The Courageous Reish Lakish (article preview)

Gittin 47a

Gittin 47a recounts Reish Lakish’s feat of strength and bravery. He sold himself to the Ludae, taking a sack containing a round stone with him. He said, “you have a tradition that on the person’s last day, they do anything he requests, so that they will forgive him for spilling his blood.” On the last day, they said to him, “what do you want?” He said to them, “I request that I tie you up in a sitting position, and each of you I will strike one and a half times.” Presumably unaware of the rock in the bag, they complied. He smote each of them such that “his soul left them”. He grimaced. He said, “are you laughing at me? I still owe you half a strike”. In this way, he killed them all.

There is much that is ambiguous in this story. Who are the Ludae? It could be people of a specific geographical area. Rashi and Aruch explain that Ludae were cannibals. The more recent explanation and accepted explanation is gladiators, as we trace לודאי to לודר, to λουδάριος which would refer to a gladiator or someone else connected to gladiatorial combat / the circus. This Greek transliteration would be of the Latin word, which derives from gladio = I use the sword + tor¹.