Gladiator games started out small, as part of the funeral rituals for the patricians early in the Roman Republic. It’s believed the Etruscans were the originators of the events that the Romans later adopted. For the early Romans the fights, which weren’t always to the death back then, were supposed to be a sort of morality play with the gladitors demonstrating strength, fortitude and fearlessness in the face of death and pain. Somewhere during their thousand-year history the Romans really went off the rails.
“Somewhere during their thousand-year history the Romans really went off the rails”
Really, really off the rails. Now you have the wimpy Italians. Too lazy to work (even at making pizzas) and too lazy to have sex (see declining population).
“THESE GAMES ARE BEING DEGRADED BY PROFESSIONAL TRICKS TO STAY ALIVE!”-Livia in “I CLAUDIUS” addressing the gladiators.
I read about this in Tacitus years ago.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fidenae
Stadium disaster
In 27 AD, an apparently cheaply built wooden amphitheatre, constructed by an entrepreneur named Atilius, collapsed in Fidenae resulting in by far the worst stadium disaster in history with as many as 20,000 dead and wounded out of the total audience of 50,000.[5][6] The emperor Tiberius had banned gladiatoral games, it seems, and when the prohibition was lifted, the public had flocked to the earliest events, and so a large crowd was present when the stadium collapsed. The Roman Senate responded to the tragedy by banning people with a fortune of less than 400,000 sesterces from hosting gladiator shows, and also requiring that all amphitheatres to be built in the future be erected on a sound foundation, inspected and certified for soundness. The government also “banished” Atilius.[7]