High status non-Romans, and possibly Romans too, volunteered as his gladiators. The gladiator munus became a morally instructive form of historic enactment in which the only honourable option for the gladiator was to fight well, or else die well. Their Campanian allies stage a dinner entertainment using gladiators who may not be Samnites, but play the Samnite role. 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. 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.

• In the early imperial era, munera in Pompeii and neighbouring towns were dispersed from March through November.
• Commodus was a fanatical participant at the ludi, and compelled Rome's elite to attend his performances as gladiator, bestiarius or venator.
• Roman writing as a whole demonstrates a deep ambivalence towards the gladiatoria munera.
• In Roman law, anyone condemned to the arena or the gladiator schools (damnati ad ludum) was a servus poenae (slave of the penalty), and was considered to be under sentence of death unless manumitted.
• When a freedman of Nero was giving a gladiatorial show at Antium, the public porticoes were covered with paintings, so we are told, containing life-like portraits of all the gladiators and assistants.
• Walls in the 2nd century BC "Agora of the Italians" at Delos were decorated with paintings of gladiators.

Victory and defeat

The event may also have been used to drum up more publicity for the imminent game. These were probably both family and public events which included even the lanista noxii, sentenced to die in the arena the following day; and the damnati, who would have at least a slender chance of survival. As reward for these services, he drew a gigantic stipend from the public purse. He was lanista of the gladiators employed by the state circa 105 BC to instruct the legions and simultaneously entertain the public. The contract between editor and his lanista could include compensation for unexpected deaths; this could be "some fifty times higher than the lease price" of the gladiator. From the principate onwards, private citizens could hold munera and own gladiators only with imperial permission, and the role of editor was increasingly tied to state officialdom. Henceforth, an imperial praetor's official munus was allowed a maximum of 120 gladiators at a ceiling cost of 25,000 denarii; an imperial ludi might cost no less than 180,000 denarii. It involved three days of funeral games, 120 gladiators, and public distribution of meat (visceratio data)—a practice that reflected the gladiatorial fights at Campanian banquets described by Livy and later deplored by Silius Italicus.

• During the Civil Wars that led to the Principate, Octavian (later Augustus) acquired the personal gladiator troop of his erstwhile opponent, Mark Antony.
• Many gladiator epitaphs claim Nemesis, fate, deception or treachery as the instrument of their death, never the superior skills of the flesh-and-blood adversary who defeated and killed them.
• Caesar's 46 BC ludi were mere entertainment for political gain, a waste of lives and of money that would have been better doled out to his legionary veterans.
• Some monuments record the gladiator's career in some detail, including the number of appearances, victories—sometimes represented by an engraved crown or wreath—defeats, career duration, and age at death.
• Gladiator games were advertised well beforehand, on billboards that gave the reason for the game, its editor, venue, date and the number of paired gladiators (ordinarii) to be used.
• Those condemned ad ludum were probably branded or marked with a tattoo (stigma, plural stigmata) on the face, legs and/or hands.
• Most were despised as slaves, schooled under harsh conditions, socially marginalized, and segregated even in death.

The ludi and munus

The Christian author Tertullian, commenting on ludi meridiani in Roman Carthage during the peak era of the games, describes a more humiliating method of removal. The body of a gladiator who had died well was placed on a couch of Libitina and removed with dignity to the arena morgue, where the corpse was stripped of armour, and probably had its throat cut as confirmation of death. Even more rarely, perhaps uniquely, one stalemate ended in the killing of one gladiator by the editor himself.

Gladiator

What did she see in him to make her put up with being called "the gladiator's moll"? These accounts seek a higher moral meaning from the munus, but Ovid's very detailed (though satirical) instructions for seduction in the amphitheatre suggest that the spectacles could generate a potent and dangerously sexual atmosphere. Caesar's 46 BC ludi were mere entertainment for political gain, a waste of lives and of money that would have been better doled out to his legionary veterans. The munus itself could be interpreted as pious necessity, but its increasing luxury corroded Roman virtue, and created an un-Roman appetite for profligacy and self-indulgence.

Schools and training

The munus thus represented an essentially military, self-sacrificial ideal, taken to extreme fulfillment in the gladiator's oath. Nero banned gladiator munera (though not the games) at Pompeii for ten years as punishment. Those judged less harshly might be condemned ad ludum venatorium or ad gladiatorium—combat with animals or gladiators—and armed as thought appropriate. In Roman law, anyone condemned to the arena or the gladiator schools (damnati ad ludum) was a servus poenae (slave of the penalty), and was considered to be under sentence of death unless manumitted. Part of Galen's medical training was at a gladiator school in Pergamum where he saw (and would later criticise) the training, diet, and long-term health prospects of the gladiators. All prospective gladiators, whether volunteer or condemned, were bound to service by a sacred oath (sacramentum). Their training as gladiators gave them the opportunity to redeem their honour in the munus. Yet, in the last year of his life, Constantine wrote a letter to the citizens of Hispellum, granting its people the right to celebrate his rule with gladiatorial games. Throughout the empire, the greatest and most celebrated games would now be identified with the state-sponsored imperial cult, which furthered public recognition, respect and approval for the emperor's divine numen, his laws, and his agents. Following Caesar's assassination and the Roman Civil War, Augustus assumed imperial authority over the games, including munera, and formalised their provision as a civic and religious duty. Thereafter, the gladiator contests formerly restricted to private munera were often included in the state games (ludi) that accompanied the major religious festivals.

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Courage, dignity, altruism and loyalty were morally redemptive; Lucian idealised this principle in his story of Sisinnes, who voluntarily fought as a gladiator, earned 10,000 drachmas and used it to buy freedom for his friend, Toxaris. Having "neither hope nor illusions", the gladiator could transcend his own debased nature, and disempower death itself by meeting it face to face. Yet, Cicero could also refer to his popularist opponent Clodius, publicly and scathingly, as a bustuarius—literally, a "funeral-man", implying that Clodius has shown the moral temperament of the lowest sort of gladiator. This yielded two combats for the cost of three gladiators, rather than four; such contests were prolonged, and in some cases, more bloody. A general melee of several, lower-skilled gladiators was far less costly, but also less popular. Increasingly the munus was the editor's gift to spectators who had come to expect the best as their due. Gladiators may have been involved in these as executioners, though most of the crowd, and the gladiators themselves, preferred the "dignity" of an even contest.