Here we come to the tipical retiarius’ enemy: the Secutor. As you can understand by his name (“the one who pursues”) the Secutor is the perfect pair for the retiarius. And a dangerous foe. In a perfetc balanced system as the gladiatorial pairings (murmillo-traex, provocatores, retiarius-secutor) in this case we can see a perfect match between weakness and strength points of each other. Were the retiarius is fast, agile and suitable for the long distance fight with and hit and run technique, the secutor is more suitable for a close combat. In fact the light armor worn by the retiarius is useless in a close combat where is better have an heavy armor like the secutor. But the heavy armor is not good for running, so, this good defense become a weak point when the secutor is forced to run for keep a close distance with the retiarius, with a great risk of becoming tired very soon.
The secutor is a heavy armed gladiator. He is in the scutarii category, with his large scutum and he is very similar to the murmillo. He wears a galea, an “ocrea” (greave) on his left leg, a large scutum, a gladium or a pugio, an hard leather balteus and a manica on his right arm. It’s easy to see the similarity with the murmillo, the only difference is the helm (galea). In fact, the secutor is an evolution of the murmillo, created for fight the retiarius.
There is a little confusion, but it’s believed that, in his first apparitions in the early imperial age, the retiarius was paired with the murmillo. But, given the exotic and singular new foe, the murmillo was forced to evolve, changing his attendistic technique for a more dynamic one, and adopting a different helm for a better protection. In fact, the strange and globular shape of the helm, with his curved crest and only two holes for the eyes gave a better defence against the terrible retiarius’ fuscina (trident), more than murmillo’s helm. And the secutor’s galea was reinforced in the front against blows. But the new helm has two principal weak points: it was very heavy and it gave very little air for breathing and limited very much visual and hearing. That’s the reason why the secutor tried every time to resolve the fight in a very little time.
The right arm defense, the manica, was composed by various materials: hard leather, padded with linen, metal scales, sometimes mixed with metal and leather parts. The ocrea, often of bronze or iron metal, covered only the left leg. In fact the secutor assume a fighting stance egual han the legionary, with his left leg and the scutum in front and the right leg in the rear, for giving less target than possible to his enemy and for a better hiding back his scutum. For this reason the secutor didn’t need the extend greaves worn by the traex.
The scutum is very similar to the legionary. Composed by three wooden layers covered by a leather layer, the scutum was used with the same technique adopted by the legionary, especially in protection for head and leg.
The only offensive weapon was the gladius or a pugio, according to various images; never mind, this kind of weapon is suitable only for close combat, forcing the secutor to reduce the distance with retiarius and, eventually, to pursue him to reach this intent.
Unlike the retiarius, with long legs and arms, the secutor is shorter, more muscular, better built for short and quick runs, perhaps more powerful but with less stamina than his opponent, better armoured and, at the same time, hampered by his own equipment.
An exotic variation was the scissor. The scissor wore the same helm, has got a pair of graves, a manica, usually with metal scales, and, instead of the scutum, wore a short lorica hamata (chain mail) or a squamata (with metal )scales. On the left arm there was his peculiar weapon, a cylindrical leather “hose” covering half his arm and hand, with a sharp, half-moon shape, blade, used as a offensive (and sometimes defensive too) weapon. The other weapon was, as usual, the gladius or the pugio.


....and sorry again for my english.....