e barracks were the quarters of
the soldiery, because arms were found there; but the latter were too
highly ornamented to belong to practical fighting troops, and were the
very indications that suggested to Father Garrucci the firmly
established idea, that the dwellings surrounding the gallery must have
been occupied by gladiators. These habitations consist of some sixty
cells: now there were sixty gladiators in Pompeii because an album
programme announced thirty pair of them to fight in the amphitheatre.

The pillars of the gallery were covered with inscriptions scratched on
their surface. Many of these graphites formed simple Greek names
Pompaios, Arpokrates, Celsa, etc., or Latin names, or fragments of
sentences, _curate pecunias, fur es Torque, Rustico feliciter!_ etc.
Others proved clearly that the place was inhabited by gladiators:
_inludus Velius_ (that is to say _not in the game, out of the ring_)
_bis victor libertus--leonibus, victor Veneri parmam feret_. Other
inscriptions designate families or troops of gladiators, of which there
are a couple familiar to us already, that of N. Festus Ampliatus and
that of N. Popidius Rufus; and a third, with which we are not
acquainted, namely, that of Pomponius Faustinus.

What has not been written concerning the gladiators? The origin of their
bloody sports; the immolations, voluntary at first, and soon afterward
compulsory, that did honor to the ashes of the dead warriors; then the
combats around the funeral pyres; then, ere long, the introduction of
these funeral spectacles as part of the public festivals, especially in
the triumphal parades of victorious generals; then into private
pageants, and then into the banquets of tyrants who caused the heads of
the proscribed to be brought to them at table. The skill of such and
such an artist in decapitation (_decollandi artifex_) was the subject of
remark and compliment. Ah, those were the grand ages!

As the reader also knows, the gladiators were at first prisoners of war,
barbarians; then, prisoners not coming in sufficient number, condemned
culprits and slaves were employed, ere long, in hosts so strong as, to
revolt in Campania at the summons of Spartacus. Consular armies were
vanquished and the Roman prisoners, transformed to gladiators, in their
turn were compelled to butcher each other around the funeral pyres of
their chiefs. However, these combats had gradually ceased to be
penalties and punishments, and soon were n