I was watching this video a while ago, and the author of this video claims that gladiators would rarely die during games, and he provides some pretty good points to back up this claim. So is this actually true or is it just baseless, albeit plausible, speculation?
Hi, do check out this recent post by /u/Celebreth ; if you have follow-up questions, just jump into the thread
Here are a few others from the last year or so that may be interesting
Were there any incidents where free men chose to become gladiators during the Late Roman Republic? - featuring /u/XenophonTheAthenian
Were Roman gladiator fights as scripted as modern day wrestling?
How were lanista compensated for gladiator deaths? - featuring /u/Tiako
Will Durant, in his book Caesar And Christ, discussed the gladiatorial games.
He mentioned gladiators who committed suicide. Some used their own swords for this; one stuffed his throat with a sponge used to clean latrines; and another stuck his head into the spokes of a wagon wheel.
That these suicides were written about by Roman chroniclers suggests that they may have been unusual.
But the death toll could be severe, even though men of upper class sometimes enlisted as gladiators in their craving for applause. Durant mentioned mass combats with thousands of men, with slaves dressed as Charon poking the dead with sharp rods, and gladiators who were "playing dead" would be killed by mallet blows.