The emperor, with the help of the mob, often decided the fate of a gladiator and it is believed they would have used a hand gesture to display their decision but there is not much literature on the exactness of what happened except for this excerpt from Juvenalis’, “The Third Satire” Unfortunately, the painter did not have access to the text of Juvenalis to fact check. From there, Hollywood must have picked it up and ran with it. This was invented by Jean-Léon Gérôm in his painting “ Pollice Verso” which is Latin for thumb down. The Emperor Decided the Fate of Gladiators with a Thumbs up or Thumbs Down These fights were later banned by Emperor Augustus.ġ1. As the popularity of gladiator fights increased, however, the age-old principles of supply and demand kicked in.

During the imperial period, it was common to have matches ‘ sine missione’: where loss would not equal the death sentence. Whilst in the early years, death was the penalty for defeat, this changed as time went on. The final decision lay with the editor, who often listened to the crowd, typically bayed for blood, or if the fighter in question was particularly popular or longstanding, pleading for his life. Managers and promoters spent huge amounts of money training and publicizing their strongest men, and it’s bad for business if they allowed them to be killed off every week.Ī gladiator could admit defeat by raising a finger, asking the referee to appeal to the editor to stop the fight. As bloody as gladiator fights undoubtedly were at times, they didn’t always end in death.

Spartacus ancient rome roman gladiators