In Ancient Rome, Gladiators Rarely Fought to the Death
Kyle Hoekstra 20 Aug 2024 Website Twitter Image Credit: Those About to Die / NBCU While the bloodshed on film and TV adaptations might persuade us otherwise, leading speaker on gladiatorial life and historical consultant Alexander Mariotti insists that death in the ancient Roman arena was “an absolute rarity”. Joining Tristan Hughes on The Ancients, the consultant on Ridley Scott’s Gladiator and Amazon Prime’s Those About to Die (in which he even has a cameo) explains that deaths, when they happened, more often followed later from injuries. “Combat sports were very violent,” says Mariotti. “And gladiatorial combat is part of that pantheon of sports.” However the use of weapons made it particularly dangerous. “One of the reasons they don’t wear tunics is because the linen or the wool getting stuck in a wound would kill you [from] an infection.” Those About to Die Image Credit: Those About to Die / NBCU “But what we do find from modern forensics ...
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