Gladiators: 100 BC–AD 200

The gladiatorial games of the Roman world comprised battle for entertainment and slaughter for profit. Although notorious for the use of prisoners of war, conquered slaves and condemned criminals as dispensable ‘extras’, some did volunteer for the gladiatorial profession. Spectacle was combatants were encouraged to draw their opponents’ blood and prolong death. For citizen and caesar, the gladiators created drama through their violence – and the public loved them for it. This title relates how men, and women too, came to find themselves in the arena. As well as detailing the various types of gladiator, their weaponry and equipment, it reveals what training and daily life was like for each – and how this culminated in their stepping into the arena.