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Female Gladiators of the Ancient Roman World

Gladiatrix_reliefFemale Gladiators of the Ancient Roman World

By Steven Ross Murray

The Journal of Combative Sport (2003)

Introduction: In September of 2000, the Museum of London announced a surprising archaeological discovery that garnered world-wide media attention and subsequently sparked intense debate within the academic community. Scholars revealed that the grave of a purported gladiator, dating back to the first century A.D., had been unearthed in the greater London area. The museum’s scholars suggested that only one other similar gravesite, in Trier, Germany, had ever been found, making this a very special find indeed. However, it was not the rarity of the find that captured the world’s attention nor the fact that the grave was supposedly that of a gladiator. To the surprise of all, the broken and burnt remains of this grave proved to be those of a woman. Accordingly, the Museum of London suggested that these remains were the first ever found of a female gladiator.



The discovery was unprecedented, both in terms of its physicality and interpretation. Classical scholars have long known that female gladiators existed because of selected references in the ancient texts and inscriptions; the literary and epigraphical evidence is quite convincing. However, if the museum’s scholars were correct, the world now had the first human forensic evidence supporting the existence of female gladiators. Traditional textual and archeological sources that depict female gladiators are well known to classical scholars, but these same sources may be unknown to the typical sport scholar who is less schooled in classical languages and ancient history. Sport scholars, therefore, would find it beneficial to have the pertinent information distilled into one readily-available source. The purpose of this paper is to provide that source by presenting the evidence for the existence of female gladiators found in the ancient texts coupled with attendant scholastic and archaeological exposition, surmising the details of their life in and out of the arena, and exploring whether or not the gravesite excavated by the Museum of London is in fact one of a female gladiator.

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