Retiarius

Roman gladiators fell into stock categories modelled on real-world precedents. Almost all of these classes were based on military antecedents; the retiarius ("net-fighter" or "net-man"), who was themed after the sea, was one exception. Rare gladiator fights were staged over water; these may have given rise to the concept of a gladiator based on a fisherman. Fights between differently-armed gladiators became popular in the Imperial period; the retiarius versus the scaly secutor developed as the conflict of a fisherman with a stylised fish. The earlier murmillones had borne a fish on their helmets; the secutores with their scaly armour evolved from them. However, because of the stark differences in arms and armour between the two types, the pairing pushed such practices to new extremes. Roman art and literature make no mention of retiarii until the early Imperial period; for example, the type is absent from the copious gladiator-themed reliefs dating to the 1st century found at Chieti and Pompeii. Fights between retiarii and secutores probably became popular as early as the middle of the 1st century CE; the net-fighter had become one of the standard gladiator categories by the 2nd or 3rd century CE and remained a staple attraction until the end of the gladiatorial games. In addition to the man-versus-nature symbolism inherent in such bouts, the lightly armoured retiarius was viewed as the effeminate counterpoint to the manly, heavily armoured secutor. Another gladiator type, the laquearius ("noose-man"), was similar to the retiarius but fought with a lasso in place of a net. The more skin left unarmoured and exposed, the lower a gladiator's status and the greater his perceived effeminacy. Likewise, the engulfing net may have been seen as a feminine symbol. The light arms and armour of the retiarius thus established him as the lowliest, most disgraced, and most effeminate of the gladiator types. The emperor Claudius had all net-fighters who lost in combat put to death so that spectators could enjoy their expressions of agony. The retiarius's fighting style was another strike against him, as reliance on speed and evasion were viewed as undignified in comparison to the straightforward trading of blows. The retiarii lived in the worst barracks. Some members of the class trained to fight as Samnites, another gladiator type, in order to improve their status. There is evidence that those net-men wearing tunics, known as retiarii tunicati, formed a special sub-class, one even more demeaned than their loincloth-wearing colleagues. The Roman satirist Juvenal wrote that: So even the lanista's establishment is better ordered than yours, for he separates the vile from the decent, and sequesters even from their fellow-retiarii the wearers of the ill-famed tunic; in the training-school, and even in gaol, such creatures herd apart…. The passage suggests that tunic-wearing retiarii were trained for a different role, "in servitude, under strict discipline and even possibly under some restraints." Certain effeminate men mentioned by Seneca the Younger in his Quaestiones naturales were trained as gladiators and may correspond to Juvenal's tunic-wearing retiarii. Suetonius reports this anecdote: "Once a band of five retiarii in tunics, matched against the same number of secutores, yielded without a struggle; but when their death was ordered, one of them caught up his trident and slew all the victors." The reaction of Emperor Caligula showed the disgust with which he viewed the gladiators' actions: "Caligula bewailed this in a public proclamation as a most cruel murder, and expressed his horror of those who had had the heart to witness it." The fate of the retiarii is not revealed. Rather, such tunic-wearing net-men may have served as comic relief in the gladiatorial programming. Gracchus later appears in the arena:Greater still the portent when Gracchus, clad in a tunic, played the gladiator, and fled, trident in hand, across the arena—Gracchus, a man of nobler birth than the Capitolini, or the Marcelli, or the descendants of Catulus or Paulus, or the Fabii: nobler than all the spectators in the podium; not excepting him who gave the show at which that net was flung.Gracchus appears once again in Juvenal's eighth satire as the worst example of the noble Romans who have disgraced themselves by appearing in public spectacles and popular entertainments: To crown all this [scandal], what is left but the amphitheatre? And this disgrace of the city you have as well—Gracchus not fighting as equipped as a Mirmillo, with buckler or falchion (for he condemns—yes, condemns and hates such equipment). Nor does he conceal his face beneath a helmet. See! he wields a trident. When he has cast without effect the nets suspended from his poised right hand, he boldly lifts his uncovered face to the spectators, and, easily to be recognized, flees across the whole arena. We can not mistake the tunic, since the ribbon of gold reaches from his neck, and flutters in the breeze from his high-peaked cap. Therefore, the disgrace, which the Secutor had to submit to, in being forced to fight with Gracchus, was worse than any wound. stands victorious over a retiarius in Pollice Verso'', a painting by Jean-Léon Gérôme (1872). The passage is obscure, but Cerutti and Richardson argue that Gracchus begins the fight as a loincloth-wearing retiarius. When the tide turns against him, he dons a tunic and a womanish wig (spira), apparently part of the same costume, and thus enjoys a reprieve, although this attire may not itself have been considered effeminate as it was also worn by the priests of Mars of whom Gracchus was the chief priest. The change of clothing seems to turn a serious fight into a comical one and shames his opponent. It is unusual to see a gladiator depicted this way in a satire, as such fighters usually take the role of men who are "brawny, brutal, sexually successful with women of both high and low status, but especially the latter, ill-educated if not uneducated, and none too bright intellectually." The retiarius tunicatus in the satire is the opposite: "a mock gladiatorial figure, of equivocal sex, regularly dressed in costume of some sort, possibly usually as a woman, and matched against a secutor or murmillo in a mock gladiatorial exhibition." The fact that spectators could see net-fighters' faces humanised them and probably added to their popularity. At Pompeii, graffiti tells of Crescens or Cresces the retiarius, "lord of the girls" and "doctor to nighttime girls, morning girls, and all the rest." Evidence suggests that some homosexual men fancied gladiators, and the retiarius would have been particularly appealing. Roman art depicts retiarii just as often as other types. In modern times, popular culture has made the retiarius probably the most famous type of gladiator. ==Arms and armour==

(c. CE 200), a retiarius armed only with a dagger raises a finger in surrender. His trident lies at the foot of his secutor adversary, and his net is missing. He is also seen bleeding from an artery in his leg The retiarius is the most readily identifiable gladiator type, due to his signature equipment: arm guard (manica), shoulder guard (galerus), net (rete), trident (fuscina or tridens), and dagger (pugio). Archaeologists have excavated three engraved shoulder guards from the gladiator barracks at Pompeii: one is engraved with illustrations of an anchor, a crab, and a dolphin; another with cupids and the head of Hercules; and a third with weapons and the inscription RET/SECUND ("retiarius, second rank"). Although the net (rete) was this gladiator's signature weapon, few depictions of the device survive. Because it was thrown, the net was sometimes called a iaculum. that stood about as high as a human being. A skull found in a gladiator graveyard in Ephesus, Turkey, shows puncture holes consistent with a trident strike. The wounds are apart and match a bronze trident excavated from Ephesus harbour in 1989. The trident's prongs are long. A long, straight-bladed dagger (pugio) was the gladiator's final weapon. A tombstone found in Romania shows a retiarius holding a dagger with four spikes (known as a quadrens—each spike at the corner of a square guard) instead of the usual bladed dagger. This was previously thought to be an artistic invention or perhaps a ceremonial weapon but an excavated femur bone from a gladiator graveyard in Ephesus has wounds consistent with the use of such a weapon. Attached to the top of this was a long bronze or leather guard over the upper left arm and shoulder, known as a galerus. Three examples of this protective gear found at Pompeii vary between in length and about the same in width. They weigh about . In the Eastern Roman Empire in later years, some retiarii wore a chainmail manica instead of the galerus. This mail covered the arm and upper chest. All told, the retiarius's equipment weighed 7 to to 17.6 lb), making him the lightest of the standard gladiator types. Like other arena combatants, the retiarius fought barefoot. ==Fighting style==

, the retiarius Kalendio captures the secutor Astyanax in his net. Nevertheless, in the upper image, Kalendio lies wounded on the ground and raises his dagger to surrender. The retiarius was traditionally pitted against a secutor or, possibly on rare occasions, a murmillo. Despite the disparity between the nearly nude net-fighter and his heavily armoured adversary, modern re-enactments and experiments show that the retiarius was by no means outmatched. His lack of heavy equipment meant that he could use speed and evasion to his advantage. He also fought with three offensive weapons to his opponent's one. The net-fighter had to avoid close combat at all costs, keep his distance, and wait for an opening to stab with his trident or throw his net.—this gladiator was in greater danger of exhausting himself in a long fight. One of the retiarius's tactics was to jab at the secutor's shield (the heaviest part of his equipment), forcing him to block and wear himself out. In skilled hands, the net was a useful weapon. The retiarius's primary objective with it was to capture his opponent. If the toss missed, the retiarius used the drawrope tied to his wrist to bring the net back in hand. The net could ensnare the secutor's weapon to disarm him The helmet of the secutor was smooth and round to avoid snagging the net. , Austria, the scissor (left) is wearing a conical arm guard used to snag away the net of the retiarius (right). In most bouts, the retiarius probably had to resort to fighting with just his trident and dagger, He held the weapon two-handed, left nearer the prongs, so that he could parry his enemy's strikes with its shaft and strike with both ends. Wielded two-handed, the weapon could land powerful blows. The secutor's helmet was rounded and free of protrusions to avoid snaring the net or being caught in the trident's prongs, but attacks on it forced the secutor to duck or hide behind his shield. This reduced his field of vision and gave the retiarius an advantage with his speed. The retiarius held the dagger in his left hand. He might fight with the trident in one hand and the dagger in the other, but this negated the advantage of distance afforded by the longer weapon when wielded by itself. The dagger also served as a backup should the retiarius lose both net and trident. Nevertheless, the gladiators themselves were prone to boast: A graffito at Pompeii shows the retiarius Antigonus, who claims a ridiculous 2,112 victories, facing a challenger called Superbus, who has won but a single fight. In some contests, a retiarius faced two secutores at the same time. He stood on a bridge or raised platform with stairs and had a pile of fist-sized stones to lob at his adversaries and keep them at bay. The secutores tried to scale the structure and get at him. The platform (called a pons, "bridge") may have been constructed over water. Such scenarios were one of the rare situations where gladiators were not paired one on one. == See also ==