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FEMALE AND DWARFGLADIATORS r67
martial valor shown by women gladiators. Martial makes much in Sp.
6B about how wonderful it was to see women performing feats normally
typical only of great men like Hercules. Likewise. in Silv. 1.6 Statius
expresses his amazement at the daring shown by the female gladiators
who appeared in Domitian's Saturnalia. Going against the norms of
their gender. they engaged in battles typical of men (pugnas viriles
53-54) and fought like Amazons. who traditionally were the only
women able to match men in bravery on the battlefield. On Coleman's
analysis. the artist who made the relief from Halicarnassus had specifically
chosen as his subject the particular moment in the careers of these
two gladiators when they had shown the greatest skill and determination
as fighters. Given that the motivation for employing women to
fight in the arena was to see them as exemplars of courage and military
ability. it would have made sense to have them wear costumes of a particular
type. Seeing female gladiators not so much as women but as reincarnations
of the famous female warriors of mythology would have
focused the audience's attention on their martial valor.
It should also be noted that this list includes no additional sources
that can be taken as indicating that women actually fought dwarfs. The
one source not discussed in the first section of the paper that might
have mentioned dwarfs is Petronius. Yet even if one accepts Scheffer's
probably unnecessary emendation of nanos for Manios. Petronius in no
way indicates that the woman essedarius of Echion's dream show was
going to fight these figures. This survey then strengthens the conclusion
reached in the first section of the paper. namely that. while Domitian
made good use in his spectacles of both women and dwarfs. no justification
exists for the claim that Dornitian (or any other emperor) went so
far as to pit one against the other. Odd as it may seem. Domitian should
be seen as a traditionalist in his use of women in his games. As noted
above. female gladiators had been a part of the Roman games from before
the time of Nero. and Domitian essentially followed the lead of
emperors like Titus. who had already discovered that an emperor
would be praised for providing the Romans with the chance to see
women fighting bravely.6 4
To modern thinking. it is rather surprising that some emperor. faced
with the challenge of finding a novel way to entertain the Roman peo-
personal disaster.
64 This was not the only occasion in which Domitian's spectacles were inspired
by elements of Titus' games. See Brunet (above. n. 20) 31. where I argue
that the display of fighting cranes at the inaugural games for the Colosseum
gave Domitian the idea for the re-creation of the geranomachy recorded in Stat.
Silv. 1.6.57-64.