Ben Kane

It's thought that what's interesting, so the earliest classes of gladiators, before all the ones you see generally on TV and film, in the Republic there were only three types of gladiators.

although this was changing.

And those three types were based on enemies of Rome.

So one was the Samnite, who were the people who defeated Rome a couple of times before ultimately being defeated themselves from central Italy.

One was a Gaul, and one was a Thracian.

Thracian was one of the three classes, yeah.

But we know that Spartacus did not fight as a Thracian.

Now this is quite likely, again, we don't know, but it's quite likely to have been a deliberate choice maybe by Batiatus because he wouldn't have wanted him to get ideas above his station or for people to start

I don't know that he'd become too popular because he was a Thracian.

So it's thought that he fought as a Mermillo, which is the famous fish, the guy with the fish crested helmet and the armor and a gladius sword, which would have been just basically starting out at that time.

So, but we know really nothing else about his career.

Yes, it's possible that it was a stage name given to him, but the sources don't mention that.

So it's also possible because, as I mentioned, that nobleman of the Odessari whose name was Sparadox, Sparadocos, I think, sorry, these names are sometimes very hard to pronounce, that it was a name from Thrace.

So

it may have been his real name.

So gladiators were treated, they weren't treated as strictly before Spartacus' rebellion as they were afterwards, but they weren't still trusted completely.

So they were kept, you know, they were locked into the gladiator school at night and so on.

And...

About 200 of them, the sources tell us, decided to break out, which is a lot.

So it was a big gladiator school.