A Note on Cooperative Strategies in Gladiators' games

Jérôme Ballet (1) , Damien Bazin (2) , Radu Vranceanu (3)

1 IRD-Resilience
2 GREDEG - Groupe de Recherche en Droit, Economie et Gestion
3 ESSEC Business School and THEMA (UMR 8184)

Gladiatorial combat was in reality a lot less lethal than it is depicted in the cinema. This short paper highlights how cooperative strategies could have prevailed in the arenas, which is generally what happened during the Games. Cooperation in the arena corresponded to a situation of the professionalization of gladiators, who been trained in gladiatorial schools. This case provides an analogy of the conditions under which cooperation occurs in a context of competition between rival companies.

Mots clés: gladiatorial combat; sustainable competition; cooperation rule

Domaines: Economies et finances

Jérôme Ballet, Damien Bazin, Radu Vranceanu. A Note on Cooperative Strategies in Gladiators' games. Games, 2013, 4 (1), pp.200-207. ⟨10.3390/g4020200⟩. ⟨halshs-00927106⟩