Imagine yourself 2,000 years ago, around the year 100 AD. Thanks to its new status as the administrative capital of the Roman province of Aquitaine, Burdigala, Roman Bordeaux, was then in full boom. The city has finally just acquired an amphitheater, the Palais Gallien, to host the Roman games, and in particular the gladiator fights. A few days before its inauguration, the city is in turmoil. The show promises to be spectacular.
A show that will be revived on Sunday the Acta company, made up of researchers specializing in the history of sport, particularly in ancient times, and who have been recreating gladiator fights for thirty years as if you were there. Invited for archeology days by Inrap (National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research), the Aquitaine Museum and Cap Sciences, the company will perform within the remains of the Palais Gallien, exceptionally open for the occasion.
“Thousands of gladiators battling across the Empire”
What were those fights like? What was the atmosphere like during these games, which were organized around ten times a year? 20 minutes asked Brice Lopez, director of Acta, and David Hourcade, head of the excavation program at the Palais Gallien, professor and associate researcher at Ausonius, the archeology research laboratory of Bordeaux Montaigne, to find out more.
To begin with, you have to get rid of several clichés that remain more or less anchored, such as the Emperor thumbs down meaning the killing, and even death fights in general. “Basically, there are two types of munera [combats de gladiateurs], summarizes Brice Lopez: in the first, which represents 90% of them, there is never any killing; the one who loses raises his finger, puts one knee on the ground, and leaves with his head down… And even in the other type of fight, where the one who loses is in principle killed, in reality death is not systematic because the gladiators , who know each other, most often agree to avoid capital punishment, staying as long as possible until the referee stops the fight and asks for a form of equality. »
“These are high-level athletes who train, like artists who are rented, insists David Hourcade. They have managers, called lanists, whose goal is to make money. If we kill their artists every time, it ends up being very expensive…”
Like wrestlers, “gladiators have stage names”
In the end, the number of combat deaths was to represent “a few percent only” assesses Brice Lopez, who recalls that the Roman Empire had some 250 amphitheatres. “With the theaters and circuses where we also organize games, and over a season that runs from March to October, every year thousands of gladiators compete throughout the Empire”.
Athletes, artists… But certainly not competitors. “We often associate gladiatorship and competition, when it is above all a spectacle, not at all a competition, since the two fighters train, live together, and are paid in advance, insists Brice Lopez. The fights look real, but the technical gestures are positioned in places precisely to avoid killing themselves, even if the blows with sharp weapons can hurt. We could compare it to wrestling, without the choreography, with the sole objective of offering the public the most beautiful staging. »
The comparison with wrestling does not stop there, since like wrestlers, gladiators have stage names, “with good guys and bad guys. “We had for example Eros, Felix the lucky one, Ursus (The bear), Tigris (The Tiger), Anthrax (The Poison)… We even had to tear off certain stars through the Empire, and we know that gladiators traveled a lot, from Nîmes to the Roman east. »
“A whole animation around the amphitheater”
The fights are also very codified. “There is always a referee who judges whether the fighters play the game, in accordance with the rules” says David Hourcade. “The fights are systematically duels, and oppose a provocator to a provocator, a retiarius to a secutor, while the Thracian, the hoplomaque and the mirmilion, fight between them” adds Brice Lopez.
Apart from a few regional peculiarities, these rules are the same throughout the Empire. Around the year 100, the inhabitants of Burdigala discover the games as they are practiced elsewhere. And you have to imagine that these games are a real event, which lasts all day. “In the morning it’s the hunts, that is to say the fights of wild animals between them, then between a hunter and animals, explains David Hourcade. At noon, it’s intermission, with games, jugglers, acrobats, musicians, and death row inmates who can be staged. And the afternoon is the great time for duels, so gladiator fights. There is also a lot of activity around the amphitheater, with itinerant vendors who pass as far as the stands, with no doubt cushion hirers, and women of little virtue who offer their charms in the high stands. »
The public also takes the opportunity to indulge in board games: board games, dice or knucklebones… Because games in Roman times were played outdoors, like the game of latroncules, a strategy game.
The Palais Gallien “in the middle high” of amphitheatres
The monument erected in Burdigala is not the largest in Aquitaine, but with its 20,000 seats, it is located “in the middle high” amphitheatres. “It’s a stadium that hosts a whole city, with people who also arrived from the countryside and neighboring towns, in particular from the Médoc where there was a secondary town, describes the archaeologist. The Palais Gallien also had an originality: it was built of both stone and wood, while those that we know in Saintes, Périgueux, Poitiers, are built entirely of masonry. There we have frames, floors, stairs, wooden bleachers. There are several hypotheses to explain this, it may be a choice of the architect who played it safe with regard to the stability of the building, or because wood costs less and is quicker to put in place. »
If we do not know exactly when the building was destroyed, David Hourcade considers it “unlikely” that it survived, as an amphitheater, beyond the 3rd or 4th century, when the games are gradually banned by Christianity, and are slowly disappearing from the landscape.
Archeology days at the Palais Gallien (126, rue Dr. Albert Barraud), Sunday 18 June. Archeology Village from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Gladiator fights at 11:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Several workshops will be offered during the day, on gladiatorship, board games in ancient times or even the way of building in Roman times.