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Roman gladiators were fat vegetarians


Russell Crowe may have won an Oscar for the role of Maximus in the movie Gladiator but scientists say he wasn't fat enough (Image: Reuters/Ho)

Roman gladiators were overweight vegetarians and not the muscle-bound men protrayed by actors like Russell Crowe, anthropologists say.

Austrian scientists analysed the skeletons of two different types of gladiators, the myrmillos and retiariae, found at the ancient site of Ephesus, near Selsuk in Turkey.



The Austrian palaeoanthropologists relied on a method known as elementary microanalysis that allows scientists to determine what a human being ate during his or her lifetime.

With the help of a sonar, they could establish the chemical concentrations inside cells in the bone samples taken from the skeletons at Ephesus.

From this, they could deduce how much meat, fish, grains and fruit made up the diet of the Roman fighting machines.


Fabian Kanz, from the university's department of analytical chemistry, said the gladiators' bone density gave us clues to how they lived.

"The bone density here was higher than usual, as is the case with modern athletes," he said.

This line of testing allowed the scientists to debunk another myth, that gladiators wore strappy Sparticus sandals in the arena.



A gladiator's life

In ancient Rome, the classical battle of gladiators usually pitted a myrmillo armed with a sword, a helmet and a round shield, against the lightly armed retiarius who carried only a net and a dagger, or a samnite who wore a visor and a leather sheath protecting his right arm.

They were mostly slaves who volunteered to fight because sometimes the victor would be freed as a reward, or poor Romans who fought for pay.

The Austrian scientists are still carrying out further tests, but if their initial findings are confirmed it would change the glamorous image of the men immortalised in Spartacus, the 1960 movie starring a young Kirk Douglas, and the more recent Gladiator with Crowe in the main role.

"It seems that the gladiators tried to put on some weight before their battles," Kanz said.

"But this does not mean that they did not work hard to lose it again once they stepped out of the ring," he added.

The archeological site of Ephesus is one of the most important in Turkey.

The Greeks founded the city but it was the Romans who made it the capital of their Asian province and turned it into one of the wealthiest cities of their empire.

Tags: health, archaeology, chemistry