Gladiators: the professional wrestlers of antiquity?

I've been meaning to comment on this story for some time, but I haven't been able to put down a snow shovel long enough to get around to it until now (yes, it's snowing again -- and Providence is still letting everyone park on the only-partially-plowed streets):

GLADIATORS' combat had become a martial art [This really should be amended to "sporting martial art" -- D.] by the beginning of the first millennium, according to a controversial theory based on reconstructing the fighters' tactics from Roman artefacts and medieval fight books.

To amuse the crowds around the arena the gladiators would display broad fighting skills rather than fight for their lives, argues archaeologist Steve Tuck of the University of Miami. "Gladiatorial combat is seen as being related to killing and shedding blood," he says. "But I think that what we are seeing is an entertaining martial art that was spectator-oriented."

From New Scientist.

I have only read the online version of the article, but that is enough to raise some serious doubts. It's certainly possible that Christian (and non-Christian) opponents of the traditional circus entertainments might have exaggerated their brutality, yet the records are incontrovertible regarding the wholesale slaughter of wild animals and the savage execution of captives and criminals (not to mention the unsparing nature of ancient sports such as boxing and pankration). Would spectators accustomed to such bloody fare really have been content to watch an armed version of professional wrestling? And what about the archeological evidence, such as the gladiator graveyard at Ephesus noted here (excerpt: "The scientists found that nine out of 10 gladiators were killed by a stab through the shoulder blades")?

Then there are the methodological problems with the central argument. The late medieval fighting manuals are great and long-neglected resources, but there is no justification for presuming that their conventions of combat were at all applicable over a thousand years before [NB: Techniques, yes; conventions, no]. Furthermore, anyone familiar with those manuals should appreciate how much they tell us that we could never have read from the stylized depictions of combat in contemporary artworks -- yet the latter is about all we have for the gladiators.

There is quite a bit that remains to be discovered by bringing combat arts knowledge to the study of the past (for example, anyone familiar with the footwork drills for arnis will immediately see what's going on in the Highland sword dance -- something the Scots have long forgotten). But the temptation to read too much into ambiguous imagery must be resisted.

From the manuals and art, Tuck infers that there were often three critical moments in the course of a gladiatorial bout. The first was initial contact, with both gladiators, fully armed, moving forwards and going for a body shot. The second was when one gladiator is wounded and seeks to distance himself from his opponent. In the third both gladiators drop their shields, seemingly undamaged, before grappling with each other, he says.

None of this makes much sense, I fear. Why three phases of a single bout, rather than images showing differing types of combat? Why presume infliction of wounds before progressing to unarmed grappling? This thesis does not deserve the attention it has received.

ADDENDUM: Yet another writeup now at Discovery News.

Posted by David on January 26, 2005 9:53 AM