Gladiatorial combat became part of the fabric of Roman society, an example of munera (gifts, or spectacles, like chariot-racing) which were paid for by wealthy men trying to curry favour with ordinary citizens. It is a pity that the satirist Juvenal’s pithy epigram about the Roman plebs is so rarely quoted in its entirety: “Those who once bestowed military power, political power, legions, everything; now they limit themselves and pray for just two things: bread and circuses.”

Into the ring

It is the first of those final words, panem et circenses, which gave The Hunger Games’ author, Suzanne Collins, the name of her dystopian country. In Panem, young people are pitted against one another as a punishment for an earlier rebellion, and in order to try and win food for their people. But it would be anachronistic to suggest that the Romans saw gladiatorial combat in such simplistic terms: firstly, most gladiators were slaves, and so little more than objects in the eyes of their owners. And secondly, while we may focus on the obvious perils of fighting to the death, gladiators were no worse off than, say, slaves who were sent to quarries or mines. In fact, gladiators were probably better off, because they took more time to train, so were worth keeping alive for longer.