Retiarius

A retiarius (plural retiarii; literally, "net-man" in Latin) was a Roman gladiator who fought with equipment styled on that of a fisherman: a weighted net (rete (3rd decl.

Typically, his clothing consisted only of a loincloth (subligaculum) held in place by a wide belt, or of a short tunic with light padding.

The net-fighter made up for his lack of protective gear by using his speed and agility to avoid his opponent's attacks and waiting for the opportunity to strike.

Should the net miss or the secutor grab hold of it, the retiarius likely discarded the weapon, although he might try to collect it back for a second cast.

For these situations, the lightly armoured gladiator was placed on a raised platform and given a supply of stones with which to repel his pursuers.

Nevertheless, Roman artwork, graffiti, and grave markers include examples of specific retiarii who were apparently reputed for their skill as both combatants and womanizers.

Fights between differently-armed gladiators became popular in the Imperial period;[5] the retiarius versus the scaly secutor developed as the conflict of a fisherman with a stylised fish.

Roman art and literature make no mention of retiarii until the early Imperial period; for example, the type is absent from the copious gladiator-themed reliefs dating to the 1st century found at Chieti and Pompeii.

[15] The retiarius's fighting style was another strike against him, as reliance on speed and evasion were viewed as undignified in comparison to the straightforward trading of blows.

There is evidence that those net-men wearing tunics, known as retiarii tunicati, formed a special sub-class, one even more demeaned than their loincloth-wearing colleagues.

[19] The Roman satirist Juvenal wrote that: So even the lanista's establishment is better ordered than yours, for he separates the vile from the decent, and sequesters even from their fellow-retiarii the wearers of the ill-famed tunic; in the training-school, and even in gaol, such creatures herd apart….

[20]The passage suggests that tunic-wearing retiarii were trained for a different role, "in servitude, under strict discipline and even possibly under some restraints.

"[21] Certain effeminate men mentioned by Seneca the Younger in his Quaestiones naturales were trained as gladiators and may correspond to Juvenal's tunic-wearing retiarii.

[22] Suetonius reports this anecdote: "Once a band of five retiarii in tunics, matched against the same number of secutores, yielded without a struggle; but when their death was ordered, one of them caught up his trident and slew all the victors."

Juvenal's second satire, wherein he deplores the immorality he perceived in Roman society, introduces a member of the Gracchus family who is described as a homosexual married (in female persona) to a horn player.

[25] Gracchus later appears in the arena:Greater still the portent when Gracchus, clad in a tunic, played the gladiator, and fled, trident in hand, across the arena—Gracchus, a man of nobler birth than the Capitolini, or the Marcelli, or the descendants of Catulus or Paulus, or the Fabii: nobler than all the spectators in the podium; not excepting him who gave the show at which that net was flung.

When he has cast without effect the nets suspended from his poised right hand, he boldly lifts his uncovered face to the spectators, and, easily to be recognized, flees across the whole arena.

It is unusual to see a gladiator depicted this way in a satire, as such fighters usually take the role of men who are "brawny, brutal, sexually successful with women of both high and low status, but especially the latter, ill-educated if not uneducated, and none too bright intellectually.

[4] The retiarius complemented his net with an iron or bronze trident (fuscina, fascina or, rarely, tridens)[39] that stood about as high as a human being.

[40] A skull found in a gladiator graveyard in Ephesus, Turkey, shows puncture holes consistent with a trident strike.

[4][11] This guard extended 12 to 13 centimetres (4.7 to 5.1 inches) beyond the shoulder blade and flared outward, allowing free movement of the gladiator's head.

[45] All told, the retiarius's equipment weighed 7 to 8 kilograms (15.4 to 17.6 lb), making him the lightest of the standard gladiator types.

[4][46] Despite the disparity between the nearly nude net-fighter and his heavily armoured adversary, modern re-enactments and experiments show that the retiarius was by no means outmatched.

[49] The net-fighter had to avoid close combat at all costs, keep his distance, and wait for an opening to stab with his trident or throw his net.

Coupled with the heavy weight of his arms and armour—the gear of a murmillo, of which the secutor was a variant, weighed 15 to 18 kg (33 to 40 lb)[50]—this gladiator was in greater danger of exhausting himself in a long fight.

[11] A ewer found at Rheinzabern demonstrates the throwing technique: the retiarius held the net folded up in his right hand and cast it underhanded.

[49] This was not certain, however, as a mosaic at the National Archaeological Museum in Madrid shows: in the first panel, the retiarius Kalendio has caught his opponent, a secutor named Astyanax, in his net.

[5] In most cases, the secutor knew to expect the net-man's tactics and tried to intercept and hold on to the weapon,[42] possibly unsteadying his enemy by yanking on the net.

[36] Evidence shows that retiarii could be quite successful combatants; a tombstone from Gaul reads, "[For] the retiarius, L. Pompeius, winner of nine crowns, born in Vienna, twenty-five years of age.

"[63] Nevertheless, the gladiators themselves were prone to boast: A graffito at Pompeii shows the retiarius Antigonus, who claims a ridiculous 2,112 victories, facing a challenger called Superbus, who has won but a single fight.