the idea and saw to it that he should not be reelected, it stuck and was to have a great future in front of it.15 Another important turning point came seventeen years later. For the first time it was the consuls who organized the shows, with the result that the distinction between the ludi, the ancient state-organized festivals, and the more recent munera (plural of munus), the privately sponsored gladiatorial fights, became fuzzy. The last decisive step in this direction was taken in 42 BC. That was when the serving aediles, apparently to fend off an exceptionally threatening series of omens that seemed to promise ill to the Republic,16 officially merged the two kinds of festivities with one another. Henceforward gladiatorial combats were regularly held on the same occasions, and in the same locations, as the hunts, the animal fights, and the execution of condemned criminals. All these were amalgamated to form part of a single bloody complex.

  In his Res Gestae, the political testament that he wrote before his death and which, inscribed on bronze or stone, was distributed throughout the Empire, Augustus boasted that he had three times held gladiatorial games in his own name and five times in those of his various sons and grandsons. No fewer than 10,000 men were assembled and fought;17 for the pedants, this means that, on the average, 1,250 participated in each show. Even so there were certain limits. Of all the various events that comprised the ludi, gladiatorial fights were the most expensive by far. Before they were ready to fight the gladiators had to be maintained for months, fed, trained, provided with medical treatment, and guarded. This fact may explain why Augustus himself limited them to fixed dates – December 2 to 8, December 17 to 23, and March 19 to 23 – and why his successor Tiberius tried to reduce the number of fighters who were allowed to take part. Later Caligula lifted Tiberius’ restrictions. He may also have been the first emperor who himself performed in the arena as a gladiator of sorts.

  Claudius distinguished himself by his love of the fights – he even had his dinner while watching men tear each other to pieces. He also organized mass fights between condemned prisoners instead of simply throwing them to the beasts. On one occasion he set up a huge battle, the largest on record, in which no fewer than 19,000 men participated either as oarsmen, fighters, or guards. Nero once sent 400 senators and 600 knights into the arena in order to humiliate them, with what results is not clear. Nero also built a vast wooden amphitheater which, however, was burnt to the ground in the huge conflagration of AD 64 that he himself was later suspected of having started. Perhaps the most lasting contribution of all was that of Vespasian (69–79). He employed the Jewish prisoners taken in the war of 66–69 to build the Colosseum, thus finally putting an end to the various temporary installations in which the shows had been held until his time and seeing to it that his name would be eternalized.

  As far as the sources allow us to see, the gladiatorial fights reached their apogee during the century and a half or so that separated Julius Caesar from Trajan. The latter, when celebrating the subjugation of Dacia, is said to have sent 10,000 gladiators into the arena
within four months, as many as Augustus did during his entire reign.18 The total number of those who fought during his reign was much larger still. Not just pairs of individuals but entire armies were made to fight each other. Apparently the largest shows of all were those involving naval battles, given that, for each man who fought aboard ship, there had to be several others who pulled on the oars.

  To what extent did the shows resemble real-life wars, and how were the two linked? While some of the above-mentioned “armies” and “navies” were quite large, unfortunately we have not the slightest idea how they were organized. Were the participants made to practice together until they formed some kind of cohesive unit or units? Probably not, because people still remembered the Spartacus Revolt of 73–71 BC. Even after Augustus for the first time provided the city with proper police forces in the form of the Praetoriani and the Vigiles, such units, made up of highly trained but desperate men with nothing to lose (many, like Spartacus himself, foreigners) would pose a real threat to public order. Accordingly, when famine threatened Rome in AD 6, he took the precaution of sending the gladiators to places some hundred miles away.19

  Or should we assume that they were just hordes of men hastily assembled by the procuratores (those who bought or rented the fighters on behalf of the editores) and the lanistae and thrown together for the occasion? Since gladiators could sometimes be rented by the day and even by the hour, undoubtedly there were instances when that was the case. Yet it is also clear that shows involving numerous fighters could not be improvised at a moment’s notice. Sailors and oarsmen in particular required considerable training before they could act in unison or maneuver their vessels. The restricted available space made doing so all the more difficult.20 We are told that, in the largest naval “battle” of all, “sufficient space was left to allow the oarsmen to display their strength, the steersman their skill, the ships’ speed, and all the normal stratagems of [naval] war.”21 To achieve such results joint training was indispensable; one could not just put together two undisciplined mobs and hope for the best.

  Nor was the problem confined to naval fights alone. But for proper coordination, different arms such as infantry, cavalry, chariots, and elephants were unable to fight effectively. From the point of view of both organizers and spectators, they might well present a greater danger to each other than to the enemy, thus spoiling what could have been a nice show. Fighting Antiochus III of Syria at Magnesia in 190 BC, the Romans themselves had seen this happen. But how could the necessary coordination be achieved? Or did each of the “arms” fight others of the same kind exclusively, thus dividing the show into different acts? Did each side in the amphitheater have a commander-in-chief and unit commanders? If so, how were those commanders selected and what powers did they wield? Were there rehearsals? In fact we know that, for some kinds of shows, rehearsals were held. As is also sometimes the case with modern concerts and theatrical shows, spectators were even invited to watch them. However, our sources’ main concern is to describe the size and extravagance of the shows, any unusual incidents that took place in them, and, during Imperial times, how various emperors saw them and treated them. Rarely do they discuss organization and tactics: hence no answers to these questions are provided.

  We do, however, receive some hints. Contrary to the view of some modern historians who claim that gladiators always fought in pairs, Cassius Dio tells us that Caligula had large numbers of gladiators “drawn up in a kind of military formation.”22 Second, the same historian, describing some of the shows organized by Titus (AD 70–8), says that gladiators sometimes fought in groups. Titus’ brother and successor Domitian organized battles with groups of infantry and cavalry.23 Third, it is known that, to add interest, some of the larger events were intended as replicas of well-known historical battles. One, organized by Claudius whose mind contained an antiquarian streak, simulated the battle of Salamis in 480 BC; another, the one between the navies of Corcyra and Corinth that marked the opening of the Peloponnesian War forty-nine years later. A third did the same for the famous battle between Athenians and Syracusans in 415 BC; however, the limits of the discipline imposed on the combatants are shown by the fact that, this time around, the Athenians won. Claudius also celebrated his conquest of Britain – which he did not command in person – by leading his troops in a simulated attack on a British town. As is also true in modern reenactments of historical battles, on these and similar occasions it was necessary to ensure that the fight, instead of degenerating into a free-for-all, would in fact follow the script. Doing so implies the existence of a command system of some kind.

  However large the shows, however numerous those who participated in them, and whatever command arrangements may have existed, clearly there were some aspects of real-life war they could not and did not duplicate. As with all the other kinds of games discussed so far, and with many that will be discussed later too, there was no question of bringing logistics into the picture. Gladiators entered the arena well fed after having a final ceremonial meal the evening before; once in it they fought until they killed their opponents, were killed themselves, or were granted quarter. Most fights between individual gladiators were over in a matter of minutes. Even the largest naval combats cannot have lasted for more than a few hours. Considering that, to quote Cardinal Richelieu, “many more armies [have been] ruined by want and disorder than by the efforts of their enemies,”24 the absence of logistics was very significant indeed. Furthermore, the place and time of the fights was decided not by the participants but by force majeure. Hence there was no room for what today is known as strategy and operational art. Instead, the two sides were made to take up their appointed places and a signal was given so that the fight could get under way. As in combat sports, what strategy was involved was limited to fighting technique.

  For the same reason, many forms of what Clausewitz calls friction – the endless number of unforeseen incidents that make the conduct of war so complicated and so difficult – were excluded.25 Indeed the whole purpose of holding the shows at certain well-defined places and times was precisely to exclude it so as to focus on combat alone. To the extent that any trace of it remained at all, it must have been experienced as an annoyance. Last but not least, even the largest shows merely simulated battles, not campaigns or war as a whole. Since all battles were fought at very close range, in fact face-to-face, little role was left for intelligence. It was standard practice for the fights to be preceded by processions in which the fighters, marching to musical accompaniment, presented themselves to the spectators. As a result, both sides must have known almost everything about the other right from the outset; there was no question of sending out scouts (exploratores) or using other accepted methods for obtaining information.26 The role that surprise and ruses of every kind could play was also limited.

  Again it is tempting to speculate on the kinds of equipment that were issued to the participants in these large, collective fights. As is sufficiently well known, during classical times the Greeks’ main weapon at sea was the ram. The Romans, however, increasingly came to fight sea battles as if they had taken place on land, grappling and boarding their enemies’ ships. During their last major naval battle, i.e. the one at Actium in 29 BC, light stone-throwing catapults, arrow-firing bows, firepots, javelins, and of course swords and daggers were employed. Could those have been used in the arena too? The answer seems to be, to some extent. Certainly equipping gladiators, a rowdy lot at the best of times, with long-range weapons would have been much too dangerous. On the other hand, as Tacitus explains, the lake that Claudius used for his naumachia, or naval battle, was ringed with rafts. The Praetorian cohorts that manned the rafts did have war engines, though whether they participated in the action or simply stood in reserve lest any of the gladiators should try to escape is not clear.27 All in all, it seems obvious that even the largest collective fights could not match up with “reality.” Bloody as they undoubtedly were, there could be no question of simulating either the complexities of real war
fare or the kind of coordination needed for waging it.

  In any case, large as the Colosseum was, and extensive as the artificial lakes on which the naval fights took place were, they could offer no substitute for nature. Clearly there were limits to what could be done even in the largest shows. For example, as far as we know not once did the standard warship of the time, i.e. the quinquereme (with five banks of oars) make an appearance. Instead the fighting was done by fleets consisting of considerably smaller vessels, probably with no more than two or three rows. On land, too, what took place in the arena were in reality not battles but skirmishes. We know that most gladiators were simply organized in pairs, which means that there was room only for fighting technique but hardly for tactics of any kind. The nature of the arena and the flat “terrain” it provided worked in the same direction; nowhere was any shelter to be found, and gladiators who instead of fighting their opponents spent too much time running away from them were prevented from doing so by specially appointed guards armed with cattle prods and red-hot iron plates. On the other hand, watching hundreds of separate pairs fighting in sequence must have taxed the patience even of the most enthusiastic Romans. That is another reason for thinking that many gladiators were organized in groups.