1.

Gladiators were both professional and amateur fighters in Ancient Rome

2. They fought to entertain “civilized” spectators
3. The first match of Rome took place in 264 BCE, as part of a funeral ritual
4. Marcus and Decimus Junius Brutus hosted the first contest with three
pairs of slaves serving as Gladiators in the Forum Boarium, in honor of
their father who was deceased at the time
5. Matches took place in Amphitheatres and were held after animal fights

and public executions

6. The “Munerator” was the person who hosted the fights and was honored
with the official signs of a magistrate
7. People used criminals and slaves as Gladiators
8. If slaves/criminals were selected to fight, they had no choice, but to
obey the rules
9. By the time of the end of the republic, about 50% of all gladiators were
volunteers
10. Volunteers would spare the life of a slave and take his place in a match
11. Volunteers were known as Auctorati
12. Auctorati had to take (say)the gladiators oath, saying that the Auctorati
had to be treated like a slave (not outside of the match)
13. Gladiators were trained in special schools to learn the basics of fighting
14. Most Gladiators would not fight more than 2 or 3 times per year
15. Gladiator contests were first known to be illegal by Constantine in 325
AD, but no one paid attention to that rule
16. Emperor Honorius tried to put a stop to it, because the gladiators are
wasting their lives dying in fights, when they could be used for Rome’s
army
17. The largest contest of gladiators was given by the emperor Trajanas
part of a victory celebration in 107 AD in Dacia and included 5000 pairs
of Gladiators
18. Awful violence took place in the arenas with the use of sword, arrow,
trident, tooth, and claw
19. As time went on Gladiators started to fight beasts
20.Even for executions in Rome the no longer decapitated people, they let
ferocious beasts kill them
21. Duels between only two gladiators took place in the afternoon
22.Duels between 3- 900 gladiators took place in usually morning, noon,
and sometimes afternoon
23.fighting Beasts made matches a lot more exciting and complicated
24. Even when people were executed people went crazy with applaud
25.Also if someone was wanted, you could take the money from the reward
and put the wanted criminal in a gladiator match