Gladiator Burial Clubs

Reading my classmate Lauren’s post on the discovery of Richard the III (http://beyondgraves.blogspot.ca/2013/02/can-you-judge-life-by-its-skeleton.html), and pondering some of the luck involved with our ability to ID him, got me thinking about issues of archaeological inquiry/discovery and status. When we get right down to it both archaeologists and the general public have an affinity for high status figures and discoveries (in general!). While doing research for a case-study on deviant burials I was plagued by high-status discoveries. My search results for the site of Sutton Hoo went something like: ‘Sutton Hoo ship burial, the treasures of Sutton Hoo, Sutton Hoo a princely burial ground’, and on and on. To be fair I understand that it is much more difficult to make interpretations from the archaeological record the less information you have. High-status individuals, like Richard the III, appear more commonly in our written history and very ‘rich’ burials such as the Sutton Hoo ship burial give archaeologist a wealth of information to work with. An unmarked mass grave, where many lower-class individuals have ended up, offers archaeologists fairly limited interpretive potential.

I would suggest an interesting area for looking at mortuary archaeology of the lower-class is Roman-period gladiators. While some gladiators could actually become quite wealthy most were not and regardless of wealth, they were still slaves. Gladiators were actually part of a specific social class legally referred to as infames in which people with certain occupations such as gladiators, prostitutes, and  actors were considered, regardless of wealth or fame, to be very lower-class (Lex Julia Municipalis (CIL n. 206)) (For more information on Infamia see: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0063:id=infamia-cn). Additionally because they were slaves many gladiators ended up dying far away from their kin and homeland; while this makes for interesting isotopic analysis, it means gladiators may often lack the people who would traditionally mourn and bury them. Gladiators, however, dealt with these issues in a very cool way. They created what might be called burial clubs or unions. They would all contribute a small portion of their winnings to a fund which they would then use to provide a funeral and burial for other gladiators in the club when they died (Kyle 1998:160-1). We have extant epitaphs that allow burials to be identified as gladiators (Carter 2007).

I, Victor, a left-handed gladiator, lie here, though my fatherland is Thessaloniki. Fortune killed me, not perjured Pinnas; no longer let him boast. I had an arms-mate, Polynices, who avenged me by killing Pin-nas. Claudius Thallus was in charge of this memorial from what Victor left behind (ex testamento).

(Robert (1940) 94-5 no. 34 = IGBulg III 1019, In Carter 2007).

I think these burial clubs are a fascinating way we see a group coping with their social position that would provide an interesting means of investigating a lower-class group from the archeological record.

References: 
Carter MJ. 2007. Gladiatorial Combat: The Rules of Engagement. The Classical Journal 102(2):97-114.

Kyle DJ. 1998. Disposal from Roman Areans: Some Rituals and Options. In Spectacles of Death in Ancient Rome, 5:155-183.  London: Routledge.