In Rome’s military ethos, enemy soldiers who had surrendered or allowed their own capture and enslavement had been granted an unmerited gift of life. For example, in the aftermath of the Jewish Revolt, the gladiator schools received an influx of Jews—those rejected for training were sent straight to the arenas as noxii (lit. „hurtful ones“). According to Theodoret, the ban was in consequence of Saint Telemachus‘ martyrdom by spectators at a gladiator munus. Honorius (r. 395–423) legally ended gladiator games in 399, and again in 404, at least in the Western Roman Empire.
Next came the ludi meridiani, which were of variable content but usually involved executions of noxii, some of whom were condemned to be subjects of fatal re-enactments, based on Greek or Roman myths. Official munera of the early Imperial era seem to have followed a standard form (munus legitimum). Left-handed gladiators were advertised as a rarity; they were trained to fight right-handers, which gave them an advantage over most opponents and produced an interestingly unorthodox combination.
At Pompeii’s amphitheatre, during Nero’s reign, the trading of insults between Pompeians and Nucerian spectators during public ludi led to stone throwing and riots. He would not allow women to view even the gladiators except from the upper seats, though it had been the custom for men and women to sit together at such shows. A show of gladiators was to be exhibited before the people in the market-place, and most of the magistrates erected scaffolds round about, with an intention of letting them for advantage. Some „unfree“ gladiators bequeathed money and personal property to wives and children, possibly via a sympathetic owner or familia; some had their own slaves lanista and gave them their freedom.

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In the same century, an epigraph praises one of Ostia’s local elite as the first to „arm women“ in the history of its games. From the 60s AD female gladiators appear as rare and „exotic markers of exceptionally lavish spectacle“. Tiberius offered several retired gladiators 100,000 sesterces each to return to the arena.

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• For he, following the example of no previous general, with teachers summoned from the gladiatorial training school of C.
• The gladiators may have held informal warm-up matches, using blunted or dummy weapons—some munera, however, may have used blunted weapons throughout.
• Some mosaics show defeated gladiators kneeling in preparation for the moment of death.
• An outstanding fighter might receive a laurel crown and money from an appreciative crowd but for anyone originally condemned ad ludum the greatest reward was manumission (emancipation), symbolised by the gift of a wooden training sword or staff (rudis) from the editor.
• The bodies of noxii, and possibly some damnati, were thrown into rivers or dumped unburied; Denial of funeral rites and memorial condemned the shade (manes) of the deceased to restless wandering upon the earth as a dreadful larva or lemur.

What did she see in him to make her put up with being called „the gladiator’s moll“? These accounts seek a higher moral meaning from the munus, but Ovid’s very detailed (though satirical) instructions for seduction in the amphitheatre suggest that the spectacles could generate a potent and dangerously sexual atmosphere. Caesar’s 46 BC ludi were mere entertainment for political gain, a waste of lives and of money that would have been better doled out to his legionary veterans. The munus itself could be interpreted as pious necessity, but its increasing luxury corroded Roman virtue, and created an un-Roman appetite for profligacy and self-indulgence.

• Whether the corpse of such a gladiator could be redeemed from further ignominy by friends or familia is not known.
• There is evidence of it in funeral rites during the Punic Wars of the 3rd century BC, and thereafter it rapidly became an essential feature of politics and social life in the Roman world.
• The magistrate editor entered among a retinue who carried the arms and armour to be used; the gladiators presumably came in last.
• A condemned bankrupt or debtor accepted as novice (novicius) could negotiate with his lanista or editor for the partial or complete payment of his debt.
• From the principate onwards, private citizens could hold munera and own gladiators only with imperial permission, and the role of editor was increasingly tied to state officialdom.

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He had more available in Capua but the senate, mindful of the recent Spartacus revolt and fearful of Caesar’s burgeoning private armies and rising popularity, imposed a limit of 320 pairs as the maximum number of gladiators any citizen could keep in Rome. In 65 BC, newly elected curule aedile Julius Caesar held games that he justified as munus to his father, who had been dead for 20 years. Where traditional ludi had been dedicated to a deity, such as Jupiter, the munera could be dedicated to an aristocratic sponsor’s divine or heroic ancestor.

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The amphitheatre munus thus served the Roman community as living theatre and a court in miniature, in which judgement could be served not only on those in the arena below, but on their judges. Petitions could be submitted to the editor (as magistrate) in full view of the community. From across the stands, crowd and editor could assess each other’s character and temperament. Their seating tiers surrounded the arena below, where the community’s judgments were meted out, in full public view.
One gladiator was even granted „citizenship“ to several Greek cities of the Eastern Roman world. A rescript of Hadrian reminded magistrates that „those sentenced to the sword“ (execution) should be despatched immediately „or at least within the year“, and those sentenced to the ludi should not be discharged before five years, or three years if granted manumission. „He vows to endure to be burned, to be bound, to be beaten, and to be killed by the sword.“ The gladiator’s oath as cited by Petronius (Satyricon, 117). Regular massage and high quality medical care helped mitigate an otherwise very severe training regimen.

Under Augustus‘ rule, the demand for gladiators began to exceed supply, and matches sine missione were officially banned; an economical, pragmatic development that happened to match popular notions of „natural justice“. During the Imperial era, matches advertised as sine missione (usually understood to mean „without reprieve“ for the defeated) suggest that missio (the sparing of a defeated gladiator’s life) had become common practice. A gladiator could acknowledge defeat by raising a finger (ad digitum), in appeal to the referee to stop the combat and refer to the editor, whose decision would usually rest on the crowd’s response. Similar representations (musicians, gladiators and bestiari) are found on a tomb relief in Pompeii.

In the late Republican era, a fear of similar uprisings, the usefulness of gladiator schools in creating private armies, and the exploitation of munera for political gain led to increased restrictions on gladiator school ownership, siting and organisation. No such stigma was attached to a gladiator owner (munerarius or editor) of good family, high status and independent means; Cicero congratulated his friend Atticus on buying a splendid troop—if he rented them out, he might recover their entire cost after two performances. Between the early and later Imperial periods the risk of death for defeated gladiators rose from 1/5 to 1/4, perhaps because missio was granted less often.
Roman writing as a whole demonstrates a deep ambivalence towards the gladiatoria munera. In 167 AD, troop depletions by plague and desertion may have prompted Marcus Aurelius to draft gladiators at his own expense. Opposite him on the field, Vitellius’s army was swollen by levies of slaves, plebs and gladiators. In AD 69, the Year of the Four Emperors, Otho’s troops at Bedriacum included 2000 gladiators. As the Republic wore on, the term of military service increased from ten to the sixteen years formalised by Augustus in the Principate.