History of gladiators.

The public's enthusiasm for gladiatorial combat, sixteen centuries after its official ban, has never waned. But what do we actually know about this emblematic institution of the Roman Empire? Filling a gap, as the only available studies, already old, were aimed only at specialists, this book recounts the daily lives of these men, and sometimes women, slaves, convicts under common law, but also free professionals, almost all of whom were volunteers. It also seeks to understand the place held by gladiatorship and its complements (hunts, condemnations to beasts, naumachia, races) in Roman society, its political, economic, and psychological stakes, and the lack of moral condemnation from which it benefited for five centuries.