to estimate how many gladiators all the shows in the empire consumed.
The law divides gladiators into different pay bands. It insists that half the gladiators used in each show should be ‘chorus’, the maximum price for these chorus members being 1,000–2,000 sesterces each. By contrast, skilled gladiators were priced much higher, at ten levels ranging from 3,000 to 15,000 sesterces each. All the same the pyramid of differentialseems low. Opera divas today, to say nothing of football superstars, get paid fantastically more than the chorus or the pack. Perhaps these low differentials reflected the high chance of death (it was not in the owners’ interest to pay a fortune for a star with limited life expectancy) or a low skill pyramid (were the stars really that much more expert at this brutal game?) or, of course, the producers’ desire to contain the costs.
At the same time total costs for the acquisition of gladiators at each provincial show were put into five price bands, ranging from 30,000 to 200,000 sesterces – small beer indeed when compared with the metropolitan shows in the Colosseum, which were of a quite different order of grandeur (compare, for example, Hadrian reputedly spending 2 million sesterces on a show before he became emperor – though that cost would also have included beasts, gifts to the crowd and so forth). If we imagine a relatively cheap show of, say, 60,000 sesterces and remember that half the gladiators had to be ‘chorus’, that would mean twenty-four gladiators: twelve chorus and twelve stars. And even if a provincial grandee spent the maximum 200,000 sesterces and put on forty gladiators (twenty chorus, twenty stars), he could still afford only two bouts between stars of the highest grade if each gladiator fought only once (and even putting them back in the ring would not greatly increase the number of star bouts, unless he made the same pairs fight each other more than once). If these regulations were followed, all provincial shows must have been small shows.
The decree of 177 also tells us that the tax on the sale of gladiators had yielded between 20 and 30 million sesterces a year for the central government, levied at either 25 or 33 percentof the price (the decree is unclear on both points). The total price of the gladiators traded in the empire each year was, as declared for tax purposes at least, between 60 and 120 million sesterces. If we work within the coordinates we have, simplified as they must be (half of all gladiators were chorus, one in six died at each show), we can tentatively work out how many gladiators there must have been in the Roman empire as a whole and how often shows were put on in provincial venues.
Given what we know, with half the gladiators fixed as chorus, and assuming a reasonable distribution between all ten grades of star, 16,000 gladiators traded among showpresenters would have cost the bottom figure of 60 million sesterces. Is this the right order of magnitude, for provincial shows which featured normally between twenty and forty gladiators each? The answer depends on balancing the number of shows there were in a year, the number of venues, the number of fights a gladiator undertook each year and the rate of death. If we take the number of amphitheatres firmly known (over 200), add over a hundred other venues, especially in the eastern empire, which were adapted for gladiatorial shows, plus a few more for luck (to take account of gaps in our knowledge), we can guess a total of 400 venues. Allow them to stage two shows a year with an average of thirty gladiators who each fought twice a year – this was an enterprise which could all have been launched with an initial army of 12,000 gladiators. But 12,000 gladiators (400 venues × 30 gladiators) would have generated 2000 deaths in the first show and 2000 more in the second. The total throughput of gladiators empire-wide would have been 16,000. In other words, it fits!
We have taken no account here
The law divides gladiators into different pay bands. It insists that half the gladiators used in each show should be ‘chorus’, the maximum price for these chorus members being 1,000–2,000 sesterces each. By contrast, skilled gladiators were priced much higher, at ten levels ranging from 3,000 to 15,000 sesterces each. All the same the pyramid of differentialseems low. Opera divas today, to say nothing of football superstars, get paid fantastically more than the chorus or the pack. Perhaps these low differentials reflected the high chance of death (it was not in the owners’ interest to pay a fortune for a star with limited life expectancy) or a low skill pyramid (were the stars really that much more expert at this brutal game?) or, of course, the producers’ desire to contain the costs.
At the same time total costs for the acquisition of gladiators at each provincial show were put into five price bands, ranging from 30,000 to 200,000 sesterces – small beer indeed when compared with the metropolitan shows in the Colosseum, which were of a quite different order of grandeur (compare, for example, Hadrian reputedly spending 2 million sesterces on a show before he became emperor – though that cost would also have included beasts, gifts to the crowd and so forth). If we imagine a relatively cheap show of, say, 60,000 sesterces and remember that half the gladiators had to be ‘chorus’, that would mean twenty-four gladiators: twelve chorus and twelve stars. And even if a provincial grandee spent the maximum 200,000 sesterces and put on forty gladiators (twenty chorus, twenty stars), he could still afford only two bouts between stars of the highest grade if each gladiator fought only once (and even putting them back in the ring would not greatly increase the number of star bouts, unless he made the same pairs fight each other more than once). If these regulations were followed, all provincial shows must have been small shows.
The decree of 177 also tells us that the tax on the sale of gladiators had yielded between 20 and 30 million sesterces a year for the central government, levied at either 25 or 33 percentof the price (the decree is unclear on both points). The total price of the gladiators traded in the empire each year was, as declared for tax purposes at least, between 60 and 120 million sesterces. If we work within the coordinates we have, simplified as they must be (half of all gladiators were chorus, one in six died at each show), we can tentatively work out how many gladiators there must have been in the Roman empire as a whole and how often shows were put on in provincial venues.
Given what we know, with half the gladiators fixed as chorus, and assuming a reasonable distribution between all ten grades of star, 16,000 gladiators traded among showpresenters would have cost the bottom figure of 60 million sesterces. Is this the right order of magnitude, for provincial shows which featured normally between twenty and forty gladiators each? The answer depends on balancing the number of shows there were in a year, the number of venues, the number of fights a gladiator undertook each year and the rate of death. If we take the number of amphitheatres firmly known (over 200), add over a hundred other venues, especially in the eastern empire, which were adapted for gladiatorial shows, plus a few more for luck (to take account of gaps in our knowledge), we can guess a total of 400 venues. Allow them to stage two shows a year with an average of thirty gladiators who each fought twice a year – this was an enterprise which could all have been launched with an initial army of 12,000 gladiators. But 12,000 gladiators (400 venues × 30 gladiators) would have generated 2000 deaths in the first show and 2000 more in the second. The total throughput of gladiators empire-wide would have been 16,000. In other words, it fits!
We have taken no account here
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