"Those who are going to die greet you" a phrase that was never said by the gladiators

We have all heard in series, movies, cinema in general, this famous phrase even in literature and is that many in the wake of this bombing in all popular media in the end we ended up believing that the gladiators really did this greeting.

This distortion of the facts comes from a famous painting by Jean Leon Gerome a painting that dates from the nineteenth century, the beginning of this phrase has its origin in the painting because in fact it is as it is titled, in the picture in question a scene of gladiators in which they are greeting the Cesar is represented.

But at this point you will ask yourself but, and then this phrase was not said by anyone in the story? although the gladiators never used said phrase, something very curious is that if it was used by other participants always within the Roman Empire.

They were called naumachiarii, their function was totally different from that of the gladiators within the Roman Empire, their battles consisted of water on ships, the main objective was to sink the enemy's ships with it. Julio Cesar sought to be innovative and for that had that to order to dig a huge pit in the Field of Mars that communicated the Tiber river by means of a channel.

Then the water was let in to flood the pit, so large was the place that many rowers participated, around 4,000, most were prisoners of war and condemned to die. Many battles were recreated but there was one in particular that was ordered by the Emperor Augustus the battle between Greeks and Persians.

As time went by and consequently the emperors were changing until Nero arrived who in order to reduce costs because the work of Julio Cesar was too expensive, (fill artificial lakes) was proposed to reduce the battles until limited to representations with less actors and in which the ships could hardly maneuver, is how the naumanquias die.