Question

Difference between gladiators and spartans

Answer 1

A Spartan is a citizen of the city of Sparta (also called Lacedaemon). He enjoys the full civil rights of the city of Sparta, which means that he can participate to the politic life of Sparta : he can elect the ephoroi (civil magistrates), speak at the Apella (a public citizen assembly rarely held) and being eligible to the Gerousia (an assembly composed of 28 lifelong members, always aged over 60). To keep his citizen status, called "homoios" (which means "equal") he must comply to many parameters. He have to be born from a Spartan man and a Spartan woman ; he must have completed the Agogê, the ultrarigorous military education which takes up from 7 to 30 (it's this education that make Spartans such fierce warriors) ; he must own a klaros (a fraction of public land) in order to maintain his family's needs and to participate in the common meals with other Spartans called the syssition. If one of these parameters is not completed, he loose his status and is called an hypomeione, an "inferior".


A Gladiator (from the latin "gladius", meaning "the sword") is a professionnal trained warrior who fights during entertaining spectacles called "munera". Gladiators were at first a part of italic funeral traditions, where relatives of the dead made up a fake fight, stopping at first blood, to honour the dead. They became famous over the years and became so a important part of the entertaining system of the roman civilisation.
In its days of glory, in the Ist century BC - Ist century AD, Gladiators were not always slaves - many were freemen that took contracts with the Lanista ("butcherer", the director of the gladiator troop). Gladiators had a rough, brutal and short life (even if a fight did not always end up with a death, they did not live very old) but were fairly treated : in the Ludi, the gladiator "schools", they were nourished (frequently over-nourished to ensure they have a good amount of fat protecting their muscles), bathed, massaged and healed. There was a great feeling of solidarity and community inside the Ludi : gladiators were allowed to live with their wives and children (who were assigned various works inside the school). When a gladiator died, his comrades usually take care of building him a proper grave, and often take care of his wife and children. Gladiators were highly revered as superstars, alike our modern soccer players (with clubs and hooligans, just as nowadays) but their situation was paradoxally considered as the worst possible, even below prostitutes : a prostitute was selling her body, a gladiator was selling his own life.