Search Results: Gladiator

A Roman gladiator was an ancient professional fighter who usually specialised with particular weapons and types of armour. They fought before the public in hugely popular organised games held in large purpose-built arenas throughout the Roman...

Female gladiators in ancient Rome – referred to by modern-day scholars as gladiatrix – may have been uncommon but they did exist. Evidence suggests that a number of women participated in the public games of Rome even though this practice...

An amphitheatre was a structure built throughout the Roman empire where ordinary people could watch such spectacles as gladiator games, mock naval battles, wild animal hunts, and public executions. Usually oval in form, the largest examples...

The revolt of the gladiator Spartacus in 73-71 BCE remains the most successful slave revolt in the history of Rome. The rebellion is known as the Third Servile War and was the last of three major slave revolts which Rome suppressed. The story...

If there was one thing the Roman people loved it was spectacle and the opportunity of escapism offered by weird and wonderful public shows which assaulted the senses and ratcheted up the emotions. Roman rulers knew this well and so to increase...

Fragment of a commemorative relief depicting a gladiator's victories, a contraretiarius against a retiarius called Improbus, 3rd century CE. (National Museum of Rome, Baths of Diocletian, Rome)

Gladiator's dagger and pair of bronze greaves (leg guards) from Pompeii, decorated with relief of Jupiter (left) and Neptune (right), 1st century BCE. (Archaeological Museum, Naples)

Gladiator helmet-shaped dropper flask decorated with "snake thread" trails, 3rd century CE, found in Cologne, Germany. (Romisch-Germanisches Museum, Cologne)

A 1st century CE bronze gladiator helmet of the Samnite class. Roman gladiator helmets were richly decorated and plumed with ostrich or peacock feathers. This relatively plain example has the embossed head of Hercules at the front. Provenance...

Mosaic depicting two gladiators in combat. Their names in Greek are listed above them: Margarites (left) and Hellenikos (right), late-3rd century CE. House of the Gladiators in Kourion, Cyprus.