Customer Reviews

The Way of the Gladiator

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This book is a reprint of "Those About to Die," which was published back in the late 50's, when Mannix was in his heyday as a writer. I came to know Daniel P. Mannix through his many articles for the 50's publication "True: The Man's Magazine." He was a competent writer on many subjects, and his stories were always entertaining. "The Way of the Gladiator" is nothing if it is not entertaining. But it is NOT a piece of sober history.

The book is not so much historical fiction as it is fictionalized history. Historical fiction is a make believe story told against the backdrop of historical events. Mannix takes historical events and relates them in "documentary" fashion, but unabashedly invents details and descriptions which, if they are accurate, are accurate only by accident.

If you understand from the outset what you are dealing with, "The Way of the Gladiator" can be great reading. If you're looking for a well researched, scholarly study of gladiators, check out Michael Grant's "Gladiators."

In this short and easy to read work, the author introduces the Roman gladiatorial games in all of their glory and terror. Relying heavily on primary sources, the author takes genuine stories from the games, and weaves them together to create stories that take the reader back to what the games were really like. Along the way, Mannix shows the evolution of the games, from challenges of skill and courage to mere orgies of carnage and destruction.

Warning: this book is NOT for the faint of heart! The author presents the full spectrum of events, which includes the in-depth description of events of extreme sadism. However, if you are interested in really understanding what the gladiatorial games were like, then this is the book for you. Not academic in style, this book takes you right to the Coliseum!

I picked up this book looking for an accurate historical account of the gladitorial games in ancient Rome. It was not quite what I expected. While the author does make some effort to identify his sources, this is not a scholarly study.

This book is full of the kind of shadowy, ugly stuff that Edward Gibbon only hinted at in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Whereas Gibbon usually states that modern decency forbids him to give you the details, Mannix has no such compunctions. He luridly describes the horrors of the arena, leaving no graphic detail untouched. This makes the book fascinating, in a morbid sort of way, even as it gives the reader a sense of moral superiority over the wretches that delighted in such spectacles.

That said, the book left me with a bad taste in my mouth at times. My problem with books like this, that seek to entertain the reader with stories of true-life atrocities, is that no matter how much they villify the perpetrators, they are always written in a way to make the reader identify with the sadists rather than their victims. Am I supposed to find it entertaining to read about people being torn limb from limb? Shouldn't I rather empathize with these poor wretched human beings, who had feelings just like I do and suffered so needlessly? To hear about their sufferings from any perspective but their own puts me (psychologically speaking) on the side of the perpetrators rather than the victims.

Despite these misgivings, I think the book does have some value, precisely because it shows the reader just how far ethical standards have developed since the time of the Roman Empire. It has a cathartic value by reinforcing the reader's disgust at unbounded cruelty. For people like me who have an interest in Christian origins, it also shows just what the early Christians were revolting against (and perhaps also why their religion of love contains a violent dark side, represented by a hell full of tortures).

For people interested in a more scholarly study of the psychological aspects of the gladitorial games, I recommend "The Sorrows of the Ancient Romans" by Carlin A. Barton.

Despite the title, gladiators fill a minor background role in this work. The author goes to great lengths to describe tortures, executions, perversions and the darker aspects of the Roman entertainment world.

A large percentage of the book is spent describing, in detail, the lives of the charioteers, bestiarii, and animal trappers yet the people the book appeared to be about get just a few scattered pages.

Looking for historical data on the gladiators? Looking for information about people trained to fight and when the time came die bravely? Looking for armor, training, lives, and deaths of men who for a variety of reasons found themselves on the sand? Look elsewhere.

Looking for morbid entertainment? Amusing tales and stories of depravity? The book is almost a collection of associated short stories dealing with the less "enlightened" aspects of the Roman games.

Very entertaining in itself, but don't let the titla fool you. Fictional work but worth a read. Not for the younger reader.

Mannix does a great job of making you feel like you are a part of the crowd at a Roman spectacle. His descriptions of chariot races and gladiator games are well done. He takes real gladiators, whose name has been recorded in history, and creates a "biography" and career for him. The only knock on the book is that some of the themes are adult in nature. Otherwise, it is a great insight into our times as well as those of ancient Rome. Good companion piece to the movie Gladiator.

that is marred by the number of proofreading errors. Overall it was a very interesting read. Mannix weaves together events and gives you scenes as they could have happened. He makes no bones about the fact that he is inventing characters. He uses real people whenever possible, but there is so little known of individual gladiators and bestarii that there is plenty of room for him to work.

Overall, a fun read. It has whetted my appetite for more books about Rome.

Daniel P. Mannix's historically fictionalized book (The Way of the Gladiator) weaves a tapestry of engaging and often horrific images of the arena games that came to be a dominant element in Roman civilization. Rome, at this time, was steadily expanding her influence over the various regions of the west, and as the Empire grew, so did dissolution and corruption within its infrastructure. The Games ignited an excited rhythm in the mundane lives of the mob, and as the games evolved from events of competition and skill to pointless spectacles of sadistic murder, their excitement turned into a frenzied obsession that all but consumed their lives.Mannix's graphic accounts of the brutal history and evolution of the Roman Games provides a revealing glimpse into the Roman mob's obsession with violence and how the emperors used the games as a means of maintaining social stability and control of their crumbling Empire. Mannix delivers all the drama and violence that has come to symbolize the Roman Games through his poignant portrayals of the savage brutality of its many participants, and the unfortunate outcome of its countless victims. And while Mannix's prose tends to stray from historical accuracy, he nontheless achieves the goal of painting a uniquely vivid portrayal of Roman civilization,thus providing the reader with a clearer perspective of the developement and evolution of the Gladitorial Games. I personally enjoyed reading this book and I strongly recommend it to anyone interested in ancient world history and Roman society.

I wasn't aware gladiator games had spectator shows of animals (from drunken chimpanzees, zebras, baboons to wild boars) raping condemned women as part of their entertainment in the arena, until I read this book. There were actually men (the bestiarii) who trained wild beast to not only kill and eat people, but sexually violate them as well! Author Daniel P. Mannix offers up plenty of shocking events in this absorbing read, which you probably never learnt about in ancient history class. Example: condemned men were put on seesaws in the arena and then hungry lions & other wild beast were let loose. The men seesawed desperately back and forth trying to stay on the up-side, so that they wouldn't be eaten. Can you imagine? It must have been the quickest seesawing one had ever seen. This provided great amusement for the arena crowd as did other countless sadistic pre-game shows.

Of course the principal focus is on the gladiators themselves. There is a lot of fascinating information about the day to day lives of the gladiators, Romans, and the political power houses behind the scenes, however some of the additional spectacles going on during the games were just as interesting, if not more fascinating. I couldn't put the book down.

If history has taught us anything, it's that there are certain periods that are known for being brutal; everything from the terror tactics of the Assyrian war machine to the famous gladiatorial combats and spectacles of the great Roman Empire. The Way of The Gladiator is one piece of writing that brings perhaps the most famous aspect of the Roman Empire into focus. The beginning is a good simple solid opening with a short little note from a former editor of a book club, (which serves to whet the appetite), then smoothly works into the authors note to describe the process of describing the events, which, interestingly enough, came from a variety of sources ranging from the Annals of Tacitus to ancient graffiti from Pompeii. The author moves into the first chapter with an exciting tease by briefly talking about the revolt against Nero. As the reader progresses further, more and more detail about the history of some lesser-known Roman events before gladiatorial history takes center stage. The author gives good novel-like examples about the spectacles that took place, especially chariot racing, before working into the forms of armed combat and this helps to paint a nice picture of the following chapters rather nicely. The history of the outlined spectacles and matches themselves are every bit as brutal as the rule of many of the post-Christian Caesars themselves. Some of the early history and events are described in short, limited, but still entertaining pieces of fiction. But Mannix adds to the accuracy by including a sample program from one of the games and an illustration or two, which helps add a few brushstrokes to the picture. The spectacles themselves are described in the range of semi-focused details to the grotesquely explicit. Some of the events described are simply decadent, and the reader will probably think some of them are too ghastly to be authentic and little more than an attempt at fiction, and simply dismiss them altogether. However, for those who have a deeper knowledge of ancient history in general, or know the Roman Empire, will find them to be all too believable. If you know your Roman civilization, you'll find yourself sighing at the atrocities. My Ups and Downs: This is a book that any history student can get some use out of, but is not a complete history of the spectacles themselves. There isn't any detailed information that a thesis could be built upon for a paper as far as historical accuracy goes, but for those who aren't crazy about the Roman empire and find early western civilization boring, this book will definitely spark their attention and that may be all that is needed to explore the subject of history deeper. On the down side, my only serious problem with this book is that the author uses fiction in recreating some of the events that took place and even about a few famous Romans themselves. However, looking from the opposite point of view, these fictitious chunks help the reader to get a layman's idea of what kind of entertainment (or, more appropriately, what passed for it), occurred. If the student reader is creative, then they might be able to stick a fun fact or two, or three into a paper on Rome. For those who just want to read something about Rome and maybe learn something in the process, then this book is worth the price tag. If you're expecting a bio on a Caesar, or a famous gladiator, or something to supplement the movie "Gladiator" you won't find it here. This is an entertaining read from a historical point of view, and it gives the reader a good page turner with some flair to it. But be warned, it cuts as sharply as any Gladius and no shield can hide you from the bloodstains.

Like another reviewer, I was looking for more information and historical content. Its pretty much a few stories. Despite the fact it wasnt exactly what I was looking for, it was still interesting.