Representation from Roman times, which depicts two female gladiators fighting each other in Halicarnassus, an ancient city located in what is now Turkey.
O The Roman Empire is famous for its arenas such as the mythical Colosseum in Rome, where gladiators fought against each other in bloody clashes. But would there also be women involved in the noise?
Several lines of evidence, including historical records and artistic representations, suggest that, although rare, There were even female gladiators in the Roman Empire.
In Ancient Rome, women tended to be excluded from politics and were not allowed to serve in the army. However, they had some freedoms, and some ran their own businesses or worked as doctors. They could also own property and make contracts. But less is known about female gladiators, so it can be difficult to know who they were and how they competed.
Regarding gladiators, it is known that the vast majority were enslaved, and this was probably also true for female gladiators.
There were different ways in which a person could become a slave: they could be enslaved after a war, as punishment for a crime or for debts not paid.
“I believe that female gladiators were mainly slaves who committed crimes,” he told , Anna Miączewskaprofessor at Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Poland, who has researched and written extensively about female gladiators.
However, there were exceptions. As the same magazine recalls, some male gladiators included people from the upper echelons of society — perhaps the most famous was the Roman emperor Convenient (reigned from 176 to 192 AD), who dressed like the god Mercury and made the Senate watch his triumphal battles, probably to convey a message about his power.
Likewise, ancient texts suggest that some Upper class women also competed as gladiators.
How were female gladiators selected?
There is a lot of uncertainty about how female gladiators competed and how they were selected and trained.
The relief from Halicarnassus, in what is now Turkey, depicts two female gladiators holding shields and swords with the scene names “Amazon vs Achillia”.
This Roman-era relief depicts two female gladiators fighting each other in Halicarnassus, an ancient city located in what is now Turkey.
Stephen Bruneta professor at the University of New Hampshire, noted that the two women are shown wearing armor associated with a “challenging” — a type of gladiator who was made to look like a Roman soldier.
An inscription says that the women were “freed still standing” without any of them being killed.
Alfonso Mañasa researcher at the University of California Berkeley, told Live Science that one of the earliest sources to mention female gladiators was Nicholas of Damascus (64 BC to 4 AD), who wrote that women selected to fight they were not the strongest or most skilled, but rather the most beautiful.
This text indicates that the person who sponsored the gladiator contest had a considerable amount of money. influence on which women fought.
“It is likely that female gladiators were instructed not to wear helmets so that their slender faces could be seen by the public“, said Mañas. In fact, in the relief presented above, the gladiators do not have helmets.
The expert also suspects that they would have been It is forbidden to fight to the deathnoting that none of the written sources mention a female gladiator dying.
Furthermore, no tombstone of a gladiator has ever been founddespite more than 1,000 documented tombstones of male gladiators.
