An essedarius was a type of

gladiator A gladiator ( la, gladiator, "swordsman", from , "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 gla ...

Ancient Rome In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–509 B ...

who fought from a

chariot A chariot is a type of cart driven by a charioteer, usually using horses to provide rapid motive power. The oldest known chariots have been found in burials of the Sintashta culture in modern-day Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia, dated to c. 2000&nbs ...

. The word was used in Caesar's

Gallic Wars The Gallic Wars were waged between 58 and 50 BC by the Roman general Julius Caesar against the peoples of Gaul (present-day France, Belgium, Germany and Switzerland). Gallic, Germanic, and British tribes fought to defend their homela ...

to describe

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

charioteers, who were driven over the battlefield, throwing spears at the enemy, then dismounted to fight or launched themselves along the chariot yoke. There are few references to them in the literature. In

Petronius Gaius Petronius Arbiter"Gaius Petronius Arbiter"
Seneca Seneca may refer to: People and language * Seneca (name), a list of people with either the given name or surname * Seneca people, one of the six Iroquois tribes of North America ** Seneca language, the language of the Seneca people Places Extrat ...

remarks on the difficulty of recognising a dismounted essedarius; this has been taken to imply that their fighting from chariots was their most distinctive feature. Some, most, or all essedarii had drivers, and some chariot fighters may have been citizens;

Suetonius Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (), commonly referred to as Suetonius ( ; c. AD 69 – after AD 122), was a Roman historian who wrote during the early Imperial era of the Roman Empire. His most important surviving work is a set of biographies ...

describes

Caligula Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (31 August 12 – 24 January 41), better known by his nickname Caligula (), was the third Roman emperor, ruling from 37 until his assassination in 41. He was the son of the popular Roman general Germanicu ...

's annoyance at tripping and falling, distracted by the applause of the crowd when a successful essedarius freed the slave who had driven him. If the reported armaments and skills of the British charioteers in the Gallic Wars are a guide to the gladiator type, then essedarii normally fought with a

spear A spear is a pole weapon consisting of a shaft, usually of wood, with a pointed head. The head may be simply the sharpened end of the shaft itself, as is the case with fire hardened spears, or it may be made of a more durable material fasten ...

and

sword A sword is an edged, bladed weapon intended for manual cutting or thrusting. Its blade, longer than a knife or dagger, is attached to a hilt and can be straight or curved. A thrusting sword tends to have a straighter blade with a pointed ti ...

, with a small

shield A shield is a piece of personal armour held in the hand, which may or may not be strapped to the wrist or forearm. Shields are used to intercept specific attacks, whether from close-ranged weaponry or projectiles such as arrows, by means of a ...

for defense. They might also have worn a manica for arm protection. Like any other gladiator, a successful essedarius could buy their freedom - or have it bought for them. Beryllus of Nemausis, in Gaul, was freed after his twentieth match, in the early 1st century AD, with money from his wife ( CIL 12.3323). She was probably a freedwoman.

References

{{Reflist Gladiator types

See also

References