I: Revealing the armor

This is not to say that there is no correlation - intentional or not - between Tamora and the extant representations of female0 gladiators in ancient sources. Certainly the connection between female fighters and Amazons, a feature of both the Halicarnassus frieze, seen in this slide (sl,) and Statius’ description of the female warriors at Domitian’s Saturnalia in Silvae 1.6, for example, is picked up by Tamora’s ethnicity as a Goth, hailing from the same region as the Amazons.ⁱⁱⁱ But this is certainly not Taymor’s primary referent, just as "historical" Rome is less of a model for her than the Romes depicted in 20th-century film. To be sure, Taymor relies on other features to make Tamora’s foreignness made visually recognizable.

When we first meet Tamora, she is being led into the arena caged and chained as part of Titus’ funereal triumph (2sl) as the film’s opening credits roll. Her hair is matted, her face caked with mud, and she is draped in an animal hide. A victim of Titus’ war with the Goths, she and her sons ride listlessly in a crude cart outfitted with barbed wire, like animals themselves, only slightly more animated than the spoils transported in a glass case behind them (sl). They are like weary beasts brought in for the fight. But soon thereafter, Tamora comes to life in her first engagement with her enemy Titus, as he prepares to sacrifice her eldest son in return for the many sons he has lost in his fight with the Goths. Still chained and matted, she begs Titus to spare her son to no avail (sl). Accusing him of "cruel irreligious piety", and thus condemning Roman religious tradition, Tamora is from this point on committed to vengeance. But to enact her revenge, Tamora must suit-up as a fighter to rival Titus on his terms.

Tamora’s transformation to gladiatrix is marked by her first dramatic costume change. In the scene where Titus hands the Goths over to the newly anointed emperor Saturninus, who abruptly frees them, we see Tamora for the first time exposed without her animal pelt, the caked dirt from her face has been replaced by shimmering gold powder, making her look masked (sl). She is dressed in a gold breast-plate, with an arm guard; in her hair she sports gold corn-rows, evocative of a helmet (sl). When she is revealed this way, her gilding, a metaphor for her Gothic fair hair and skin, seduces Saturninus, who admits that her "hue" pleases him, and that he would choose her as his bride if he had not already chosen (against her will) Lavinia, Titus’ daughter. This is the beginning of Tamora’s ascent to power from which she will launch her attack on Titus. Hence, it is fitting that she be dressed as a fighter. This depiction is also evocative of the signature look of the Amazon-cum-gladiatrix; the legendary bare or missing right breast is here alluded to by an off-the-shoulder garment. In this subsequent scene, just before Saturninus proposes marriage, we see Tamora’s full body for the first time, and she appears to wear greaves to complete the gladiator’s armor (sl). This sneering look down to Titus from her elevated position on the steps (sl) communicates that she is ready for a fight.

ⁱⁱⁱ Statius Silvae 1.6.51-56, on Domitian’s Saturnalia celebration: "you would think Thermodon’s bands were furiously fighting by Tanais or barbarous (ferum) Phasis." The masculinity of female gladiators — also a feature of ancient representation (cf. Juvenal 6, where the female gladiator is "denying the sex she was born with") — is one characteristic of Tamora that Taymor refers to numerous times in interviews and in the director’s commentary to the DVD.