The image of the gladiator has endured over 2,000 years of history, but most knowledge of them originates from visual representations and only a handful from texts. It is therefore understandable that ...

Rome is famous for its gladiators, but were any of these fighters women?

Ancient Rome's fiercest fighters didn't fuel up on meat or protein-packed meals before battling to the death in the Colosseum, but rather a much simpler, plainer diet. Surprisingly, the metal-clad ...

Gladiators only fought 2-3 times annually, spending most of their time training intensively in gladiator schools called ludus. Their diet was predominantly vegetarian, featuring barley-based meals ...

As the graffiti etched into barracks in Pompeii capture, gladiators saw themselves as sex symbols. Cresces, a net and trident fighter (retiarius), boasted he “sorts out the girls in the night, in the ...

Maximus Decimus Aurelius’ quest to avenge his wife and son, culminating in a cinematic duel with Emperor Commodus in the Colosseum, might be a masterful work of historical fiction; however, it’s ...