Where did gladiators come from?

Although the first privately organised Roman gladiator contests in 264 BCE were to commemorate the death of a father, the later official contests discarded this element. Vestiges of the religious origins did, however, remain in the act of finishing off fallen gladiators. read more

Gladiators were usually slaves, so they could have come from anywhere within Rome's very wide empire. In fact, like with professional wrestling today, the more exotic the location you were from, the bigger a draw you were. read more

A gladiator might expect to fight in two or three munera annually, and an unknown number would have died in their first match. Few gladiators survived more than 10 contests, though one survived an extraordinary 150 bouts; and another died at 90 years of age, presumably long after retirement. read more

Emperor Honorius had closed down the gladiator schools five years before and the final straw for the games came when a monk from Asia Minor, one Telemachus, leapt between two gladiators to stop the bloodshed and the indignant crowd stoned the monk to death. read more