Musicians announce their approach. The roar of the crowd and the noise of music can be heard outside the arena and even in distant neighbourhoods of the city. Dressed in magnificent rented costumes the gladiators descend from their litters for the first and perhaps the last time. Seated in state in the tribunes, magnates, dignitaries, nobles and possibly the emperor himself calculate their possible gains from gambling on the winners and investments as owners. The organiser of the event checks that the weapons are well sharpened and capable of dealing mortal blows. Trainers, arena sweepers, bookies, armed guards, clowns, and a host of others take their places as the musicians build up to a fanfare that will whip up the spectators' excitement. The gladiators who made their unspoken farewells to one another at the feast the previous night now fix their eyes on the gates. They try to read their fate from the expressionless faces of slaves who have taken on the appearance of Mercury, or Charon who ferries spirits to the underworld.

Their bodies will either be dragged lifeless through the Porta Libitinensis (Gate of Death) which symbolises the goddess of mortality, or walk free through the Porta Triumphalis. They have only two choices; to fight well or die well. The rest will be completed by a story, an inscription or a mosaic. Thrax, samnit, hoplamachus, retiarius, venator... These were some of the types of gladiator, classified according to their weapons and adversaries. Hundreds and thousands of gladiators of diverse ethnic origin at one time served the foremost entertainment sector of Roman civilisation with many different weapons and fighting styles. In fact we are still familiar with most of them from computer games, cinema films and modern schools of martial arts. With their great swords, shining armour, and decorative helmets, they continue to capture the imagination as symbols of strength and courage for people of the 21st century. Their weapons include nets, lassos, bows and arrows, short or long swords, daggers with curved blades, shields, triple-bladed spears, chains, and many more.

costumes and reconstructions. The eight wreaths carved in relief on marble for Kalitos of Milas mean that he won eight fights, and the palm in a picture of another gladiator symbolises the prize he received. Two naked figures back-to-back with ropes around their necks clearly had no chance of coming out of the arena alive, since the puny weapons in their hands would not have enabled them to withstand the attacks of wild animals for long. Gladiator fights originated in the ritual of sac-rifice which accompanied people on their journey into the next world. They were first held in Rome in the year 264 BC, when such fights were organised by the sons of Junius Brutus in memory of their dead father. The dis-play proved so popular that it soon became traditional for men of rank and wealth to hold gladiator fights on the death of their relatives. As the number of gladiators required rose, a whole sector grew up, with its organis-ers and financiers, gladiator schools and trainers. The displays became so extravagant and the sums spent so huge, that the authorities began to take restrictive measures to protect the nobility from financial ruin.

According to Theodoret the end came when a monk died in the arena attempting to prevent the fights. By then tens of thousands of people and animals had lost their lives in the dust of the arena. The greatest arena of all was the Coliseum in Rome. This was opened in the year 80 AD, and during the inauguration ceremony lasting 100 days almost nine thousand exotic animals were killed. On one occasion the Emperor Augustus (27 BC - 14 AD) had 5000 pairs of gladiators and 350 animals fight to the death, and Trajan (98-117 AD) watched the same number of people slaughter one another at the victory celebrations for the conquest of Dacia (Romania). Hundreds of people died in reality in the course of enacting characters of drama and myth, and the rhinoceroses of Nubia, the elephants of North Africa and the lions of Syria became extinct as a consequence of the insatiable appetite of the Roman arenas.

* Nermin Bayçin is an archaeologist.