JJGLAD15 "Ferryman of The Dead"

Name: JJGLAD15 "Ferryman of The Dead"
Brand: John Jenkins Designs
SKU: JJGLAD15
Price: 99 AUD
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John Jenkins Designs

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JJGLAD15

$99.00

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"Ferryman of The Dead"

By common custom, the spectators decided whether or not a losing gladiator should be spared, and chose the winner in the rare event of a standing tie.

The final decision of death or life belonged to the editor, who signalled his choice with a gesture described by Roman sources as “police verso” meaning “with a turned thumb”, which is a description too imprecise for reconstruction of the gesture or its symbolism.

Whether victorious or defeated a gladiator was bound by oath to accept or implement his editor’s decision.

An official would be dressed in a mask of Charon, to represent the ferryman of the dead, and would strike a corpse with a mallet.

This was normally reserved for the Noxii or criminals condemned to death, but gladiator skulls found in a gladiator cemetery, and by modern pathological examination has also confirmed the probable fatal use of a mallet on some.

It has been suggested that gladiators who disgraced themselves might have been subjected to the same indignities as noxii, and denied the relative mercies of a quick death, and therefore would have been dragged from the arena as carrion.