Diverse Auteurs , NetBible, , [2007], , The Last of the Gladiators Telemachus was a monk who lived in the 4th century. He felt God saying to him, "Go to Rome." He was in a cloistered monastery. He put his possessions in a sack and set out for Rome. When he arrived in the city, people were thronging in the streets. He asked why all the excitement and was told that this was the day that the gladiators would be fighting and killing each other in the coliseum, the day of the games, the circus. He thought to himself, "Four centuries after Christ and they are still killing each other, for enjoyment?" He ran to the coliseum and heard the gladiators saying, "Hail to Caesar, we die for Caesar" and he thought, "this isn't right." He jumped over the railing and went out into the middle of the field, got between two gladiators, held up his hands and said "In the name of Christ, forbear."
The crowd protested and began to shout, "Run him through, Run him through." A gladiator came over and hit him in the stomach with the back of his sword. It sent him sprawling in the sand. He got up and ran back and again said, "In the name of Christ, forbear." The crowd continued to chant, "Run him through." One gladiator came over and plunged his sword through the little monk's stomach and he fell into the sand, which began to turn crimson with his blood. One last time he gasped out, "In the name of Christ forbear."
A hush came over the 80,000 people in the coliseum. Soon a man stood and left, then another and more, and within minutes all 80,000 had emptied out of the arena. It was the last-known gladiatorial contest in the history of Rome.
Source unknown
Wim van Broekhoven, "Pollice verso" via Mainzer Beobachter (30 april 2020)
Stephen Brunet, "Female and Dwarf Gladiators" in Mouseion XLVIII – Series III, Vol. 4, 2004, p. 145-170
Anthony Corbeill, "Thumbs in Ancient Rome: Pollex as Index" in Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 42 (1997), p. 1-21
Svenja Fabian-Grosser, "De eerste gladiatoren" via Mainzer Beobachter (29 juli 2022)
Svenja Fabian-Grosser, "De aanpassing van de munus" via Mainzer Beobachter (30 juli 2022)
Svenja Fabian-Grosser, "Morituri te salutant" via Mainzer Beobachter (30 juli 2022)
Svenja Fabian-Grosser, "Strijd tot de dood" via Mainzer Beobachter (31 juli 2022)
Svenja Fabian-Grosser, "Neergedraaide duim" via Mainzer Beobachter (1 augustus 2022)
Svenja Fabian-Grosser, "Gladiatrices en dwergen" via Mainzer Beobachter (1 augustus 2022)
Augustine , Confessions, 6.8.13, He, not forsaking that secular course which his parents had charmed
him to pursue, had gone before me to Rome, to study law, and there
he was carried away incredibly with an incredible eagerness after
the shows of gladiators. For being utterly averse to and detesting
spectacles, he was one day by chance met by divers of his acquaintance
and fellow-students coming from dinner, and they with a familiar violence
haled him, vehemently refusing and resisting, into the Amphitheatre,
during these cruel and deadly shows, he thus protesting: "Though you
hale my body to that place, and there set me, can you force me also
to turn my mind or my eyes to those shows? I shall then be absent
while present, and so shall overcome both you and them." They, hearing
this, led him on nevertheless, desirous perchance to try that very
thing, whether he could do as he said. When they were come thither,
and had taken their places as they could, the whole place kindled
with that savage pastime. But he, closing the passage of his eyes,
forbade his mind to range abroad after such evil; and would he had
stopped his ears also! For in the fight, when one fell, a mighty cry
of the whole people striking him strongly, overcome by curiosity,
and as if prepared to despise and be superior to it whatsoever it
were, even when seen, he opened his eyes, and was stricken with a
deeper wound in his soul than the other, whom he desired to behold,
was in his body; and he fell more miserably than he upon whose fall
that mighty noise was raised, which entered through his ears, and
unlocked his eyes, to make way for the striking and beating down of
a soul, bold rather than resolute, and the weaker, in that it had
presumed on itself, which ought to have relied on Thee. For so soon
as he saw that blood, he therewith drunk down savageness; nor turned
away, but fixed his eye, drinking in frenzy, unawares, and was delighted
with that guilty fight, and intoxicated with the bloody pastime. Nor
was he now the man he came, but one of the throng he came unto, yea,
a true associate of theirs that brought him thither. Why say more?
He beheld, shouted, kindled, carried thence with him the madness which
should goad him to return not only with them who first drew him thither,
but also before them, yea and to draw in others. Yet thence didst
Thou with a most strong and most merciful hand pluck him, and taughtest
him to have confidence not in himself, but in Thee. But this was after.