Bestiarii (Beast Men)

A great modern misconception is that Roman gladiators fought against wild beasts in the arena. But gladiators only fought against other men. Warriors who faced off against lions and bears were a whole other classification entirely. They were known as the bestiarii, the ‘Beast Men.'

To the ancient Romans, no spectacle brought about the same feverish excitement as fights to the death in a packed arena. Thousands flocked to coliseums, placing bets, watching on violently animated, while the most prominent dignitaries from the highest echelons of Roman society acted out their limitless thirst for vile blood-spill - from the safety of the Senator’s seating section. And spectators, be it prince or pauper, took as much enjoyment from men fighting monsters as they did from them fighting one another.

There were two types of bestiarii.

One was he who stepped in and faced a wild monster of his own accord, either as a means of making a living, or to see his name in lights via some warped sense of narcotic joy. This Man v Animal event was known as a venatio and was immensely popular, usually preceding the gladiator bouts. The vast majority of venatio events were rigged to be extremely one-sided, sometimes a dozen or more men would torture and kill a lion.

Emperor Commodus was a bestiarus, much to the chagrin of the Senate who would have preferred to see him immersed in more diplomatic duties befitting the Emperor of Rome, rather than see him facing off against an (always limp or injured) animal.

The other type of bestiarii was one who had been sentenced to death via mauling. This was usually a prisoner of war, a criminal, a runaway slave or a person who for one reason or another had lost the right to be part of Roman society. These events were known as Damnatio ad bestias and like venatio were also overwhelmingly one-sided – but this one was in favour of the beasts.

Sometimes men were sent out with just a spear, completely unarmed or even naked, and often didn’t last more than the time it took for an animal to sprint across the sand and lunge at them. If they did manage to slay the beast against all odds, another one was usually unchained and let loose into the arena, wild with frenzied hunger and terrified by the deafening noise. This usually finished off our hero.

Historical distance can often desensitize us to human suffering or make it an object of humour or curiosity, so it’s hard for us to contemplate the veritable dread these doomed men felt in the days leading up to their fate. Some were known to find inventive ways to cheat their grisly demise by committing suicide in the morning of their execution. Roman statesman Symmachus tells of 29 Saxon slaves, given to Rome as a gift, strangling each other to death in their cells the night before their scheduled downfall.

Scholae bestarium were schools where young bestiarii who wanted to make a life of it went and learned the trade. Here, they would learn how to fight, how to wield weapons, and animal trainers would teach them the most efficient way to kill a wild animal that they might one day face off against in the arena. Exotic animals transported in from the four corners of the earth, including lions, bears, dogs, tigers, wolves, rhinos, hyenas, boars, bulls.

In the arena, the most common attack method utilized by a bestiarii was to attempt to blind the animal by spearing it in the eye, then attacking the throat while it was stunned. But many, merely froze in one spot and meekly accepted their fate, letting the animal get its inevitable rip at their throat as quickly as possible. This resulted in irritated and unimpressed spectators - usually not good news for the next man up who might now have a bear thrown in alongside the lion he's about to face, in a morbid effort to pacify and appease the bloodthirsty mob.

"Man is slaughtered, to kill is an exercise and an art. Men offer themselves to the wild beasts, men of ripe age. They fight with beasts, not for their crime, but for their madness."

Cyprian, Ad Donatus, VII

More stories here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/StoryHub

Comments

Frank Discussion Of Rape And Other Atrocities Committed During War.

WARNING! PHOTO BELOW ARE NOT MET FOR THE WEAK HEART. Please note: The following subject matter is of immense importance, but could be difficult to read. There is a Frank Discussion Of Rape And Other Atrocities Committed During War. After entering a large museum in one of the world’s most ancient cities and the former capital of the Chinese empire, Nanking—or Nanjing as it’s known today—my 18-year-old daughter Sophia and I walked over a glass walkway that allowed us to look down 10 feet of earth and observe an ancient footpath. Lights highlighted the ground under the glass while the room we were in was dark. To our right hung numerous photographs on a black wall showing Japanese soldiers slaughtering Chinese citizens in December 1937 revealed by individual lights, the types one sees on art museum paintings. Dead babies, severed heads, piles of bodies on Yangtze River banks, and helpless prisoners of war were all documented there by photographs taken by the perpetrators themselves, I

Jong Sang Thaek’s brutal execution: Stripped naked and eaten alive by Dogs

Jong Sang Thaek’s brutal execution: Stripped naked and eaten alive by Dogs North Korea, Jan 03: Unlike previous executions of political prisoners, the execution of Jang Song Thaek on December 12 was reportedly one of the most brutal ones ever conducted by the North Korean regime. According to a detailed account published in Wen Wei Po, a Hong Kong based Chinese newspaper, Jang Song Thaek, Korean supreme leader Kim Jong-Un’s uncle and the second most powerful man in North Korea, was stripped naked and thrown into a cage of 120 hounds who had been starved for three days. During the brutal execution, which was reportedly personally overseen by Kim Jong Un, the hounds were allowed to prey on Jang Song Thaek and five of his closest aides who also had been stripped and thrown into the cage. According to the report, the entire process lasted for about an hour by the end of which they were completely eaten up. This is called "quan je" or "execution by dogs". Political

15 Most Brutal Rape Punishments Around The World.

15 Most Brutal Rape Punishments Around The World. Rape is considered the most offensive crime in every society. Rape victims are often looked down in the society and had to suffer mental torture without any fault of her/him. This horrific impact of physical and mental assault often ruin the life of a victim. Different governments across the globe came up with strong laws against sexual assault to make their country a safer place for their citizen and to make sure no one who indulged in this heinous crime could roam free. Here are the most brutal rape punishments of different countries around the world. In China, The meritocratic leadership punishes the rapist straight away with a death sentence and in some scenarios rapist are also punished by the mutilation of their genitals. 2. Iran In Iran, the rapist is either hanged or shot to death in public. Sometimes the guilty escapes the death penalty by the premission from the victim but is still liable for 100 lashes or life imprisonm

Agabbadòra Hammer

Agabbadòra Hammer “In Sardinia, the use of the "femina agabbadòra hammer" was a women's practice. Whenever an elderly man or woman of a given family was dying and in great pain, the family would call for the Accabadòra or Lady of the Good Death. She would usually be a widow dressed entirely in black, who likely inherited her role from her own mother or grandmother. The title Accabadora means "She is the One Who Ends." She arrives with a large hammer of carved olive wood wrapped in heavy wool, and is left alone with the individual who may yet be screaming in agony and terror. A witness testimonial of the practice translates: "It was dark. The room was illuminated by a single wick in mastic oil. The Accabadòra entered the house -- the door had been left open for her. She passed no one as she enters her patient's room at at the bedside. "She caressed the face of the dying person, chanted the rosary, sang one of the many lullabies usually sung to chil

King Edward VII Love Chair

King Edward VII (nicknamed Bertie), had a custom made ‘siege d’amour’ (or love chair), kept at the famous Le Chabanais brothel in Paris. It was built to allow him to have sex with two or more people all at the same time. The chair was the ultimate symbol of Bertie’s voracious sexual appetite, which became a constant headache for the royal family, especially his mother, who believed him utterly untrustworthy and severely limited his Royal responsibilities as a result. However, the more Queen Victoria disapproved, the more extravagant Bertie became in his pursuits of pleasure, the chair being the ultimate testament to his rebellious and irresponsible behaviour. The press gave him the name ‘Dirty Bertie’. It was said that his father had a word with him about his dalliances and then died shortly after their chat. Queen Victoria blamed his death on the stress brought about by “that dreadful business”, or at least a big contributing factor of it. She then arranged his marriage to Princes

Despicable Mass Rape in Europe by Allied soldiers after war 1945

Despicable Mass Rape in Europe by Allied soldiers after war 1945 The greatest crimes against women and Europeans in history, was the mass rape of the European women after the Liberal-Communist victory in 1945. It would be easy for you to toss this newsletter aside and pickup more pleasant or amusing reading Mass R*ape in Europe by Allied soldiers after World War 2 The ra*pists were mainly Soviet and US soldiers. They were permitted and encouraged by official “Allied” policies which incited hatred against those of European nationalities which were in fight against Communism. In Vienna,Austria alone, they ra*ped 100,000 women, not once but many times, including girls not yet in their teens, and aged women. By official policy, the Allies created conditions in which the only German mothers who could keep their young children alive were those who themselves or whose sisters became mistresses of the occupying troops. According to testimony given in the United States Senate on July 17,

The capture of brave Russian officer Rosinski

The capture of brave Russian officer Rosinski This is a shocking image and I apologize in advance for sharing it, but here’s one that truly got to me… in Belarus, 1918, after WWI had already ended, the brave Russian officer Rosinski was captured by the Bolsheviks. The Bolsheviks tortured the captain, likely to get information out of the man, which he bravely refused to give. After that, they simply continued with the torture out of some sick sense of innate cruelty. He was ‘the enemy’ and he was at their mercy, so they brutally murdered their captive. The brave captain was emasculated. And anally impaled on a tree branch. All this while still alive. Alfred Savoir, the man who published the picture and was an eye witness to the death of the brave military officer, described "M. B.", who ordered this atrocity, thus: I knew him not long ago; he was a charming teenager with an ironic wit and joker. He was rubbed with French culture, he admired the novels of Barres and he quoted w

After Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Tragedy and Humiliation.

After Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Tragedy and Humiliation. U.S. and Australian brutalisation of women on the Japanese mainland. (Excerpt From Pages 66-69) All references are provided in the book itself. “There was a far darker side to the U.S. and allied occupation of Japan, one which is little mentioned in the vast majority of histories – American or otherwise. When Japan surrendered in August 1945, mass rapes by occupying forces were expected… [despite setting up of a comfort women which recruited or otherwise trafficked desperate women to brothels] such crimes were still common and several of them were extremely brutal and resulted in the deaths of the victims. Political science professor Eiji Takemae wrote regard- ing the conduct of American soldiers occupying Japan: ‘U.S. troops comported themselves like conquerors, especially in the early weeks and months of occupation. Misbehavior ranged from black-marketeering, petty theft, reckless driving and disorderly conduct to vandalism,

THE FORGOTTEN WHITE SLAVES

THE FORGOTTEN WHITE SLAVES They came as slaves: human cargo transported on British ships bound for the Americas. They were shipped by the hundreds of thousands, men, women and even the youngest of children. Whenever they rebelled or even disobeyed an order, they were punished in the harshest ways. Slave owners would hang their human property by their hands and set their hands or feet on fire as one form of punishment. Some were burned alive then had their heads placed on pikes in the marketplace as a warning to other captives. We don’t really need to go through all of the gory details, do we? We know all too well the atrocities of the African slave trade. But are we talking about African slavery? King James VI and Charles I also led a continued effort to enslave the Irish. Britain’s Oliver Cromwell furthered this practice of dehumanizing one’s next door neighbour. The Irish slave trade began when James VI sold 30,000 Irish prisoners as slaves to the New World. His Proclamation of 1625

At the concentration camp 1943

WARNING GRAPHIC Sometime in 1943, a 35-year-old architect sat at a drafting desk on the third floor of the headquarters building in the infamous Janowska concentration camp in Lviv in what is now Ukraine. Over 80,000 Jews were murdered at this camp and it served as the main deportation center for 160,000 Jews of Lviv (a number which exceeded the entire Jewish population of the Netherlands). In between doodling and planning the construction of mundane camp structures, this man, Zeev Porath, gazed out over a panorama of horror. Every day Porath was an unwilling audience to performances of unspeakable cruelty. From his elevated vantage point, he could witness these everyday terrors. As a “privileged prisoner,” Porath could move relatively freely throughout the camp, past the everyday torture that characterized Janowska. He had no power to intervene. However, he did the one thing he was trained for: he could draw. His own witnessing drove him also to draw the non-architectural scenes that

THE WORLD FAMOUS HISTORY AND PAST EVENTS

Search This Blog