The pleasures of the spectacles were “not compatible with true religion and true obedience to the true God,” said third-century writer Tertullian. He considered those who attended them to be accomplices of those doing the killing.

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Fights to “Appease the Dead”

On the origin of gladiatorial combat, third-century writer Tertullian says: “The ancients thought that by this sort of spectacle they rendered a service to the dead, after they had tempered it with a more cultured form of cruelty. For of old, in the belief that the souls of the dead are propitiated with human blood, they used at funerals to sacrifice captives or slaves of poor quality whom they bought. Afterwards it seemed good to obscure their impiety by making it a pleasure. So after the persons procured had been trained in such arms as they then had and as best they might​—their training was to learn to be killed!​—they then did them to death on the appointed funeral day at the tombs. So they found comfort for death in murder. This is the origin of the munus. But by and by they progressed to the same height in refinement as in cruelty; for the pleasure of the holiday lacked something, unless savage beasts too had their share in tearing men’s bodies to pieces. What was offered to appease the dead was counted as a funeral rite.”