Let's Talk About Myths, Baby! Greek & Roman Mythology RetoldLet's Talk About Myths, Baby! Greek & Roman Mythology Retold

Conversations: Beware of the Splash Zone! Gladiators in the Greek World w/ Alexandra Sills

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Published Oct 20, 2023, 7:00 AM

Liv speaks with Alexandra Sills who studies spectacle! and, specifically: when Gladiators went to Greece... They talk mythologizing gladiatorial games, adapting things (splash zone!) and even, the evidence for women fighting in games. Read more from Alexandra at Bad Ancient and Working Classicists. Help keep LTAMB going by subscribing to Liv's Patreon for bonus content!

CW/TW: far too many Greek myths involve assault. Given it's fiction, and typically involves gods and/or monsters, I'm not as deferential as I would be were I referencing the real thing.

Attributions and licensing information for music used in the podcast can be found here: mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions.

Oh my God's nerds gladiators. This is let's talk about BT's baby. And I am your host live who doesn't normally care about Roman things all that much, but guess what this is Greeks doing the Roman things, so it's awesome. Today I am joined by Alexandra Sills, who is an expert not just in gladiators, but gladiators in Greece, very and by Greece. Right now, I just mean the Greek world so deep into the East, the whole section, you know, Turkey, the law of it back then, the ancient Greek world, but as ruled by Romans. I'm rambling now, that's right. Today is all about the many ways that the Greek world used and adapted gladiatorial games and made them into something pretty damn special. Plus how they regularly adapted Greek theaters physical theaters to perform those games. Who and yes, I am entirely obsessed with that idea, particularly how it would almost certainly result in a splash zone disgusting, I know, I love it. And we even talked with the idea of women as gladiators, the idea that goes around every once in a while, little bits of virality over so called female gladiators we'll see no spoilers yet on the details there. Also today's episode is it seriously long? Because there was so much to say about this topic and I couldn't bring myself to cut it down because it's so interesting and Alexandra and I had so much fun. So I'm keeping this intro short and sweet. Just know that this will not be the last you hear from Alexandra as We also recorded a bonus conversation all about gladiators on the screen from Well Gladiator to Star Spartacus, which I love pretty deeply, so stay tuned for that too. Conversations Beware of the splash Zone Gladiators in the Greek World with Alexandra Sills. Yeah, so we'll just dive right in, Like I, I mean, you and I've been Twitter mutuals for a really long time. But I also realized I like barely knew your name because I just know your handle and you're like little like image and I'm like, oh right, like you're the person behind I don't even is it oysis beloved of oises? How do you pronounce it?

As far as I know.

So gladiators, I don't even like I know that you have studied a lot of gladiator everything, But I just I just want to hear everything. I know we were talking, you know, before the recording about like gladiators in Greece because they fascinate me, like in like the Roman period of Greece and like what what specifically the Greeks did with that Roman practice? And I just want to hear everything basically, but I can find real questions that I will ask you also.

Yeah, So I think there's this thing with Greek archaeology is that there aren't a lot of amphitheaters in the East. We have got literally hundreds in the west of the Empire, but in the East there's hardly any. In fact, I think if I'm right in saying, Britain has more amphitheatres than Greece and Turkey combined. Wow, so these tinish of rain soaked islands have got more amphitheaters than this huge, already quite culturally significant area. Yeah. And I think there's been a tendency to kind of assume, oh, okay, well, that must mean that the Greeks just weren't interested. But it could not be more wrong. It could not be more wrong, because when you look into the other evidence. It turns out that the Greeks were crazy for gladiators. They really really loved lad eighties. And when you spoke to Dan Stewart about Roman Greece, he spoke briefly about this. I'm just going to recap what he said.

Yeah, first, can I just I want a point of clarification for the listeners on like soy by like few amphitheaters, you mean more of like that specific like like the colisseum versus, like the Greek traditional theater, right, great.

Greek theaters are semi circles, and an amphitheater amphi theater is all around. So it's essentially two theaters stuck together to make an oval.

Is that where the work comes from? Because I do.

So when you see someone calling a theater an amphitheater, yeah, it's it's wrong because an amphitheater it means goes all the way around without a break, So it's yeah, it's essentially two theaters back to back.

Great, I'm learning so much already, and it's literally part of this conversation.

So when you've got Greece and Turkey, there are a couple. So you've got one at Pergamon you've got and the first one actually was in Corinth and that was built by Julius Caesar. It's really basic, kind of rock cut thing, and that's only a couple of decades after the first stone amphitheat from Pompeia. That was seventy BCE, so Julius Caesar is not long after that. So the first one in the East is actually pretty soon after permanent structures were being made in the West as well, So I find it interesting that no one seems to correlate the two starting with permanent buildings so closely together. So, yeah, you've got the one at Pergamon. You've got Mastora which is currently being excavated as well that you've yeah, yeah, and it's huge and there's a lot of work being done right now. There's one, and there's our Bos, there's a couple. There's one on Cyprus, there's one of Cyssicus. So there's there are amphitheats there. They're just not they're not everywhere like they are everywhere else.

Yeah, and and not like Greek theaters.

Exactly Greek theatres there's something like over seven hundred of them, but amphitheasis over there are really really rare. If you go to somewhere like Spain or the south of France, you are tripping over amphitheasis every single place that you go. But in Greece and Turkey there are so rare, and there's the kind of assumption has been made. Oh, they didn't bother making them because they just didn't want to see it. What's interesting, and Dan Stewart mentioned this is what they did instead, is they adapted existing buildings.

Yeah, I see, It's just it's so messy.

I can think of you've got these buildings already, why not use them? So chose theaters and a stadium. If you had a stadium, why not make that multi purpose by having gladiator shows there as well. So the changes that you needed to make to make it safe, so you can either put a net up around the orchestra or around the stadium itself to prevent animals and gladiators getting into the crowds. You could build a small wall. Quite often, what they would do is take out the first kind of three to ten rows of seats, and then what you've got is the first row of seats is all of a sudden higher, it's above the ground where the gladiators are just like at the Colisseum. If you're at the Colosseum, you would be looking down on the gladiaces if you're in the front row, whereas if in a theater you're in the front row, you're at the same level as the actor. That doesn't work if the actors, you know, wielding an acts at you. So you raise up the level of the audience by taking out those front kinds of seats. And that's been done at over one hundred venues in Turkey and Greece. So what my research has found if you map all of these adapted theaters and stadiums as well as the amphitheatres in the East, all of a sudden, the East is the area with the third densest spread of spectacle venues and it comes second only to Italy and the area which is now Tunisia. So again thinking over the south of France and Spain and Britain, with all of aman that we have, all of a sudden, it's the Greeks that are going really really bananas for Roman spectacle. Yeah, and I used to think, I mean initially you think, why is this is it just recycling? Are they lazy? Because they're not a poor area at all. I mean, compared to some of the provinces, they're loaded. And I worked out I don't think it is because of cost. I think it's because of a cultural thing. And again going back to what Dan Stewart was saying, the Greek cities were kind of keen to live up to their ancient reputation in the Roman period, to keep their greekness, and I think that that's connected. I think what they're doing is they're taking this Roman thing, but they're greekifying it. They're viewing it from a Greek perspective, So why not put it in traditionally Greek venues such as sports venues like stadiums and theaters, and it is they are they are making. It's so Greek. So the important thing with gladiators is across the entire empire, they all look the same. So it's the same sets of armor, and you get different types. You get like the heavyweights and the lightweights, and you've got ones with big swords and little swords and ones with tridents and different levels of shield size. But they're all pretty standard across the entire area. But it's the way that they're spoken about and the way they speak about themselves that changes. And there's this huge East West divide, and in the West you've got things like they're tombstones and they will have a name, how many fights and then their age when they died on the tomb stone, and it's really boring. And their their names are kind of staccato names, short and snappy. But in Greece it's completely different. They're choosing stage names from myth.

Hm hmm, oh, I'm excited.

So you've got and we've got dozens of examples of grosstones over there. You've got Achilles, You've got i X, You've got Alexandras, you've got Hecles, you've got Heracles, Hemessus, you've got Perseus. You've got all of these names that they've chosen straight from Greek myth and from epic. And if you think about it, you've got all of these Greeks that for centuries have been brought up on a diet of the epic cycle, and they've spent you know, years is school children learning all of these stories and reading about all these epic one to one battles, and now they've finally got a chance. Yeah, you remember that fight now come see it live.

Yeah, though, I have to say I want to talk to the guy who chose the name Hermes, because, like, I mean, does that make you seem that intense? Like all possible? Yeah?

What was Herman's job with the underworld?

Okay, okay, okay, subtle? I like that, that's like you're going deep. That's like I'm the psychopomp Hermes, Like I'm.

Not just taking down to the underworld. Yeah, all of a sudden becomes the most metal gladiator name you can think of.

Yeah, yeah, that's I like that. It's got layers.

Yeah, And they're not even just they're not even calling themselves names from from break myth. They're constantly talking about the gods and so you'll you'll hear them say that I am a warrior of Aries, or I'm fighting in the stadium of Aries, and they're constantly talking about being taken down to Hades. And I have looked through literally dozens of these gravestones, and they're really cool because not only are they more biographically detailed, but they're also metrical. Some of them are in the same meter as Epic and over half of them mention the fates hau so I die here because the fates decided that it was time to cut the cord. And it's amazing how deeply embedded they've managed to place themselves in Greek tradition doing this utterly, utterly Roman thing of killing each other for the others.

I should have known that, Like, I mean, the this is just going to go with my continual sort of running. I want to call it a joke, but it's totally honest. But like, like I just should have known that the Greeks would take something that is so distinctly Roman and then make it so much more fun and interesting even than the Romans did. Like, like of course they would, of course they would take this thing and be like, we're gonna make it nerdy, because like I mean, I they're They're the reason all of these things are the reason why I prefer Greece to Rome. Like, I just think it's so much more interesting, mostly mythologically, but like it really says something about their relationship with the gods that's so different from the Roman relationship with the gods too, like like the Greeks are so much more willing to like to interact with the gods to like they actually kind of want them around in a way where the Romans seem to have this more like fear of the gods mentality versus like a desire to interact with them.

And yeah, I love that. I mean, the gladiators in the West certainly really took on the Eastern goddess of Nemesis.

Interesting.

They loved Nemesis, and in a lot of amphitheasis you'll find little shrines to her just off of the arena, and we've got things like cursed tablets to Nemesis that have been written and get little dedications, and you can't help but imagine about this gladiator who's making one last, one, last little votive before he goes in. But in the West, it's there they go nuts. And it's really really interesting to me because I kind of think about it's almost like it's Homeric cosplay. Yes, And if you go in through the Homeric stories, the gods are so woven into those stories that when you bring it in to Roman spectacle in the Greek East, they're still there weaving them in hundreds of years after these epics were first come up with. And you know, it's the Greek thing of they loved competitions, right, Yeah, the whole argon. There's competitions and contests in everything they do, so of course they're going to love blaidatorial combat. It's another composition and the stakes are immeasurably I The thing is, and this is what annoys me personally, is that this is all a bit hush hush in the academic world. So for instance, all of these tombstones that I've mentioned, very very few of them have been published in English. They were mostly brought together in the nineteen forties by this French guy called Louis Rebet, and even though he's collecting all of them, he is of the opinion that caldatorial combat is dreadful and he calls it a gangreen that infected the Greek world. And I think there's not going to name any names, but archaeologists of Greek theaters and stadiums are usually very, very reluctant to mention any of these architectural changes that have been made for gladiators. So you can enter an archaeological library and you can look through dozens of psyche reports and there might be a sentence there was a wall built for gladiators, And they're so reluctant to talk about it. So none of these sites have yet yet I hope too been collated all in one place to be published, because everyone seems to be desperate to kind of hide the fact that they're pure theater where you know, the great tragedies were performed. No one wants to admit that there was bloodshed there, and that's something that I think some current archaeologists share with some of the ancients because of course gladiators. We think about it as a strange thing now and we love to say, oh, the Romans universally loved gladiators, but there were people that criticized it. And that's true in the Greek East as well. But like so much with Greek history, a lot of it's focused purely on Athens.

Mm hmmm. So I was going to ask if we know if Athens took part in this, So tell me.

So. Athens not only had one the Theater of Dionysus that was adapted, but they adapted the stadium as well, the Panathenetic Stadium. Yeah, because they loved it so much. They wanted it twice, baby, and it wasn't without criticism. So you've got he's so Apolonius was supposed to address the locals in the theater of Dionysus, and he refused because he said, I'm surprised that Athena hasn't vacated the Parthenon and the APROPETI I if this is the kind of blood that you're going to offer her a sacrifice, I'm surprised that she's not left.

So, like, what's the time period then, because that feels really early if it's Apolonius.

Like yeah, like it is so early.

Yeah, that's pre role, isn't it. Like that's Hellenistic period. So Greece is still kind of Greeker. This is me loving the Classical period, and no one's very little after the Classical period, can you tell?

So here is the coolest part of it is that the Romans were not the ones to introduce Romans but to the east.

That's what it sounds like. Amazing.

You've got Antiochus the fourth okay from Antioch and he was I believe, a hostage of Rome for a little while, So he was over in Rome seeing all of this happen. And this is only a couple of decades after the Romans were fighting Hannibal. That kind of thing, I believe Okay, so it's all still you know, early days for Roman spectacle as a you know, not the Colisseum is still centuries from being built. He goes back to Antioch and in one hundred and sixty six PC he decides to put on his own show to show the East what the Romans do, what he's learned, and we've got this from Polybius. Polybya says there were two hundred and forty pairs of gladiators in his show.

That's a lot.

That's a lot, and it's more than any show that had so far been shown at Rome.

Okay, that was gonna be my question. That sounds like an enormous number of people.

Yeah, So what you've got is a hellenistic king saying, here's this Roman stuff, but I'm gonna make it bigger. Yeah, and he absolutely does. That's an enormous man. And he calls them monamacoy, so it's one on one fighters. Yeah, so he doesn't call them gladi eighties and monamacoy is a word that comes up again and again. Hmm. So he puts on this enormous show and it's almost like he's trying to out roman the Romans. I think he knows they're coming.

Yeah, I mean I feel like it wouldn't have been that hard to tell.

So so yeah, that's that's one hundred and sixty six PCE.

Wow.

And then you get more or when Caesar goes over, so he builds the amphitheaters in Corinth, and he builds an amphitheater in Antioch. Now it's really important when he goes over, he's not building them for Greeks. He's building them for Romans. He's founding colonies mainly for his veterans. So when you think about Corinth, you have to understand that Corinth had been raised to the ground beforehand. He's rebuilding it essentially. So his amphitheater is quite a little plain one, if I'm honest, very little archaeological work has been done on it so far. Unfortunately, I'll be the first one there with a trowel. So he's building that for his veterans, their families, and for any Romans who are choosing to relocate or you know, just passing through a little bit of home now that you're moving out to the proper same thing in Antioch. But it doesn't take very long at all for them to start moving. It elsewhere, and this is exactly the same as what was happening in Rome and in the West because Colisseum really expensive. You need a massive space to put it in. Yeah, amphatheats are enormous. They cost a lot. So even in Rome they didn't have a permanent Rome had one semi permanent amphitheas a bit it burned down, but it took until eighty CE for that to open. M So I mean there's permanent amphitheas is in the West from Pompeii, which was seventy BCE, Colisseum eighty CE. But the East has already already got them way before the Colosseum, before the coliseum in Rome. What you would do Gladiator started off in the forum and you just put up some bleaches.

Oh my god. Yeah again Lessie, Like, I don't know why that. The first thing I think about all of this stuff is like a splash zone, SeaWorld style, you know, Like, I just it's all I can think about every time. You're like a Greek theater, but with gladiders, I'm like, everyone would get so bloody, and I just am fascinated by that. It's so gross and wonderful, you know, The.

Best thing that I've seen so far to kind of describe what I mean by it is HBO's Rome where Titus Below has to go, and it's you see it and you think, oh, it's going to go into this massive amphitheater, and it's not. It's a tiny area. It's quite small with a wooden seating and it looks like it's been built last morning, and that's because it probably was. So it's estimated by very clever people that you could build a wooden amphitheater in about a week, so you could knock that up, have your show, and then take it down when you need to, or you could have benches around an open area like the Forum, and we've got evidence of that happening in the East as well. So the Holy Island of d Loss where yeah has got not only has it got some gladatorial graffiti, which is great, but there's evidence that in the Forum of the Italians that there were balconies that were put up specifically for this kind of event so that you could have benches on the ground and then you could have another level of people looking down as well. Yeah, so really you don't need anywhere to have gladiatorial shows apart from an open space where you can stick a couple of benches. But that's what I find so interesting. They've made the decision to move this Roman thing into Greek spaces to kind of make it as Greek as possible. Yeah, they've kept a lot. They've kept the armor, they've kept the fighting style, they've kept the rules. As far as we can tell, we don't know a lot of the rules, to be honest. We have to kind of piece together what we can do.

We think there was a lot of rules. To me, it feels like it's one of those like there are no rules like kind of thing.

This is what I find interesting because if you look at Greek sports, that's the ones that don't have many rules at Allso Pancratian I think the only two rules are no eye gouging and no biting. Off the top of my head, it seems like a fun time, but you've got stories of Pancratian. I think there was one guy who won by he didn't punch with a closed fist, so he went forward with his fingers extended and ended up actually puncturing into someone's tors and pulling out the intestines.

Ah I don't think there are not wrong.

So Greek combat sports they're utterly brutal, So I mean there's a bit of a precedent for violent entertainment there. But actually from what we can tell from gladatorial combat is there are a lot of rules. So the first thing is is that there are usually designated pairings. So you've got the net man the retiaris, for instance, he has got a trident and a net and he is usually up against a secu tour who has got a very plain helmet so it does get snagged in the net and a large shield and a sword and they are usually together, or you'll usually see a millo and murillo against each other. So there are usual pairings. It gives you something to expect as an audience member, but also that's what they're training for. These men are training, right, this is my type, this is who I'm fighting, this is how my training is going to go, and how I'm going to organize my techniques. Right. I can't just throw in two random types and expect it to work, because these guys are really honed to attack and defend from a certain type. So there's that. We also know that there are referees. And this is one thing that gets me because the two things that you never ever see in Hollywood gladiators you never ever see shields. Where are the shields? And you never ever see referees.

Yeahere there seem foreign as hell. I'm trying to think of Spartacus, which is really like I've seen Gladiator, but not for a long time and not as often. So I'm trying to think of Spartacaus is all I know. And like, we have shields in spar do they not yet?

The Stars series, I have to say users shields some of the time, not all of the time. I'm not nobody, but they exist and they use them when they use them well, because it's not just a defensive thing. It's absolutely an offensive weapon, massive metal boss on the front. You can whack people, you can bring it down onto their toes, you can hit them in the head. You can do a load of things with a shield. Yeah, it's there. And also the thing is with gladiators is they don't have a lot of body harmor on, so there's no chest piece, there's no torso if you watch Gladiator, Russell Croe's got this massive leather thing on he would have been bare chested. M Now, I don't know what they were doing there. There's there's theories about you know, modern audiences not liking nipples and things like that, but there would have been so many nipples on display, so many nipples, So.

Is criticizing have Like Okay, maybe I'm just projecting here, but like that's the best part of Spartacus. And I'm always talking about part I should say, but like that's the best part. Like I can't tell you the number so I watch. I was introduced to Stars Spartacus by my friends an ancient history fangirl Jenn and Jenny and so we watched a lot together and I can't tell you the number of times that we have sent gifts back and forth of either Spartacus Organiciss, like only the first Particus, but like the Okay, I can go too far. We're gonna we're gonna talk about Sartcuss later. But like that's the best part. I'm just saying, that's wild to me giving myself away.

I used to think it was the best part and then I got really nerdy back gladiating and ruined it for myself. Yeah, is the fact that they.

Yeah, oh I also have to say, I mean, no, it's great. I mean, as soon as you said I was like, I'm pretty sure stars Particus also has shields, so like they can't all be wrong. But also when you said the netman, that made me very happy because I uh, from day one of watching that show, I started calling him mister Nets, which is it's a it's a like it's a reference to a random podcast episode of a completely completely, non non remotely historical topic. But I just love it, and I now I've turned it into all of us when we watch this show together, just call them all mister Nets and have like a real affinity for mister Nets. I feel like he's an underdog and he just does great work. So yeah, just big fan of mister But.

You're not wrong. The net men were seen as underdogs. They were seen as the lowest form. There was the least amount of pride if you were a netman. That's one of the reasons they had their helmets off. They had nowhere to hide their shame, oh god, because they had to show their face.

Well, I love them, so I can call them mister Nets.

They are so cool. If you if you watch these shows that do the gladiatorial combat to a higher level like Spartacus or you know the reenactment groups that are going around and around. I mean some of these guys. It proves how fascinating it is to watch. And I love the net men, they are my favorite.

It would have been really interesting watching them wheel a net like that. Yeah, Like, I think they're very fun.

Yeah, yeah they are.

Sorry, I can go off.

To referees, yes, so yeah, So the referees in a gladiatorial match, they're usually gladiatorial veterans that have been given their freedom, and most of them have chosen obviously to stay in the culture and the profession that they know they're moving up to another level they are now the referees. So it seems from what we can tell from artwork that there would be at least one referee at a time. He would have a long stick which which he could put in between the fighters to stop them at any point. So from what we can tell, there is a kind of you hit him here, We're going to pause. You know, Oh, his shield's fallen down, We're going to pause. So interesting. Does seem like it would have been quite stop start, stop, start, and because you've got the shield thing as well. And this is why I'm so so I can't stress enough how important shields are because they've got the bare chests. A lot of them have only got armor on one arm. It's a toss up whether it depends on your type, whether you've got metal on one or both legs. But your shield, when it's up in the defensive position should come about one inch above the bottom of your helmet an inch or so below the bottom of your leg guard. So when you are facing up against your opponent, you've got your defensive leg back. That's the one that's usually bear. You can just see metal and shields, right, And that's why the shields are so important. It's never this kind of wild hacking that you tend to see in Hollywood fights. And you would never put your shields so far out in front, and you know, you see them with their arms raised high. All I'm thinking is you are left letting your flank be so exposed right now. Yeah, you've got the whole of your side is exposedness. So yeah, so that there are rules. It would have been quite stop start, and I think it would have been a lot more maybe defensive, then modern depictions suggest mm hmmm. So, don't get me wrong. Yeah, hyper violent, but it's a bit different from what you've seen on screen.

Yeah, more strategic. It sounds like much more like actually thought out about the best way of doing this, like more fair even. It sounds like.

Because there've been there have been attempts to kind of recreate with re enactors. You've got groups that have got accurate armor, all of this kind of stuff, and they fight and they work out, well, this works, this technique does not work. They've worked out that a gladiator fight on average would have probably been about ten to fifteen minutes long. If you go in there hacking and slashing, you're going to tire yourself out and you will be dead very quickly. Yeah. So yeah, it's it's it's interesting to think that it. It is definitely more strategic and probably a bit slower than people might suspect. But that's not to say that the Greeks weren't interested in that kind of thing, because they really preferred thinking, actually, all Romans across the entire empire, Greek Roman whatever, they really loved thinking about technique and tactics. If it was a blood bath, then that's where they start to lose a bit of interest. It's all about skill, and that's one of the things that they are talking about in their Eastern gravestones is how guild they are. And I love their grocers. They're so they're so fascinating, and you know, occasionally they're quite cute, which might seem the wrong word to use. So we were talking about net men, weren't me the Retiarius? There was a Rettiarius called Melanippos. He was born in Tarsus, but I think he died somewhere else. He died in Alexandria Treras, and his graystone says that they say Hercules completed twelve labors. Well, I did exactly the same, because I won twelve matches, but I died on my thirteenth. Are you just say? Well? I love that. I love that for him, that he's modern day Hercules. I think that's wonderful. What a way to boast. It almost sounds, doesn't it, that he doesn't even mind that it was the thirtieth as long as he beat her in these records.

Yeah, he like accomplished. I mean it was Herculean feet and he did it.

Yeah, absolutely so, Yeah, I find it fascinating and as I say, it's I think that there was a little bit of criticism in the ancient world about it coming from a certain type of person. And I think that the kind of reason that it's not more widely known now is because the same kind of person in the modern world is, you know, not so keen to advertise it either.

Yeah.

I think I think it's great.

Yeah, I mean, like I was going to guess the same thing, Like it just sounds like it's so it's so predictable. This the fact that it isn't talked about a lot, and the fact that there would have been Greeks criticizing it because it doesn't fit with the narrative that that like Athens wanted to portray, right, Like, it doesn't fit the narrative of the super like hyper intellectual Greeks ye who were all about. You know. It reminds me almost like of like some Euripidyan plays versus the other two of like he doesn't always fit what what this like, this mentality wanted to be when it comes to Greece, Like this idea that they're all just like these brilliant, brilliant men making works of art and they would never stoop so low as as violence, you know, like, yeah, it's not it's not remotely surprising, and you can kind of exactly track where it's all coming from. But at the same time, it's like, I mean, it's like why I love ancient Greece, but also like talking about specifically this kind of stuff, like pushing back against this narrative that they were these like hyper into intellectual like flawless, you know, just brilliant minds, because that's far less interesting than the truth, which is that they had people who were super intellectual and who wrote down brilliant things, and they had you know, works of art that were all of that, and then they also were fucked up and writing dark shit and like making things weird and like you know, Euripides was willing to write Medea because you fucking wanted to, and and you know, like I think it's so much more interesting to see them as much more of like these real people who were doing everything, because I mean, I much prefer it, and I love to know that they were doing violent shit with gladiators too.

Yeah, because I mean, when you think about it, what is more violent than reading the Iliad? Yeah, but you've got I mean you've got spears being thrown that cut off tongues at the base.

The description in the Iliad of some of those moments, yeah, like cutting tongues off, there's like those there's lines where it's like the spear went in and ripped out every inch of his entrails. Like we get such visceral literally descriptions of what happens in battle and what can result from these weapons that they're using. So yeah, like it absolutely fits that this would like carry forward so much more fun.

There's this whole kind of myth that the Greeks were all about philosophy and drama when actually you read the epics and you read, for instance, Ucidities, No, they really liked fighting. Yeah, so why wouldn't they enjoy watching it? And you think about modern I mean, we've how many things have we all already mentioned. We've mentioned styles Spartacus, We've mentioned the movie Gladiator. There are dozens of gladiators in modern media. So really, and you know, not even just got it, it's just violence in general.

Well yeah, you think, I mean, like I don't want to use three hundred as any kind of like positive example, but it's still a great example of that like hyper violent featuring the ancient world and Troy too, like yeah, not quite the same, but I mean I think better done if that's what you can say about Troy, but comparatively, but yeah, like this, like we love that humans, like why wouldn't it be the same for the Greeks? But but like it it all comes back to that you know, quote unquote Western civilization narrative, right that like they had in order for them to be like the origins of all of these things that we think are better than everyone else, like, you also have to have them be above above the violence and above the bloodshed. And it's like no, and it's yeah, I mean, yeah, you can link it to so many different problematic ideas, but also just like the pure and simple, like no, it's far more interesting that they contain these multitude. They were intelligent and also they liked to watch people stay at each other.

So when you think about some of these Greek sites, particularly the ones that a lot of tourists might visit, you'll never see well I won't say never, because I've seen one or two, but you will very very rarely see any reference to gladiatorial combat. Despite the fact that the remnants of the adaptations made are still very visible. So I've already mentioned the Theater of Dionysus in Athens. Yeah, so you'll see a wall about a meter high roughly going around the entire of the orchestra. That's Roman. That was so that gladiators didn't trip and fall and stabbed the people in the front row.

Huh.

The Panathenaic stadium, that's been heavily restored now, but when they were excavating it, they found that at the U shaped end, there had been an attempt to kind of cordon off that U shaped end to make a mini amphitheater, which is something that's happened in other stadiums in the East as well. It could be temporary or it could be permanent.

I would like to give them less space so that they're you know, because obviously the hen Ethnic stadium is enormously long, So what it was cordoned off to give more like a specialized area for the fighting itself.

Exactly, to give that same oval.

Shaped section less room to run.

And that's also happened at Aphrodisias and Petrass and Knucklelis. So you've got that in Athens Ephesus Ephesis is a hugely popular tourist spot. I don't think they particularly advertise the fact that it's one of only two places in the entire Roman Empire where we have found a gladiatorial cemetery.

Augh I went there like twelve years ago, so I'm sure I wouldn't if I'd seen something like that, I wouldn't have remembered. But like, that's so cool.

I mean, the people that know, they really know. But yeah, I mean, I don't think the general public really really know that much about it. So Corinth as well. The Amphitheater is not open to the public, but the theater. This is really cool because, as we've said, the Amphitheater in Corinth was built by Caesar Julius Caesar four Romans. But a couple of centuries later they've got their massive, massive theater. They've decided, no, we don't want to use that hoky little amphitheater supervincial. We're going to change our massive theater. So they took out ten rows of seats. I think it's the biggest conversion of that kind in any theater in the East. So that's about two centuries after Julius Caesar's anphtheater and you can see that theater today and there's nothing on it to tell you why that change had been made. Right, You've got the theater at Miscellini, for instance, doesn't look like a Greek theater anymore because the front seats is so much higher on top of the wall than the orchestra. And you know why, who knows it's a mystery. It's not a mystery. So many sites though, so many of these amazing sights, and then it's just they want to hide it.

Yeah, well okay, And that that reminds me of one of the things that was so interesting when when Dan Stewart was like, well he just like told me I didn't have any idea that any of us had happened, and so like that sort of started my own knowledge of this.

But like also the idea that like amidst all these changes and amidst using these Greek theaters for these kinds of gladiatorial gladiatorial fighting, like they were also then still performing the plays. And I find that so interesting to think about too, Like this idea that you could go from some like horrifically violent bloodshed filled moment like straight into like you know, oedipis Tyranos or something like that is kind of fascinating in itself and like they add so much to the theater too, Like it adds a lot to the performance of these plays to think about them coming like back to back with something so violent.

So this can actually tie up with who is it who's putting on these shows and why it's not the Romans. The Romans are not pushing on these shows for the Greeks, and they don't care if the Greeks go or not. They could not give a toss. Yeah, what it is is the priests of the Imperial Cult who are putting on these shows, huh. And it's part of the obligation of their role is to provide muna or gifts to the locals in honor of the emperor blah blah blah blah. So it's usually priests of the Imperial Cult and they will rent out a gladiatorial family. Some places like Pergamon, the priests had their own family of gladiators on retainer and the next priest along would inherit that family of gladiators, or there were roving groups that you could hire as they were passing through. But gladatorial combat wasn't one of the only things that you could provide as part of this obligation. You could put on the dramatic festival, you could put on an athletic festival, you could build something. So for instance, in the city of Aphrodisias, they changed their stadium into an ampha stadium for gladiators. So Aphrodisias they've changed their stadium for gladiators, and we've actually got a letter between We've got correspondence between them and the Emperor Hadrian, and they're saying, we've got this budget and we're wondering, we really really want to spend it on gladiators, but we kind of need an aqueduct, So what do you think we should do? And Hadrian is saying, are you crazy? Build the aqueduct. It's going to be more useful in the long run. It's more pragmatic. Build the aqueduct, you idiots. Why are you're wasting money on all of these gladiators. So the Roman emperors are absolutely not pushing right for the spread of spectacles. So there's this whole myth about a rather outdated term now romanization, which is this idea that the Romans were forcing their culture on everyone. The Romans did not give a shit about Glad in the.

East, like the Greeks were hellenizing the gladiators more than the moments were romanizing anything.

If anything, I think they were too enthusiastic to the point where a couple of people were thinking, oh, okay, yeah, because I mean Hadrian. Hadrian wasn't a verse to gladiators, but he's absolutely saying, no, do not waste your money on one show. There's something that's going to actually help people.

A few idiots one show or an aqueduct, which one is smarter.

So you've got these priests and their their role is to provide something. It doesn't have to be Glad theatorial combat, but as we know now from all of these adaptive venues, it very very frequently was. So I think just the fact that they were trying to impress the local populace as much as possible to gain popularity and prestige for them. The fact that they are choosing to put on spectacle as well as or instead of these other forms of entertainment or monumentalization is very very telling. The Greeks weren't being forced to watch anything. The Greeks were begging for more shows to be but on. Yeah, just in a very Greek setting with Greek stage names. It's brilliant to me. I love it.

Do they do like any full blown cosplay, like dressing up like the gods and stuff?

Not so much. So there is a little bit of dressing up involved, but it's not actually the gladiators, and it's across the whole empire. And yeah, it goes back to the idea of the psycho pomp. Okay, so you'd have someone dressed as Karen.

Ah and so dark. I love it.

If you had a gladiator who you thought might be faking death to try and sneak out, or maybe was on the brink and you really knew that the doctors weren't going to be able to save him, you'd send on Karen with a massive hammer back them in their head to make sure that the job was finished, to send them to the underworld. And actually, when you look at the skeletons in ephesis, a lot of them have massive cranial wounds. Jesus, so that there was a bit of dress up, but it wasn't the gladiators doing it.

I'm so glad I asked that.

Yeah, I mean there is. There is an element of dress up in the fact that from the foundations of it, the different types of gladiator are kind of supposed to be. Quite a few of them are dressed as traditional Roman adversaries and enemies, but that really only is important when you're looking at Spectacle in Rome itself, right, And when you're looking at Spectacle in Rome, it's important to figure out what its job was, because there's this whole thing about, oh, well, it's because the Romans were really bloodthirsty, but it's so much more than that. It's about considering your own mortality. So the gladiators were taught to die without flinching Jesus and to accept death with courage. That's a great lesson that we can all learn, but also for the audience in Rome, it's a lesson in imperialism and when to grant mercy and when to be more pragmatic. A lot of those messages about how to be an imperialist power don't really work in the provinces, and so I think in the Greek it is more about the one on one. The Greeks loved the matcho the male body. What better way you can watch them run around in the nude. Yeah, that's fine. Why not give each other point to metal six and you know, you know, you think about it, it's it's the perfect amalgamation of so many Greek loves. You've got the athleticism, the competition, you've got the myths, an epic in the stage names and in the episaps. And I think it.

Showed phallic message everywhere.

I mean, this isn't from Greece, it's from England. But I have to mention there is a terra corossa lamp with a faunaicating couple on it, and they're both dressed as gladiators and the girls on top and she's you know, she's she's winning. She's uh, he's sheathing his sword, but she's winning. It's such a cool up.

Sorry, that's amazing. Also, just like for all I like to i've made it like a joke to insult Rome compared to Greece, but like I do have to say, the variations in Dick lamps that Rome had like just true art. I forget who. I feel like I've become like an utterly absurd friend to most everyone I know, because in real life I really don't have many friends who have any interest in the ancient world except for whatever I force upon them. And like, I don't remember who I was telling, but like I I just started talking about like the penis lamps of Pompeii, and like I just can sometimes watch people's brains just be like right, I'm friends with you, Okay, Like yeah, tell me more about the penis lamps and pumpe And I'm like, well, some of them have wings, and some of them have wings and more penis parts attached so that there's like ten all in one. And it's like, let me tell you all about.

And tell you about one of my favorite things. Yes, I can't remember if it's from Pompeii or Herculaneum, but it was it's from one of them. It is a metal little statuette of a gladiator who's fighting his own penis, which yes, to be a pamp.

That makes me so happy, and I have to see it is like Naples Archaeological Museum, you know, the little cupboards that they've got of all the naughty things that women weren't allowed in until like a couple.

Of decades ago. It's in there. It is the strangest piece of Roman art I think I've ever seen. I love it so much. I really wish they'd make a museum repro for the gift shop because I would buy ten and have them.

I mean, we can always divert it into dicks. But I was just before you get back in because I want to hear everything. But just the way you were talking about, you know, the way Greece kind of took on all of this stuff, Like I really just think it also fits so beautifully. Like I just kept thinking when you were talking about all of this, like the way it manages to like still kind of connect with or like like it I can't think of the right word, but like it just makes me think of you know, the procession for the Great Dynysia and like the Dixon Sticks as I like to call them, like just they had found like literally everything in Greece and it really it all still pulls together this Oh I think you know, we were talking specifically about how the Greeks like and naked form, you know it all it really makes sense to just kind of transform what was like this, you know, like people want to think of theater, Greek theater, you know, as we were talking about like as this hyper intellectual brilliant works of art, but like the whole damn thing started with the procession of enormous phallacies throughout this city. Like it was never what the Western world wants it to be. It was always weird and sexual and like and so it just it fits so perfectly to then have them take on gladiators and make them their own and like kind of connect them almost with Dionysus and with like their theatrical roots, because like they're so tied, like one might have real bloodshed, but like they're not so far apart theater and these kinds of competitions.

Yeah. Absolutely, I mean you think of some of the deaths that you see in these books. I mean, I know you didn't see them in the place, Yeah, mentioned to buy the Messenger, But there is so much violence in these stories. Yeah, it's almost like the next logical step is to just show a bit of it. Absolutely, and I think as well, because you've got the drama of it all, the athleticism of it all, the esthetics of it all. The way that these Greek gladiators are talking about themselves, how they're spoken about is so different to how they were considered in the West, and there's this thing called infamia, which is where we get the word infamy.

And I was willing that.

It's a Roman kind of social class and it's the outcasts. So that's where you get executioners, undertakers, sex workers, pimps, actors, dances, quite a few musicians and gladiators. They're all in this social class of outcasts. They didn't have the same rights. I don't think they have many rights at all. It's difficult to talk about this because I don't think there's enough work been done on it, really, because the Roman Empire was centuries long and it was this huge, dear, wepable spam, and it's pretty difficult to say that there's this one level of outcastness that was put on in every single province in every single century, on every single one of those categories. But it is fair to say that they were treated differently from people with respectable professions. But in the East it's there's you can sense the pride when they talk about themselves and their tombstones, about their achievements and their fame and their skill. You can sense the pride. And there's no point putting that in your epitaph unless that's the kind of thing that's generally accepted and that other people also think the same kind of thing. And I believe, and I will go to bat saying this, I believe that gladiators in the East were treated better with more respect than gladiators in the West.

I think that leads I mean, that's I mean, I I was gonna say that sounds right, But all I know is what you've told me.

But like.

That leads directly to a question which I was wondering about. My ability to phrase words today is not going well. But you sound brilliant. I'm curious about like, And I don't know enough about this historically, let alone you know when it gets to Greece. But like the gladiators and whether they're always enslaved, whether some of them are choosing this life, Like, what is the deal there? And was it different in the East.

That's really difficult to say with the information that we have. There's there's different schools of thought amongst the academics. Anyway, it does seem that in the earlier days of spectacle in the West, the majority were slaves and prisoners of war, and then because gladiators kept some of their winnings and could achieve freedom. You could absolutely as a free man. If you needed the cash, you could take the risk. So there was definitely an upward tick in free people signing up, and they were called auctorati. They would sign up for a set amount of time, a certain amount of years, or a certain amount of fights, and say, this is how long you've got me for. I'm going to try and not die with a bit of money, and that seems to be absolutely what Greeks are doing. So there is a split between the unfree and the temporarily unfree. Right. On the other hand, we do also see, as in the West, that they absolutely could earn their freedom, and that a lot of them did. We've got quite a few gravestones mentioning that they've won their freedom and that they can go on to do all kinds of other jobs. We know, for instance, one of the jobs that they could do is as a referee. There's one epita that I love, and it's of a gladiator complaining that he, as far as he concerned, he'd won the match because he had his opponent pinned down, but the referee, for whatever reason, decided that actually, no, he hadn't, and that was the only reason I'm dead is because of that referee. I mean, holding that much of a grudge that you write it in stone. Yes, but yeah, it seems to be that there was the possibility of making a lot of money if you were good, a lot of it. I think we can't overestimate the appeal of having a set place where you knew that you were going to have a bed, possibly not comfortable bed, and food not the best food in the world, but not bad either. Because you were an expensive commodity as a gladiator, you were you were expensive to maintain, they had a reason to keep you in fighting for form. So for a lot of these men, I think are guaranteed roof over their head and food in their bellies would have been a pretty good reason to sign up.

Yeah.

Yeah, which is sad on many levels. But I don't think we should feel too sad for some of them because the way that they talk about themselves, they are so proud of what they achieved.

Yeah, they sound like, yeah, they are please.

They are so proud of themselves to be able to call themselves warriors of ares and to fight among heroes. That's how they talk about each other, and I think it's a real shame. Then, when you've got these ancient critics, modern critics that like to pretend that the Greeks were just sat drinking wine talking about philosophy all day, I think that's really sad that they're the loudest voice when actually these these guys, some of them were, but not all of them were victims. Yeah, they would hate they would hate it to be seen as victims. They're heroes, And I think it is difficult when you're talking about Roman spectacle not to come across as blood there see yourself. But I think going too far in the other direction and too suanitized and pretending that you're devastated at the thought of these deaths thousands of years ago, I think that's also just as disingenuous. I think we've got to look at it from a measured perspective. Somewhere in the middle, we recognize humanity's propensity to enjoy violence for violence sake, we're fascinated by it, we can find it a bit fun. I think by demonizing or sympathizing with these people too much, it does them a disservice, because every time I read what they've written, they're just so proud to be gladiated. Mm hmmm, so yeah, I kind of just want to talk about them to make sure that their voices are still being heard. Yeah, the archaeological records.

Yeah, well it sounds like, I mean, the level of pride involved in some of those tombstones, like it's lovely, it's really it's yeah, it's really nice. And like I mean, I just I love those moments of like real people, you know, because I think as exactly exemplified by everything we've been talking about, like this idea of the Greek as this one thing, these people who drink wine and talk about philosophy, Like sure that applied to some of them, but by and large it did not, And and like it's so much more interesting to look at what an everyday person, whether they're a gladiator or not, like you know, actually felt about their life. And yeah, I mean I love that. I love hearing that they were proud of what they were doing. And like I love the Aris connection too, because like he's to me, he's really fascinating figure in Greek mythology because like he's really not mentioned that much for somebody who was a god of something so important like Athena really gets all the credit for being the Goddess of War. I think, particularly because you know so much of our record comes from Athens. But like, it's so it's lovely to have these connections to Aries. Like I have a real thing for Aris and I can't totally explain. And I really like it.

I mean, ever since playing Emosals Phoenix Reizing, and I've got a bit of a thing for myself.

I've considered that game before, but you've convinced me a little bit more.

Yeah, you have to play it seriously, you're gonna.

Get I mean, yeah, as long as I can finally tear myself away from Odyssey for once. But I love Aries to put back to a part that I cut out. Listeners, you'll never know. Yeah, okay, I don't. I don't know where I interrupted you, so uh stop me if the there's relevancy before I bring up Odyssey, because you told me to bring up Odyssey and now I'm fascinating the listeners. Yeah ooh, or okay, yeah, that's the only other game I've played, so to the listeners, I do mean Assassin's Creed Odyssey, because I always mean Assassin's Creed Odyssey, So please tell me everything. But that's all to say, like I know enough of Origins too, So.

There are gladiators in Origins and Odyssey in your chat can be one.

And this is can I make sure? Can I make sure that I'm guessing right? Because I feel like I need to test my knowledge of Odyssey, Like do you mean like everything that happens on crete like in the thing? Yeah, I feel like it's just like.

They've got their kind of makeshift amphitheater, haven't they. Yeah, And that's that's kind of I mean, it's way too early, but that's what I kind of mean is it's the makeshift ability of just building it wherever you want. Yeah, that's entirely right, way too early, essentially swearly.

But but origins wouldn't be if they've got something like I haven't gotten to whatever it would be in Origins, but that would be time period correct.

Because we know that there definitely were gladiators in Egypt. We've got evidence literally ever and we've got archaelogical evidence. There's a wonderful glass with Gladias's painted on it that came out of Egypt's beautiful, so we do know that they were there. Again, it's a bit early, so Julius Caesar's in Origins and he's, you know, he's just introducing gladiatorial combat to Greece itself. He's probably not too worried about Egypt at that point. They've put an amphitheater in Syreney, which is I mean, there wasn't one. But this is where it gets really interesting, because what they have done in Origins is they've provided the theater in how the Romans adapted it.

Mm hmmm, so origins, I guess.

Syrene's theater started off like any other theater on the side of a hill, and then what the Romans did to it was different to how they changed other theaters, and Origins gets it half right. What the Romans did is they took away the stage building and then they carried on the front couple of rows of seats behind where the stage building would have been to make that circular, semi circular kind of area for the gladiators to be in. So they've got some of it in and they've got the fact that they raised the front rows of seats up. They've got that right.

Yeah.

But also this is what I find really interesting in it. It's more in Odyssey than it is in origins. Because archaeologists are so loath to talk about these adaptations in detail. It's very easy for someone to go to a theater now look at it and think this is what a theater is like in the Green period, which is why if you go see several theaters in the Odyssey game, you will see Roman adaptations or gladiatorial combat in theaters a couple of centuries before they were actually changed, because I'm guessing the researchers went over there took loads of photos. Oh yeah, that theatre has got a wall. We got to stick a wall in it, and it's not it's Roman, right.

And interest.

Yeah, and they've got different ones as well. Some of it they've they've raised the front seat by taking away the front rows and making the fourth row the front seat. Some of them they've put in the wall.

Do you know examples of where in the game, because yes, I'd want to go directly into the game because I'm thinking, like the Theater of Dionysius. They have the old one, which was smart, like, it's all Wooden, it's not the later Marble. But so I'm curious about where they are.

Oh I can't now, I think it's one of the ones on thee has definitely got one. Okay, I think maybe Delphi's got the wall or it's got the seats. And actually, I mean Delphi was adapted by the Romans for gladatorial combat. So again this hugely significantly religious plays two adaptations. The theater was slightly changed and the stadium that was built ship. Yeah, and it's all for gladiators because if you think about it, Greek stadiums, if they had seating at all, which was pretty rare, the people at the front were pretty much on the level of the running track.

Right.

You don't need, as the person in the front row to be higher looking down unless there's something that's going to hit you. Yeah, and you'll hear, You'll hear all the archaeologists say, oh, well they did the beast hunts. It did the beast hands, but they didn't kill humans here. They just killed the beast hunts. And I'm looking at these tiny walls thinking, yeah, mate.

That's gonna double lion.

That's not going to stop much real. Yeah. So yeah, the Delphie the stadium not only has it got higher seats, but it's it's got everything that you need to have blatatorial combat. In the Holy of Holies.

Yeah, to deal Us and Delphi. Yeah there, that's wild. That's amazing.

And you know you won't ever hear it in the guidebooks. No, No, you'll hear it in a guidebook that I eventually write, but you so far you won't hear it in any guidebooks.

Wow.

Yeah, it's all there. Yeah, that's what I find so interesting that, again that was so dedicated to historical accuracy, there's accidentally put in these Roman changes because they were there, but no one bothered explaining why.

Yeah.

I guess I don't know. Maybe they just thought, well, it's there the reason.

Yeah, it makes sense because you know, if it is something that is so kind of like you know, not necessarily explicitly hidden away, but like ostensibly kind of hidden away. Like that's probably the wrong word to use, but like, you know, if it's something that's not talked about a lot, and like, yes, they had historians working on that game, but like, I mean, yeah, if it's just one of those things where it just kind of gets like brushed under the rug, this idea of why they would have been changed, it makes perfect sense that it kind of ends up in there. And I mean there's so many little things that they clearly just were like, you know, this needs to be because it needs to be in the game because we don't know, you know, what else would be there kind of thing. You know. I think about all the like Minoan slash myceny In ruins that are kind of everywhere, and they all have it's like they're meant to be Mycenian but for the most part day I guess if they're on the islands, they all have the like the sacred horns kind of thing, so they're all like also Mino and anyway, it's just interesting, like those little things that that are. You can see where they pulled it from part of history and then they were like, but we got to put it here because we have to put something.

Yeah, exactly. So yeah, I mean it's interesting because they did get the Theater of Dynastis right, the fact that it was wridden to start off with, but on other theaters it looks exactly like it would have done in the Roman period four five hundred years later.

Hmm.

I was going around it as I was doing this research, playing the game and just thinking, oh yeah, yeah, everywhere.

I'm going to go find a bunch of theaters now.

And it's truly every it's well over a hundred real life examples of these buildings being ever so slightly altered.

Yeah, I love it. Okay. You also brought up the beast Hunt, which reminds me that I desperately want to hear about this woman who is often called the gladiator. But she wasn't a gladiator, but she was like all that we know about women involved in this, so tell me everything.

So people love talking about female gladiators because yeah, it's an extraordinary profession and they are the most extraordinary of the extraordinary. Right, I am so sorry to tell you that we have hardly any information at all, which I know I complete DeBie Downer.

So sometimes it's just the truth.

So sorry to upset anyone that still considers the History Channel to be no a viable source of historical information. There's recently a documentary called I Think Colisseum eight episodes long, and one of them was about a female gladiator called Mavia. Here's the thing. Mayvia wasn't a gladiator. She was a beast hunter. So you've got kind of two levels of beast hunter. You've got the best jurists, they're kind of thrown in and told to do their best, and you've got highly highly trained beast hunters the Venator, and she's one of those. So no of her from a passage in Juvenile there is two sentences she hunts with bed breasts, and that's pretty much it.

Now priorities.

The other thing to note with her specifically, because they've named her in this documentary and they've given her this huge autobiography, it's all bollocks because she's in two lines of Juvenile, which is a satire. So it's possible that she's not even real.

Ah, but she's like Atlantis. I guess she's not at all. She's not at all. I want to make that clear.

I mean, it's not to say that there weren't female gladiators completely, but we have to be really conservative with how we talk about them. So for instance, there's mention of some upper class ladies being forcified by Nero at the games that he put on for his mother after he murdered her.

Okay, I just have to point out the way you phrased that, because there's someone who doesn't know enough Roman history, like saying the games he put on for his mother before than adding after he is magnificent.

Yeah, I mean it was a This is how gladiatorial games really took off, right, it's a funeral thing. It happened at funerals. Mother dead. At some point someone said, not enough posh people are dying to have these big funerals. She would just have gladiatorial fights whenever we want for funzies and everyone. Yeah, that's great idea, but it was still you know, their thing to do when someone dies is to put on games, and Julius Caesar put on games. I think it was for his sister, I think, or maybe his dad. But it was decades after the person had.

Died, right, It's not just like an excuse.

It was absolutely an excuse with this one. I suppose he was trying to look innocent. Oh my poor mom, my birth. You know how some people try and coach other She was such an amazing mom. I'm going to make all of her friends fight in the arena. So their upper class women. I think it's safe to say that they weren't there by choice, and they weren't professionally trained, so I'm not going to call them gladiators. Tacitus also mentions that there were a couple of aristocratic ladies that might be seen in the Colosseum. But again, if they're forced to be there and they've never trained, I don't count them.

Yeah, it just sounds like it's an execution made into a shell.

When the Colisseum is opened in eighty CEE, Marshall mentions lots and lots of things about the opening games, the inaugur games, because he's bigging up the Flapians who built it. He mentions a couple of women. He actually says, it's so wonderful, Emperor, that even Venus serves you, meaning that there were females in the performers. But there were so many performers in the Colisseum. There were dancers, musicians, beast shunters. He doesn't actually call any of them gladiators, so I'm not counting those either. He does mention a woman who killed a lion, just like Hercules, but she's not a gladiator.

But that would be really cool, like if she did it, like actually strangling a lion, Like I want to meet her.

I mean that would be kind of cool, wouldn't it.

It really was games, yes, like fine, not a gladia, totally fine. I want to see it. I want to know how that is going down.

And you know, we get lots of names of female beast hunters. That seems to be, you know, a great job for a woman in that area. But we really only have Sweets mentioned some female gladiators fighting by torchlight under the mission. He seems to suggest that they have had some training, So I'm counting those. We've got a poem that says that there were some brave women who fought like amazons, but they were untrained. Not counting those. So actually we've got one passage A, and we've got one inscription from Ostea about women and swords, and we've got one piece of artwork with female gladiators and it comes from Turkey. See, I told you the Greeks took gladiatorial combat and they ran with it all of the fun stuff. It's happening over in the east.

Yeah, So do we think that they actually had some over there? Then? So here's the thing, female bad Yes, please tell me the thing.

It's a relief and it's currently in the British Museum and it's been there since the eighteen hundreds, and with so many other things in the British Museum from the eighteen hundreds. There's not a lot of detail about where it comes from. All we know is Halla Canassis, So where in Hallecanassis from the now club list, from the theatre who knows the theater in Hallakanasis was adapted, so we know it was used. Don't know whether it was used by these women, but it was used for gladiators, So we don't know where the stone is from, which makes it really difficult.

Give me another reason to be mad at the British Museum.

Oh as if we need another one, right, So, there's two reasons to carve reliefs of gladiators in the East. One is if it's you're a gladiator and it's your tombstone, you want to put yourself on it. And they did that way more than gladiators did in the West. They love putting themselves full figure on their tombstones. They are showing off and flexing even in death. I love it. The other reason to have gladiators in relief is if you are one of those imperial priests or a local politician who's put on a games. The way that you make sure that no one forgets that you put on the most amazing games in the world is by making giant stone postcards of them for everyone to walk by. And we've got these from all over Turkey in Greece, and some of them they're so cool. Some of them are like four pictures in a row, like a comic strip, so you can see the fight's beginning, middle.

And end.

So I'm going to make a slightly educated guess that this stone comes from one of those groups. It doesn't have any words on it apart from their names, which are names Achillia and Amazonia.

Oh fuck off, that's so cool.

I know.

How cool is That makes me so happy?

So cool?

So I like, you're in Turkey, like you're I mean, Troy is right there, like choosing to have two and them that just that's wonderful's very happy.

It's pretty fucking cool, I have to say. So I think that this is this is what it is. It's a stone. It's probably part of another set of here's a games that ran for X amount of days. I'm gonna put the top three fights from it in art so that everyone can see I'm the cool dude who put on the women fighting each other in Halakanasis. I'm the only one that's done it so far. This is my name, which now we don't have vote for me.

Yeah, and.

I think because of that context, we can pretty much say there was a fight between two women in Halakannasis and they were called Achillia and Amazonia. That's all fun, which is really fucking cool, But it's the only apart from that Suetonius thing, it's the only evidence of a documented fight between women that we have for the whole Roman Empire for its entire length. Wow, we can guess that there were more, but we've got one fight that we know about that we can say pretty much happened from their stance, they were trained, they're in perfect fighting stance. Apart from that, I think we have to imagine tens of thousands of gladiators across the empire throughout the centuries, maybe less than zero point five percent would have been women. That's me being really really generous. Yeah, the majority of people in the Roman Empire would have lived their entire lives without seeing a single woman fight.

Mm hmm.

Now, going back to this documentary, I mean, that's just not scandalous and salacious enough for them, so they've they've made it up. We have got no evidence literary, artistic, nothing nudder for a woman fighting in the coliseum itself. And because their documentary was Rome centric, they've had to take someone doing a different job and given them another job. But I mean, this was the documentary that had a beast hunter cry when he killed his best friend who's also a lion, and then hug the corpse. So I don't know what to tell you. It's just I mean, there's one scene where him and the lion the night before the fight, they hug while looking at the moon together.

I I'm saying words into the microphone so that the listeners understand because my face there that is absurd on like a level that I mean, I want to say that it surprises me. Even for History Channel, it obviously doesn't because they make that show but aliens, so they're dumbasses. But still that is Banana's Yeah.

I mean, I would love to see a documentary about that fight, possibly in the context of spectacle in the East itself, because a lot of the fruity stuff in gladiatorial combat is happening in the East instead of the West, so some of the odder things that there was a gladiator type called al Aquarius who had a lassoo, a net that appears apparently only in Greece. There was an arbalass type who had kind of like this is really hard to describe without a picture, but a semi circular blade on the end of like a solid glove.

Oh my god. So like I was going to be like, oh, like a syhe or something until you said glove. Yeah, So like like like Freddy Krueger, but one yeah, or circular.

And they could have either one and a shield or one on each hand. They only happen in the Greek East from what we can tell you, so a lot of the weird stuff. If you're looking for exotic gladiators, you're going to go there. And I think that's that's probably why this is the only place where we've got a definite source for female gladiators. I really hate to burst everyone's bubble about this because I mean, the movie Gladiator had those those arches that get chopped in half by the the chariots. Sorry spoiler alert. Twenty three years ago, and a lot of reenactment groups have female gladiators, and I love to see them. I think they're fantastic. What I really would stress is we know about one fight wom and nowhere near Rome. No, I mean Sonis mentions, he doesn't mention how many, but it's one instance in Rome. He doesn't say where exactly.

Is it clear that he's at least talking about Rome or could that even be up for debate?

No, not really. Yeah, probably somewhere within the vicinity. But right again, in Rome had more than one venue. Well, yeah, there were gladiators in the Circus Maximus. There were Nero built an amphathety that bent down. I think, so there's more.

Yeah, I have to pull like what little Roman history I know when I when I need it. Yeah, it's so interesting. It's so like I mean not to like harp on the documentary, but it just I'm just like perpetually in AWE that we can't get a documentary that's accurate, and it always seems to be because they want it to be more salacious and more like dramatic. But it's like I just want to scream because all I all I want to say to that is like just pick one of the topics that is that, because like real history can be that dramatic, Like you're saying, like if they if we just there's a documentary about you know, gladiatorial fights in the East, Like it would be just as incredibly fascinating, and you could feature all of these weird things and then also maybe talk about how there was this fight between women and like, I don't know, I have a lot of I have a lot of thoughts and feelings on the complete lack of like really historically accurate documentary is made by popular.

I mean, I've written about seven in my head. I just need someone to give me a lot of money to make them.

Okay, Like, yes, yeah, that's the thing. There's so there's so many possibilities out there. Yeah, I mean, I like it's so interesting because I love that people want these women to be involved in these things that are so like heavily masculine. Like you you want there to be women gladiators. That'd be so cool.

Yeah, but it's like you can because you want to know, you want to see these women kick ass in the male space. Yeah, which is what most feminists want now Unfortunately, I mean they clearly did at least once, but.

Yeah, not a lot.

Sorry, no, it would, And that's why I love that the reenactors are just because most of them will say this is incredibly rare. I saw one in France and they actually called themselves Amazonia and Anikilia to reenact that fight.

That's cool.

That was that was pretty That was really really awesome. But yeah, it's it's rare, amazing, but really really really really rare. And if that's one thing that everyone takes away from this episode.

Yeah, but we can still talk about Achillea and Amazonia like that's great. At least their names, you know, like we have them. That's so cool.

Yeah, we have so many names and it's it's so great. You think pollen icies and the please mm hmm from the plays and then after the play is finished the next day you can go and see it being real inactive. Fuck, okay, that's calling themselves.

So that's what I was thinking about when I, like, you know, mentioned the whole like them still using the theaters as theaters in addition to using them for these things, So like would they ever have I mean, obviously this would be really difficult for us to know, and so somebody wrote it down, but like would they have a kind of back to back situation? Like would they be able to transform it quickly enough? Like I don't know, do we know anything about that.

So some of the transformations were temporary. For instance, at Argos, if you visit Argos at the edge of the orchestra in a series of post holes and they just stick up a big old fence with nets around it that could be taken up within minutes. The other changes were permanent, and they were just there from then on. That's how it was. I would be very surprised if it happened back to back, simply because if you're having a drama festival, I think it would be a spectacle. It just happened to be in the same place that said. I mean when it was Unti Kers bringing in gladiators to these in the first time in one sixty six, there were loads of things happening at that event. I think he had chariot racing, all kinds of things. So it's not unheard of for to be an event within a wider program. Yeah, but from what I can tell, it would still be its own standalone thing, just in a venue that happens to now be a hybrid venue.

Yeah. Oh. The idea of having to named the Teakles and point Nicies though, is like so fun, Like that would be dramatic, you know, like, oh, my god, doing it in thebes too, Like, h.

I can't. I don't think there's any evidence for a change in theeves. I don't. I don't think that's when.

We can drink with the change.

But wouldn't how.

Cool it would be amazing, it would be normal. Then you get like five other guys coming in to I don't know, I'm just trying to make it seven like, oh, it's just that's fun. I like these mythological connections need prize, surprise.

All of it really reinforces the greekness of it. There was some kind of magic in existing Greek culture that you add Roman spectacle, and all of a sudden you get this glorious mish mash.

I mean to me, it it just it makes perfect sense. It's it's almost like and like a little bit of a stretch. But it's like taking the pancration and taking theater and smushing them together.

You know.

It's like it's that sort of like hand to hand combat violence of the pancration, but then with the like the theatrics of theater, with the bloodshed, and like obviously there isn't any like we're talking about. It's all in the messenger speech. But the concept is there. It's just like making the Pancratian more theatrical, more violent, more bloody. But like, yeah, it's pre existing less naked. That's too bad, you know, but like they they're they're taking something that's there.

Yeah, I do want to point out that on the art that we have, they are still wearing their loin clothes. I mean makes sense.

It would be very Greek. You would not.

Want to cut in the wrong place, there, would you.

No, thank you so much for doing this. This is clearly been so much fun. I am just I mean, fuck, I would love to hear anything about the ancient world ever, but the fact that you basically turned an episode on Gladiators into why the Greeks are still cooler? You know, and maybe you wouldn't say it that way, but I'm going to so I really appreciate how much Greek love was in this.

Oh it was a pleasure.

Oh my god, I'm so glad. This is seriously so much fun. We already mentioned that ancient but I don't even know actually if it will make it into the recording because of what else we were talking about. But do you want to tell my listeners like where they can read more Bad Ancient being one of them, but also just find anything more about you, follow you places, whatever you would like to share.

Yeah, I am a contributor on Bad Ancient dot com, either proving or disproving various common misconceptions about the ancient world. I'm a regular contributor for working Classicists as well. You can find both on Twitter, and you can find me on Twitter at Beloved Avoises And that's also the same on Blue Sky and pretty much every other platform available, just in case Twitter, just you know, complates as.

We all try to figure out where we're going to go at. Yeah, herds, Nerds, Nerds, don't we love a theatrically violent show from the ancient Greeks? I mean I am just obsessed with all of this. Like Roman Gladiators, fine, you know, bloody fights that were probably pretty cool and definitely dark and fucked up. But the Greeks, ah man, they just made it nerdy and weird and mythological and splashy. I love it.

Huge.

Thank you to Alexander for joining me for this episode. She reached out to me after hearing my episode with Dan Stewart from earlier this year, who talked about adapting those theaters for these games, and I am just so glad that she did because I didn't know it, but I was absolutely dying to learn all of this. It's just so fucking cool. I've linked to Alexandra's articles from that ancient to a site that you might remember, as I've referenced them a few times now. They are pretty awesome, as well as working classicists, which is another amazing resource. They are lovely. You can find those links in the episode description. As always, anyway, this was so long, so now I will leave you all just to think long and hard about just how cool the Greeks are and just how nerdy they made something as hardcore as gladiatorial games, because of course they did. They're the best. Let's talk about. Mith's Baby is written and produced by me Albert MICHAELA. Smith is the Hermes to my Olympians. She is my assistant producer. The podcast is hosted and monetized by iHeartMedia. Listen on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Help me continue bringing you the world of Greek mythology and the ancient Mediterranean by becoming a patron, where you'll get bonus episodes and mower. Visit patreon dot com slash Myth's Baby, or click the link in this episode's description. I am live and I love this shit so much. Like it's so weird and gory and gross and nerdy and oh amazing. I'm never getting over this

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