How ancient Roman gladiators got ready to rumble

What did it take to eat like a gladiator?

If you think gladiators were all rippling muscle, think again. Evidence suggests fighters weren't as cut as we've been led to believe. This article dives into the diets of ancient Roman gladiators, who may have eaten mostly vegetarian. Archaeological evidence gathered from the skeletons of 68 gladiators found in a 2,000-year-old Turkish grave suggests the fighters' diets mainly relied on barley and legumes, with little animal protein.

Read how Roman writers described gladiators

This article, drawn from an older classical dictionary, synthesizes the views of ancient Roman authors on gladiators. While archaeological knowledge has advanced, the core textual evidence remains the same, with links to translations of the sources.

Gladiator training is known mainly from art, not ancient texts

Since literary sources provide little information about gladiator training, scholars rely on visual evidence. This illustrated essay draws on artifacts from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, including an oil lamp from Cyprus showing a gladiator practicing against a wooden stake.

Female gladiators fought in Roman arenas, though they were rare

While most gladiators were men, a small number of women also fought in the arena. Their presence fascinated and unsettled Roman audiences, and they adopted stage names invoking Amazons and mythic heroines.

Gladiators fought in specialized armatures designed only for the arena

This illustrated guide breaks down the most common gladiator armatures, showing how each was highly stylized for spectacle rather than warfare. This explanation suggests why gladiators generally made poor soldiers when drafted into the legions.

Retired gladiators often became trainers, referees, or exhibition fighters

Few gladiators survived to retirement, but those who did rarely left the arena behind. Many returned for high-pay exhibition bouts, trained new fighters, served as referees, or leveraged their fame into unexpected careers, including local politics.

Roman gladiator referees wore tunics and carried switches

Drawing on visual and textual evidence, a Roman social historian shows that referees were a constant presence in gladiatorial combat. Rather than armor, they wore striped tunics and used long switches to signal fouls and control fights from a safe distance.

A Roman-era cemetery in York may hold the remains of gladiators

A burial ground in York, used from the 1st to the 4th centuries CE, contained around 80 skeletons of unusually tall and muscular young men. Many show fatal combat wounds, including one with a bite mark from a large predator.

Some Colosseum fighters battled wild animals instead of other humans

Not everyone who entered the Colosseum was a gladiator. Learn about the bestiarii—who ranged from trained animal fighters to condemned prisoners—and how their encounters with wild beasts became one of Rome’s most lethal spectacles.

Hear how gladiator fights were funded, judged, and sometimes fixed

In a wide-ranging interview, Professor Michael Carter unpacks the business of gladiatorial games—from advertising and fighter merch to referees, match rules, and a code of conduct that often pushed gladiators to spare defeated opponents.

Spartacus: Enslaved ancient Roman gladiator turned revolt leader

Sold into slavery and forced to be a gladiator, Spartacus ultimately took the fight outside the arena and revolted against the Romans. This article dives into the history of the rebel leader. Spartacus was originally from Thrace, a part of ancient Europe that included parts of modern-day Bulgaria, Turkey, and Greece. Exactly what led to his enslavement is unclear, but it likely involved ancient Rome's attempt to subjugate Thrace.

Synchronized swimming dates back to Ancient Rome

Known for gruesome gladiatorial contests, ancient Rome's aquatic spectacles may have been even more over-the-top. This article dives into the art of synchronized swimming in ancient Rome. Lakes were dug and amphitheaters flooded to provide space for aquatic reenactments of naval battles and artistic performances. Swimmers playing the role of water nymphs would create elaborate shapes, including ships with billowing sails.

Emperor Commodus fought as a gladiator while ruling Rome

Commodus, who reigned from 180–192 CE, scandalized Rome’s elite by appearing in the arena despite being the son of Marcus Aurelius. The ancient biography—though partly fictional—captures the shock his gladiatorial performances provoked.

A day in the life of a Roman soldier

In 15 CE, Roman legionary Servius Felix was eight years into a 25-year career as a warrior for the Empire. Born to a poor farmer who hoped to retire and receive several acres of land, Servius served amid fights with Germanic tribes from the north. He hopes to marry a woman back home and mourns the loss of his fallen friends.

Becoming a man in ancient Rome

In ancient Rome, boys between the ages of 14 and 17 underwent a traditional ceremony marking their transition from childhood to adulthood. This article explores what we know about this common practice and its significance. Learn about the ritual celebration, which included a new white toga, sacrifices, and becoming registered as a citizen.

See unused gladiator helmets discovered in Pompeii

Early excavations at Pompeii uncovered pristine gladiator helmets and armor, showing no signs of combat wear, which were likely used only in ceremonial processions. Many are now displayed at the National Archaeological Museum of Naples.

Bad Ancient: a site to fact-check claims about the ancient world

Peruse popular questions about ancient Rome, Egypt, Greece, and more, from whether Greek boxers were ripped or to what extent Alexander the Great conquered the world.

Ancient Greek gymnasium: where philosophy met fitness

In ancient Greece, gymnasiums were not just places of physical training, but centers of intellectual life. This article explores the ways in which exercise, philosophy, and education were deeply intertwined, reflecting a cultural belief that physical fitness was essential for mental development.

How ancient Romans invested and worked

The first stock exchange didn't open for business until the early 1600s, but that didn't stop the Ancient Romans from working and investing their money centuries before. While Romans are better known for their political inventions than their economic ones, understanding how they viewed money can help paint a better picture of the Roman mindset that created systems like democracy. Read this article to learn more.

Measuring the chance a Roman emperor would die violently

The odds of survival for a Roman emperor were like playing Russian roulette with a six-chambered revolver and four bullets, according to this scientific journal article. Of the 69 rulers of the unified Roman Empire between 14 CE and 395 CE, 43 suffered a violent death. This journal article examines Roman emperors' time-to-violent death using statistical tools of survival data analysis.

See how the elite warriors of the Aztec Empire trained

This video explores the Aztec military’s elite Eagle and Jaguar warriors, known for their courage and combat skills, and highlights their rigorous training regimen. It concludes with a workout routine modeled on their methods.

A Roman mosaic records the outcome of a retiarius–secutor fight

Displayed at the National Archaeological Museum, this mosaic depicts the classic retiarius–secutor battle. The lower panel shows the bout under referees’ supervision; the upper panel declares Astyanax vicit, with a symbol confirming his opponent was killed.

What is Archaeology?

If you are up-to-date on your Jurassic Park lore, then you likely already know the answer to this question. But for those of us who didn't delve into the world in dinosaurs, it's easy to assume that professionals who study old stuff likely study the remains of what came before us, right? Find out in this article by the Society for American Archaeology.

The Gold Dust Trio brought spectacle to wrestling

In the early 1900s, as wrestling gained in popularity on the carnival circuit, keeping the audience’s attention became an issue. The Gold Dust Trio—Billy Sandlow, Ed “The Strangler” Lewis, and Joseph “Toots” Mondt—revolutionized things by integrating boxing, theater, and Greco-Roman wrestling in a hybrid called “Slam Bang Western Style Wrestling.”

Without mummies, ancient Egyptians feared their souls would perish

The ancient Egyptians placed major importance on mummification because of their beliefs about the afterlife. They believed a preserved body was essential for the soul’s survival, as it needed a physical form to return to. Without it, they feared the soul would perish.

Stanford built a Google Maps for the Roman Empire, revealing how much it cost to travel in the ancient world

Graffiti dates back to at least ancient Pompeii, where citizens scrawled messages to one another on public walls

After 25 people used virtual reality headsets to practice flying with virtual wings—flapping their arms—their visual cortex responded to the wings almost as if they were real arms, treating them as body parts.

The Brothers Grimm were lawyers before they were storytellers, and became interested in fairy tales as they began investigating how rules and customs had been passed down through cultures.

Exploring the Larry Bird punch that almost changed March Madness

At the beginning of the 20th century, a group of young men ate standard American food—replete with food additives like borax and formaldehyde—as part of government research to better understand food safety.

Larger animals like giraffes, elephants, and blue whales have developed a unique defense against cancer, a phenomenon known as Peto's Paradox

The first line of 'immortal' human cells, which can divide indefinitely and are used in scientific research, was nonconsensually taken from a Black woman.

Watch the cumbersome, but necessary, precautions healthcare workers must take to care for and protect themselves while caring for Ebola patients.

A researcher recently discovered an interview from 1967 between groundbreaking journalist Joan Didion and the Grateful Dead, years before the band became an institution.

Apollo astronauts left items in the moon's 'toss zone,' including golf balls, family photos, and bags of human waste, to make room for lunar rocks.

NBA superstar Victor Wembanyama spent the 2025 summer training with monks in central China to enhance his body and mind.

Learn how your body is, scientifically, like a firework with its own slow, controlled burn.

For centuries, Niagara Falls has been a magnet for daredevils seeking to conquer one of nature's most powerful wonders, with its 200-foot drop and water rushing at 32 feet per second with 280 tons of force.

The term 'algorithm' originated from the Latinized name of al-Khwārizmī, a 9th-century mathematician whose works introduced Arabic numerals and the decimal-based numeral system to Europe and whose treatise 'Al-Jabr' gave algebra its name.

Abraham Lincoln was almost assassinated weeks before his inauguration as he traveled from Illinois to DC through Baltimore in 1861; it took two independent claims for Lincoln to be convinced the threat was real

The animatronic shark from Steven Spielberg's 'Jaws,' the first modern blockbuster, was a complex underwater apparatus called 'Bruce.'

The Russia-Ukraine conflict is the largest ground war in Europe since World War II in terms of casualties, forces mobilized, and displacement of civilians.

For centuries, it was common to sleep in two shifts: a few hours at the beginning of the night, and a longer period beginning around midnight

Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps is independent of Iran's regular army and is one of the most powerful and influential military-political organizations in the Middle East.

Volcanoes 'die' when their supply of magma runs out, if they are shifted away from their underlying magma reservoir, or if they get clogged by collapsing or their magma cooling back into rock.

To reduce wrinkles in clothing, research recommends gentle wash cycles with more water and tumble drying with smaller loads and longer times.

Scientists can determine Earth's past climate conditions by analyzing air trapped in microscopic bubbles within ice cores—columns of compressed snow layers that build up over hundreds of thousands of years.

Learn how to read a prospectus, the juicy document that any company must file with the SEC before going public.

The identity of the Tank Man in the iconic photo from the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests remains unknown and was possibly killed.