t-Fighter.

I think the chief reason why Commodus could not resist the temptation to
degrade himself to the level of a public character and a public gladiator,
yet, despite his infatuation for beast-killing, shrank from dishonoring
himself by appearing at a public festival as a beast-fighter, was that
beast-fighters are not merely more despised than charioteers or gladiators
but the contempt felt for them has in it quite a different quality from
that felt for gladiators and charioteers. Everybody sees criminals killed
by beasts and there are all sorts of variations in the manner in which
criminals are exposed to death by wild animals. Some are turned naked and
weaponless into the arena to be mangled by lions or bears or other huge
beasts: others are left clad in their tunics; some of these are allowed
the semblance of a weapon; a club, knife, dagger or light javelin; so that
their appearance of having some chance may make their destruction more
diverting to the spectators: others, in order to prolong their agonies,
are furnished with real weapons, as a sword, a pike, a trident, even a
hunting spear with a full-sized triangular head, its edges honed sharp as
razors; others are left completely clad, with or without sham weapons or
actual arms, yet others are protected by armor, corselets, kilts, greaves,
or even hip-boots and helmets, and wear swords and carry shields as well
as pikes or spears: these last differ in appearance in no respect from
professional beast-fighters.

This produces, in the minds of persons of all classes a sort of confusion
between beast-fighters and criminals and brings it about that there
attaches to those persons of noble-birth or free-birth who, whether from
hope of gain, from poverty, or from infatuation with the sport or from
mere bravado, abase themselves as beast-fighters, an obloquy far intenser
than that which attaches to freemen or nobles who dishonor themselves by
becoming gladiators or charioteers. Such self-abasements have been known
ever since the reign of Nero, began to become more common under Domitian
and have ceased to be regarded as anything unusual; in fact, so many men
of good birth or even of high birth have become gladiators or charioteers,
so many of these have acquired popularity, so many, even if actually few,
have won wealth and fame, that professional charioteering or swordsmanship
has almost ceased to be regarded as a degradation. Not so beast-fighting.
No one can poin