Gladiators
(from a wall-painting at Pompeii)
In 264 B.C., the very year in{v1-490} which Asoka began to reign and the First Punic War began, the first recorded gladiatorial combat took place in the forum at Rome, to celebrate the funeral of a member of the old Roman family of Brutus. This was a modest display of three couples, but soon gladiators were fighting by the hundred. The taste for these combats grew rapidly, and the wars supplied an abundance of captives. The old Roman moralists, who were so severe upon kissing and women’s ornaments and Greek philosophy, had nothing but good to say for this new development. So long as pain was inflicted, Roman morality, it would seem, was satisfied.
- Author
- The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Outline of History - Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind, by H. G. Wells published 1920
- Posted on
- Sunday 12 April 2020
- Dimensions
- 1500*595
- Tags
- Century:3rd BC, Local Custom, Romans
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