Did Roman gladiators really fight animals? This one has the bite marks to prove it

Sheena Goodyear · CBC Radio

· Posted: Apr 28, 2025 6:32 PM EDT | Last Updated: 44 minutes ago

In 1 past conflict betwixt antheral and beast, it appears the beast reigned supreme.

Researchers person identified wound marks, astir apt from a lion, connected the pelvis of a antheral buried successful what is believed to beryllium a cemetery for past Roman gladiators successful England.

This whitethorn not look astonishing to anyone who's studied past Roman texts, oregon adjacent watched a modern gladiator movie, some of which picture a nine that pitted men against animals for bloodsport.

But the authors of a caller survey accidental these wound marks are, successful fact, the archetypal known carnal grounds of human-animal combat successful past Roman times. 

"We surely person wrong our benignant of taste knowing the consciousness of gladiator combat, and that gladiators combat each different and were warring large animals each the time," pb writer Tim Thompson, a forensic anthropologist astatine Maynooth University successful Ireland, told As It Happens host Nil Kӧksal. 

"Actually, the grounds for that is scant. This is the archetypal clip that we've really recovered carnal grounds connected a body."

The findings were published successful the diary PLOS One.

Who was he, and however did helium die?

The remains were excavated astir 20 years agone adjacent the English metropolis of York, oregon arsenic it was known during the Roman Empire, Eboracum.

They beryllium to a antheral successful his precocious twenties oregon aboriginal thirties who lived during the 3rd period AD, erstwhile Eboracum was an important municipality and subject basal successful the northbound of the Roman state of Britannia. 

The researchers fishy helium was a gladiator due to the fact that helium was recovered astatine a gravesite alongside galore different men, each killed implicit the people of respective generations, each decapitated conscionable earlier oregon aft their deaths, and astir bearing signs of repeated carnal trauma from fighting.

The bony marks were found connected some of his hips, Thompson says, suggesting that immoderate spot him "really benignant of grabbed onto that pelvis."

The "unusual" placement of the wound mark, helium says, suggests it was not the sidesplitting blow. 

"I'm going to overgarment a somewhat grim representation of what whitethorn person happened to this mediocre individual," Thompson said. 

The man, helium says, was astir apt already incapacitated during the bloody conflict by bites that tore done his flesh, but didn't permission marks connected his bones. 

"Then what the lion has done is bitten him connected his hep and dragged that assemblage distant ... to scavenge and devour the remains," helium said. 

The assemblage was besides decapitated, Thompson said, sliced done the cervix from the backmost to the front. This could person been an execution, or the coup de grace aft wounded and decision successful the arena. 

"But that, for sure, is the past stroke that occurred to the body," Thompson said.

Ancient Romans were into 'pretty gory things'

To place the bony marks, Thompson and his colleagues made a 3D exemplary of them, and compared it with bite marks near by assorted ample animals astatine a zoo. 

"For definite we tin accidental it's a big cat, a large animal. We deliberation it is astir apt to beryllium a lion," helium said.

Seth Bernard, a prof of past past astatine the University of Toronto who was not progressive successful the study, said it's truly breathtaking to spot carnal grounds of a improvement historians person agelong known astir from literature. 

The relation of animals successful gladiator battles, helium says, is well-documented.

Gladiator fights were a fashionable signifier of amusement successful past Rome, and the fighters were astir often slaves, prisoners and, connected occasion, volunteers. 

There are murals and mosaics depicting gladiators successful combat with assorted predators. Ancient poets, Bernard says, described "games wherever radical are enactment to decease done beast hunts, oregon re-enacting mythological scenes oregon beauteous gory things."

"These are radical who, you know, connected a Tuesday afternoon, erstwhile they privation to spell beryllium entertained, they're watching prisoners killed successful the amphitheatre, oregon slaves killed successful amphitheatres, by large beasts," Bernard said.

There's carnal grounds of the creatures too. In 2022, archeologists found the bones of bears and large cats astatine the Colosseum successful Rome. 

The animals, often starved to marque them much aggressive, were besides pitted against each other, and often chained together, said survey co-author John Pearce, a Roman archaeologist astatine King's College London.

It wasn't ever a fight. Animals were were besides utilized successful executions, Pearce said, with their victims bound oregon different defenceless.

"This is simply a reminder of the spectacle civilization cardinal to Roman nationalist life," helium said. 

The information that these remains were unearthed adjacent York paints a representation of just however acold and wide the Roman Empire — and, with it, "the darker sides of Roman culture" — had spread, says Bernard. 

"I mean, determination are not galore lions successful England," helium said. "The transport of these animals has got to beryllium beauteous singular and striking. There are a batch of logistics that I deliberation about."

Thompson says the find makes him wonderment what other archeologists might find among the remnants of far-flung Roman settlements. 

"If they've taken a lion from North Africa to York, wherever other person they taken these large animals?" helium said. "Maybe we request to look astatine immoderate of these different large settlements arsenic good for grounds of gladiator cemeteries."