Gladiators

Samnite

http://www.virtual-egyptian-museum.org/Collection/FullVisit/Collection.FullVisit-JFR.html?../Content/MET.MM.00061.html&0
(refers to sculpture: Bronze Samnite gladiator, Rome, 30 BC-68 AD)
This exquisitely detailed bronze sculpture represents a Samnite gladiator. Samnites were some of the most heavily armed of all gladiators. They typically wore a bronze helmet (galea) adorned with a high crest and plume, fitted with a visor that opened down the middle and was pierced with round holes. Their left leg—and only their left leg—was protected by a boiled-leather or metal greave (ocrea). Their right arm, knee, and ankles were protected by thick leather bands (fasciae), and they wore a massive leather belt. They wielded a sword (gladius, hence the name ‘gladiator’), and a large square shield (scutum, missing from this sculpture). After the reign of Emperor Augustus, Samnites were increasingly called hoplomachi and switched to a smaller, circular shield.

The Roman games were in great part an instrument of government propaganda. Roman citizens were invited to watch beasts and men, dressed in costumes representative of peoples defeated by Rome, slaughter each other. That spectacle comforted the public in their conviction of the superiority of the Roman people over the barbari. In this case, the barbari were the Oscan-speaking people of Samnium, who fought three long wars (343-290 BC) against the people of Rome, humiliating the Roman army in 321 BC, and who were finally conquered by the Romans in 290. Their land, today’s Campania, was absorbed into the Roman empire, and by 80 BC all remaining Samnites had been either massacred or Romanized.

Gladiators are a rare subject matter for a bronze figurine, and this one probably dates back to the beginning of the Roman Empire (30 BC-68 AD). The shape of the helmet is uncommon. The sword and the ornament on top of the helmet are modern reconstructions.
This piece, once in the Collection Peytel, may have also been published in Morter’s work on Bronze of the Classical World under number 265 (unverified).
Bibliography (for this item)
Clayton, Peter
1986 Treasures of Ancient Rome. Gallery Books, New York, NY. (
150)

http://www.murphsplace.com/gladiator/glads.html
Among the four main types that had evolved by the early Empire was the heavily armed Samnite, later called a hoplomachus or secutor. (The Romans may have recognized these three as separate and distinct types, but any such distinctions are now unclear; all employed basically the same weapons and tactics.) A Samnite carried a sword or a lance, a scutum (the rectangular shield used by Roman legionary soldiers),a metal helmet, and protective armor on his right arm and left leg.

http://www.gladiatorschool.tv/Samnite.htm
The Samnite took his name from those people defeated by Rome's Capuan allies in 312 B.C. and the armour he wore and the weapons he used were supposedly adopted as a sign of contempt for the Samnites. He used a large oblong shield (scutum) and wore a metal or boiled leather greave (ocrea) on his left leg. He also wore a visored helmet (galea) with a large crest and plume and was armed with a sword (gladius).

http://abacus.bates.edu/~mimber/Rciv/gladiator.htm
Samnites (later called secutores) carried oblong shields and short swords and wore plumed helmets with visors. Thracians carried small round shields and curved daggers. Gladiators called retiarii ("net men") carried nets to trip and hold their opponents and tridents which they used to finish off a captured victim. A Retariius typically fought a "Gallic" gladiator (also called a murmillo) who wore a rectangular shield and a visored helmet decorated with a fish (murmillo) or a Samnite. The vary names and distinctive weaponry of the gladiators displayed a history of the peoples Rome had defeated as her empire expanded. Interestingly enough, as the empire expanded and gladiatorial combat grew popular in the provinces, Romans began to drop the ethnic identification of gladiators for terms that described their costume or style of fighting (e.g. Samnites became secutores).

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/warriorchallenge/gladiators/profile.html
Samnites, the heaviest armored gladiators, took their name, costume and weapons from the mighty warriors of Samnium, a region in southern Italy conquered by Rome in about 80 BC. These warriors would become the model for the standard Roman gladiator. Until the reign of the first Roman emperor, Augustus (31 BC - 14 AD), their name would be given to all "heavy" gladiators. Samnites were usually paired with other heavy gladiators, such as Thracians or Murmillos. A close kin to the Samnite was the Hoplomachus, a gladiator who so closely resembled the Samnites that the only known distinction today is the name. After the reign of Augustus, all gladiators were referred to as hoplomachi.

http://www.classicsunveiled.com/romel/html/amphiglad.html
Styles of Fighting
Gladiators usually fought in pairs, man against man, but sometimes in masses. When they were first taken as captives, they obviously fought with the weapons that they were accustomed to. When professionally trained they were divided into two groups the "Samnites", heavy armed, or the "Tharcians", light armed. Later on different methods of fighting was introduced, for example chariot fighting in time of Caesar. When the Romans were bored of the traditional methods, they matched up women, dworfs, or different kinds of gladiators.
Weapons and Armor
Different gladiators had different tools and weapons: A Samnite wore a helmet with a visor, a thick sleeve on his right arm, a greave on his let leg, a belt, a short sword, and carried a long shield. Under the empire the Samnites, eventually lost their name which was derived from Rome's ancient enemies. They were called the hoplomachi, heavy-armed, when they fought the Thracians, and secutores when they fought the net-men. A Thracian was armed in much the same manner as a Samnite, but had a small shield and carried a curved sword. They had greaves on both legs rather than one. The net-fighters had no defensive armor except leather protection for the shoulders. A net-man carried a huge net in which he tried to trap the opponent, who then he stabbed with his dagger. If he lost his net his only weapon was a heavy spear.

http://www.ludus.org.uk/r/essayglossary.html
samnite: Gladiator type, heavily armed and never heard of post Augustus, probably became the myrmillo and or secutor.

http://depthome.brooklyn.cuny.edu/classics/gladiatr/types.htm
3. "Thracian," along with "Gaul" and "Samnite," originally referred to prisoners of war from Thrace, Gaul, and Samnium (in southern Italy), who in the republican period were forced to fight as gladiators and naturally used the weapons and equipment characteristic of their people. In time these terms ceased to indicate the actual ethnicity of the fighter, but simply designated a particular type of gladiator using particular armor and fighting equipment. "Thracian" remained as category until late antiquity, while "Gaul" and "Samnite" disappeared, but the former may have been the model for the later secutor and murmillo.

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/3296/gladiators.htm
SAMNITE: The Samnite took his name from those people defeated by Rome's Capuan allies in 312 B.C. and the armour he wore and the weapons he used were supposedly adopted as a sign of contempt for the Samnites. He used a large oblong shield (scutum) and wore a metal or boiled leather greave (ocrea) on his left leg. He also wore a visored helmet (galea) with a large crest and plume and was armed with a sword (gladius).
http://www.legionxxiv.org/gladiatorarena/
STYLES OF GLADIATORS AND TYPES OF COMBAT
SAMNITE "Samnium" One of the first types of Gladiator, they took their name from the Samnites, which were among the earliest enemies of the emerging Roman dominance of northern Italy. They generally utilized heavy armor with a visored helmet, large scutum shield, wrist guards and a greave "ocrea" on the lower left leg. Samnites fought with the Gladius sword giving rise to the general of term of "Gladiator" being applied to most of those who fought in the Arena.
HOPLOMACHUS "Heavy Armor" This style of fighter was very similar to the Samnite. They were more heavily armored with a fully protected right arm, large shield, more massive helmet and more leg protection. It appears that the Hoplomachus was a later style of the Samnite and they also fought with the gladius. During the Republic "heavy" fighters were termed Samnites and in the Empire Period they became known as Hoplomachus.

http://www.comm.unt.edu/histofperf/amandajo/glad3.htm
Within the Gladiator camps there were several different types of fighters. One group, the Samnites, came into existence when the Romans defeated the Samnite people. The captured prisoners introduced new types of weaponry and military equipment to the Romans. These Samnites wore heavy armor which included a large oblong shield (scutum), a leather or partly metal greave worn on the left leg (ocrea), and a vizored helmet (galea) with huge crest and plumes. Other equipment included a sword (gladius) or lance (hasta). This group was just one of many.
Samnite: medium rectangular shield, short sword, 1 greave (ocrea) on left leg, protective leather bands covering wrists and knee and ankle of right leg (fasciae), large, crested helmet with vizor, small chest plate (spongia).
Samnite disappeared roughly at the end of the republican and appears to have been substituted by the Hoplomachus.
Gladiators were always dressed up to resemble barbarians. Whether they really were barbarians or not, the fighters would be clad in exotic and purposely strange weapons. This strange dress aided in the performance of the gladiators. The more far-fetched the weapons and armor were, the more barbarous the gladiators appeared to Roman eyes. This also made the fights a celebration of Rome's empire. The Gaul (Murmillo), the Thracian, and the Samnite all represented the very barbarians Rome had vanquished, confirming to Romans what they wanted to hear - that Rome was the very center of the world it had conquered.

http://www.ukans.edu/history/index/europe/ancient_rome/E/Roman/Texts/secondary/SMIGRA*
/Gladiatores.html
Provocatores fought with the Samnites (Cic. pro Sext. 64), but we do not know any thing respecting them except their name. They are mentioned in inscriptions (Orelli, 2566). The proboka/twr mentioned by Artemiodorus (ii.32) appears to be the same as the provocator.
Samnites were so called, because they were armed in the same way as that people, and were particularly distinguished by the oblong scutum

http://www.gladiatorschool.tv/hoplomacus.htm
The gladiator Hoplomacus was the most heavy armored of the gladiators. His weapons and fighting techniques were very similar to the Samnite. The Hoplomacus carried a large rectangular shield called Scutum, and the famous sword called Gladius (from which the word Gladiator was derived). Also the Hoplomacus wore a visored helmet with a heavy metal helmet and his legs and arms were protected by metal or leather protections. Especially his right arm was protected by a Manica, an armor that goes up to the shoulder.
The Hoplomacus was considered the bulldozer of the Arena, but he was also limited in his speed cause of the weight of his heavy armor.

http://www.the-colosseum.net/games/glad2.htm
It seems that the first type of gladiator was the Samnite (from Samnium, a region of Italy), later also called secutor. He was an attacking gladiator, wearing a small shield and the gladium. In the centuries the form of the secutor developed into the hoplomachus, with a bigger shield. Another variation of the secutor could have been the provocator, probably wearing a round shield and a lance, and the Thrax, or Thracian, who was protected by metal and leather, had a small shield and the sica, a curved sabre

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/3296/gladiators.htm
PROVOCATOR: The term "provocator" is Latin for "challenger" and reflects the function of this class. The Provocator was a popular opponent for both the Myrmillo as well as several less favoured classes of gladiator. Armoured after the Samnite fashion he used a round shield (parma) and a lance (hasta).

*red notes: Consensus has it that the name Samnite was replaced by Hoplomachus. This gladiator remained heavily armed, although the Hoplomachus is sometimes described with a small shield rather than the long scutum. A few places note that the Samnite became the Secutor, and one states that it became the Mirmillo. So the Samnite DIDN'T evolve into the Retiarius or the Thracian...all the other gladiator types are on the table.

*blue notes: Most sources say Samnites carried large scutum-type shields and then evolved into the Hoplomachus who had a smaller, round shield. The http://www.the-colosseum.net/games/glad2.htm source states the exact opposite, that the Samnite used a small shield and the Hoplomachus used a long scutum. (http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/3296/gladiators.htm also sites the Samnites as using a parma). In the book "Caesar's Legions" (Osprey) there is a discussion of the "trapezoidal" shaped shield by the scholae Livy...wider at the top and narrower at the bottom for mobility. Since the Roman Imperial army is to have adopted much of the Samnite style arms and armor (within 300 years of war, I guess they decided to fight fire with fire) I'm going to go with the long shield theory for the Samnites, even though the only two historic pictures I can find of the Samnite people show round shields.