<;LA< is 



225 



their work, MM DC Sauimre's Voyage dan* let 

 AgMUz' tftude tur let Olaeieri; Crole's Climatrand Time; 

 Goikie's Ortnt /? A<ie ; Forbes'* Travelt in the Alpi ; 

 Tyndall's (Uacier* of tke Alia; Thomson, Proc. Roy. 

 Soe., 18.V5 57 ; Sflti*/i (;<</. Mao., vol. v. ; Heiin, Hn<i- 

 /,,/, ,/,, GUttckerkuiule \1&&) i also Dr Frederick 

 ; it'- iiiipnit nit work, Thf I<t Aye in North America 

 (New York i.ml L<>nl. IHSK). Fur the influence of 

 glaciers on marine deposits, wi- maps by Dr John Murray 

 in th. *,-ntti*li (ietiff. May., vol. v. 



lallinl to glade in the sense of a lawn) 

 i-, tin- slopr of earth, generally 1 in 20, which 

 inclines from the Covered -way (q.v.) of a fortress 

 towards t In- country. It obliges the assailants to 

 approach over an open span- swept by fire from 

 the fortress, and at the same time masks the 

 general works of the place. See FORTIFICATION. 



(ladbacli, < BEBGISCH-GLADBACH, an in- 



!u-tri;il town of Illienisli Prussia, 8 miles NE. of 

 Cologne. Its industries include the manufacture 

 of drag-nets, paper, papier-mache, and gunpowder, 

 and it lias zinc ana various other metal works. 

 Peat is cut in the neighbourhood. Pop. 9928. 



(.ladharli. or MONCHEN-GLADBACH, a rapidly 

 growing manufacturing town of Rhenish Prussia, 

 16 miles W. of Diisseldorf, is the centre of the 

 Rhenish cotton-spinning, industry. It has also 

 manufactures of silk, wool, linen, and paper, cotton- 

 printing works, dyeworks, bleachlields, iron-foun- 

 dries, machine-shops, breweries, and brickworks. 

 Gladbach, which has been a town since 1366, was 

 formerly the seat of an important linen trade ; the 

 cotton industry was introduced in the end of the 

 18th century. The town formerly contained a 

 famous Benedictine abbey, founded in 792, and 

 still possesses a church dating from the 12th and 

 13th centuries (the crypt from the 8th). Pop. 

 (1858) 13,965 ; ( 1871 ) 26,&4 ; (1885) 44,067 ; ( 1890) 

 49,028, mostly Roman Catholics. 



Gladiator ( from Lat. gladius, ' a sword ' ), a 

 professional fighter in the arena of a Roman 

 amphitheatre, against either another gladiator or a 

 wild beast. The custom of giving gladiatorial 

 exhibitions seems to have been borrowed from 

 Etniria, where slaves and prisoners were sacrificed 

 on the tombs of illustrious chieftains. This practice 

 was also common in Greece and the East. At 

 Rome the gladiatorial contests took place at first at 

 funerals only, but afterwards in the amphitheatre ; 

 and in process of time they lost all trace of a 

 religious character, and came to be a common form 

 of amusement. The first show of this kind that we 

 read of in Roman history was one between three 

 pairs of gladiators, arranged by Marcus and Decius 

 Brutus on the death of their father, in 264 B.C. 

 The fashion rapidly gained ground, especially during 

 the last years of the republic, and as it did so it 

 l>ecame customary for magistrates, public officers, 

 and candidates for the popular suffrages to give 

 gratuitous gladiatorial exhibitions to the people. 

 But the emperors exceeded all others in the extent 

 and magnificence of these spectacles. Julius Ciesar 

 gave a show at which 320 couples fought ; Titus 

 gave an exhibition of gladiators, wild beasts, and 

 sea-fights which lasted 100 days ; Trajan one of 

 123 days, in which 10,000 men fought with each 

 other or with wild beasts for the amusement of 

 the Romans ; and the taste for these cruel spectacles 

 spread through every part of the extensive Roman 

 empire. Even under the republic efforts had beei 

 made to limit the number of gladiators, and to 

 diminish the frequency of these spectacles. Cicero 

 proposed a law that no man should give one for 

 two years before becoming a candidate for office. 

 The Emperor Augustus forbade more than two 

 shows in a year, or that one should be given 

 by a man worth less than half a million sesterces. 

 Constantino in 325 prohibited gladiatorial contests 

 223 



altogether ; but their final alx>lition waft due to the 

 splendid daring of TelemacltUM, an Asiatic monk, 

 who in 404 journeyed to Rome, and there, rushing 

 into the arena, strove to part two gladiaton. The 

 spectators stoned him to death, but the Emperor 

 Honorius proclaimed him a martyr, and imued an 

 edict suppressing such exhibitions. The gladi- 

 ators were for the most part, and always at h'r>t, 

 prisoner* taken in war and slaves, with the worst 

 cla-'i- of criminals. But in the time* of the em- 

 perora freemen and men of broken fortunes liegan 

 to enter the profession ; and later on knights and 

 senators fought in the arena, and even women. 

 The Emperor Commodus was particularly proud of 

 his skill and prowess as a gladiator. The successful 

 combatant was at first rewarded with a palm 

 branch, hut in later years it became the custom to 

 add to this several rich and valuable present* and 

 a -nil-taut i.-i 1 pri/e of money. He was in fact the 

 hero of the hour, like the espada of the Spanish 

 bull-ring. It used to be commonly understood that, 

 after a gladiator had been thrown down or din- 

 armed, if the spectators turned up their thumbs, 

 they wish the vanquished man's life to be spared, 

 and, if they turned them down, that he was to be 

 slain. So it is interpreted in Gerome's famous 

 picture. But this is certainly erroneous. The 

 question mainly turns on the interpretation of 

 vertere pollicem smdpremerepollicem. Mayor takes 

 the first phrase to mean ' to turn the thumb to- 

 wards the breast, as the signal for stabbing ; ' the 

 latter, ' to turn downwards, as the signal for drop- 

 ping the sword.' Wilkins takes premere as closing 

 the thumb on the hand ; and infestus pollex, the 

 signal for death, seems to have been an upturned 

 thumb. Gladiators were trained in special schools ; 

 and it was regarded as a legitimate business 

 to keep them and let them out on hire. The 

 revolt of Spartacus (q.v.), the gladiator, and his 

 companions forms an exciting episode in Roman 

 history. Gladiators were 

 known by different names 

 according to the arms, offen- 

 sive and defensive, that they 

 wore. Thus, the Samnites 

 carried a shield, helmet, greave, 

 some kind of defensive armour 

 on the chest, and a short sword ; 

 the retiarii carried a trident 

 and a net to entangle their 

 opponents ; the laquearii had a 

 noose or lasso. 



Gladi'olllS, a genus of 

 Iridaceaj (q.v.), with beautiful 

 spikes of flowers, sword-shaped 

 leaves ( whence the name dun. 

 of Lat. gladius, 'a sword'), 

 and corms or bulbous rhizomes. 

 Several species are European 

 (G. palvjstris, communis, &c. ),' 

 though none are British ; the 

 majority, however, are from 

 the Cape. They are propagated 

 by offset conns or from seed : 

 in this way innumerable hybrids 

 have been produced. The hardy 

 European forms are well 

 adapted to the mixed border, 

 wild garden or shrubliery in 

 dry and sunny situations. 

 Among the leading Cape forms 

 are G. cardinttlis ( reu ), psit- 

 tacitius (yellow with purple 

 spots), jloribundus (purple and 

 hese have 



Gladiolus Kainoaus. 



white), &c., and these 

 given rise to numerous hybrids e.g. the first two 

 to G. gandavensw, which again stands at the head 

 of many new series of hybrids and varieties. The 



