What have we learned from gladiator graveyards?

Although most people are familiar with gladiators, movies have skewed popular understanding of these fighters. So how can we separate the fact from the fiction? Tune in to learn how gladiator graveyards have changed the way we regard gladiators today.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from house
stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Sarah Dowdy and I'm Deblina Trucker Boardy. And if
you have kept up with the news at all this year,
you've probably heard something about crumbling landmarks in Pompeii. For example,

(00:24):
a two thousand year old house where gladiators used to
train for combat collapse this November. And that was only
months after a piece of Rome's coliseum fell to the
ground and the roof of the home of Emperor Nero crumbled. Yeah,
and it's sad to see things like that go, especially
when there's a lot that we haven't learned about them yet.
You know, they're preserving the slice of culture, in this case,

(00:46):
gladiator life that we really don't know that much about. Yeah,
it's I realized when I started researching this. I think
gladiators is a subject that we think we know a
lot about because we've seen it in the movies and
pop culture. Uh, it turns out that when you go
looking for information on the subject and researching it, you
find out that a lot of the details are kind

(01:08):
of in dispute and a little bit murky. Yeah, And
I mean part of that is because it was a
low brow sort of entertainment, so a lot of historians
at the time didn't really consider it worthy of writing about. Yeah,
the way I thought described once as that it was
almost considered sort of de classe to focus on something
like that. So the sketchy details that we have piece

(01:30):
together about how gladiators lived and fought are based on
things that were just hinted at by Roman historians or
that we found from looking at um, you know, sculptures, reliefs,
different etchings that have been found, but the rest has
been flushed out by Hollywood. Yeah. Um, I mean it's true,
even about the most famous gladiators, you would think at
least somebody like Spartacus, we would have really detailed information on, right, Yeah,

(01:55):
But most of what we know about him is related
to his involvement in and uprising against Rome, which is
sometimes called the Gladiatorial War or the Spartacus War. But
the details about his actual life, how he became a gladiator,
and the rest are just still a little bit up
for debate. But even though we're losing some of these

(02:16):
things that tell us a little bit about gladiators, Fortunately,
we're finding some new ones too. And one of the
most recent discoveries was a gladiator graveyard and it was
the first to be scientifically authenticated as such, and it
was unearthed in the early nineties, but what we know
about it now came a lot later. So that's going

(02:36):
to be our focus today, and we're gonna look a
little bit into what scientists have found out from studying
these bones in these graveyards, this graveyard and look at
what that tells us about how these warriors lived their
day to day live. Yeah, and does that change our
point of view at all from what we've known before
the first we should probably give you a little background

(02:58):
on gladiators. A lot of people believe that the origins
of gladiator combat lie in Etruscan slave fights, which were
fought to death to please the gods and those That
kind of fight was adopted by the Romans in two
sixty four BC, and they incorporated these fights into their
funeral ceremonies, starting with the funeral of Junius Brutus Pea.

(03:21):
They thought that it was a good way to honor
the dead. You put on the spectacular fight, and it
echoes the concept of blood sacrifice. It makes a spectacle
out of the funeral. Yeah, sounds kind of gory, but
worked for them. From there, the tradition just grew, though
fights became even more gruesome and more frequent. Rulers started

(03:42):
using them to keep goodwill with the people that they
governed and to distract them from whatever bad stuff was
going on in their lives, you know, unemployed. Yeah exactly. Um,
just sort of keep them focused on positive things and
um and also on the morals and virtue used that
they wanted them to to kind of um absorb, which

(04:04):
were things like masculinity, bravery, and so soon they were
amphitheaters all over the Roman Empire. Yeah. So who were
the people actually fighting in these death matches that your
average Roman would be so looking forward to. I mean,
most of them were slaves, some of them were criminals,
some were prisoners of war. Um. Spartacus, for example, probably

(04:26):
the most famous gladiator, is said to have been a slave,
even though there's a lot of dispute over how he
came to be a slave, like whether he was born
a slave or whether he was a Roman soldier who
may be defected and ended up being arrested and enslaved.
We're not really sure. There were actually later on some

(04:46):
free born citizens who chose to be gladiators as well,
just because of sort of the rock star or that
that it bestowed on them. And later some noblemen and
emperors also got in on the game to emperor commodists.
For example, Alwa was said to have been a really
enthusiastic competitor. He was kind of crazy and thought that

(05:06):
he was imagined that he was Hercules and would go
in the ring and fight lions with bows and arrows
and kill them. It's definitely, and even some women fought
eventually in the ring, although in the arena, I should say,
although a lot of people didn't really approve of this. Yeah,
But generally gladiators were mostly men, and they were mostly

(05:27):
pretty low on the social totem pole, and they lived
in these gladiator schools which were called luti, and they
were I mean, you imagine it like prison barracks or something,
but that's not how it is at all. They were
owned by private citizens, and um even though the gladiators
had no personal rights, they were pretty well taken care

(05:49):
of because they were a major investment. Their training in
their keep were big investments. So these private owners wanted
to make sure that their gladiators stayed health and could fight,
stay alive. So if a gladiator won a certain number
of fights, or in the case of a criminal, if
he served out his term. You know, say you had

(06:10):
done something, you were put in prison, and then you
were given to one of these gladiator schools. You had
a term that was say maybe three years or something
like that, you would fight and you could live it
out exactly. If you lived it out, then you could
be released. So a gladiator did have the possibility of
being discharged or he could stay in if he wanted to.

(06:32):
Some people actually got the opportunity to be discharged and
then decided to come back, which that's fascinating to me.
I mean, especially if you were a slave or something
and you decided to stay. I don't know if maybe
you just wouldn't have anything else to do. Maybe I
think maybe that's part of it, maybe you're just so
used to doing that. But I think it's also again
that rock star image. I mean, they didn't have great

(06:53):
lives because again they were slaves. They were at the
bottom of the social totem pole social order in Rome
at the time. But they were stars. They were stars,
um you know, revered by women. They got all the
women they wanted to well learn more about some of
the perks they get a little later, so there were
some reasons that they would want to stay in. But

(07:13):
these gladiatorial shows they continued until about the fourth century
a d. When they fell out of favor because of
the rise of Christianity, and they may have continued a
little while after that, but that's generally the time as
accepted as the time that they ended. So essentially they
ended about two thousand years ago. And we have an
idea that these gladiators they were buried that given proper

(07:34):
burials after death, most of them. But the discovery and
aphesis that we mentioned earlier, the gladiator graveyard, this is
the first one to have been found. So the Austrian
Archaeological Institute the o AI started excavating this particular cemetery
in a Phesis which is now part of Turkey, in
nine and they found something pretty unusual there, marble gravestones

(07:57):
that were carved with these intricate combat scene than dedications
to fallen gladiators, and they had found similar types of
scenes carved into relief in mosaics in the area before,
but something was different this time, and that's because they
actually found human remains near the gravestones, so it was

(08:17):
not just the monuments, it was the cemetery. Yep. They
found bones, lots and lots of bones, enough that they
filled up eighty blue crates with these bones, and then
they cataloged everything, they documented where they found everything, but
then they basically let them sit on a shelf for
about a decade until finally, in about two thousand one,

(08:39):
the o AI invited two pathologists from the Medical University
of Vienna, and that was Carl Groschmidt and Fabian CONTs
and they were invited to analyze the bones and they
spent years piecing these bones together and using forensic analysis
techniques to find out everything they could about the people
that were buried in that spot. And they determined was

(09:00):
that there were about sixty seven people in those crates,
though there weren't really any complete skeletons, and all of
them except for one was a gladiator. Yeah, and there
was one woman and she was probably the slave wife
of one of the gladiators. So one thing that the
researchers noticed right off the bat was that the gladiators
even though they had died at a pretty young age,

(09:22):
usually between and thirty, which was half the average lifespan
of the time. Despite that young death age, they were
pretty healthy and it looked like bones that had been
broken during their lifetime had healed perfectly. They had been
perfectly set, which meant that these guys probably got better
medical care than most average people would have. And this

(09:44):
kind of reiterates what we mentioned earlier that the owners
of these schools, they had sunk so much cash into
these gladiators that they wanted them to stay well enough
to earn some of that money back for them. So again,
just really a lot invested in keeping them healthy. You
don't want to wind up at a poorly set broken arm.
Another interesting thing that the researchers noticed was that there

(10:05):
was a lack of multiple wounds on the bone, so
that suggested that the gladiators were mostly involved in organized
tools with strict rules referees, no just senseless beatings, no
holds barred death matches, which is I think what we
sort of think of with gladiator matches. Oh yeah, I
mean what we have stereotypically learned about gladiators from movies

(10:29):
and pop culture. I think, at least I imagined gladiators
is being sort of like a whole Thunderdordum type thing.
You know, two guys go in and one guy comes out,
just fight to the death. But and you would imagine
the resulting skeleton of the deceased gladiator would be terribly
broken and um, you know, would have suffered a major

(10:51):
beating before death. Sure, but what they found is actually
pretty much in line with a lot of historical accounts
of gladiatorial matches. They weren't all duels to the death,
and so they kind of knew that, but this was
a confirmation of it. And actually only about one and
ten bouts reliefal and in most cases the gladiator's goal
was to draw blood or knocked down his opponent, and

(11:14):
at that point you knew who the winner was, So
very different from what a lot of people think, I think.
Another thing that gross, Schmidt and cons also did was
isotopic analysis of some of the bones to test the
levels of various chemical components and try to figure out
what these guys ate when they were alive, and they
confirmed that the gladiators had mostly vegetarian diets consisting of

(11:36):
barley and oatmeal and beans things like that. And the
purpose of this was to give them this extra layer
of fat that helped them out in the arena in
a few ways. So one, it could help protect them,
so it was a little bit like armor. Um, you
could help protect them from at least the more serious
injuries from swords and knives. And it also added some drama.

(11:58):
And that's because if you had this layer of fat
on you, when you got nicked a little bit, it
produced a lot of bloody surface wounds. And spectators thought
that was pretty cool, especially when the gladiators could just
keep fighting, getting more and more bloody, all because they
had this protected layer, right. It put on a great show.

(12:20):
And but this diet, it kind of explains why some
Romans called the fighters hordy arii, which means barley men.
Like that. I like it too, although I thought this
was one of the most surprising things about it to me.
I mean, definitely manly men promoting masculinity. You expected to
be eating meat, but and I mean it's probably bad
news for Russell Crowe. He could have taken it easier

(12:43):
preparing for the movie. No kidding, you didn't have to
be ripped. Actually, it was a disadvantage from you know,
if this is true, so too bad Russell. A writer
named Andrew Curry actually had a really great article in
Archaeology magazine which focused a lot on the diet aspects
of these findings, and he pointed out something else that
researchers stumbled on in these tests, and that was super

(13:03):
high levels of calcium in their system. And the gladiators
they couldn't have gotten this from their vegetarian diets, according
to the researchers, So this suggests that they were actually
given some sort of old school calcium supplement, which was
probably some sort of brew made out of charred wood
or bone ash, which sounds pretty gross to me, maybe
one of the downsides of being a gladiator, except also

(13:26):
that would help with your bone healing, true flame, some
of that um. And finally, these guys found a retired
fighter and they knew that because uh, they found a
skeleton that was mature. He was above twenty five or
thirty like the other ones. And this was confirmation that
fighters could just sort of retire from the ring after

(13:48):
they had served their terms, after they had won enough
fights or finished their sentence or whatever. Yeah, and there
were some clues that told them that he was retired,
con said that he was of mature age. Judging by
the bones that they found, he had appeared to have
lived a normal lifespan for what would be considered normal
at the time, and he showed signs of healed wounds,

(14:10):
but nothing that would have been fatal to him, so
he probably died of natural causes. So, while there's no
doubt that gladiators lived a very violent existence, any job
where the bad day is ending up dead probably qualifies
as a pretty tough occupation. The actual gladiator combat part
of it probably wasn't necessarily always a blood bath like

(14:31):
we've seen in some movies. And we can now say
for sure that they were cared for to some degree
in day to day life and have some proof for
the way that the gladiator business, so to speak worked.
And that's another change. And I think how most people
perceived gladiators. You imagine it's just the slave being dragged
out into the arena from the of some pit or something.

(14:53):
He probably hasn't eaten very well. You certainly don't imagine
these highly trained gladiators who are getting good eat men
in good diet. No, I mean, it's more of a show.
And I think we talked a little bit about this earlier,
about how more of a profession, more of a profession, Yeah,
like bull fighting something like that. Definitely sort of a
blood sport. But um, there's more to it, I guess

(15:16):
than just spontaneous things that happened in the arena. And
fortunately we have some opportunities to learn more about gladiators
and gladiatorial lives hopefully. Yeah. In the summer of news
broke that an area where eighty decapitated skeletons were found
in York, England around two thousand three might be yet

(15:38):
another gladiator graveyard. Yeah, they think that because of the
decapitated heads, which suggests a final blow that many gladiators
received in the ring. Actually, when a guy received a
mortal wound, I guess another guy who was dressed like
the mythical ferryman from the River Sticks would come up
and sort of bash his skull in with a mallet,

(16:02):
just kind of give him a final thing. So, because
of these decapitated heads, enhanced muscles in one arm which
suggests that they had been wielding weapons from a young age,
and bite marks from a large carnivore such as a
lion Um. All of these clues kind of add to
the idea that they were gladiators that were buried there.
They're not a hundred percent convinced about this yet, but

(16:24):
it looks promising. But I think you mentioned to me
earlier one of the researchers said, your average man in
York wouldn't come across a large cat very frequently. Yeah.
I think the quote I saw was the reason that
they thought this was likely, as that the guy said
it's much less likely, or he pointed out that it's
much less likely that a guy would just run into
a tiger while walking home from the pub in York

(16:46):
one night. I think I think that's very well put. Yeah,
So hopefully we'll get to learn a little bit more
about this, and maybe we'll even confirm some facts about
gladiator's pass and maybe even learn some stuff about this.
If it gladiators, that would be a real boon to
this study, I'd say, so until we do get a
chance to learn more. If you have any favorite gladiator

(17:09):
or gladiator your stories that you want to share with us,
we are on Facebook and at Twitter at Miston History,
or you can send us an email at History Podcast
at how stuff works dot com and we also have
a lot of articles on archaeology, including how Archaeology Works,
which I wrote not boasting, but It's fun. It include
the picture um no gladiators in it, It's still kind

(17:34):
of fun um. If you want to check out that,
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(17:56):
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