During the 10th century AD, thousands of Romans would gather in an arena to watch a blood battle between man against man or man against animal.  Cheers and screams would be heard throughout the colosseum of encouragement continuing the fight or death.  This was known as Gladiator fighting which ranged from different statuses of men, Sparta picked their men from birth and trained them until the age of 18 and other areas would use slaves for torturing. This influences would spread around the world. Mexico would later adopted the idea of a fashionably dressed man waving a red cape in front of a bull until they were able to cut the ear off.  Fighting is something that shows the strengths and the weakness of someone, which has become the entertainment throughout centuries. The British TV series Black Mirror portrays the modern day society of entertainment for the Romans. 

 Victoria the main character, is stuck in a society that her fiance left her after murdering a 6 year old child. As an untrained slave she is being tortured with no memory in a world where no one will help her. As an audience they are witnessing her being chased down by multiple masked figures until she is brought to white bear where the "host" explains to her the "game" she's in.  She is shown the pictures of the little girl her fiance burned in a sleeping bag while Victoria videoed the crime. The picture of the little girl was placed by the frame to make her believe that was her child. The irony is that Victoria is the little girl in this game. Now she doesn't know what is happening and she is suffering for her actions. Later after kidnapping her the fiance then set the little girl on fire and burned her alive. While that was going on the woman watched it happen. Now everyday she gets her memory wiped out by these people that host a game where they torture criminals, but to the audience it is pure enjoyment. This is similar to ancient Rome and its obsession with Gladiators.

 A Gladiator is a professional fighter who specialized with particular weapons and fought before the public in large purpose built arenas throughout the Roman Empire from 105 BCE to 404 CE (Cartwright 1). What makes the episode from Black Mirror and Ancient Gladiators similar is, it was one if not the most popular entertainment in Rome at the time. The Gladiators were put in the Coliseum, Arena's or at their Lannister's which is the home of the Gladiators and where they train for doing ungrateful or not respectful things. Respected Gladiators would sometimes have the privilege to fight and kill regular untrained slaves and slaughter them. This is similar to the woman who was in that game show in Black Mirror. In this case she is the untrained slave by not knowing anything, her name, who she is, or why she is there. Victoria is being tortured by not remembering anything and being put in this world were nobody will help her. When the show host tells her what she has done though the realization of that is the Trained Gladiator and its killing her on the inside.

 In Black Mirror the game show was showing how the suffering of another human being is entertainment to the audience. This is a lot like the gladiators, thousands of people would come to watch the Gladiators fight, sometimes they would even put tigers in the ring with Gladiators too see how they would do. The people of Rome encouraged that there must be blood split in the Arena. This meant that someone would have to suffer with being cut by a blade of some sort. Another thing too look at is that, no matter how many times the woman got her memory erased and relived that day over and over again the people and or crows could still not get enough of it. This is just like the Ancient Roman people. No matter how many times a slave or Gladiator died or suffered they keep wanting more and more blood to be spilt, in both Black Mirror and Gladiators the crowd has a big part in both situations. Without the crowd Gladiators would never have become that popular and possibly never have even existed. Same goes with Black Mirror without the crowd of the television show there would never be this reoccurring scene every day. Victoria would sit in a jail cell the rest of her life if she wasn't sentenced to death and or kill herself like her fiance did. Without the crowd none of this would have happened so the people of the crowd are to blame for all of this suffering.  

After Victoria goes through the same thing every day with her memory being erased and being mentally tortured for sport why don't the people kill Victoria already. They keep her alive so that other people can be so called extra's have a chance to record her with there phones in the show. In some cases Gladiators did not always fight to the death. If they put up an exciting and well fought show for the crowd than the judge would give them both the right to walk away. This gives the next crowd to watch those same Gladiators fight much like The Black Mirror bringing Victoria back. Since Victoria is giving the people such a good show they are constantly wanting more and more of her suffering.

  The Gladiator fights also had very strict rules. The fights were normally one versus one and they had referees and if he saw anything illegal he would stop the fight. The fights would also be against men that were similar in size so it could be as even as possible. Like in Black Mirror at the end of the episode all of the Characters that are either chasing or helping Victoria are telling the new extra's with the phones what and what not to do. They simply tell the extras 

not to touch her because she is dangerous and that they do not want any harm to come there way, also too not talk or speak to her so she is confused as can be. Both Black Mirror and Gladiators had strict rules to them which allows it to make it more enjoyable for the audience there. 

In Black Mirror the show puts down simple things down in specific places to make sure she starts remembering the events that happened but not fully but she does start to remember what had happened. Like the White bear that was key factor in the investigation when they kidnapped the little girl and could not find her all they had that was hers was a stuffed animal of a white bear. Another thing was what looked to be an upside down "Y" was on the Television screen when she first woke up and it also was on the masks of one of the people that was chasing her. This symbol was tattooed on the back of her fiances neck. So when she saw it she started remembering a little more and more. All of these symbols to help her remember the events that happened is a lot like what the people would do too POW's (Prisoners of War) when the judges descried to reenact battles that had just happened for the people to see what it was like and to show Rome's power. They would have the weak POW's that were fighting against the Romans weeks before and they would get them weak then give them brittle and worn out swords to fight with. The Gladiators though got full Roman Armor to make them look like The Roman soldiers that fought that battle. By making the POW's weak this made the chance of them making a comeback or even having a chance to fight back very slim. The outcome was always the POW's were slaughtered just like there comrades did on the actually battlefield and they have to reenact the battle for the pure enjoyment and display of power of the Roman. So in a both Black mirror and Gladiators the people do like to give the people they are making suffer rethink and relive the events that occurred. 

This essay has shown the Similarities between The British Television series Black Mirror episode White Bear and the Ancient Gladiators. How both Audiences love and feed off of other peoples suffering and use those sufferings as some sort of entertainment for them, and how there always has to be a leader directing or organizing the games. 

