Macedonians, Maedi, and the legend of Spartacus

[Karposh]

Rodan the Gladiator

I felt this would be the most appropriate thread to share this intriguing photo in that I recently came across of a Roman mosaic (known as the Gladiator Mosaic) depicting a bunch of gladiators which has been dated to the first half of the 4th century (i.e. 300’s AD). What is intriguing about it is the name of the fallen blond, long-haired gladiator with the very Macedonian sounding name, Rodan. We know he has been killed by the Greek letter Θ placed next to his name which apparently stood for “Thanatos”, meaning dead. Would it be such a stretch of the imagination if this gladiator turned out to be a Macedonian? We know the Romans used many slaves from the conquered territories to fight as gladiators and Thracians and Macedonians would have featured prominently in these staged fights to the death. They even named a type of gladiator after the Thracians, the Thraex.

[Carlin]

I felt this would be the most appropriate thread to share this intriguing photo in that I recently came across of a Roman mosaic (known as the Gladiator Mosaic) depicting a bunch of gladiators which has been dated to the first half of the 4th century (i.e. 300’s AD). What is intriguing about it is the name of the fallen blond, long-haired gladiator with the very Macedonian sounding name, Rodan. We know he has been killed by the Greek letter Θ placed next to his name which apparently stood for “Thanatos”, meaning dead. Would it be such a stretch of the imagination if this gladiator turned out to be a Macedonian? We know the Romans used many slaves from the conquered territories to fight as gladiators and Thracians and Macedonians would have featured prominently in these staged fights to the death. They even named a type of gladiator after the Thracians, the Thraex.

That's interesting. I wonder if there is more info on this gladiator mosaic.

After doing some "research" on google I found that Rodan is a Slavonic name related to the adjective native, nativity. Rodán is also described as a Celtic-Gaelic name meaning hearty, lively.

https://themeaningofthename.com/rodan/

https://www.morebooks.de/store/gb/book/rodan-given-name/isbn/978-613-7-54324-5

https://www.thenamemeaning.com/rodan/

https://books.google.ca/books?id=mZt3oGtk1KgC&pg=PA225&dq=Rodan+Gaelic&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwib6pSyjaPpAhWEbc0KHT-nDP8Q6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&q=Rodan%20Gaelic&f=false

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The ancient historian and biographer Plutarch describes Spartacus as "a Thracian of nomadic stock", in a possible reference to the Maedi. [Nic Fields (2009). Spartacus and the Slave War 73-71 BC: A Gladiator Rebels Against Rome. Osprey Publishing. p. 28. ISBN 978-1-84603-353-7.]

A number of Maedi emigrated to Asia minor and were called MaedoBythini: The Cambridge Ancient History, Volume 3, Part 2: The Assyrian and Babylonian Empires and Other States of the Near East, from the Eighth to the Sixth Centuries BC by John Boardman, I. E. S. Edwards, E. Sollberger, and N. G. L. Hammond, ISBN 0-521-22717-8, 1992, page 601: "Earlier certain tribes of the Maedi emigrated to Asia minor where they were known by the name of the MaedoBythini..."


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Since this thread is about Macedonians and Maedi, a Thracian tribe, I thought this should go here:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781118878248.ch22

Thracian and Macedonian Kingship, William S. Greenwalt

"This chapter focuses on elements of a shared royal ideology between the Argeads of Macedonia and at least some of their Thracian counterparts. The Thracians had a significant influence on the early Macedonian ideology of kingship. Argead kings appeared as heroes necessary for the preservation of the health and well‐being of all of their subjects, just as anecdotal evidence suggests was the prevailing thought among at least some of the Thracian kingdoms."