8 GLADIATORS outcomes The gladiator who lost the competition looked to them for his or her life to be spared The crowd could vote in one of two ways The crowd might dec ide to spare the life of the gladiator especially if he or she had put up a good fight or displayed heroism or bravery in some bold way There are several ways a spectator could express his or her interest in sparing the loser One was with the wave of a handkerchief another a popular hand gesture The gesture used in this case was a pollice compresso or compressed thumb in which the thumb is tucked or hidden inside the fist This meant that the glad iator should live to compete another day Alternatively pollice verso which means turned thumb in Latin was a gesture in which a person held up his hand with the thumb jutting out Some historians have mistakenly said that the thumb was turned up which
9 A rudis represented freedom to any gladiator awarded with the prize As depicted here the gladiator’s name was inscribed in Latin on the blade led to the thumbs up gesture that means good job today but this is not true there is no documentation that supports the idea that the thumb was turned up only out Perhaps the thumb sticking out in any direction represented a stabbing motion because the gladiator who received this gesture was usually put to death on the arena floor Crowds cheered as they watched the losing gladiator die From
GLADIATORS This engraving reproduces the famous painting Pollice Verso by Jean-Léon Gérôme in which a gladiator looks to the crowd for the fate of his opponent 10
INTRODUCTION evidence of this gleeful reaction many his torians agree that the era of the gladiator games in Rome was one of the bloodiest most troubling in human history This book will describe the lives of the gladi ators and what they endured to compete in these games in which winning meant everything 11
