The Roman Empire Gladiators

The Roman Empire was seen as the most significant ancient empire lasting around five hundred and seven years of ruling. The Munus Gladiatorium meaning gladiatorial presentation began in the year 235 B.C. Gladiators are described as men of combat; these men, however, we're accepting of same-sex sexuality. The Roman Empire is a complex society while there were not many written laws about homosexuality it did, however, have rules that were applied. Roman Empire embodied this idea of virtue; however, gladiators were seen to be these aphrodisiacs. They were able to grab the attention of both men and women; within the amphitheatre because of the erotic beauty the gladiatorial combat held. This created the lust for gladiators; leading to same-sex relations. Sexuality in the Roman Empire was not frowned upon as it is in the present; throughout this essay, it will discuss sexuality in the roman empire through dominance, infamous and patriarchy.

“The Roman sex-gender system may be a foreign domain for someone new to this historical setting. Briefly, the Romans operated on a system of gender identity rather than one of sexual orientation. Instead of categorizing their sexual world into identities based on the preferred gender of someone's partner, as we do, Roman sexual ideology seems to have divided the world up into 'penetrators' and 'those penetrated”. Roman sexuality is about showing power; not caring for gender orientation but who held dominance. The gladiators saw themselves as top men, and being these men who display this brute strength in gladiatorial combat; it is men having superiority against other men. Gladiators represented their dominance in the amphitheatre; that dominance is then put into the ranks of who has control in a sexual situation. Homosexuality was seen as a norm; there were no rules given about what is wrong or right; it was a sense of duty. Gladiators were seen as 'lustful' men who needed certain attributes for survival, and while they could not have certain women like the master wives who lusted for the gladiators, there were men/boys within the empire or within the gladiators who fancied those gladiators. Christianity was not established at that time in the Roman empire; making homosexuality to be not seen as sinful. Women were only useful to procreate; to continue their legacy but men were for there to please gladiators' needs. Gladiators can only astute dominance in a sexual way because of the lack of dominance they have in their lives. “According to the Priapic prime directive, a real man must always and only play the insertive role in hierarchically constructed encounters of this sort. Indeed, one cannot read far in the Roman textual tradition without perceiving the consistent understanding that the penetrating role is quintessentially and definitively masculine. Just as Seneca wrote that women were 'born to be submissive,'11 so the prevailing belief was that men were born to penetrate we recall the image of the hypermasculine god Priapus, who eagerly seeks to wield his manhood with boys and girls, men and women alike. Paul Veyne's incisive phrase accurately summarizes the outlook regularly offered by Roman texts: 'To be active is to be a male, whatever the sex of the passive partner.12”. However; if an individual from a higher status wants to engage in sexual intercourse with a gladiator or someone who is infame that person of higher status can take control only in the role of the penetrator. Meaning that the higher the person's status plays a part in who held the dominant role in the same sexual activity; if the men of higher status are caught being submissive with the gladiators, they can lose their reputation which could lead to bringing shame and then being considered inflamed. This is the law of Lex Scantina; which is to punish higher class men for being submissive to the lower class. “A great deal of ink has been spilt over the question of whether homo? sexuality was 'illegal' in Roman culture, largely based on the enigmatic attestations of the lex Scantina…They make the punishment fit the crime: they hang traitors and turncoats from trees, while cowards and the unwarlike and those who are infames with respect to their body they drown in muddy bogs, pressing a wicker framework on top of them. The distinction in punishments has this meaning: that crimes should be made public while they are being punished, but sins should be hidden.”

Infames mean the category of sin and shame; for gladiators, they were considered the infames of their society. By being alienated from society; the gladiators held no rights nor control of their own bodies and their surroundings. Gladiators were in a sense slaves, they were considered property having no ownership to their lives. “The sexual vulnerability of the male slave made him less than a man; a slave would be called puer all his life, and it seems likely that this term recalls the sexual use as well as the age status of a real puer. Sometimes owners tried to prolong the physical characteristics of boyhood in their slaves, although we hear of this only from disapproving observers.31 In other words, to be a puer (sexually) was to be stigmatized.”

Being a puer meant having everlasting 'boyhood'. For slaves like the gladiators, their use besides combat was to please their masters. This itself showed cases of rape. Rape within these slaves held no charge because a master has complete authority of his property; as well as torturing and punishing them whenever they see fit. In a social act; being raped was seen as acceptable for the infamias, by these slaves having nothing to their name they had no choice of the matter about their abuse because to go against their master was asking to be killed. “The speeches from which Seneca quotes constitute a remarkable assemblage of homophobic and blame-the-victim sentiments, for example, sic imitatus est puellam ut raptorem inveniret, 'he imitated a girl so well that he found himself a rapist? a thought-provoking definition of both impudicus and puella. The act of rape is aligned with the act of composing a carmen famosum, a slanderous lampoon? note the significance of famosus, here 'tending to infamia”. Infames consisted of being constantly abused; in a hierarchy being an infame; having that sense of outcast or alienation meant living such a horrendous life where there is no control of moving up in the social scale or one's body.

The definition of patriarchy is a social system or government in what men hold power and women are largely excluded from it. (Dictionary) Patriarchy in the roman empire is about men and status. Gladiators are not considered to be men, so they are not considered to be equals. In a society where men are the superior gender; this puts the gladiator men at a disadvantage because of their sexual inferiority. Gladiators have no rights; they could not vote, nor were they seen as trustworthy in the eyes of the roman empire. Gladiators held no protection from their masters leading them to continue to be sexually assaulted; by being homosexual, there are no rights to their lives. Gladiators will continue to be lower class and must take what the upper classes do to them; separating them by class, and their clothing or togas represented that separation. “In Roman terms, any deviance in the wearing of the toga would constitute a severe affront to the state; the right to wear the toga was the special prerogative of the citizen male… Furthermore, the assumption of the toga marked the male's transition from puer to vir… The bulla and praetexta were the marks that distinguished a freeborn boy from a slave boy as a potential sex object; so Plutarch explicitly hypothesizes in his speculations on why Roman boys wear the bulla? It is a sign, a parasemon. That toga virilis and toga pura were used interchangeably remind us of the sexual overtones of impurus- definitely un-manly.” 

Higher-status men could have sexual relations disregarding their marriages. This shows the roman empire cares for the only status; being the fact that men who have that power are making the rules, and it is those men who are benefitting from it. Separating the gladiators from the higher status or regular status people; it is representing that the gladiators would never be considered to be more than a gladiator; that they are only there as a source of entertainment for the rest of their lives. In the sense of homosexuality; even gladiators held a hierarchy. By having these ranks those men who were considered more ‘effeminate’ they were more lower class than other men who were gladiators as well. Effeminate is a derogatory term that is stating that certain men are considered to be un-manly. Men who were more effeminate; were used for more sexual activities because of their feminine features. “Thus Oscar Wilde's 'effeminate' manner and interests had excited comment and hostility, but they 'had not led either his friends or strangers to regard him as obviously, even probably queer' but rather as an aristocrat and aesthete. It was not until after the Wilde trials that the British public began to associate aestheticism and effeminacy with homosexuality broadly; the thesis of Sinfield and others is that the trials produced a significant shift in perception of the signs of same-sex passion… Effeminacy was thus coded as a signifier of class or excessive heterosexual activity, rather than exclusively of homoerotic dissidence”. Gladiators having no right can be sold as male escorts. The thrill of the gladiatorial combat makes the gladiators seen as this prize; however, that prize is a person who is considered less than that higher status men are able to abuse. White men; having a lineage of power are able to bend anything and everything to their favour, the gladiators are just one of many things that they manipulated.

The Roman Empire gladiators were men who lost themselves to the games. Gladiators being a source of entertainment they will never have what higher status have. They cannot distribute dominance; they will continue to be seen as forbidden fruit and will always live the life of being a proletariat. Gladiators are outcasts within the roman society not to be considered more than these lustful men in the amphitheater showing combat of erotic beauty. The gladiator's fight is considered to be this stimulating dance; capturing the eyes of the people and the higher status men. Without the gladiators; the roman empire would lose its muse. By having these sexual ideals with gladiators; the higher status men play such a role of who has the actual power and control in society as well as the sexual relationship. In the Roman empire being homosexual was familiar even with emperors. “Ancient historians' comments about Julius Caesar's sexual experiences provide a further parallel. Suetonius tells us that at his Gallic triumph Caesar's own soldiers chanted ribald jokes concerning his adulteries as well as an affair with King Nicomedes of Bithynia in which he was alleged to have played the subordinated receptive role. Neither were Caesar's soldiers the only ones to tease him about the Nicomedes affair. Suetonius reports that Bibulus, his colleague in the consulship, referred to Caesar in his public edicts as 'the queen of Bithynia' who was previously in love with a king and now with kingship and that in another public context a man named Octavius referred to Caesar as a queen just as Pompey was a king”. Being homosexual was not a sin but a sense of pleasure and understanding of where the gladiator's status lies the roman society is all about status and dominance.