ABSTRACT
Gladiatorial contests, munera gladiatoria, hold a central place in modern popular perceptions of Roman behaviour. They were without a doubt also of major significance to the way the Romans themselves ordered their lives. Although the popular image of the Roman mob spending most of the year looking on from its comfortable seats in the Colosseum while men killed each other and killed or were killed by wild beasts in the arena is a considerable distortion, the investment of time, wealth, and emotion into the games was nevertheless enormous. Attending the games was one of the practices that went with being a Roman. They were held in the most visible single building in a Roman city — whether a purpose-built amphitheatre as was usual in the west, or a reconstituted theatre as in the Greek east. Notwithstanding the unease and embarrassment that many apologists for Rome have felt at what went on in these buildings, they cannot be dissociated from Roman civilization.
