walls were scribbled: 'Flamma is a girl's sigh and prayer' and 'Oh you Flamma! You're the doctor who can cure what's wrong with me.' He never did as well as the gladiator Spiculus who was given a palace by Nero, or Veianius whose son was made a knight, but Flamma wasn't complaining. He began to grow rich.
After a successful fight, whoever was putting on the games had to present the winning gladiators with a bowl of gold coins, the exact amount being specified by the crowd. Also, like Diocles, Flamma sold tips on the fights, having a good idea which of two gladiators had the best chance of surviving.
At this time, a gladiator had to fight for three years.Then he was excused from actual combat but remained a slave, working at the gladiatorial school for another five. But the crowd could at any time demand that a gladiator be given a wooden sword, which meant that he could retire from the arena. Before the actual combats, the gladiators warmed up by fighting with wooden weapons and so the wooden sword symbolized that in future the man would never have to fight for his life.
After one of his most brilliant fights, the enthusiastic crowd voted Flamma the coveted wooden sword. Flamma refused it indignantly.
'Are you crazy?' he roared at the stands. 'I'm making more money than anyone in Rome, I can have any woman I want, I'm living in a villa and I'm the toast of the empire. Leave the arena? What for?'
'Good old Flamma!' howled the delighted crowd. Flamma refused the proffered wooden sword four times, the only gladiator who ever turned down this offer not once but several times over. As a result, his name has come down to us over nearly two thousand years.
When he finally retired, he was given an ivory rectangle, like a G.I.'s dogtag, to wear around his neck. It was inscribed with his name, the name of his former owner, and the date on which he was set free. Flamma married and lived to a grey old age in his villa, telling everyone who'd listen that the modern gladiators didn't have the stuff the boys did when he was a young man. When he died, his devoted family had the record of his victories carved on his tomb.
Flamma's attitude toward his profession was not unique. A Myrmillo, during a period when fights were few, was heard to complain that he was wasting the best years of his life. Epictetus, a Roman writer, says that the gladiators used to pray for more fights so that they could distinguish themselves in the arena and make more money. (Not too surprising, when the famous toast of the armed forces in Great Britain used to be: 'Here's to a sudden plague and a bloody war!'— the only two events that could speed up promotion.)
Although never nearly as popular as the sword fights, boxing was also featured in the arena. It was originally simply an athletic event as with our amateur boxing, and then the promoters decided to liven it up to appeal to the crowd. The leather straps over the knuckles were studded with leadlike brass knuckles. These devices were called 'caestus' and later were even equipped with nails. The caestus of a famous fighter, covered with blood and brains, were hung up in one school to encourage young hopefuls.
Statius gives this description of a boxing match. The editor opens the fight by shouting:
' 'Now courage is needed. Use the terrible caestus in close fighting—next to using swords, this is the best way to test your bravery.'
'Capaneus put on the raw oxhide straps covered with lumps of lead—and he was as hard as the lead. His opponent comes out, a young, curly-haired boy named Alcidamas. Capaneus takes one look at him. laughs and shouts, 'Haven't you anybody better than that?' They lift their arms, deadly as thunderbolts, watching each other. Capaneus is a giant but getting old. Alcidamas is only a youth but stronger than he looks.
'They spar, feeling each other out, just touching their gloves. Then Capaneus moves in and starts slugging, but Alcidamas holds him off and Capaneus only tires his arms and hurts his own chances. The young fellow, a smart fighter, parries, ducks, leans back and bends his head forward to avoid die swings. He turns the blows with his gloves and advances with his feet while keeping his head well back. Capaneus is stronger and has a terrific right but young Alcidamas, feinting right and left, distracts him and then getting his right hand above the older man, comes down from on top. He gets home on his forehead. The blood runs.
'Capaneus doesn't realize how badly he's hurt but he hears the yelling of the crowd, and stopping to wipe the sweat off his face with the back of his glove, he sees the blood. Now he really gets mad and goes for the boy.
'His blows are wasted on the air; most of them only hit his opponent's gloves and the boy stays away from him, running backward but hitting when he gets a chance.
'Capaneus chases him around the arena until both of them are too tired to move, and they stand panting and facing each other. Then Capaneus makes a wild dash. Alcidamas dodges and hits him on the shoulder. Capaneus goes down! He falls on his head and tries to get up but the boy knocks him down again. Suddenly Capaneus jumps up and goes at the boy, flailing with both fists. The boy falls and Capaneus bends over him, hammering him on the head. The crowd yells, 'Save the poor kid! His skull's cracked already and Capaneus is going to beat his brains out.' The attendants rush in and pull Capaneus off his victim. 'You've won!' they tell him. Capaneus bellows, 'let me go! I'll smash his face in! I'll spoil that pretty fairy's good looks that make him so damned popular with the crowd.' The attendants had to drag him out of the arena.'
Not surprisingly, the old-type circus acts consisting of acrobats, tumblers and animal trainers had a rough time competing with the gladiators and chariot races. One after another they began to drop out and it looked as though they'd be dead as vaudeville. But one man by the name of Ursus Togatus resolved not to be beaten by a bunch of plug-uglies and horses. Ursus could shoot a bow and arrow with his toes while standing on his hands, juggle five glass balls, and had a troupe of trained bears that acted out a play while dressed in clothes. Pretty tame stuff, but he must have been well liked at one time, as he had his picture painted on vases as a souvenir of the circus. He was a tall man with abnormally long arms and legs. He seems a trifle pudgy but apparently he was limber enough. He had a long, clean-shaven face and looked like an exceptionally clever horse.
Ursus was one of the few people in show business who was ever able to adapt himself to a new trend and he made circus history. He dropped the juggling and instead of a troupe of performing bears he kept only one —a really tough animal. When the bear charged him, Togatus would run at the animal with a long pole, vault over his back and race for the arena wall. With the bear right at his heels, he'd use his impetus to run up the wall, jump over the bear again, and then tear back to his pole and repeat the performance. The crowd loved the act, as there was always a good chance that Togatus wouldn't make it.
Other animal trainers quickly got the idea. One man walked on stilts through a pack of hungry hyenas. Another rolled around the arena in a large openwork metal ball while three lions tried to get at him. One of then finally succeeded in tearing his arm off through a hole in the ball, but other performers copied the act. Acrobatic troupes of men and women learned how to grab a charging bull by the horns and turn somersaults over its back. The Romans liked animal acts, especially if they were dangerous, so in spite of the gladiators there were always animals in the circus.
By 50 b.c., the exhibitions were rough enough, heaven knows, but they were still fairly well controlled, and on a comparatively modest scale. But in 46 b.c., a victorious general named Julius Caesar with political ambitions arrived in Rome. In spite of his triumphs, Julius was in the doghouse both with the Senate and the people. They suspected him of wanting to be a dictator. Cicero warned him, 'You are only a dwarf tied to a long sword. You have the army but the people will never tolerate you.'
Caesar smiled. 'Sulla, the dictator, tried to subdue the people by force and failed. I have other plans.'
Caesar knew the Roman mob. He put on the first of the really big shows in Roman history, rebuilding the Circus Maximus to hold them. There was a hunt of four hundred lions, fights between elephants and infantry, evening parades of elephants carrying lighted torches in their trunks, bull fighting by mounted Thessalians and the first giraffes ever seen in Rome (Cleopatra sent him the giraffes as a present). The chariot races alone lasted for ten days, from dawn to dark. There were also gladiatorial combats—how many isn't recorded but the senators were so horrified that they passed a law limiting the number of gladiators any one man could own to three hundred and twenty pairs. Caesar may have had a couple of thousand—practically a small army. He used them as a bodyguard when they weren't fighting in the arena.
The law limiting the ownership of gladiators didn't last long. The people went mad over these big games and didn't care if Caesar became dictator or not as long as he kept them amused. But by now, a number of prominent men felt that the games were getting to be a danger. The people would elect anyone to office who gave them a good show. A group of wealthy men decided to give the public more educational entertainment. They hired
