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Dying in the Arena - Analyzing Skeletons of Roman gladiators P2 – With Dr Fabian Kanz (S01E06)
97 Plays3 years ago
I grew up loving the film “gladiator” with Russel Crow and Joaquin Phoenix. And probably since the beginning of film, gladiators were an integral part of the display of ancient Rome. Take the figure of Spartacus for example; probably his first appearance on the screens was in an Italian silent movie from 1913, then came the masterpiece from Stanley Kubrick in 1960 or the more recent, the tv-series “Spartacus, Blood and Sand”.
One mutual element these films have, are brutal displays of duels and dramatic deaths of gladiators in the arena. In the last episode we focused on how one became a gladiator and what their diet actually was. Now, let’s focus on the gritty stuff, the chances of surviving an encounter in the arena, injuries and finally, actual causes of death! Additionally, I tried to find out if there is also evidence for female gladiators. In order to investigate these questions, we turn to the gladiator graveyard in ancient Ephesus and continue our conversation with the researcher, who analyzed these excavated skeletons Dr. Fabian Kanz.
Reverences:
- Lösch et al. (2014), Stable Isotope and Trace Element Studies on Gladiators and Contemporary Romans from Ephesus (Turkey, 2nd and 3rd Ct. AD) – Implications for Differences in Diet
- Meller, Sampaolo (2013), Gladiator. Looking on death every day
- Kanz, Grossschmidt (2009), Dying in the Arena: The Osseous Evidence from Ephesian Gladiators
- Nossov (2009), Gladiator. Rome’s bloody spectacle
- Ville (1981), La gladiature en Occident des origines à la mort de Domitien
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Transcript
Cultural Significance of Gladiators
00:00:09
Speaker
Dying in the Arena, analyzing skeletons of Roman gladiators part 2. I don't know about all of you, but I grew up loving the film Gladiator with Russell Crowe and Joachim Phoenix. And probably since the beginning of film, gladiators were an integral part of the display of ancient Rome.
Survival and Mortality in the Arena
00:00:35
Speaker
Take the figure of Spartacus, for example.
00:00:38
Speaker
Probably his first appearance on the screens was an Italian silent movie from 1913. Then came the masterpiece from Stanley Kubrick in 1960 or the more recent TV series Spartacus, Blood and Sand.
00:00:57
Speaker
One mutual element these films have are brutal displays of duels and dramatic deaths of gladiators in the arena. In the last episode we focused on how one became a gladiator and what their diet actually was. Now let's focus on the gritty stuff.
00:01:20
Speaker
the chances of surviving an encounter in the arena, injuries and finally actual causes of death.
Skeleton Analysis at Ephesus
00:01:28
Speaker
Additionally, I tried to find out if there is also evidence for female gladiators. In order to investigate these questions, we turn to the before mentioned gladiator graveyard in ancient Ephesus and continue our conversation with the researcher who actually analyzed these excavated skeletons, Dr. Fabian Kantz.
Submission Signals in Combat
00:01:54
Speaker
I think the head injuries, the skull injuries,
00:01:58
Speaker
Maybe most of them might result from the training. I'm not 100% sure, of course, but I think there are some writings saying the same, that in the train they have not used such sharp weapons, so the damage was not that big because they were very valuable and didn't want to kill you in the train.
00:02:41
Speaker
At the end of a duel in the arena there was generally a clear winner. Either one gladiator was severely wounded or one conceded. Depictions on pottery indicate that a raised forefinger on the left hand was the sign of submission.
Evaluating Gladiator Survival Odds
00:03:01
Speaker
And what happened next? I guess many will know from movie depictions, for example. When the spectators shouted Missum, calling for mercy, the editor, organizer of the games, usually granted the defeated gladiator's life.
00:03:20
Speaker
However, options still differ of the gesture that indicated the verdict of the editor. It's generally believed that the call for mercy was a thumb up sign, while the verdict for death was a thumb down gesture. But there is no written or iconographic evidence for this.
00:03:43
Speaker
Only the ancient Roman poet Uvenalis mentions that gladiators were sentenced to death by, quote, the turn of the thumb, but without indicating in which way the thumb must be turned.
Discovery of Gladiator Graveyard
00:03:59
Speaker
And so, to this day, researchers are discussing which gestures were actually used.
00:04:07
Speaker
In that regard, I asked myself the question, what were the actual chances of surviving a fight in the arena? Accounts from Roman authors, reliefs on pillars and graffiti from Pompeii depict the outcome of some 100 single combats in the first century AD.
00:04:31
Speaker
This data shows that out of the 200 participating gladiators, only 19 died. That would put the odds of survival of a fighter entering the arena at 10 to 1. However, we have to take these numbers with caution since they don't really represent accurate accounts.
00:04:54
Speaker
So, over the centuries, thousands of people must have fought and died in the arenas of the vast Roman Empire. But the recovery of human remains that can be attributed to be of former gladiators is extremely rare, with only a few known skeletons that may be those of deceased arena fighters.
Revealing Gladiator Lives through Bones
00:05:21
Speaker
At least until in 1993, the Austrian archaeologists Wolfgang Peach and Dieter Knibbe found an actual gladiator graveyard in Ephesus, modern-day Turkey.
00:05:36
Speaker
In various prior excavations around the ruins of the ancient city, archaeologists found numerous pottery shirts depicting gladiators and fights in the arena, suggesting a high degree of popularity of gladiatorial games, especially in the second and third century AD, when Ephesus was flourishing and the capital of the province of Asia.
00:06:05
Speaker
Famous Roman author Pultarix tells us that the first gladiator fights in Ephesus were held in the year 69 BC. The fights or, quote, spectacles were held in the famous Great Theater, believed to have been the largest in the whole Roman Empire with its capacity of some 25,000 spectators.
00:06:32
Speaker
And now to the discovered gladiator graveyard. It is located near the temple of Artemis, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world and only some 300 meters east of this great theater of ancient Ephesus.
00:06:50
Speaker
In the excavated area of approximately only 20 square meters, several thousand bones were found. They were placed in simple pits and the distribution of these human remains indicated that the cemetery was in use over a long period of time.
00:07:11
Speaker
The illustrations and inscriptions of three discovered tombstones gave us clear indication of the identity of some buried individuals. A certain Palombus and Valerius are depicted as Murmillo fighters. A longer inscription for a Retiarios fighter reads Margaritas and Peritina to their colleague Eusenus.
00:07:40
Speaker
To me it is so fascinating that thanks to the inscriptions we now know the names of three individuals from this graveyard.
Existence of Female Gladiators
00:07:50
Speaker
Three men who actually fought in the arena with thousands of people probably shouting the names of Columbus, Valerius and Eusenus.
00:08:02
Speaker
To analyze the excavated bones, modern anthropological and forensic techniques were applied, as used in contemporary homicide cases. Focus was on injuries to differentiate between antemortem, perimortem or post-mortem lesions, meaning did the wounds occur before, during or after the time of death.
00:08:30
Speaker
These injuries were also compared with archaeological data of the typical weaponry of Roman gladiators. For the first time, this excavation provided a unique insight into living conditions and the manner of death of ancient Roman gladiators.
00:08:51
Speaker
The bones of at least 68 individuals were found in the graveyard. Of those, 66 were males in the age between 20 and 30 years, an age and sex one would expect for a gladiator.
00:09:09
Speaker
The mean body height was estimated with the length of the long bones and turned out to be 168 cm, meaning these fighters were the same height as the average Roman citizen during this time.
00:09:26
Speaker
The arm and leg bones from the gladiator graveyard showed significantly enlarged muscle markers, especially surrounding the elbows, evidence for intense training and physical exercise.
00:09:43
Speaker
But as I just mentioned, only 66 of the 68 individuals were males in the age of 20 to 30 years. What about the other two? Well, one was also male but around 50 years old and the other a young female.
00:10:04
Speaker
She is assumed to have been a slave because additionally a fourth tombstone was uncovered with an illustration of a young female and an inscription that it was dedicated to a slave called Serapias. To me this discovery raised the general question if female gladiators actually existed.
00:10:28
Speaker
Well, in the year 200 AD, the Emperor Septimo Severos forbade women to perform or rather fight in the arena, which should give us the indication that duels between female gladiators were occurring.
00:10:46
Speaker
but there are only very rare accounts of female gladiators. They must have been more of an quote exotic commodity. In the literature they are often called gladiatrics or gladiatrices, but I think this is more of a modern term.
Role of Wild Animals in Spectacles
00:11:06
Speaker
I did some quick research and found an inscription from Ostia where a certain hostilianus brags that he was the first editor to bring female gladiators to the city.
00:11:21
Speaker
As I already mentioned, an editor was a wealthy person who offers spectacles to the people at his own expense. If you go and read the original inscription, it is written, Mulieris at Ferrum, Women for the Sword, and presumably to mean female gladiators.
00:11:44
Speaker
If anybody knows another primary source with an actual term for female gladiators, please let me know. Unfortunately, to this day also no clear graves of female gladiators are identified.
00:12:02
Speaker
The most convincing evidence of their existence we have is a commemorative marble relief from the first or second century AD from Halikarnassos, located only some 170 kilometers south of our graveyard from Ephesus.
00:12:23
Speaker
It depicts two figures armed with sword and shield advancing to attack. They are shown with the same equipment as male gladiators but without helmets and topless. The inscription gives them the names of Amazon and Achilles, the female version of Achilles.
00:12:47
Speaker
These are probably, quote, stage names similar to nowadays boxers or MMA fighters like Iron Mike Tyson or the Lioness Amanda Nunes. Hopefully future archaeologists will find more first-hand evidence of the fascinating subject of female gladiators.
00:13:11
Speaker
But with that, let's turn our focus on the injuries and actual causes of death of our examined gladiators from ancient Ephesus, with the little disclaimer that of course the soft tissue of these individuals was not preserved over the many centuries in the ground. Therefore, we only get a limited insight into all the wounds these men received.
00:13:41
Speaker
For example, if you remember from last episode, one could also get sentenced to death by animals. And maybe some of you have the iconic scene from The Gladiator in mind where Russell Crowe's character was in the arena with tigers.
00:14:01
Speaker
And indeed, wild animals, quote, beasts like lions, tigers or elephants, were definitely part of the spectacle. However, no distinctive bite marks were found on the gladiator's bones from Ephesus.
00:14:19
Speaker
Side note on that topic, I always wondered who actually caught these animals and how. I quickly looked into it and apparently often it was not only local hunters but the Roman legionaries themselves, stationed in quote wild provinces in Africa or Germania.
00:14:42
Speaker
They formed special detachments called venatorres.
Combat Methods from Injury Analysis
00:14:46
Speaker
For example, soldiers of the 30th legion specialized in catching bears and were awarded the rank of Ursarios Slegiones, bear hunting legionary.
00:15:00
Speaker
But how did they actually catch them? Often, mounted hunters would drive these animals into camouflaged pits or fenced-off areas. And for example, archaeologists found a Roman mosaic in Tunisia depicting the catching of a lioness using a goat as bait in order to trap her in a cage.
00:15:25
Speaker
and then these poor animals were transported for months in cages over hundreds of kilometers, oceans and deserts. But now back to the gladiators from Ephesus, because I want to initially highlight a very interesting skull. It shows two punctures with typical characteristics of a stab wound with a sharp tapered object.
00:15:55
Speaker
The distance between these two puncture wounds is 5 cm. Interestingly, this corresponds with the distance between the prongs of a trident, a weapon only used by gladiators, specifically the Retiarios type of gladiator.
00:16:12
Speaker
And one of those tridents was actually excavated in the ancient harbor of Ephesus, only two kilometers from the gladiator graveyard, dating to the same period of the second and third century AD.
00:16:28
Speaker
Taken together, these findings suggest that the wounds result from a fatal trident attack, probably carried out by a Retiadius fighter, just like the one depicted on the tombstone of Eusenus.
00:16:45
Speaker
Cut marks on the bones of four other gladiators indicate that they were stabbed through the shoulder blade directly into the heart. These poor individuals had probably lost a duel and were lying on the stomach when their opponent killed them with this fatal blow.
00:17:05
Speaker
The cause of death of another gladiator could be reconstructed thanks to the discovered cut marks on his spine, because they probably originate from a downward stabbing sword through the throat into the heart.
00:17:21
Speaker
But interestingly, the analysis of the bones revealed not only fatal injuries. For example, the skulls of 11 individuals showed 16 well-heeled cranial fractures, which must have occurred mostly during training or fighting. Another individual revealed clear signs of a leg amputation, with the markings from the used saw still visible on the bone.
00:17:50
Speaker
These cases signify that the costly arena fighters had probably access to the most sophisticated medical treatment available. Overall, the research showed that the distribution of the wounds was compatible with the armor worn by the different gladiator types, meaning that it must have offered relatively good protection during the fights.
00:18:18
Speaker
However, the high rate of head injuries is remarkable. Compared with the wide use of helmets, as I described in the last episode, one would expect only few fatal cranial injuries. But at least 10 individuals revealed fatal traumas on the skull by a blunt object, probably a hammer.
Medical Treatments for Gladiators
00:18:42
Speaker
These findings may be explained, however, by accounts from ancient Roman authors who describe that mortally wounded gladiators were killed by a death blow carried out by an arena servant dressed as the death god Despater.
00:19:02
Speaker
Interestingly, these fatal wounds are mostly found in the back of the skull. A probable explanation could be that the executioner wanted to avoid eye-to-eye contact with his victim. And with that pretty brutal image, we continue our conversation with Dr. Fabian Kant, who actually made all these interesting discoveries on the gladiator's bones.
00:19:43
Speaker
We continue our conversation with Fabian Kantz and now coming to the specific grave site of ancient Ephesus was the scientific potential of the gladiator graveyard clear right after the excavation and how did you get involved into the project?
00:20:05
Speaker
I mean, Ephesus, there is the Austrian Archaeological Institute is excavating there for 120 years. It's a mega excavation. It's not just a small excavation. It's a lot of projects going on. And the gladiator graveyard was discovered by accident and by chance. And to be honest, they were not
00:20:28
Speaker
so happy to find it because they were searching for a road for the Damnjano Stower when they found it and when they discovered it. But the young excavator Wolfgang Peach, he pretty soon recognized that it's very important what he is excavating. To be honest,
00:20:56
Speaker
They had a lot of time pressure, so they excavated it very quick. But that's how it is. And this was in 1992 and 1993. And we were involved in this project in 2000. So there was quite a time to rest everything. And to be honest, in an ideal world, this is going parallel.
00:21:26
Speaker
There should be a lot of communication between the bioscience and the archaeological science right on the excavation. This is the best thing because then not so much information is going as the potential to get lost. Lost, yeah.
00:21:43
Speaker
As far as I understood, together with what we now know about their diets and morphological analysis of the bones, for example, the muscle markers on the long bones, you were able to prove that the examined individuals were in a very good physical shape, right? Yeah, this is for sure. I think anything else doesn't make any sense. I mean,
00:22:12
Speaker
because they have been professionals, high professionals, and they were trained to impress big audiences. I mean, in Ephesus, I think that the stadium was for more than 20,000 people, or the theatre for 20,000 people.
00:22:34
Speaker
And they have been experts. We are experts in Barcelona, for example. Most people in Barcelona are experts for soccer.
Training, Injuries, and Medical Care
00:22:45
Speaker
So you cannot use athletes which are not very, very well on the high professional level trained.
00:22:56
Speaker
But I found it interesting that no bite marks of animals were discovered among the bones of the gladiator graveyard in Ephesus. In your opinion, do they generally leave less marks on the bones and more on the soft tissue, which of course was not preserved on these individuals, or were wild animals maybe not or less part of the spectacle quote in Ephesus?
00:23:26
Speaker
No, no, no, no. There's this, I mean, the animals, they live quite well-defined bite marks on the bones. A colleague of me, Niels Linenup in Copenhagen, had in one year, two cases of lion attacks in Copenhagen. I mean, they're very, I mean, if something's left over, then there are
00:23:54
Speaker
clear bite marks on the on the bones but for non-anomaly in Monera it was the whole day in the morning in the morning before midday all the bestialis and the venazios the fights with the animus happened but not with gladiators i mean there's been special types and no gladiators were whatever normally nobody were
00:24:22
Speaker
losing against an animal because for a Roman, it was impossible to lose against an animal. So it was all set up in the way that they always win against the animal. I think that's the condemned offenders get, uh, like the Christians. And so, but I think not the, not the fighters. Ah, okay. Okay.
00:24:47
Speaker
And with the discovered injuries on the bones, you were able to state that the gladiator armor must have generally offered good protection as I understood with most fatal injuries resulting from blows to the head probably after the actual fight.
00:25:07
Speaker
But multiple analyzed individuals showed also healed injuries. Were you able to find out how they were treated and maybe even when they received those injuries? I think the head injuries, the skull injuries, maybe most of them might result from the training.
00:25:32
Speaker
I'm not 100% sure, of course, but I think there are some writings saying the same that in the train they have not used such sharp weapons. So the damage was not that big because this was, they were very valuable and didn't want to kill you in the train. And then if it happens, I mean, they had the best doctors, Kallen was one doctor in Ephesus for the gladiators.
00:26:02
Speaker
And he was, I think, one of the doctors in the Roman world anyway. And it was a win-win situation for him because he could practice with people where it was not so important that they survived everything. And the gladiators had the experience to get the best treatment possible.
00:26:31
Speaker
like trauma to the head. It was it was clean with I think with vinegar, I guess, because alcohol we didn't didn't have. And then it was scraped out and I think maybe they use honey to to reduce the the infection and get it keep it
00:26:57
Speaker
clean and without inflammatory and I think it was quite a wild treatment. You can see it, the healings are nearly perfect.
Conclusion and Teaser for Future Episodes
00:27:07
Speaker
Okay, Fabian, thank you so much for your clarifications and taking the time to talk. And I'm looking forward to having a beer with you soon. Yeah, me too.
00:27:28
Speaker
And with that we end our look at the interesting research results on the analysis of skeletons of Roman gladiators from Ephesus. On Instagram you will find pictures of the mentioned tombstones or skull fractures.
00:27:46
Speaker
I hope you enjoyed it and will listen in on the next episodes where we will focus on Ötzi, also called The Iceman, a Copper Age mummy discovered high in the Italian Alps.