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FEMALE AND DWARFGLADIATORS 153
has been paid to any details that affect our assessment of whether female
gladiators were a common phenomenon or are helpful in understanding
why the Romans thought it was worthwhile to have women
fight in the arena.
The six passages regarding women in the arena discussed in the previous
section are listed here but only with a brief description since all of
them have been covered in detail above. Not included are those cases in
which women were not given a true opportunity to show their skills as
fighters. Under this heading come the stories of female criminals who
were condemned ad bestias without a chance to resist (e.g. Mart. Sp. 5:
Apul. Met. 10.23) and the ten women who were displayed in Aurelian's
triumph as though they were Amazons (SHA Aurel. 34.1). They had
fought like men on the side of the Goths. but there is no indication that
they were required to demonstrate their prowess as fighters in front of
a Roman audience. I have also left out the venatio given at Puteoli by
Nero's freedman Patrobius in which only Ethiopians-men. women.
and children-took part (D.C. 63.3.1).27 This spectacle does not have
much to do with the Romans' interest in seeing women fight in the
arena. Instead it belongs to the long tradition of bringing native peoples
to Rome so that the Romans could see them hunt their native animals. 28
Finally, Schafer has located several inscriptions mentioning female
slaves with names that were typical of gladiators. 29 Their close association
with the arena. e.g. as spouses of gladiators. is also suggestive of
the possibility that they themselves were gladiators. There is no clear
indication. however. that these women ever fought in the arena and so
these inscriptions have not been listed here.
27 Dio does not specifically call the spectacle a venatio, but the nature of the
festival is made clear by the fact that Tiridates. in whose honor the games were
held. took a hand in shooting some of the animals.
28 This tradition includes Sulla's use of hunters from Mauritania to kill IOO
lions (Plu. Sullo 5.1; Sen. Dial. 10.13.6; Plin. Nat. 8.53) and L. Domitius Ahenobarbus'
use of Ethiopians to hunt Numidian bears (Plin. Nat. 8.131, with Ville
[above. n. 7] go).
29 Schafer (above. n. 6) 257-260. As she realizes, these women could have had
other roles in the gladiatorial schools beside being fighters (e.g. as musicians)
that would have brought them into contact with male gladiators and made them
good candidates for becoming their spouses. To the degree that Juvenal's diatribes
reflect reality. Sat. 6.265-77 represents a clear statement that these
women did not normally fight as gladiators. He argues that the matrons of Roman
society look rather silly practicing gladiatorial tactics when any woman
belonging to a gladiator school Uudia) and the wife of Asylus (presumably a
gladiator) would never be seen in gladiatorial equipment or practicing stabbing
the practice stump.