"One may imagine the frantic excess to which the taste for gladiatorial combats was carried in Rome, from the preventive law of Augustus that gladiators should no more combat without permission of the senate; that prætors should not give these spectacles more than twice a year; that more than sixty couples should not engage at the same time; and that neither knights nor senators should ever contend in the arena. The gladiators were classified according to the national manner of fighting which they imitated. Thus were distinguished the Gothic, Dacian, Thracian, and Samnite combatants; the _Retiarii_, who entangled their opponents in nets thrown with the left hand, defending themselves with tridents in the right; the _Secutores_, whose special skill was in pursuit; the _Laqueatores_, who threw slings against their adversaries; the _Dimachæ_, armed with a short sword in each hand; the _Hoplomachi_, armed at all points; the _Myrmillones_, so called from the figure of a fish at the crest of the Gallic helmet they wore; the _Bustuarii_, who fought at funeral games; the _Bestiarii_, who only assailed animals; other classes who fought on horseback, called _Andabates_; and those combating in chariots drawn by two horses, _Essedarii_. Gladiators were originally slaves, or prisoners of war; but the armies who contended on the Roman arena in later epochs, were divided into compulsory and voluntary combatants, the former alone composed of slaves, or condemned criminals. The latter went through a laborious education in their art, supported at the public cost, and instructed by masters called _Lanistæ_, resident in colleges, called _Ludi_. To the eternal disgrace of the morals of Imperial Rome, it is recorded that women sometimes fought in the arena, without more modesty than hired gladiators. The exhibition of himself in this character by Commodus, was a degradation of the imperial dignity, perhaps more infamous, according to ancient Roman notions, than the theatrical performances of Nero."--_Hemans' Story of Monuments in Rome._ The Emperor Commodus (A.D. 180-182), frequently fought in the Coliseum himself, and killed both gladiators and wild beasts, calling himself Hercules, dressed in a lion's-skin, with his hair sprinkled with gold-dust.