Roman Gladiator Knives: Objectification, Mascotting, and the Material Culture of Sport in Ancient Rome

Abstract

Abstract Roman pocketknives carved in the form of gladiators offer vital insight into the ambiguous status of the athletes they represent and how ancient consumers related to them. Gladiator knives objectified male gladiators as a key site for embodying and grappling with Roman conceptions of masculinity, sex, and enslavement. The knives reflect the popularity of gladiatorial combat as a sport in the Roman Empire, but they also commodified gladiators as mascots: utile bodies rather than autonomous individuals. Gladiator knives suggest how art historical analysis can illuminate the role of sports merchandise as an everyday mechanism of power outside institutionalized sporting practices.