Originally Posted by
KLouis
Again my usual, small, irrelevant correction: The vast majority of the pan handlers were not dressed as gladiators but as legionaires! Otherwise all correct!
I'll have to state a friendly disagreement on this. The panhandlers surrounding the Forum and Colosseum have signs asking if you want to take a picture with a gladiator. Certainly, that doesn't mean that is what they are, but the difference between a gladiator and a legionnaire is large. Roman emperors were very smart in conscripting, or generously offering employment in the military to almost every man. A legionnaire is a soldier. This made for great armies because if you made it through your 20 years as a soldier/legionnaire, you were generally given land and a pension. This made for a very loyal military that rarely lost a battle. It's also one of the reasons why Rome kept on h, having to conquer, because they offered land as a pension benefit to almost every soldier/legionnaire, where they could start a farm, raise sheep, or do whatever. I don't think that legionaries even had a particular uniform. They'd just train for battle, and go at it, and wore whatever was typical of their region, and win to secure their future.
A gladiator was a slave. They were born and raised to fight in public matches by their owner. They were not just any soldier.
Not that Muhammad Ali, one of the greatest heroes of modern times, could be remotely compared to a slave, but a fight between Ali and a typical USA soldier would be like comparing a gladiator with a legionnaire. Ali was a gladiator, but of course, super-free. A soldier is a soldier, although Rome trained their soldiers better than anybody else at the time. The guys standing around the Colosseum are in a gladiator uniform, somewhat ornate, as their owners would like them to be when they went into the "ring." Rome could never afford to robe its army of usually around 180,000 soldiers in fancy garb with feathered helmets, and 20 pound shields and swords. The army was just clothed in a basic tunic.
Rome staved off rebellions for a long time because such a large proportion of its men had a military background and depended on the government for life, and thus became very patriotic. A gladiator was a slave specially chosen as a child who was taught only one thing, and that was combat. Most died in the arena, because everyone, even Ali, eventually becomes too old to win.