Scribbler said Let's start w/ the Latin quote . I do not know whether the gladiators always said, in a ritualistic fashion, exactly the same words, but the Latin phrase is usually quoted "Ave, Caesar! Morituri te salutamus!"
"Salutant" was engraved in an amphitheatre somewhere (can't remember which one if I ever knew - I saw it in a photograph). There is a well-researched book about the "ludi" I once borrowed, but I can't remember the name of it at this distance in time. However, I will freely concede that they may have also used salutamus.
I must have been tired when I wrote "accusative" when I of course meant "active".
And they only used "Caesar" when Caesar was physically present. If they had saluted anyone but the real Caesar and the real Caesar got to hear about it, there would have been free ring-centre tickets to the Roman circuses all round, along with the wild animals.
I believe they used either "Domine" or "Dominus" (or perhaps the person's name) for anyone else. Rich nobles used to pay for the games both in Rome and elsewhere. Claudius, for instance, "paid" for games when he was made city magistrate. Since either Tiberius or Caligula was Caesar at the time, I don't think it would have been either politic or healthy for either the (surviving) gladiators or Claudius to be talking about Caesar like that ... Sejanus would have had them if it was Tiberius, and Caligula was mad as a hatter and had people murdered for much smaller crimes. Or no crime at all, as a matter of fact.
