Munera gladiatoria. Mosaici ed iscrizioni dall’Africa romana

The heritage of the mosaics from Roman Africa is very rich in representations of venationes, thereby demonstrating the strong appeal that the amphitheater spectacles exerted on African society of the imperial age. On the contrary less attention is devoted to the images of gladiators, which are a really rare subject on mosaics of Africa: in the territories actually in Tunisia, the heart of the African mosaic school, we find in fact only three mosaics with figures of gladiators, always commented by short inscribed texts. This paper aims at analyzing this sparse but interesting documentation too often overlooked by the recearches on behalf of more striking images, by studying it on the double line of the iconography and the epigraphy. From these arguments arises a frame where vivid and real personalities are moving, whose specialties within the gladiatorial classes we can now understand: these personalities were the heroes of the crowds in majestical buildings for spectacles, which we are finally able to locate and of which, in many cases, impressive ruins remain still today.