Original subtitles

Marcus Atilius, a distinguished citizen of Pompeii.

The Atilius family are known back into Roman history.

He would have borne all the weight of responsibility of that name.

A man who could watch gladiator games from the safety of the stands.

Marcus may have been attracted to this life.

The crowd screaming your name in the arena.

Everything changes.

when he throws away his comfortable life to step into the arena, choosing to

risk his life to fight as a gladiator.

Why would a free man sign up to be a gladiator and face death?

This is no different than the army.

You are bound by the terms of your contract.

You were a piece of property.

You were there to be used.

He is about to enter the arena in Pompeii for the first time.

He can already hear the roar.

There's a lot riding on this combat.

His name, but also his economic freedom.

The odds are stacked against him as he faces some of Rome's fiercest fighters.

For generations, his family may have been spectators of the game, and now

he is.

one of their own descendants, fighting in the arena.

But on the horizon, something more deadly reckons all of Pompeii.

Pompeii is quite a different place to Rome.

Rome is a gigantic city.

Pompeii is a prosperous and a nice little town. They're in Campania, near a

river, which makes trade relatively easy.

While being very influenced by Rome, Pompeii was part of a different range of

cultures to Rome itself.

It had all sorts of different peoples that lived in it over centuries.

It was a place of complex and diverse cultures and languages.

A pretty nice place to be, but certainly nothing compared to the scale or the

grandeur of Rome.

Rome used to be a small city -state, but over the centuries it has expanded its

reach across Italy, asserting control over its neighbours.

In 89 BC, Pompeii was conquered.

and it became a Roman colony.

There are more Romans within the city, and the Romans are now in serious power

within that city.

The Romans had established themselves in Pompeii. They set about building

Italy's first stone amphitheater for gladiatorial combat.

Up to this point, the gladiatorial combat was held in temporary wooden

structures that were put up for the occasion and taken down again.

The Romans want to show that they are in control and that they're kind of

stamping a Roman identity on the place.

And an amphitheater was a really powerful way of doing that.

It shows the level of resources, of central control.

But the most important thing is it was a first.

Here was a large building that could accommodate every citizen in the city

really said, this is a Roman town.

Following the declaration of Pompeii as a Roman colony, retired Roman veterans

and their families are moved.

into Pompeii.

And thereby they displaced the previous elite and produced a new hierarchy.

It was probably at this time that the Genzitilia clan came to Pompeii.

And Larchus Atilius is part of this family.

Marcus Attilius is a free man, and we can tell that by his name.

Marcus Attilius had a very old name.

The Gens Attilia was ancient.

The Romans thought names had a religious, sacred quality to them. He

borne all the history, all the weight of responsibility of that name. For

generations, his family may have been spectators of the game.

As a free man of the Roman Empire, Marcus Attilius... likely enjoys the

privileges of status, comfort and wealth, and seats to Pompeii's gladiator

games, where society's lowest fight for the entertainment of the people.

Most gladiators are enslaved.

They have no choice.

They are legally treated as objects, commodities. Their only value is related

what they would have as an enslaved individual.

Status was everything for the Romans.

Gladiators, like sex workers and actors, were deemed to be of low status in

Roman society.

Marcus Attilius comes from privilege far removed from the lower classes.

But the arena captivates him, and he makes a decision that will change his

forever.

Marcus Attilius signed up to be a gladiator.

Marcus was an auctorati, which means that he was someone who volunteered to

gladiator. It means that he would have been handing away a lot of the

protections that he would have had as a free Roman citizen.

Citizenship means the right to vote, the right to trade with other Roman

citizens, the right to be tried under Roman law, to appeal.

To be a free man in Rome is to enjoy all the perks of being Roman. To sign it

away to become a gladiator had a great impact on your life.

A free person was to register that he was signing over and becoming a

So there's an official level of bureaucracy that has to be satisfied for

become a gladiator. And you are making a contract.

You're going to be trained, fed and clothed, so there's an investment in

And you have to pay back the investment by, of course, fighting.

Generally speaking, you were a piece of property. You were there to be used.

Technically, they become a slave when they become a gladiator, but they can

their freedom in the arena. They can buy their freedom if they earn enough. They

can serve out their contract.

Gladiator schools were always on the lookout for talent. They wanted powerful

physiques with strong spirits who might thrive in the tense atmosphere of the

arena.

And so there were people who were probably in pretty desperate situations

would become gladiators because of the financial rewards that were possible.

This was a way of buying out your debtors.

It's unexpected, perhaps.

that you would think about enslaved people making their own money. But in

ancient Roman world, they could.

For each fight, we know that gladiators would have received not just a palm

branch for victory, but also a financial reward as well. So a free gladiator

received a third of the money, and an enslaved gladiator received a quarter of

the money.

We can imagine that Marcus Apilius, a free man, might have had debt to pay

There were also some who probably did it for the thrill, for the chance of fame

and glory.

We live in a time where celebrity is everything, and I don't think the rooms

that different. The opportunity to be...

Loved by people, to be adored by people, but also financially to change your

status made a big difference.

Marcus may have been attracted to this life because it seemed like it was a

glamorous existence, perhaps. The crowd screaming your name in the arena and

being able to become famous on a level that I think would have been difficult

for a lot of other people in ancient Rome.

Gladiators were sex symbols. They're attractive, muscular young men.

to get involved in the technicalities of how you engage physically with your

body with other men. That's so masculine from a Roman perspective.

Ultimately, they were people who faced death.

So there becomes a great mythology that surrounds gladiators. The fact that

their blood could heal, their sweat was a potent aphrodisiac.

Not just the prowess in the arena seems to set parts aflutter, but also...

of gladiators, and their wound seems to have been a turn -on, as it were.

There is an elite Roman woman that we hear of who's willing to throw away

everything that she had and sail off into the sunset with her gladiator. He's

been wounded too many times. Having to work as a gladiator has really taken its

toll on him physically, and so she can't see it because he's a gladiator and

just so sexually appealing.

The second or third born son might see this as a way to make themselves

prominent, to show their virility, if you will.

Romans like to think of themselves as martial, military, disciplined men. And

being a gladiator, he would train in those values. He would personify those

values.

There is some respect for that, even when the idea is that socially it's

unacceptable to hang out with these people.

Marcus Vitellius must have been pretty young to be a recruit, probably in his

early 20s.

He may even have a family of his own to support, but now he's actually putting

himself out there in considerable danger.

For somebody like Marcus Vitellius, stepping up to the front door of the

gladiatorial school willingly and saying, I would like to fight as a

You'd have to be nervous.

A free -born person who was entering a gladiatorial troop was making a real

commitment, a real decision.

Marcus entered an environment which some have described like a prison. There are

all sorts of codes of behavior, where there are all sorts of explicit and

implicit hierarchies.

Marcus would have had to work his way up that gladiatorial hierarchy.

We may never know for certain.

Why a free man like Marcus Attilius has surrendered himself to become a

gladiator. Perhaps deaths have driven his choice.

But now one thing is clear.

His option is either to fight and survive or to die.

Born a free man, Marcus

Attilius. has signed his life away to become a gladiator.

You can imagine that if you're going to have a lot of shows on, you need a

steady supply of gladiators.

Pompeii was a big enough amphitheater that it needed its own ludus, its own

training school.

A wealthy and powerful figure called Alanista runs the ludus and owns the

gladiators.

Alanista could be anyone from former fighters, to ambitious businessmen.

Outside Rome, we hear of many people all over the place, including at least one

woman who owned her own gladiatorial troop.

Enslaved gladiators were kept inside the ludus. They were courted there.

But for a free person like Marcus Atilius serving as a gladiator, it's not

all clear whether they would have been barracked with the enslaved gladiators

whether they would have lived at home.

In Pompeii, the Ludus had a very large training field called a palaestra, and

many, many posts, these palae, singular palas, where gladiators trained at.

And your place in the gladiatorial hierarchy depended upon which post you

at. The most senior, the highest status gladiator was referred to as the primus

palas.

You have to look at the leaders and the leaders of the club and the club

manager. You've got your premier players, you've got your champions, the

who you know not only have a good draw and a good following, but on a good

performance. You've got your middle -of -the -way guys, and then you've got the

people who really aren't very good. Your standard players kind of really just

make up the numbers more than anything else.

He would initially be a tiro, a recruit or a rookie, and then as his number of

victories in the arena climbed, his status would climb as well, and the

of money that he would receive for victories or even for fights would

Marcus would have been trained in general strength, which was sometimes

hordeare.

barley men because they ate so much food and that was all about building up

muscle he will also have acquired technical skill you know how

to use the weapon that he was going to be an expert in you're using wooden

weapons because you want to make sure as a linista that your gladios aren't

damaging themselves before the fight and thus need to be replaced And then after

that, you would have had deal dulled weapons so that you got the correct

techniques, but also you got used to the actual weapon you're going to be using

in the arena.

He would become a specific type of gladiator, probably physique as much as

anything that determined what type of gladiator you became.

You underwent a medical.

And this comes from a Greek tradition of choosing athletes by their physiques.

So according to the physique that you had, were you tall and slender,

you'd make a good rotiarius.

Were you bulky and mean and physically imposing, you'd make a good murmillo or

maybe a secutor.

So Marcus is a murmillo. They're named after this type of fish that went on the

helmet that they wore.

We have to remember that Marcus was born a free man and had a different

upbringing and different nutrition, I should guess, than someone who had long

spent their life in slavery.

This meant that he had to learn to fight in a very particular style.

Each style of fighter had their own trainer.

Mamillo are fighting with shield and sword.

They're quite heavily protected.

Marcus Attilius would have had an arm protector on his right arm, his sword

And on the left leg, he would have had a leg protector with a greave.

And so as he stepped forward under his shield, that leg would have been

protected.

And all of the elements of his costume, as it were, would set him up visually.

to be seen specifically by the crowd in a particular way.

Marcus Aetilius would have been trained in the art of performance as well.

The gladiatorial combat was a show. It was designed to entertain and impress.

You would want to draw it out to make it as thrilling as possible.

The custom -built barracks that were erected suggest that they had a training

arena with seating.

So it's possible that the public were invited in and could attend some of

practice sessions. That must be part of the training.

You have to know how to manage if the spectators are heckling or being rude.

concentration has to be sustained.

After months of grueling training, Marcus Atilius... is ready for his first

professional fight in front of a crowd.

Marcus had embarked on his gladiatorial journey, and as it happened, there were

going to be major games held in the year 59 at Pompeii, and inviting also the

neighboring town of Lucaria to witness.

Ordinarily, the safest type of spectacle to attend in the Roman world was a

gladiatorial combat.

There were a lot of safeguards to prevent spectators from being hurt.

People were emotionally vested in the games. They were very passionate about

them in antiquity.

Unfortunately, as we know, even through modern times, those passions can

transcribe themselves sadly into violence.

Marcus Atilius continues his training, but an ominous energy grips the city.

Pompeii is about to experience chaos on an overwhelming scale.

We can imagine it was a hot day in Pompeii.

The sails were out. This was a big awning that spread out over the

which would only be used for the hottest days and also the most expensive and

most lavish games.

This, no doubt, also helped heat up the atmosphere within the amphitheater.

At the games held in Pompeii in 59 CE,

There's a big crowd, but they're not only Pompeians, they also come from the

nearby town of New Syria.

And that has been a long -time rival of Pompeii, really going right back to the

start of the 1st century BCE.

They start sort of insulting each other, just throwing taunts.

The insults turn to stone -throwing, and then knives are drawn.

Pretty soon, it degenerated into open violence.

For a Pompeian like Marcus, even someone who had trained as a gladiator, the

amount of bloodshed that day would have been remarkable.

And the reason, because it was not just in the arena and indiscriminate

slaughter, but it was outside the walls of the amphitheater itself.

Far beyond the sand of the central stage.

spread out into the city, even into the gladiatorial barracks next door.

It's clearly based on loyalty to your local town. It's Pompeii versus New

It's comparable to modern football hooliganism in a way.

Fanaticism taken to extremes that go way beyond the sporting level.

Many Nutherians die.

The Pompeians win.

The games are abandoned and the gladiators are sent back to their

The Nutherians were on the losing side and they are the ones that take it to

Roman Senate.

This is not normal business for Pompeii. They would usually have been taking

care of their own business as much as possible.

The authorities in Rome don't like disorder.

They don't like this riot that's happened.

It ended up getting the Emperor Nero involved.

It was viewed as absolutely extraordinary.

It was breaking the fourth wall, so to speak, in a way that shocked the entire

Roman world.

And in response, they banned the games in Pompeii for ten years.

This is a big thing.

I mean, this is the highlight of the entertainment calendar.

It would be like banning a football team for a city.

The reason why the gladiatorial games were banned as a punishment for this is

because they were sort of implicated in making this happen, that if things are

going to get out of control, it will be in this sort of environment.

The Romans took this incredibly seriously. That is not something that

impose lightly, taking away people's gains.

With the games banned, the future of the gladiators and the looters is

uncertain.

They can neither fight nor earn their share of the coveted prize money.

Yet the insatiable thirst for gladiatorial combat remains.

Banning the games is a big thing, but the ban is not enforced.

The appetite for gladiatorial combat was too great for the press.

Finally, the novice is called upon to fight, and he is facing a legendary

gladiator, the veteran, Hilarus.

Not only was Hilarus the great victor, but he was a member of a very well

-established gladiatorial troop.

the troop for Nero. He was a Neroniana.

Pitted against such a famous gladiator, Marcus Aetilius' first fight may also

be his last.

The games were the high point in the rhythm of a city.

And so there must have been a lot of excitement generated on days when they

going to occur.

The size of the amphitheatre is approximately 20 ,000 people. This was a

big event.

This is probably bigger than the population of Pompeii itself.

So it shows how people are coming in from the countryside and from nearby

The crowd is at capacity.

One of the most famous gladiators of the period, Hilarius, is on board to

fight.

And if you've got a headline act, like somebody who is the favourite of the

emperor, that's a spectacle you definitely want to see.

There's a lot riding on this particular combat for Marcus.

His name, but also his economic freedom.

So he's waiting in anticipation, backstage, for the very first combat of

career.

So the games open with a procession where the giver of the games would lead

to the stage all of the performers that the crowd were going to enjoy seeing.

At some place like Pompeii, a display of 30 pairs of gladiators would have been

viewed as large.

The gladiators would warm up dancing or shaking their weapons. Perhaps they

offer challenges to their coming opponents.

You'd also have little displays where they would test the sharpness of the

weapons that the gladiators were going to fight with.

And just accentuate the danger that the gladiator was facing. How brave are

these men? They're going to use something that can cut a cantaloupe in

fight each other with it.

Having demonstrated the deadly edges of their weapons, the fighters head

backstage so the day's spectacle can truly begin.

There was a rhythm to the day, obviously, to manipulate the emotions of

crowd. And it usually started off with beast fights.

Countless beasts are killed for the crowd's amusement.

The arena is a place of brutality and bloodshed. And later, when the

enter the arena, survival will not be guaranteed.

The best estimate is that there was about a 1 in 10 chance that a gladiator

would actually die as a result of a gladiatorial fight.

Gladiators were too expensive to squander.

There was too much that went into their training, and there was also too much

potential revenue that could be generated from their prowess.

It could never get too out of control because the entire economy of the

would collapse.

There would have been referees, the referees called a summa ruta, so there

rules that govern these combat as well.

There are standards of behavior between gladiators. They can submit ad digitum

as soon as they're wounded, or if they think that they need to surrender, they

hold up a finger, they show that to the referee, and the referee then stops the

fight. But we often see depictions where they're actually turning their back on

their opponent to hold up a finger to signal to the referee. That means they

trust their opponent enough that their opponent's not going to take that

opportunity to actually kill them.

On the other hand, none of this would have the appeal unless there was the

actual chance of death.

Marcus would certainly have been aware that the combat could be fatal.

Climax, as it were, came after lunch when the professional gladiators

And this would have been really the culmination of the entire day's

what everyone was looking forward to.

Marcus is still waiting in the wings for his time to appear in the arena.

Marcus Atilius has likely spent the day in suspense, counting down the hours

till his own brutal debut against experienced opponent.

You can imagine that he's putting on his armor. He's trying to warm himself up,

really trying to get in focus.

Probably praying to the god.

Marcus Aetilius is probably not far away from his opponent. There's not that

much room backstage.

Hillers is part of the emperor's own team.

This is a very prestigious school. It's a prestigious team.

They will have travelled throughout the empire.

They will have done fights.

He's obviously got a great career. He's a veteran.

He's already won 12 out of his 13 fights.

They're probably trying to out -spike each other a bit, or out -stare each

other. And they're trying to sort of really cut that out and focus on the job

hand.

It has been a long journey, but Marcus Attilius, the free man turned gladiator,

is finally ready for his first battle in the arena.

His opponent, one of the mightiest ever seen in Pompeii.

In the tunnels it's quite dark, and then you walk into the sun and it's almost

blinding for a minute.

Marcus is a tyro. He's a newcomer. Even though he's strong and able, this is his

first fight, and he's facing a well -known veteran, Hilarus.

He is full of anticipation and full of anxiety that this might be the day of

death.

One thing that the Romans...

delighted in was matching differently armed gladiators against each other.

Marcus is a Myrmilo and Hilarus is a Thryx.

A Myrmilo is very heavily armed, lower moving, but if he hit you, then you

stayed hit.

The Thryx has a smaller shield and also a curved or bent sword which would

enable him to get over the shoulder of his opponent.

Hilarus would have been a bit nimbler than Marcus, but equally probably less

likely to knock you out with one killer blow.

With each strike at Marcus will the crowd roars.

Marcus Attilius as a mamillo with his big, big shield was far more rooted to

spot. If it's hot outside, you have all of this heavy armor on, you would wear

down very quickly in the heat of the sun in the stress of combat.

Marcus Attilius must have been much more still and try and turn to track where

his opponent was going around the arena.

The fight itself was certainly not some sort of brawl. It's very skillful and

it's often described as being quite elegant.

The orchestration of a fight must have been partly choreographed but partly

depends very much on responses in the moment.

The fighters would be using a series of strokes to try and gain an advantage

over the competitor.

really wear the opponent down, find a way through their defences.

It's not all about delivering one killer blow.

Marcus's helmet was really big and heavy and it's really hard to see through the

visor of both helmets.

He had to maintain presumably laser focus on his opponent.

To even stand a chance against a veteran like Hilaris, Marcus would have had to

have been exceptionally strong and able.

Marcus delivers a crushing blow to Hilaris.

Hilaris raises an index finger and requests a reprieve.

Marcus is victorious.

The fight is a huge upset.

The champion, Hilaris, has lost his title to the tier of the novice, the

upcomer, the new start, Marcus Attili.

The crowd must have been... thrilled to see a first -time fighter like Marcus

bring down Ilaris and vanquish him.

This is a stunning upset.

Newcomers almost never defeat veterans of this caliber.

Marcus has had a very crucial point in his career.

He's just come off a big win.

If he's in the arena to pay off his debts, we can say that a win such as

one would have put a huge dent in his debt.

Marcus will have had a signing -on fee for becoming a gladiator, and he will

have had the share of the profits for having won.

He has to capitalize on that fever that he's created, that excitement.

The problem is, where does he go afterwards?

Because having beat the champion, the question is, who's he going to fight

Marcus Atilius must rest and heal.

His victory over Hilarus has won him considerable money.

But he is still contracted to the Ludus' owner.

His life as a gladiator continues.

And soon he will return to the arena to face another formidable foe.

Marcus goes on to fight Lucius Recius Felix.

A gladiator with a very distinguished record.

He has 12 fights to his credit, 12 victories.

He's a serious fighter.

He's from one of the big stables.

When Marcus Attilius faces Lucius Raicus Felix, his challenge is to win

the fight.

Winning an incontrovertible victory is what gladiatorial combat was about.

To the crowd's astonishment, Marcus wins again.

The fight ends with Lucius kneeling on the sand floor of the amphitheater,

taking his helmet off, laying it next to him, and begging Marcus for missio.

Marcus Aetilius, he has made it.

Big time as a gladiator.

After just two fights, Marcus has secured his fame.

Not only has he pulled off some remarkable victories against some

foes, but this has meant that he has won his freedom and has been able to pay

off his debt.

He is now free from the personal enslavement that he took upon himself in

rocking up to the looters and saying, I want to fight.

As a gladiator.

In this case, his career choice did indeed pay off.

One can imagine, after retiring from the gladiatorial arena, the type of life he

would have held in Pompeii. He could have rejoined the Ludith as a veteran

gladiator, fought for even more money, almost like a free agent.

He could join the ludic not as a gladiator, but maybe as a trainer.

He might even turn into a gladiatorial lenista, a businessman involved in the

show, or he could leave the profession entirely and do something else.

Lockett has attained fame and celebrity, yet there is something dark on the

horizon in Pompeii.

Change is afoot.

Pompeii had suffered quite a serious earthquake 17 years previously in 62 AD,

they're not completely unused to the idea that there can be natural problems

living in that area.

But the city had built up quite a lot again since then.

Pompeii exists in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius, which is an active volcano.

Whether they knew it was active or not is another question because it hadn't

erupted for quite some time.

The eruption begins on the 24th of August, 79 CE.

People probably would have been going around their day -to -day business and

then they would have seen the initial cloud building up coming out of

That cloud became bigger and bigger and more threatening.

Nobody knew what an eruption would actually look like.

I think to begin with, They would have known how to react.

I mean, they probably thought that this is some sign from the gods.

I think many of them will have seen it as a bad omen about what was going to

happen.

And then the mountain erupted.

It goes kilometres up into the sky.

Hummers and other sorts of volcanic debris would have started to rain down

the people.

The Pompeian.

Look at the sky.

The god Vulcan is angry.

Ash and fire rain down. It is apocalyptic.

For someone like Marcus, who had braved the terrors of the gladiatorial

amphitheater, well, this was an exponentially more terrifying sight.

People were trying to escape, charging through the city, carrying what little

they could with them.

They tried to flee.

It was a disaster such as the ancient world had not seen in millennia.

Marcus Attilius could have actually died in the eruption if he was still in

Pompeii and didn't manage to escape.

Vesuvius destroyed Pompeii.

A thick layer of volcanic rock and ash buried the city, preserving a world

frozen in time and offering rare insight into Roman life and the world of the

gladiator.

Because of the way that Pompeii was preserved, we have access.

to so much more about this society than we do have for many locations in the

Roman world.

It is because of the eruption that we know about Marcus Atilius. The record of

him is two graffiti on the walls of Pompeii.

And those graffiti would have long, long, long since disappeared if the city

not been destroyed in that frozen moment of the eruption.

Pompeii gives us a really unique insight into Roman life. We have big buildings

like the Colosseum that survive in Rome, but we don't have a snapshot into the

more intimate details of daily life that you get from Pompeii.

We get a completely different view of ordinary people with all their graffiti,

for example, that survive.

We have numbers of graffiti that are about gladiatorial fights, about fights

that are going to happen. They record the results of what happened.

We have some graffiti that give little pictures of gladiators that are held up

as heartthrobs or seen as particularly successful.

We know about the riots in Pompeii because we have an incredible artwork

exists till today, which is a fresco of the riots.

To have evidence that comes from people inscribing on the walls is quite

something. What is striking is that some bones of a woman have been found in the

Ludus of Pompeii. It is possible that she was the owner of the Ludus. She was

found with quite expensive jewellery, which suggests a higher status or at

higher wealth in the community.

we can see where the gladiators would have been living in Pompeii and where

would have been training.

We've also found gladiatorial armour in the ruins at Pompeii.

And we do have Marcus appearing in this graffiti. That's how we know about the

fight that he took part in, because of the drawing of him and also the

annotations that people made to the graffiti about what happened exactly in

fight.

Marcus Attilius achieved greatness fighting in the amphitheater.

The eruption of Vesuvius may have killed him, but it also preserved his legacy.

It is how we know of the free man who became a gladiator and a

hero to the people of Pompeii.