linguistic:paraphrasing, information:filtering
Remembrance and epitaphs

Gladiators could subscribe to a union (collegia), which ensured their proper burial, and sometimes a pension or compensation for wives and children. Otherwise, the gladiator's familia, which included his lanista, comrades and blood-kin, might fund his funeral and memorial costs, and use the memorial to assert their moral reputation as responsible, respectful colleagues or family members. Some monuments record the gladiator's career in some detail, including the number of appearances, victories—sometimes represented by an engraved crown or wreath—defeats, career duration, and age at death. Some include the gladiator's type, in words or direct representation: for example, the memorial of a retiarius at Verona included the engraving of a trident and sword. A wealthy editor might commission artwork to celebrate a particularly successful or memorable show, and include named portraits of winners and losers in action; the Borghese Gladiator Mosaic is a notable example. According to Cassius Dio, the emperor Caracalla gave the gladiator Bato a magnificent memorial and State funeral; more typical are the simple gladiator tombs of the Eastern Roman Empire, whose brief inscriptions include the following:

"The familia set this up in memory of Saturnilos." "For Nikepharos, son of Synetos, Lakedaimonian, and for Narcissus the secutor. Titus Flavius Satyrus set up this monument in his memory from his own money." "For Hermes. Paitraeites with his cell-mates set this up in memory".

Very little evidence survives of the religious beliefs of gladiators as a class, or their expectations of an afterlife. Modern scholarship offers little support for the once-prevalent notion that gladiators, venatores and bestiarii were personally or professionally dedicated to the cult of the Graeco-Roman goddess Nemesis. Rather, she seems to have represented a kind of "Imperial Fortuna " who dispensed Imperial retribution on the one hand, and Imperially subsidised gifts on the other—including the munera. One gladiator's tomb dedication clearly states that her decisions are not to be trusted. Many gladiator epitaphs claim Nemesis, fate, deception or treachery as the instrument of their death, never the superior skills of the flesh-and-blood adversary who defeated and killed them. Having no personal responsibility for his own defeat and death, the losing gladiator remains the better man, worth avenging.

"I, Victor, left-handed, lie here, but my homeland was in Thessalonica. Doom killed me, not the liar Pinnas. No longer let him boast. I had a fellow gladiator, Polyneikes, who killed Pinnas and avenged me. Claudius Thallus set up this memorial from what I left behind as a legacy."