字幕列表 影片播放 列印英文字幕 Host: Gladiator is either a warrior, healer or a villain to [Rome]. He may have been a slave or a criminal or even a prisoner of war. But now he's become a caged performing animal, fed a diet of high-energy food and savage beatings. He is an object of score, envy, admiration, and even lust. If he is lucky, stardom waits. The crowd will chant his name and he will win his freedom. But his days are spent honing the only skills for which he will ever be praised or valued, the fighting, killing, dying. A: Gladiators are trained in special facilities, the so called ludi or games literally, but they probably weren't a whole lot of fun. This is where gladiators live. These are barrack like facilities. Host: In the decades after the opening of the coliseum, a huge training school with its own arena will be built next door to feed it with skilled fighters. It looks small but only compared to the coliseum itself. In fact, it serves as barracks for hundreds of men. A: The training of gladiators in many ways parallels the training of roman soldiers. Just like a roman soldier, a gladiator has to learn how to wield a sword. Both legionaries and gladiators will train with a gladius, a standard two-edged sword. Host: The gladius is designed for close-quarter work, stabbing, slashing from behind a shield in the press of battle. Many of the gladiators have seen firsthand how the legionaries use them. They were prisoners or war, they'd face them. While legionaries are taught to kill with an efficiency that is almost industrial, the training the gladiators receive is different. They have to be shown it. B: It's spectacle fighting. It's extreme ritualized, and it's a world apart from ordinary fighting, from soldiers fighting. Host: Because the Roman people were obsessed with gladiator fights, we're able to build a very clear picture of what one looked like. There's written evidence, pictorial evidence, graffiti from the time, and most strikingly of all, this armor. A gladiators weapons and his armor are his costume and his props. Andrew: These bits of gladiator's kit were found both in Herculaneum and Pompeii. And they list very beautifully, the extraordinary variety that you need to make a gladiatorial spectacle. Look at this guy with this helmet with tiny little holes. That gives him good protection. Host: The various styles of armor are meant to represent the battle dress of Rome's conquered enemies. Andrew: This helmet is supposed to be a Thracian's helmet. Now, let's imagine that the Thracians were once upon a time gladiators who came from Thracian were kitted out like Thracian soldiers. But no Thracian soldier ever wore such a fancy thing, with all this elaborate visor around his face, this really elaborate line to the helmet and then the decoration of it, wonderful medusa's face. Host: Real battle armor offers its wear of the best possible combination of mobility and protection. But again, gladiator armor is different. Its purpose is to ensure that the spectators, connoisseurs of violence, see a very balanced contest. Andrew: Here's another way of doing it. You've got bigger holes from the eyes and you can see his helmet is much more decorated. But suppose he's pitted against the [next man], who chucks his net over you, brings you down, and then gets at your body, which, though your head is beautifully protected, your body is exposed. Nobody should be fully protected. Everyone's got to have weakness and the opponent knows which weakness to go for and of course, all spectators know which weakness, and they're cheering on and their seeing the skill with which each one both defends himself and attacks. Host: Training and experience are everything. A gladiators' most dangerous fight is always going to be his first. He has on average a one in six chance of dying every time he steps in the arena, and these statistics are sued by the fact that in every generation, a handful of elite killers fight dozens of bouts and win every time. For those few, fear revealed, loathed and applauded, a kind of celebrity beckons.