[Illustration: FIGURE 154. HELMETS OF GLADIATORS]
§348. As the number of the exhibitions increased it became harder and harder to supply the gladiators demanded, for it must be remembered that there were exhibitions in many of the cities of the provinces and in the smaller towns of Italy as well as at Rome. The lines were, therefore, constantly crossed, and thousands died miserably in the arena whom only the most glaring injustice could number in the classes mentioned above. In Cicero's time provincial governors were accused of sending unoffending provincials to be slaughtered in Rome and of forcing Roman citizens, obscure and friendless, of course, to fight in the provincial shows. Later it was common enough to send to the arena men sentenced for the pettiest offenses, when the supply of real criminals had run short, and to trump up charges against the innocent for the same purpose. The persecution of the Christians was largely due to the demand for more gladiators. So, too, the distinction was lost between actual prisoners of war and peaceful non-combatants; after the fall of Jerusalem all Jews over seventeen years of age were condemned by Titus to work in the mines or fight in the arena. Wars on the border were waged for the sole purpose of taking men who could be made gladiators, and in default of men, children and women were sometimes made to fight.
[Illustration: FIGURE 155. SCHOOL FOR GLADIATORS AT POMPEII]
§349. Schools for Gladiators.--The training-schools for gladiators (_ludi gladiatorii_) have been mentioned already. Cicero during his consulship speaks of one at Rome, and there were others before his time at Capua and Praeneste. Some of these were set up by wealthy nobles for the purpose of preparing their own gladiators for _munera_ which they expected to give; others were the property of regular dealers in gladiators, who kept and trained them for hire. The business was almost as disreputable as that of the _lenones_ (§139). During the Empire training-schools were maintained at public expense and under the direction of state officials not only in Rome, where there were four at least of these schools, but also in other cities of Italy where exhibitions were frequently given, and even in the provinces. The purpose of all the schools, public and private alike, was the same, to make the men trained in them as effective fighting machines as possible. The gladiators were in charge of competent training masters (_lanistae_); they were subject to the strictest discipline; their diet was carefully looked after, a special food (_sagina gladiatoria_) being provided for them; regular gymnastic exercises were prescribed, and lessons given in the use of the various weapons by recognized experts (_magistri_, _doctores_). In their fencing bouts wooden swords (_rudes_) were used. The gladiators associated in a school were collectively called a _familia_.