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Admin moved page How Did Gladiatorial Games Evolve in Ancient Rome? to How Did Gladiatorial Games Evolve in Ancient Rome
[[File: Gladiators_from_the_Zilten_mosaic.jpg|300px250px|thumbnail|left|Mosaic Depicting Gladiators Fighting and a Referee]]__NOTOC__
The gladiatorial games of ancient Rome are well-known today due to the numerous films produced over the last few decades where they play a role. The gladiators' fictional accounts show many truthful elements of the games but often mix different events from various periods of Roman history.
====Gladiatorial Games Defined====
[[File: Fighting_gladiator.jpg|300px250px|thumbnail|left|Mosaic of a Beast Hunt or <i>Venatio</i>]]
When one thinks of gladiatorial events today, images of men fighting each other with nets and tridents often first come to mind. Still, for many, images of men fighting ferocious big cats and other animals are also evoked. Actually, gladiatorial games and beast hunts were two different events, but they were both known as <i>munera</i>, which translated from Latin means “blood sports.”
Julius Caesar and Augustus truly set a precedent for how the later emperors would use blood sports – they would continue to grow in size and scope, truly becoming the “bread and circuses” of which they are known today.
==Why did the number of Gladiator games increase as the Roman Empire faltered? ==
[[File: Colosseum.jpg|300px|thumbnail|left|The Colosseum of Rome]]
As Rome’s political, social, and economic problems continued to increase, succeeding emperors increased the games' number and frequency. For example, under Emperor Marcus Aurelius (ruled AD 161-180), often thought of as one of the most enlightened emperors, state-funded games comprised 135 days of the 230-day festival schedule. <ref> Kyle, p. 301</ref> The games became so big that even some emperors, Caligula and Commodus, for example, personally took part. Although those two are among the least popular, corrupt, and ineffective of Rome’s emperors, their involvement demonstrates the increasing cultural importance of blood sports. And as the games became more popular, they also became more complex in some ways.