Gladiatorial games: Jewish watchers, not players
A scholarly paper just published by the Israel Antiquities Authority asserts that Jews defied rabbinic admonitions and attended Roman gladiatorial games as spectators, but may not have participated in the action.
The article’s author is Haggai Olshanetsky, a University of Basel postdoctoral fellow in ancient civilizations who has also studied Jewish participation in the ancient Roman army.
“Although the possibility that Jewish gladiators were active in the first [to] fourth centuries CE cannot be ruled out entirely, the evidence remains inconclusive,” Olshanetsky wrote in the paper titled “Were There Jewish Gladiators? A Re-Evaluation of the Available Archaeological and Textual Evidence.”
The rabbis opposed Jews watching gladiatorial games, but there is historical evidence that Jews attended anyway, Olshanetsky reports. An inscription dated between the second and third centuries CE identifies a particular seating area in the theater of Miletus, in western Anatolia (present-day Turkey), as “place of Jews who (are also known as) the ones who fear God.” Another translation renders it “both of the Jews and of the Godfearers,” but either way, Jews are singled out.
Three types of people bore weapons in ancient arenas, Olshanetsky told JNS, but although all three are often labeled “gladiators,” two are incorrectly identified as such.
“Gladiators, at least from the first century CE, were professional warriors who exclusively fought against other people. These were usually other gladiators, but were sometimes condemned men, and the gladiators acted as their executioners,” said Olshanetsky.
In the article, he compares these exalted fighters to football players today. “They were considered attractive by the wealthy women of Rome, and some were paid considerable sums of money to entertain these ladies,” he wrote.
Unlike their portrayal in movies, when gladiators fought one another, they used weapons and referees policed the matches, so “they rarely resulted in death,” Olshanetsky told JNS. Gladiators were valuable, so their owners would have done everything to keep them alive, and fighting.
From the first century CE and on, a second kind of fighter replaced gladiators, in matches against beasts. These were called “venatores,” according to Olshanetsky. “Unlike gladiators, they usually wore no protective gear, and only fought animals,” he said. “Although they were professionals, they were second tier after gladiators.”
The third type were “condemned men sent to die in the arena, who usually received no training and equipment but fought to the death,” he added.
Jews sought to assimilate, “and they always managed to find a way to take part in almost all aspects of Roman life,” said Olshanetsky. He said Jewish pirates of the 17th and 18th century “are a similar indicator for a different period.”
One figure who might have bridged the piracy and gladiatorial worlds was Reish Lakish, whom the Talmud cites often. In tractate Gittin, on page 47a, the Talmud states that Reish Lakish sold himself luda-ay, which is often translated as meaning “to become a gladiator.” (Elsewhere, he is also referred to as being a former robber.)
Olshanetsky addresses the Talmudic text at length in his paper and concludes that there is a good chance that Reish Lakish was not a gladiator.
“It seems that the idea that he was a gladiator was raised and circulated mainly in certain academic circles,” he told JNS. “It is most probable that he was a criminal, and the misunderstanding was with one of the terms used to describe his ‘associates,’ with some claiming the term meant gladiators.”
Olshanetsky’s main surprise, when he began conducting this research as a doctoral candidate in classical studies at Bar-Ilan University, was the difference between ancient Jews and modern-day ones, “compared to what is taught at school and kindergarten in Israel, as well as in certain academic circles in Israel and abroad.”
“There are too many anachronistic views and assumptions that are based on how Jews are today,” he told JNS. “When looking at Jews in the arena, it is clear as to how limited the rabbis’ power and influence was throughout the Roman period, even in Judea.”
Even if Jews ignored rabbinic bans on attending the games, Olshanetsky thinks that if there were Jewish gladiators, they would have preferred fighting animals to fellow humans.
“I presume that the Jews really wanted to take part in the games, and that they compromised,” Olshanetsky told JNS. “For them, fighting animals was the lesser evil.”
While Olshanetsky’s article addresses many pieces of evidence that have been cited as proof of Jewish gladiators, he finds them all wanting to some degree.
Although there is no clear evidence for Jewish gladiators, he said, “and only slightly better evidence for Jewish venatores, there is always the chance that there were, in fact, many Jewish gladiators. But the only reconstruction I can offer is according to what we actually have, which is meager.”
The evidence doesn’t point to plentiful Jewish gladiators or venatores.
“On the other hand, I can say that there were plenty of Jews in the audience, who enjoyed cheering those fighting in the arena,” Olshanetsky said. “For this, we have plenty of evidence.”
