{"id":35636,"date":"2024-04-30T00:00:05","date_gmt":"2024-04-30T04:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biblicalarchaeology.org\/?p=35636"},"modified":"2024-04-29T15:28:07","modified_gmt":"2024-04-29T19:28:07","slug":"what-did-gladiators-eat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biblicalarchaeology.org\/daily\/news\/what-did-gladiators-eat\/","title":{"rendered":"What Did Gladiators Eat?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cFor abdominal cramp or bruises,\u201d states Marcus Varro, and I quote his very words, \u201cyour hearth should be your medicine chest. Drink lye made from its ashes, and you will be cured. One can see how gladiators after a combat are helped by drinking this.\u201d
\n\u2014Pliny,<\/a><\/em> Natural History XXXVI.203<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Borghese<\/a>

Detail of a third\u2013fourth-century C.E. mosaic depicting gladiatorial combat, now on display in the Galleria Borghese in Rome. Photo: Licensed under public domain via Wikimedia Commons.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

The Roman gladiator calls to mind a fierce fighter who, armed with an assortment of weapons, battled other gladiators\u2014and even wild animals. What did gladiators eat? Roman author Pliny the Elder reported that gladiators went by the nickname \u201chordearii<\/em>\u201d (\u201cbarley-eaters\u201d) and drank a tonic of ashes after combat (Pliny, NH<\/em> XVIII.72<\/a>, XXXVI.203<\/a>). A study recently published in the scientific journal PLOS ONE<\/em><\/a> confirmed that gladiators really did eat mostly plants\u2014especially barley and wheat\u2014and may have indeed consumed ashes.<\/p>\n

Gladiators were typically enslaved prisoners of war and criminals, though free men as well as women<\/a> participated in gladiatorial games. What began as a component of funeral rites in the early Roman Republic evolved over centuries into bloody spectacles for the entertainment<\/a> of the Roman people, reaching their peak in popularity in the second century C.E.<\/p>\n

Researchers from the Institute of Forensic Medicine at the University of Bern and the Medical University of Vienna aimed to investigate how the diet of gladiators compared to the rest of the population. Using spectroscopy to conduct isotopic analysis on the bone remains from a second\u2013third-century C.E. gladiator cemetery in Roman Ephesus in Turkey, the researchers were able to confirm that the individuals buried in the cemetery consumed a mostly plant-based diet\u2014as did the rest of the population in Ephesus.<\/p>\n

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\"Gladiator<\/a>

Tombstone excavated in the gladiator cemetery at Ephesus. Photo: \u00a9 2014 L\u00f6sch et al. Doi:10.1371\/journal.pone.0110489.g002.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cGladiators appear to have eaten a diet similar to that of most other occupants of the Roman Empire, and the authors\u2019 isotope data fit well with my own and others\u2019 research into diet in the first few centuries C.E.,\u201d said Kristina Killgrove, bioarchaeologist at the University of West Florida<\/a>, in an email to Bible History Daily<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The study further found that those buried in the gladiator cemetery had higher strontium-calcium ratios than their contemporaries. This suggests that the gladiators at Ephesus may have really drunk a tonic of ashes as described by Pliny (\u201ccinis lixivus potus<\/em>\u201d).<\/p>\n

\u201cPlant ashes were evidently consumed to fortify the body after physical exertion and to promote better bone healing,\u201d study leader Fabian Kanz explained to ScienceDaily<\/em><\/a>. \u201cThings were similar then to what we do today\u2014we take magnesium and calcium (in the form of effervescent tablets, for example) following physical exertion.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an email to Bible History Daily<\/em>, University of Hawaii at Manoa classicist Daniel Harris-McCoy offers a caution when using Pliny the Elder as a textual source:<\/p>\n

\u201cPliny the Elder is willing to print anything and everything, which makes him fun to read but sometimes hard to use as a source of solid information. He includes wild \u2018facts\u2019 about the giant gold-digging ants of India and even talks about ancient hallucinogenic drugs. But the material about gladiators consuming an ash drink seems credible, especially since Varro is his source.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read the study in PLOS ONE<\/em><\/a>.
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This Bible History Daily feature was originally published on October 24, 2014.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Related reading in Bible History Daily<\/em>:<\/h4>\n

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Going Paleo<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n