Age of the Gladiators: Savagery &
Spectacle in Ancient Rome by Rupert
Matthews
Fine Introduction To The Roman World And Oh Yeah... Gladiators Too
The great spectacles of ancient Rome have become proverbial for their
cruelty, bloodlust & glory. In the Arena, the games were savage & brutal.
Gladiators fought each other to the death, wild animals were put to fight
each other & criminals were executed by barbaric means. Military victories
were marked when generals paraded through the city, the defeated were
sacrificed to the gods & food & wine was offered free of charge on a lavish
scale. Meanwhile the citizens received free bread to prevent hunger & the
riots it could provoke. This book looks at these savage spectacles & traces
the development from entertainment to hysterical obsession until their
eventual decline & disappearance, & explains how they still have influence
on contemporary life. Ill.

Personal Review: Age of the Gladiators: Savagery & Spectacle
in Ancient Rome by Rupert Matthews
It's worth it for the reader of my review to also read the review below mine
from Michael. His review is fair and touches on some good points about
the book. However, I give this book a little more credit (maybe a lot more
since I give it 5 stars).
I, too, discovered this book in Barnes and Noble at a decent bargain bin
price around $6. I knew nothing about gladiators (having seen Spartacus
or Gladiator still doesn't mean you know anything ;)), but I did have some
general understanding of the basic Roman history. Well, when I started
reading it, I found the author's writing style and his succinct chapters very
pleasing. The chapters are short and to the point: Origin of the Games,
Spartacus, Training the Gladiators, Varieties of Killer, Naval Battles, Wild
Animal Hunts, Executions, The Colosseum... etc etc; chapters that focus
on one aspect of the Roman games and everything that correlates with it.
There is no meandering or pedantic scholarly side-steps into boring
history. The book is small, too, so its 236 pages are more like reading 100,
but that doesn't negate its impact as an educating book; think of the book
as quality over quantity.
Regarding the information on the gladiatorial games, I found this book
immensely informative. I knew nothing about the gladiator styles, the
murmillo and secutors, or the perversely creative ways of executing
prisoners (you won't believe it; throwing Christians to the lions was just the
beginning). Even more so, I had no idea just how many people AND
animals were killed; thousands and thousands and thousands over years
and years. When you read that actual animal species became extinct from
all the imports of animals and slaughters in the arena, suddenly it seems
not even the history of nature, with all the slain wildlife can even compete
with Rome's insatiable lust for dead animals. PETA would go insane and
kill themselves from the statistics. This is just one very enlightening
highlight in this book and there's plenty more to be had.
However, this book does not focus entirely on gladiators; it's not really
meant to be that thorough of a project. It's more of an introduction to
Roman entertainment in general. It does detail the Roman Triumphs
(equivalent of our military parades), the Bread Doles and even touches on
some of the debauched parties held by Caligula and Nero. By the end of
the book, the gladiators are in the background and no longer under the
spotlight. Depending on how fast you read the book, this may leave you
wanting more about the gladiators. However, if you read fast, you'll still
retain what you know about gladiators and not miss them when the last
half of the book focuses on other things.
But this is not a negative point to me. The book ends quite nicely with
chapters touching on Cleopatra, the barbarians encroaching on Rome, and
then the final fall. From the start of the book you feel like you're reading
about an amazing race of people that we will never see again. And at the

end, as Michael commented on below, you sadly read the fact that Rome
becomes a joke, destroyed by its own corruption and ineptitude.
Bottom line: If you would like a relatively quick and pleasing read on the
underrated portions of Rome's history (the War in Sicily, Gladiatorial
games, and even sex parties held by Caligula) this is a good book to start
with. If you're somewhat of an aficionado on Roman history, you might not
be all that impressed; it's an introduction to Rome, gladiators, the horse
races, and the "Savagery and Spectacle in Ancient Rome" as the subtitle
of the book suggests.
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