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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from house

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Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm Sarah Dowdy and I'm Deblina Trucker Boardy. And if

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Speaker 1: you have kept up with the news at all this year,

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Speaker 1: you've probably heard something about crumbling landmarks in Pompeii. For example,

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Speaker 1: a two thousand year old house where gladiators used to

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Speaker 1: train for combat collapse this November. And that was only

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Speaker 1: months after a piece of Rome's coliseum fell to the

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Speaker 1: ground and the roof of the home of Emperor Nero crumbled. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and it's sad to see things like that go, especially

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Speaker 1: when there's a lot that we haven't learned about them yet.

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Speaker 1: You know, they're preserving the slice of culture, in this case,

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Speaker 1: gladiator life that we really don't know that much about. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's I realized when I started researching this. I think

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Speaker 1: gladiators is a subject that we think we know a

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Speaker 1: lot about because we've seen it in the movies and

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Speaker 1: pop culture. Uh, it turns out that when you go

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Speaker 1: looking for information on the subject and researching it, you

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Speaker 1: find out that a lot of the details are kind

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Speaker 1: of in dispute and a little bit murky. Yeah, And

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Speaker 1: I mean part of that is because it was a

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Speaker 1: low brow sort of entertainment, so a lot of historians

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Speaker 1: at the time didn't really consider it worthy of writing about. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: the way I thought described once as that it was

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Speaker 1: almost considered sort of de classe to focus on something

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Speaker 1: like that. So the sketchy details that we have piece

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Speaker 1: together about how gladiators lived and fought are based on

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Speaker 1: things that were just hinted at by Roman historians or

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Speaker 1: that we found from looking at um, you know, sculptures, reliefs,

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Speaker 1: different etchings that have been found, but the rest has

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Speaker 1: been flushed out by Hollywood. Yeah. Um, I mean it's true,

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Speaker 1: even about the most famous gladiators, you would think at

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Speaker 1: least somebody like Spartacus, we would have really detailed information on, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: But most of what we know about him is related

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Speaker 1: to his involvement in and uprising against Rome, which is

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Speaker 1: sometimes called the Gladiatorial War or the Spartacus War. But

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Speaker 1: the details about his actual life, how he became a gladiator,

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Speaker 1: and the rest are just still a little bit up

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Speaker 1: for debate. But even though we're losing some of these

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Speaker 1: things that tell us a little bit about gladiators, Fortunately,

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Speaker 1: we're finding some new ones too. And one of the

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Speaker 1: most recent discoveries was a gladiator graveyard and it was

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Speaker 1: the first to be scientifically authenticated as such, and it

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Speaker 1: was unearthed in the early nineties, but what we know

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Speaker 1: about it now came a lot later. So that's going

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Speaker 1: to be our focus today, and we're gonna look a

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Speaker 1: little bit into what scientists have found out from studying

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Speaker 1: these bones in these graveyards, this graveyard and look at

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Speaker 1: what that tells us about how these warriors lived their

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Speaker 1: day to day live. Yeah, and does that change our

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Speaker 1: point of view at all from what we've known before

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Speaker 1: the first we should probably give you a little background

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Speaker 1: on gladiators. A lot of people believe that the origins

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Speaker 1: of gladiator combat lie in Etruscan slave fights, which were

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Speaker 1: fought to death to please the gods and those That

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Speaker 1: kind of fight was adopted by the Romans in two

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Speaker 1: sixty four BC, and they incorporated these fights into their

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Speaker 1: funeral ceremonies, starting with the funeral of Junius Brutus Pea.

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Speaker 1: They thought that it was a good way to honor

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Speaker 1: the dead. You put on the spectacular fight, and it

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Speaker 1: echoes the concept of blood sacrifice. It makes a spectacle

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Speaker 1: out of the funeral. Yeah, sounds kind of gory, but

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Speaker 1: worked for them. From there, the tradition just grew, though

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Speaker 1: fights became even more gruesome and more frequent. Rulers started

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Speaker 1: using them to keep goodwill with the people that they

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Speaker 1: governed and to distract them from whatever bad stuff was

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Speaker 1: going on in their lives, you know, unemployed. Yeah exactly. Um,

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Speaker 1: just sort of keep them focused on positive things and

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Speaker 1: um and also on the morals and virtue used that

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Speaker 1: they wanted them to to kind of um absorb, which

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Speaker 1: were things like masculinity, bravery, and so soon they were

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Speaker 1: amphitheaters all over the Roman Empire. Yeah. So who were

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Speaker 1: the people actually fighting in these death matches that your

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Speaker 1: average Roman would be so looking forward to. I mean,

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Speaker 1: most of them were slaves, some of them were criminals,

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Speaker 1: some were prisoners of war. Um. Spartacus, for example, probably

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Speaker 1: the most famous gladiator, is said to have been a slave,

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Speaker 1: even though there's a lot of dispute over how he

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Speaker 1: came to be a slave, like whether he was born

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Speaker 1: a slave or whether he was a Roman soldier who

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Speaker 1: may be defected and ended up being arrested and enslaved.

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Speaker 1: We're not really sure. There were actually later on some

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Speaker 1: free born citizens who chose to be gladiators as well,

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Speaker 1: just because of sort of the rock star or that

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Speaker 1: that it bestowed on them. And later some noblemen and

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Speaker 1: emperors also got in on the game to emperor commodists.

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Speaker 1: For example, Alwa was said to have been a really

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Speaker 1: enthusiastic competitor. He was kind of crazy and thought that

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Speaker 1: he was imagined that he was Hercules and would go

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Speaker 1: in the ring and fight lions with bows and arrows

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Speaker 1: and kill them. It's definitely, and even some women fought

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Speaker 1: eventually in the ring, although in the arena, I should say,

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Speaker 1: although a lot of people didn't really approve of this. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: But generally gladiators were mostly men, and they were mostly

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Speaker 1: pretty low on the social totem pole, and they lived

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Speaker 1: in these gladiator schools which were called luti, and they

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Speaker 1: were I mean, you imagine it like prison barracks or something,

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Speaker 1: but that's not how it is at all. They were

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Speaker 1: owned by private citizens, and um even though the gladiators

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Speaker 1: had no personal rights, they were pretty well taken care

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Speaker 1: of because they were a major investment. Their training in

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Speaker 1: their keep were big investments. So these private owners wanted

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Speaker 1: to make sure that their gladiators stayed health and could fight,

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Speaker 1: stay alive. So if a gladiator won a certain number

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Speaker 1: of fights, or in the case of a criminal, if

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Speaker 1: he served out his term. You know, say you had

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Speaker 1: done something, you were put in prison, and then you

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Speaker 1: were given to one of these gladiator schools. You had

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Speaker 1: a term that was say maybe three years or something

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Speaker 1: like that, you would fight and you could live it

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Speaker 1: out exactly. If you lived it out, then you could

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Speaker 1: be released. So a gladiator did have the possibility of

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Speaker 1: being discharged or he could stay in if he wanted to.

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Speaker 1: Some people actually got the opportunity to be discharged and

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Speaker 1: then decided to come back, which that's fascinating to me.

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Speaker 1: I mean, especially if you were a slave or something

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Speaker 1: and you decided to stay. I don't know if maybe

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Speaker 1: you just wouldn't have anything else to do. Maybe I

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Speaker 1: think maybe that's part of it, maybe you're just so

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Speaker 1: used to doing that. But I think it's also again

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Speaker 1: that rock star image. I mean, they didn't have great

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Speaker 1: lives because again they were slaves. They were at the

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Speaker 1: bottom of the social totem pole social order in Rome

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Speaker 1: at the time. But they were stars. They were stars,

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Speaker 1: um you know, revered by women. They got all the

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Speaker 1: women they wanted to well learn more about some of

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Speaker 1: the perks they get a little later, so there were

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Speaker 1: some reasons that they would want to stay in. But

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Speaker 1: these gladiatorial shows they continued until about the fourth century

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Speaker 1: a d. When they fell out of favor because of

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Speaker 1: the rise of Christianity, and they may have continued a

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Speaker 1: little while after that, but that's generally the time as

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Speaker 1: accepted as the time that they ended. So essentially they

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Speaker 1: ended about two thousand years ago. And we have an

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Speaker 1: idea that these gladiators they were buried that given proper

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Speaker 1: burials after death, most of them. But the discovery and

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Speaker 1: aphesis that we mentioned earlier, the gladiator graveyard, this is

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Speaker 1: the first one to have been found. So the Austrian

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Speaker 1: Archaeological Institute the o AI started excavating this particular cemetery

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Speaker 1: in a Phesis which is now part of Turkey, in

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Speaker 1: nine and they found something pretty unusual there, marble gravestones

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Speaker 1: that were carved with these intricate combat scene than dedications

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Speaker 1: to fallen gladiators, and they had found similar types of

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Speaker 1: scenes carved into relief in mosaics in the area before,

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Speaker 1: but something was different this time, and that's because they

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Speaker 1: actually found human remains near the gravestones, so it was

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Speaker 1: not just the monuments, it was the cemetery. Yep. They

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Speaker 1: found bones, lots and lots of bones, enough that they

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Speaker 1: filled up eighty blue crates with these bones, and then

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Speaker 1: they cataloged everything, they documented where they found everything, but

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Speaker 1: then they basically let them sit on a shelf for

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Speaker 1: about a decade until finally, in about two thousand one,

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Speaker 1: the o AI invited two pathologists from the Medical University

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Speaker 1: of Vienna, and that was Carl Groschmidt and Fabian CONTs

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Speaker 1: and they were invited to analyze the bones and they

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Speaker 1: spent years piecing these bones together and using forensic analysis

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Speaker 1: techniques to find out everything they could about the people

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Speaker 1: that were buried in that spot. And they determined was

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Speaker 1: that there were about sixty seven people in those crates,

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Speaker 1: though there weren't really any complete skeletons, and all of

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Speaker 1: them except for one was a gladiator. Yeah, and there

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Speaker 1: was one woman and she was probably the slave wife

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Speaker 1: of one of the gladiators. So one thing that the

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Speaker 1: researchers noticed right off the bat was that the gladiators

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Speaker 1: even though they had died at a pretty young age,

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Speaker 1: usually between and thirty, which was half the average lifespan

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Speaker 1: of the time. Despite that young death age, they were

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Speaker 1: pretty healthy and it looked like bones that had been

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Speaker 1: broken during their lifetime had healed perfectly. They had been

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Speaker 1: perfectly set, which meant that these guys probably got better

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Speaker 1: medical care than most average people would have. And this

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Speaker 1: kind of reiterates what we mentioned earlier that the owners

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Speaker 1: of these schools, they had sunk so much cash into

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Speaker 1: these gladiators that they wanted them to stay well enough

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Speaker 1: to earn some of that money back for them. So again,

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Speaker 1: just really a lot invested in keeping them healthy. You

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Speaker 1: don't want to wind up at a poorly set broken arm.

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Speaker 1: Another interesting thing that the researchers noticed was that there

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Speaker 1: was a lack of multiple wounds on the bone, so

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Speaker 1: that suggested that the gladiators were mostly involved in organized

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Speaker 1: tools with strict rules referees, no just senseless beatings, no

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Speaker 1: holds barred death matches, which is I think what we

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Speaker 1: sort of think of with gladiator matches. Oh yeah, I

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Speaker 1: mean what we have stereotypically learned about gladiators from movies

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Speaker 1: and pop culture. I think, at least I imagined gladiators

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Speaker 1: is being sort of like a whole Thunderdordum type thing.

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Speaker 1: You know, two guys go in and one guy comes out,

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Speaker 1: just fight to the death. But and you would imagine

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Speaker 1: the resulting skeleton of the deceased gladiator would be terribly

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Speaker 1: broken and um, you know, would have suffered a major

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Speaker 1: beating before death. Sure, but what they found is actually

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Speaker 1: pretty much in line with a lot of historical accounts

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Speaker 1: of gladiatorial matches. They weren't all duels to the death,

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Speaker 1: and so they kind of knew that, but this was

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Speaker 1: a confirmation of it. And actually only about one and

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Speaker 1: ten bouts reliefal and in most cases the gladiator's goal

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Speaker 1: was to draw blood or knocked down his opponent, and

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Speaker 1: at that point you knew who the winner was, So

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Speaker 1: very different from what a lot of people think, I think.

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Speaker 1: Another thing that gross, Schmidt and cons also did was

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Speaker 1: isotopic analysis of some of the bones to test the

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Speaker 1: levels of various chemical components and try to figure out

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Speaker 1: what these guys ate when they were alive, and they

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Speaker 1: confirmed that the gladiators had mostly vegetarian diets consisting of

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Speaker 1: barley and oatmeal and beans things like that. And the

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Speaker 1: purpose of this was to give them this extra layer

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Speaker 1: of fat that helped them out in the arena in

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Speaker 1: a few ways. So one, it could help protect them,

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Speaker 1: so it was a little bit like armor. Um, you

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Speaker 1: could help protect them from at least the more serious

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Speaker 1: injuries from swords and knives. And it also added some drama.

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Speaker 1: And that's because if you had this layer of fat

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Speaker 1: on you, when you got nicked a little bit, it

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Speaker 1: produced a lot of bloody surface wounds. And spectators thought

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Speaker 1: that was pretty cool, especially when the gladiators could just

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Speaker 1: keep fighting, getting more and more bloody, all because they

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Speaker 1: had this protected layer, right. It put on a great show.

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Speaker 1: And but this diet, it kind of explains why some

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Speaker 1: Romans called the fighters hordy arii, which means barley men.

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Speaker 1: Like that. I like it too, although I thought this

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Speaker 1: was one of the most surprising things about it to me.

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Speaker 1: I mean, definitely manly men promoting masculinity. You expected to

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Speaker 1: be eating meat, but and I mean it's probably bad

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Speaker 1: news for Russell Crowe. He could have taken it easier

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Speaker 1: preparing for the movie. No kidding, you didn't have to

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Speaker 1: be ripped. Actually, it was a disadvantage from you know,

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Speaker 1: if this is true, so too bad Russell. A writer

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Speaker 1: named Andrew Curry actually had a really great article in

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Speaker 1: Archaeology magazine which focused a lot on the diet aspects

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Speaker 1: of these findings, and he pointed out something else that

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Speaker 1: researchers stumbled on in these tests, and that was super

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Speaker 1: high levels of calcium in their system. And the gladiators

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Speaker 1: they couldn't have gotten this from their vegetarian diets, according

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Speaker 1: to the researchers, So this suggests that they were actually

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Speaker 1: given some sort of old school calcium supplement, which was

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Speaker 1: probably some sort of brew made out of charred wood

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Speaker 1: or bone ash, which sounds pretty gross to me, maybe

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Speaker 1: one of the downsides of being a gladiator, except also

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Speaker 1: that would help with your bone healing, true flame, some

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Speaker 1: of that um. And finally, these guys found a retired

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Speaker 1: fighter and they knew that because uh, they found a

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Speaker 1: skeleton that was mature. He was above twenty five or

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Speaker 1: thirty like the other ones. And this was confirmation that

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Speaker 1: fighters could just sort of retire from the ring after

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Speaker 1: they had served their terms, after they had won enough

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Speaker 1: fights or finished their sentence or whatever. Yeah, and there

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Speaker 1: were some clues that told them that he was retired,

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Speaker 1: con said that he was of mature age. Judging by

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Speaker 1: the bones that they found, he had appeared to have

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Speaker 1: lived a normal lifespan for what would be considered normal

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Speaker 1: at the time, and he showed signs of healed wounds,

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Speaker 1: but nothing that would have been fatal to him, so

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Speaker 1: he probably died of natural causes. So, while there's no

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Speaker 1: doubt that gladiators lived a very violent existence, any job

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Speaker 1: where the bad day is ending up dead probably qualifies

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Speaker 1: as a pretty tough occupation. The actual gladiator combat part

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Speaker 1: of it probably wasn't necessarily always a blood bath like

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Speaker 1: we've seen in some movies. And we can now say

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Speaker 1: for sure that they were cared for to some degree

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Speaker 1: in day to day life and have some proof for

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Speaker 1: the way that the gladiator business, so to speak worked.

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Speaker 1: And that's another change. And I think how most people

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Speaker 1: perceived gladiators. You imagine it's just the slave being dragged

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Speaker 1: out into the arena from the of some pit or something.

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Speaker 1: He probably hasn't eaten very well. You certainly don't imagine

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Speaker 1: these highly trained gladiators who are getting good eat men

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Speaker 1: in good diet. No, I mean, it's more of a show.

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Speaker 1: And I think we talked a little bit about this earlier,

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Speaker 1: about how more of a profession, more of a profession, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: like bull fighting something like that. Definitely sort of a

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Speaker 1: blood sport. But um, there's more to it, I guess

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Speaker 1: than just spontaneous things that happened in the arena. And

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Speaker 1: fortunately we have some opportunities to learn more about gladiators

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Speaker 1: and gladiatorial lives hopefully. Yeah. In the summer of news

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Speaker 1: broke that an area where eighty decapitated skeletons were found

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Speaker 1: in York, England around two thousand three might be yet

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Speaker 1: another gladiator graveyard. Yeah, they think that because of the

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Speaker 1: decapitated heads, which suggests a final blow that many gladiators

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Speaker 1: received in the ring. Actually, when a guy received a

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Speaker 1: mortal wound, I guess another guy who was dressed like

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Speaker 1: the mythical ferryman from the River Sticks would come up

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Speaker 1: and sort of bash his skull in with a mallet,

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Speaker 1: just kind of give him a final thing. So, because

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Speaker 1: of these decapitated heads, enhanced muscles in one arm which

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Speaker 1: suggests that they had been wielding weapons from a young age,

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Speaker 1: and bite marks from a large carnivore such as a

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Speaker 1: lion Um. All of these clues kind of add to

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Speaker 1: the idea that they were gladiators that were buried there.

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Speaker 1: They're not a hundred percent convinced about this yet, but

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Speaker 1: it looks promising. But I think you mentioned to me

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Speaker 1: earlier one of the researchers said, your average man in

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Speaker 1: York wouldn't come across a large cat very frequently. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I think the quote I saw was the reason that

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Speaker 1: they thought this was likely, as that the guy said

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Speaker 1: it's much less likely, or he pointed out that it's

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Speaker 1: much less likely that a guy would just run into

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Speaker 1: a tiger while walking home from the pub in York

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Speaker 1: one night. I think I think that's very well put. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: So hopefully we'll get to learn a little bit more

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Speaker 1: about this, and maybe we'll even confirm some facts about

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Speaker 1: gladiator's pass and maybe even learn some stuff about this.

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Speaker 1: If it gladiators, that would be a real boon to

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Speaker 1: this study, I'd say, so until we do get a

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Speaker 1: chance to learn more. If you have any favorite gladiator

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Speaker 1: or gladiator your stories that you want to share with us,

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Speaker 1: we are on Facebook and at Twitter at Miston History,

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Speaker 1: or you can send us an email at History Podcast

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Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com and we also have

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Speaker 1: a lot of articles on archaeology, including how Archaeology Works,

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Speaker 1: which I wrote not boasting, but It's fun. It include

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Speaker 1: the picture um no gladiators in it, It's still kind

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Speaker 1: of fun um. If you want to check out that,

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Speaker 1: you can search for it on our home page at

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Speaker 1: www dot how stuff works dot com. For more on

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Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works

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Speaker 1: dot com. To learn more about the podcast, click on

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