One of the protagonists of the last World Cup in Russia has been the VAR (Video Assistant Referee , video assistant referee), which consists of a set of cameras distributed throughout the field that retransmits the signal to a room where video assistants can review the goals, cards, penalties and the identity of the players in certain sets of the match. Assistance can occur at the request of the main referee or at the request of the assistants themselves, notifying the referee through the earpiece. Oddly enough, for everything we criticize the referees, he has had less prominence than expected in terms of the final results. Of course, with this system the record for penalties in a World Cup has been broken. And why do I say that it would also have been necessary in the gladiatorial fights in Ancient Rome? I'll tell you...
Before going down to the arena, specify some details about gladiator fights -we have already talked about the thumb error and the ritual greeting «those who are going to die greet you«-
Gladiatorial fighting itself was a degeneration. The origin dates back to the time of the Etruscans when this type of combat between prisoners was celebrated to honor the death of a loved one. A funerary ritual that became a playful spectacle. And already put, later the fight between animals or the one of men against animals were added, anything so that the show did not decay.
Most of the fights were to the first blood and only rarely were fights to the death, albeit with the possibility of pardon from the emperor or the publisher of the show. You have to think that it was a business:the publisher who organized and financed the fights, to gain the favor of the people, keep them happy or get the votes for some position in the judiciary, rented the lanistas (owners of the gladiatorial schools) the gladiators who were going to fight and, logically, paid for it. If it was to the death, you had to pay much more, because a dead gladiator was one fighter less than the lanista he could rent for other shows. So, to amortize the expenses, he wanted them to fight on many occasions so that it would be a profitable business.
Once the draw was made for the couples who were going to fight each other and the bets were crossed, the fighters and the summa rudis remained in the arena. , a kind of referees who ensured compliance with the rules –fair play -. These judges, usually retired prestigious gladiators, wore white robes and carried wooden swords (rudis ) or whips with which they signaled illegal movements, stopped the combat if a gladiator was injured or incited them to fight by hitting them if they did not feel like it.
In one of these fights held 1800 years ago between two gladiators named Diodorus and Demetrius something unexpected happened that Diodorus' tombstone reveals.
The relief shows the image of a gladiator holding what appear to be two swords in front of his fallen opponent begging for mercy, and the epitaph in question reads as follows...
After defeating my opponent, Demetrius, I didn't kill him right away. Fate and the decision of the summa rudis killed me.
After studying the burial, the conclusion of Michael Carter , a professor at the University of St. Catharines-Brock (Canada) and a specialist in the study of this type of combat, was that Diodorus had knocked down Demetrius and he, from the ground, extended his hand as a sign of mercy. Diodorus, thinking that he had already won, did not kill his opponent, but the summa rudis he interpreted that Demetrius had not been defeated by Diodorus but had accidentally fallen and ordered the fight to resume. Demetrius collected the equipment from him and managed to kill Diodorus. One or more of the dead gladiator's acquaintances, who had seen what had happened, commissioned the tombstone and epitaph so that posterity would remember that fatal mistake.
Surely Diodoro would have requested the VAR.