Before Phil Jackson ranted about bogus calls, before Sir Alex Ferguson got another five match ban for his outbursts and before Didler Drogba screamed into television cameras about a “motherfucking disgrace,” a Roman gladiator named Diodorus complained how a referee’s bad call cost him the match – on his epitaph.
Most gladiatorial epitaphs include details of the deceased’s professional life. This particlular tombstone was unusual, according to Professor Michael Carter of Brock University, because it told a story.
Diodorus was a Roman gladiator who died 1,800 years ago. He lived his entire life as a gladiator in Amisus, which is on the south coast of the Black Sea in Turkey. Like most of his compatriots, he was most likely born a slave and had little to no social standing. Nevertheless, gladiators were treated well by their owners because they were expensive and lucrative investments. Like modern-day professional athletes, he and other gladiators were considered “the superstars of their day,” training together in tight-knit troups. Also known as hordearii (barley eaters), they went through rigorous training, usually in one gladiatorial style, were fed high-energy meals and received the best medical care. They were allowed to have families and to keep portions or all of the monetary prizes that they won in the arena.
Gladiators only fought two to three times a year. A single bout would usually last ten to fifteen minutes. In contrast to how gladiatorial combat is as portrayed in popular culture, gladiator fights were not a means for a mob to satiate its bloodlust; the crowd’s bloodlust would have already been satiated earlier in the day during the beast hunt and prisoner executions. Instead, horderarii battles were honor-bound events governed by a strict set of rules, both formal and informal. Bouts were rarely to the death. They were officiated by the summa rudis and secudna rudis, referees who acted as technical experts to ensure a fair match.
The summa rudis’ job was to determine when combat should be stopped. Usually one of the combatants would capitulate by laying down his or her shield and signal defeat by raising a finger ad digitum. A combatant could also win if he or she knocked down the adversary and took the opponent’s weapon. The summa rudis would end the fight and ask the crowd if the defeated gladiator should be granted missio (leave to return to training), be killed or be freed. However, if a gladiator fell accidentally, he or she must be allowed to get up and continue fighting.
In Diodorus’ case, it appears that he has defeated his opponent Demetrios. Following the “gladiator code,” Diodorus does not kill Demetrios but steps back, waiting for the summa rudis to end the fight. According to Diodorus’ epitaph, however, the summa rudis, in a bout of “cunning treachery,” deems Demetrios to have fallen accidentally and allows him to resume the fight. Unfortunately for Diodorus, he either sustains a mortal wound as a result of the bout or concedes defeat and ends up being killed.
And England thought the Hand of God goal was bad.
Sources:
- Roman Gladiator’s Tombstone Describes Fatal Foul, LiveScience
- Female Gladiators of the Ancient Roman World, Steven Ross Murray in The Journal of Combative Sport (July 2003)
- Gladiatorial Combat: The Rules of Engagement, MJ Carter in The Classical Journal vol. 102.2 (2006/07), p. 97-114
- Gladiators Played by the Rules, Skulls Suggest, National Georgraphic
- Gladiators: Heroes of the Roman Amphitheatre, BBC
* Ut male iudicari = Latin for “that was a bad decision”
Photo via isawnyu
