The Hunger Games and Roman Gladiators

For as long as historians can tell, humans have enjoyed watching other people hurt each other. One of the most well-known instances of this was the ancient Roman Empire and the gladiators. Today, the blood and carnage is only depicted in books and movies. One book that has a similar event to the Gladiatorial games is The Hunger Games. The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterized by large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean. At its height, the Roman Empire controlled approximately 6.5 million km of land. The Roman Empire had a lasting impact on Europe and the world. The first Roman gladiatorial games were held in 246 BCE by Marcus and Decimus Brutus in honor of their father, Junius Brutus, as a munus or funeral gift for the dead (AbleMedia, 2005). The munus served the purpose of keeping alive the memory of an important individual after death. Munera were held sometime after the funeral and were often repeated at annual or five-year intervals (Dunkle, 2002). In 216 BCE, Marcus Ameilius Lepidus, late consul and augur, was honored by his sons with three days of gladiatora munera in the Forum Romanum, using twenty-two pairs of gladiators. Ten years later, Scipio Africanus gave a commemorative munus in Iberia for his father and uncle, casualties in the Punic Wars. High status non-Romans, and possibly Romans too, volunteered as his gladiators. The next recorded munus, held for the funeral of Publius Liciniusin in 183 BCE, was more extravagant. It involved three days of funeral games, 120 gladiators, and public distribution of meat. By 174 BC, "small" Roman munera (private or public), provided by an editor of relatively low importance, may have been so commonplace and unremarkable they were not considered worth recording. In 105 BCE, the ruling consuls offered Rome its first taste of state-sponsored "barbarian combat" demonstrated by gladiators from Capua, as part of a training program for the military. It was immensely popular. The ludi (state games), sponsored by the ruling elite and dedicated to a deity such as Jupiter, a divine or heroic ancestor, could now compete with privately funded munera for popular support (Wikipedia, 2012). In 65 BCE, Julius Caesar had taken it one step further by pitting three hundred and twenty pairs of gladiators against one another in a wooden amphitheater constructed specifically for the event. The gladiators themselves came from all walks of life from slaves to emperors. Gladiators were usually recruited from criminals, slaves, and prisoners of war. Criminals, having lost their citizen rights and slaves and prisoners of war having none, had no choice about becoming a gladiator, if they had the physical and emotional make-up necessary to be a gladiator. Some free-born men, however, although they had not lost their citizen rights, voluntarily chose the profession and bound themselves body and soul to the owner of a gladiatorial school by swearing an oath "to endure branding, chains, flogging or death by the sword" and to do whatever the master ordered (Dunkle, 2002). Woman also participated in gladiatorial game, although rarely. Seven emperors were said to have participated in the arena (private or public). They are: Caligula, Titus, Hadrian, Lucius Verus, Caracalla, Geta and Didius Julianus. Despite the deadliness of the arena the risks to each were minimal (Wikipedia, 2012). Each gladiator was allowed to fight in the armor and with the weapons that best suited him. Gladiators wore the armor and used the weaponry of non-Roman people, playing the role of Rome's enemies. They did so because depicting roman armor would “send the wrong political sign” to the viewers (AbleMedia, 2005). There were many different classes of gladiator. Two of which were the retiarius and the secutor who were often pitted against each other. The retiarius was a “fisherman” style class who wore a loin cloth or tunic and a shoulder guard for armor. For weaponry they had a weighted net, a trident, and a dagger. The secutor was a more heavily armored style who carried a large oval or rectangular shield, a leg guard on the left leg, a round or high-visored helmet, and an arm guard on the elbow and wrists. Their weapons of choice were the sword or dagger. The Retiarius used their speed and agility to dodge the attacks of the larger and heavier Secutor while waiting for an opportunity to strike (Gill, 2012). In The Hunger Games, the country of Panem is controlled by “the capitol” that governs its twelve districts and makes each one send one boy and girl ages twelve to eighteen to participate in the hunger games. The hunger games is an annual even in which twenty four tributes fight to the death in an arena over several weeks. The gladiatorial games of ancient Rome and the hunger games have several similarities. One similarity is that both were “played” with in a defined area called the arena. Another is that the contestants of both receive weeks of training to prepare them for the rigors of the arena. Yet another similarity between them is that the contestants were forced to fight whether they want to or not. An additional similarity is that the contestants were allowed to choose which style of combat they prefer. A large similarity between both games is that they were a form of entertainment for large crowds of people. Despite their many similarities, there are many more differences between the hunger games and the gladiatorial games of ancient Rome. One difference between them is that the contestants of the gladiatorial games could be spared if the crowd felt they had earned their life. In the hunger games, the games didn’t end until one contestant was left standing. Another difference between them is that people of any age could fight in the gladiatorial games unlike the limited ages of the contestants of the hunger games. Yet another difference is that the gladiators were given weapons and armor to fight with instead of having to fight for them, whereas in the hunger games there were only a few that each contestant could fight for. An additional difference is that the gladiatorial games didn’t last for weeks like the hunger games did. There is no doubt that the hunger games in the book The Hunger Games is reminiscent of the gladiatorial gamers of the Roman Empire. This is a great example of how we all continue to draw inspiration from the past.