roman

• veto


  the ability to prohibit laws
• senate


  council of wealthy and powerful romans
• checks and balances


  a method to balance power
• forum


  a public meeting place
• Latin


  the roman language
• patricians


  wealthy people, government that is run by a small group of people
• plebeians


  common average people, little say, fight to gain rights
• They weren't always slaves
• Not all gladiators were brought to the arena in chains
• Early combatants were conquered peoples and slaves who had committed crimes
• By the 1st century A.D. the demographics had started to change
• Free men began voluntarily signing contracts with gladiator schools
• Gladiatorial bouts were originally part of funeral ceremonies
• Gladiator fights got their start as a blood rite staged at the funerals of wealthy nobles
• Human blood helped purify the deceased person's soul
• Funeral games later increased in scope during the reign of Julius Caesar
• By the end of the 1st century B.C., government officials began hosting state-funded games
• They didn't always fight to the death
• Contests were typically single combat between two men of similar size and experience
• Referees oversaw the action, and probably stopped the fight as soon as one of the participants was seriously wounded
• A match could even end in a stalemate if the crowd became bored
• In rare cases, both warriors were allowed to leave the arena with honor
• Trainers may have taught their fighters to wound, not kill
• The life of a gladiator was usually brutal and short
• Most only lived to their mid-20s
• Somewhere between one in five or one in 10 bouts left one of its participants dead
• The famous "thumbs down" gesture probably didn't mean death
• The sign for death may have actually been the thumbs up
• A closed fist with two fingers extended, a thumbs down, or even a waved handkerchief might have signaled mercy
• If the crowd willed it, the victorious gladiator would deliver a grisly coup de grace
• Gladiator classes and types

  • Thraeces
  • Murmillones
  • Equites
  • Essedarii
  • Dimachaerus
  • Retiarius
• They only rarely fought against animals
• Tangling with wild beasts was reserved for the "venatores" and "bestiarii"
• Animal hunts were typically the opening event at the games
• 9,000 animals were slain during a 100-day ceremony to mark the opening of the Colosseum
• 11,000 animals were later killed as part of a 123-day festival held by the Emperor Trajan in the 2nd century A.D.
• Ancient Rome grew from a small town on central Italy's Tiber River into an empire

  8th century B.C.
• At its peak, the Roman empire encompassed most of continental Europe, Britain, much of western Asia, northern Africa and the Mediterranean islands
• Legacies of Roman dominance include the widespread use of the Romance languages derived from Latin, the modern Western alphabet and calendar, and the emergence of Christianity as a major world religion
• Rome became an empire in the wake of Julius Caesar's rise and fall

  First century B.C.