Gladiatorial shows also had a political significance.  In the Republic, gladiatorial contests brought great popularity to the giver of the games, which paid off in votes at election time. In fact, as Keith Hopkins points out,¹ political competition among aristocrats was an important factor in the spectacular growth of gladiatorial contests.  There was great pressure to make your munus more impressive than the last.  Julius Caesar in 65 BC, the year of his aedileship, planned to give a gladiatorial exhibition consisting of 320 pairs of fighters. Although this exhibition was a munus in memory of his father, Caesar no doubt was also seeking to win political favor for his candidacy for the praetorship.  The munus was given, but with a somewhat reduced number of gladiators and perhaps, less political favor for Caesar. Caesar's political enemies had passed legislation restricting the number of gladiators that could be kept in Rome, a measure that could be justified by appealing to public safety,² but probably was also motivated by jealousy and political self-interest.  (Suetonius, Julius Caesar 10).

The following passage from Petronius' Satyricon (45), although fictional, provides a good example of the connection between giving gladiatorial shows and political favor.  The speaker is the freedman Echion, a blanket-maker, who is a citizen of an unnamed town in southern Italy and talks about three politicians (Titus, Mammea, and Norbanus) trying to win the favor of the townspeople.

Just consider this: we will enjoy an excellent gladiatorial show in three days on a festival day;  the gladiatorial troop is not owned by a lanista, but consists of very many freedmen³ and our Titus is generous and headstrong: no matter what kind of show it will be, it certainly will be something!  For I am a friend of his; he will pull out all stops.  He will give a wonderful gladiatorial show, to the death,⁴ a regular slaughter house in the middle of the arena, for the spectators to see.  And he has the financial means:  when his father died,  left him thirty million sesterces.  Even if he spends 400,000 sesterces on the show, his patrimony won’t even feel it, and he will be remembered forever.  The show will include dwarves(?)⁵ and a female chariot fighter and the slave steward of Glyco, who was caught screwing his mistress.   In the crowd you will observe a brawl between the jealous types [who would side with the husband Glyco] and the lovers [who would side with the steward]. Glyco, moreover, a penny-pinching man, has handed over his steward to be killed by the beasts.⁶  Glyco is just making himself look ridiculous.  What wrong has a slave committed, who was forced [by his mistress]?  That chamber-pot of a wife deserves to be tossed around by a bull.  But Glyco is taking out his anger at his wife on his steward…I suspect that Mammea will give a gift of two denarii to me and people like me.  If he does, he will steal Norbanus’ popular support.  You can bet that Mammea will easily win the election. And truth be told, what good did Norbanus ever do for us?  He presented worthless gladiators, already infirm, who would have collapsed if you had blown on them.  I have seen better beast fighters.  Norbanus caused the death of mounted gladiators, who were the size of those that serve as a lamp decoration; they were so small that you would have thought that they were roosters!  One was a skinny runt, another was club-footed, the third might as well have been dead: he had torn tendons.  There was a Thracian gladiator of some quality, but he fought mechanically, by the numbers.  Eventually all these were all flogged ;⁷ the crowd had shouted: “whip them,” but these were not real contests.  “Nevertheless,” Norbanus said, “I have given you a gladiator show.”  And I applaud you, but if you think about it, I gave more to you than I received.

Under the Empire, when magistrates at Rome were no longer chosen by popular elections, the political incentive disappeared and even more important, the emperor did not want prominent citizens giving entertainments that might win too much popular favor to the detriment of his own support.  Thus the emperor became the regular sponsor of gladiatorial games in Rome and normally attended the gladiatorial contests he sponsored.  In this way, these games took on new political meaning.  Although the common people had lost the ability to vote, the amphitheater provided them with an opportunity to communicate their feelings and desires directly to their ruler.  Moreover, since there was safety in numbers, it  was not necessary for the them to repress their true feelings in the emperor's presence. They could loudly complain of the price of wheat, or call for the death of an unpopular official, or even criticize the emperor himself.  As Alison Futrell writes⁸:

The main point is that [the people] were making themselves heard, directly, face to face with the emperor. They had an unique opportunity for immediate vocal contact with their heads of state, and they used it. The image of direct communication was more important than the communication itself.

Public demonstrations in the amphitheater on one occasion indirectly led to the assassination of an emperor. Caligula’s refusal to listen to the crowd and his attempt to have soldiers execute vociferous members of the crowd inflamed the crowd and emboldened conspirators to kill him (Josephus, De Bello Judiaco 19.24-7).  On the other hand, a wise emperor could profit politically from his appearance in amphitheater by showing that he had the same interests as his people. Again, Alison Futrell⁹:

This rubbing of elbows with the common herd was deemed necessary for the emperor's public relations because it partially dissolved social and political barriers. For this moment or day or week, the government was not an impersonal and impervious body, distanced from the average person, but a fellow-spectator, practically within reach, one with the Populus Romanus.

The adoring crowd received a popular emperor with thunderous applause in appreciation for this public appearance and for his sponsorship of the games. Tiberius, at least early in his reign, attended the games regularly in order to preserve the stability of his rule.  Claudius attended the games with whole-hearted enthusiasm and played to the crowd.  When he presented gold coins to victorious gladiators, he playfully counted them out in time with the crowd (Suetonius, Claudius 21). 

Perhaps the orator Fronto has best expressed the political importance of spectacles in a letter discussing the rule of the emperor Trajan (Letters 2.18.9-17):

The following are derived from the most important principles of political science: that he [Trajan] as emperor has given his attention even to actors and the other artists of the theater, or circus [chariot-racing], or arena [gladiatorial combat] because he knew that the Roman people are concerned especially with two things, the grain supply and spectacles¹⁰; [he also realizes] that his rule has won approval as much because of games as because of serious things and also that serious things are neglected with greater loss, but games, with greater resentment; that the human drives that lead men to demand the grain dole are less powerful than those which lead them to desire spectacles; that only the people eligible for the grain dole are won over by handouts of grain, and at that individually, whereas the whole people are won over by spectacles.

 Notes

1. Death and Renewal (Cambridge 1983), 5.  Back to text.

2. Gladiators could be a threat to the state as the famous revolt of Spartacus (73-71 BC) proved.  Back to text.

3.  A lanista, a manager of a gladiatorial troop, would have owned the gladiators as slaves.  Echion suggests that freedmen, who fight voluntarily (as a business venture), would provide a better show.  Back to text

4.  Fights to the death were unusual because one of the gladiators was certain to die, never to fight again and earn money for themselves and/or their manager.  Back to text

5.  'Dwarves' is a conjecture because there is no satisfactory translation of the actual reading of manuscript.  The conjecture does make sense because the Romans loved exotic variations on gladiatorial combat.  Note the female chariot fighter and later, the mounted gladiators.  Back to text

6.  As at Rome, part of the gladiatorial show would be the execution of criminals or prisoners of war by exposing  them to dangerous wild animals without arms or with inadequate ones. Back to text

7.   i.e., for their inadequate performance.  Back to text

8. Blood in the Arena: The Spectacle of Roman Power (Austin, 1997), 46.  Back to text.

9. ibid. 46.  Back to text.

10.  "The grain supply and spectacles" recalls the famous phrase of Juvenal: panem et circenses ("bread and circuses," 10.82).  Back to text.

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