Gladiators

Adopted from the earlier Etruscans, perhaps by way of Campania, gladiatorial games (munera) originated in the rites of sacrifice due the spirits of the dead and the need to propitiate them with offerings of blood. They were introduced to Rome in 264 BC, when the sons of Junius Brutus honored their father by matching three pairs of gladiators. Traditionally, munera were the obligatory funerary offerings owed to important men at their death, although they did not …

…by Jean-Claude Golvin and Christian Landes; Roman Architecture (1979) by John B. Ward-Perkins; Imperial Rome (1965) by Moses Hadas (Time-Life Books); Chronicle of the Roman Emperors (1995) by Chris Scarre; Pompeii: AD 79 (1978) by John Ward-Perkins and Amanda Claridge; Empires Ascendant: Time Frame 400 BC-AD 200 (1987) by the Editors of Time-Life Books; The Antonines: The Roman Empire in Transition (1994) by Michael Grant; Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Rome (1968) by Ernest Nash; Rome: Echoes of Imperial Glory (1994) by the Editors of Time-Life Books.