Bloodsport research

Continuing the general research into the subject of Bloodsports,-as i'm not that well versed in them or where they came from.

'Bloodsports are a category of sports or entertainment that involves the killing or injuring of animals for the pleasure of spectators,or more broadly sports that involve bloodshed.Common examples of the former include hunting, coursing, and combat sports such as cockfighting and dog fighting. Activities characterized as blood sports, but involving only human participants, include the Ancient Roman gladiatorial games and the modern mixed martial arts'

The earliest use of the term is in reference to mounted hunting, where the quarry would be actively chased, as in fox hunting or hare coursing. Before firearms a hunter using arrows or a spear might also wound an animal, which would then be chased and perhaps killed at close range, as in medieval boar hunting. The term was popularised by author Henry Stephens Salt.

Later, the term seems to have been applied to various kinds of baiting and forced combat:bull-baiting, bear-baiting, cockfighting and later developments such as dog fighting and rat-baiting. The animals were specially bred for fighting. In the Victorian era, social reformers began a vocal opposition to such activities, claiming grounds of ethics, morality and animal welfare.

Limitations on blood sports have been enacted in much of the world. Certain blood sports remain legal under varying degrees of control in certain locations (e.g., bullfighting and cockfighting) but have declined in popularity elsewhere.Proponents of blood sports are widely cited to believe that they are traditional within the culture.Bullfighting aficionados, for example, do not regard bullfighting as a sport but as a cultural activity.It is sometimes called a tragicspectacle, because in many forms of the event, the bull is invariably killed and the bullfighter is always at risk of death.

Blood sports have been a common theme in fiction. While historical fiction depicts real-life sports such as gladiatorial games and jousting,speculative fiction, not least dystopic science fiction suggests variants of blood sports in a contemporary or future society. Some popular works themed on blood sports are Battle Royale, The Hunger Games, The Running Man, The Long Walk, Fight Club, Death Race 2000,Amores Perros, and "The Most Dangerous Game". Blood sports are also a common setting for video games (Unreal Tournament, Street Fighter etc.), making up much of the fighting game genre.

Man V Man 

A gladiator (Latin: gladiator, "swordsman", from gladius, "sword") was an armed combatant who entertained audiences in the Roman Republic and Roman Empire in violent confrontations with other gladiators, wild animals, and condemned criminals. Some gladiators were volunteers who risked their lives and their legal and social standing by appearing in the arena. Most were despised as slaves, schooled under harsh conditions, socially marginalized, and segregated even in death.

Irrespective of their origin, gladiators offered spectators an example of Rome's martial ethics and, in fighting or dying well, they could inspire admiration and popular acclaim. They were celebrated in high and low art, and their value as entertainers was commemorated in precious and commonplace objects throughout the Roman world.

The origin of gladiatorial combat is open to debate. There is evidence of it in funeral rites during the Punic Wars of the 3rd century BC, and thereafter it rapidly became an essential feature of politics and social life in the Roman world. Its popularity led to its use in ever more lavish and costly games.

For the poor, and for non-citizens, enrollment in a gladiator school offered a trade, regular food, housing of sorts and a fighting chance of fame and fortune. 

Gladiators customarily kept their prize money and any gifts they received, and these could be substantial. 

Tiberius offered several retired gladiators 100,000 sesterces ($500,000) each to return to the arena.

Nero gave the gladiator Spiculus property and residence "equal to those of men who had celebrated triumphs." 

Mark Antony promoted gladiators to his personal guard.

Women

From the 60s AD female gladiators appear, as "exotic markers of exceptionally lavish spectacle". 

In 66 AD, Nero had Ethiopian women, men and children fight at a munus ( gladiatorial show) to impress King Tiridates I of Armenia.

Romans seem to have found the idea of a female gladiator novel and entertaining, or downright absurd; Juvenal titillates his readers with a woman named "Mevia", hunting boars in the arena "with spear in hand and breasts exposed" and Petronius mocks the pretensions of a rich, low-class citizen, whose munus includes a woman fighting from a cart or chariot 

A munus of 89 AD, during Domitian's reign, featured a battle between female gladiators and dwarfs.

Roman morality required that all gladiators be of the lowest social classes, and emperors who failed to respect this distinction earned the scorn of posterity; Cassius Dio takes pains to point out that when the much admired emperor Titus used female gladiators, they were of acceptably low class

Some regarded female gladiators as a symptom of corrupted Roman sensibilities, morals and womanhood, regardless of class. Before he became emperor, Septimius Severus may have attended the Antiochene Olympic Games, which had been revived by the emperor Commodus and included traditional Greek female athletics. His attempt to give Rome a similarly dignified display of female athletics was met by the crowd with ribald chants and cat-calls.Probably as a result, he banned the use of female gladiators in 200 AD.

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Seneca, Roman senator and philosopher, tells of a visit he once paid to the arena. He arrived in the middle of the day, during the mass execution of criminals, staged as an entertainment in the interval between the wild-beast show in the morning and the gladiatorial show of the afternoon:

All the previous fighting had been merciful by comparison. Now finesse is set aside, and we have pure unadulterated murder. The combatants have no protective covering; their entire bodies are exposed to the blows. No blow falls in vain. This is what lots of people prefer to the regular contests, and even to those which are put on by popular request. And it is obvious why. There is no helmet, no shield to repel the blade. Why have armour? Why bother with skill? All that just delays death.

In the morning, men are thrown to lions and bears. At mid-day they are thrown to the spectators themselves. No sooner has a man killed, than they shout for him to kill another, or to be killed. The final victor is kept for some other slaughter. In the end, every fighter dies. And all this goes on while the arena is half empty.

You may object that the victims committed robbery or were murderers. So what? Even if they deserved to suffer, what's your compulsion to watch their sufferings? 'Kill him', they shout, 'Beat him, burn him'. Why is he too timid to fight? Why is he so frightened to kill? Why so reluctant to die? They have to whip him to make him accept his wounds.

(http://www.historytoday.com/keith-hopkins/murderous-games-gladiatorial-contests-ancient-rome)