Gladiator Mosaic, Bad Kreuznach, from my 1999 visit
Although not new, this story related to the by now famous gladiator cemetery in Ephesus has hit the blogosphere and Twitter this week:
The Gladiator Diet, How to eat, exercise, and die a violent death by Andrew Curry (Abstract, Archaeology Magazine, Volume 61 Number 6, November/December 2008) is quite entertaining and nicely illustrated with pop boxes,
[…] Contemporary accounts of gladiator life sometimes refer to the warriors as hordearii--literally, "barley men." Grossschmidt* and collaborator Fabian Kanz subjected bits of the bone to isotopic analysis, a technique that measures trace chemical elements such as calcium, strontium, and zinc, to see if they could find out why. They turned up some surprising results. Compared to the average inhabitant of Ephesus, gladiators ate more plants and very little animal protein. The vegetarian diet had nothing to do with poverty or animal rights. Gladiators, it seems, were fat. Consuming a lot of simple carbohydrates, such as barley, and legumes, like beans, was designed for survival in the arena. Packing in the carbs also packed on the pounds. "Gladiators needed subcutaneous fat," Grossschmidt explains. "A fat cushion protects you from cut wounds and shields nerves and blood vessels in a fight." Not only would a lean gladiator have been dead meat, he would have made for a bad show. Surface wounds "look more spectacular," says Grossschmidt. "If I get wounded but just in the fatty layer, I can fight on," he adds. "It doesn't hurt much, and it looks great for the spectators." read on
I'm currently on my second read-through of The Spartacus War by Barry Strauss (Simon & Schuster, March 2009) for a review, and in the chapter The Gladiator he gives an excellent description of gladiatorial life and clearly was conversant with the above findings.
An earlier story from 2007, Gladiator Truths Counter Movie Myths, also briefly mentions the diet and then discusses a 2nd century A.D. "training manual,"
[…] Scientists at the University of Muenster in Germany announced
earlier this month that they had also identified what could be one of
the world's earliest training manuals — an instructional tablet for the
treatment of gladiators.
The nearly 6-foot-high, 3-foot-wide marble object "is a sensation,"
according to Elmar Schwertheim, an archaeologist who led the research
team that recently deciphered the writing on the tablet.
It was first excavated in 2003 in Alexandria Troas, Turkey.
Hadrian, the Roman emperor from 117 to 138 A.D., laid out the rules,
which called for flogging if the athletes were "undisciplined," in ways
such as "drinking too much or womanizing." read on
I wonder though whether these rules were or could have been enforced. Maybe things had gotten out of hand and Hadrian gave it the old college try …
*Karl Grossschmidt is a paleo-pathologist, and Wikipedia (as usual handle with care), describes Paleopathology.
