Many
popular
ideas
about
the
Roman
arena
were
formed
in
the
nineteenth
century
from
popular
images
and
accounts
.
The
influential
artist
Jean
Léon
Gérôme
used
genuine
gladiatorial
art
and
equipment
from
Pompeii
as
models
for
his
paintings
of
ancient
Rome
and
the
arena
,
but
he
also
invented
freely
in
dramatizing
his
scenes
.
Movies
from
Quo
Vadis
to
Gladiator
have
drawn
on
such
works
to
____________________
a
world
of
strangely
armed
gladiators
,
Christians
nobly
awaiting
attack
by
lions
,
and
"
thumbs
down
"
death
gestures
by
emperors
and
rabid
crowds
.
Actual
Roman
images
of
the
arena
are
quite
different
:
crowds
and
emperors
are
rarely
shown
,
we
are
not
sure
which
direction
the
thumb
actually
pointed
in
the
famous
death
gesture
,
and
victims
of
attack
by
big
cats
were
certainly
neither
dignified
nor
noble
.
The
Romans
glorified
the
____________________
shown
in
the
arena
,
but
____________________
the
events
and
degraded
the
participants
.
Mosaic
pictures
of
executions
and
combats
,
____________________
violent
to
our
eyes
,
were
displayed
in
the
public
rooms
and
even
dining
rooms
in
the
homes
of
wealthy
Romans
.
How
can
the
viewer
today
possibly
understand
such
images
?
Until
fairly
recently
,
modern
authors
writing
about
the
arena
minimized
its
significance
and
____________________
the
institutionalized
violence
as
a
sideline
to
Roman
history
.
The
____________________
was
also
to
view
the
events
through
our
own
eyes
and
to
see
them
as
pitiful
or
horrifying
,
although
to
most
Romans
____________________
with
victims
of
the
arena
was
inconceivable
.
In
the
past
few
decades
,
however
,
scholars
have
started
to
analyze
the
complex
motivations
for
deadly
public
entertainments
and
for
contradictory
views
of
gladiators
as
despised
,
yet
beloved
hero
-
slave
s
