The image of a gladiator fighting with animals in the Colosseum is one of the top things people associate with the ancient Roman empire. But while this event was widely documented in official records and inspired art across many mediums, archaeologists had not found physical evidence of this practice—until now. The clue lied in the marks found on the skeleton of a gladiator who was mauled by a lion.
The body, found in 2004, when a family decided to renovate their home, led to the discovery a whole burial site in the city of York. The cemetery in Driffield Terrace contained the remains of 80 people, mostly men with a strong build and healed injuries related to violence. While researchers at first believed they could be soldiers or slaves, they came to realize the injuries on their skulls were quite similar to those found at a gladiatorial burial site at Ephesus.
Tim Thompson, a forensic anthropologist at Maynooth University in Ireland, and his colleagues took particular interest in an individual skeleton named 6DT19 for the injuries he spotted on the body. On his pelvis, the man had oddly shaped punctures that looked like bite marks. Looking further into it, Thompson’s team discovered that the man also overcame childhood malnutrition, and had back problems due to carrying heavy loads. The man was between 26-35 years old when he died between the years 200 and 300 CE. Since the bite marks didn’t heal, they figured it would have been the cause of his demise—but who or what inflicted them?
To find answers, they asked zoos in the UK who have the types of animals that would have been used in Roman gladiatorial shows for help. Specifically, they asked for leftover carcasses eaten by these creatures to make three-dimensional scans of bite marks and compare them to the indentations on the skeleton of 6DT19. Shortly thereafter, the answer became apparent—it was a lion. Based on this information they determined that 6DT19 was a Bestiarius, a slave or volunteer fighter who fought animals instead of other men. The findings were published in the journal PLOS One.
On top of providing the first physical evidence of this practice, the findings also speak of the reach of these gladiatorial spectacles. “We often have a mental image of these combats occurring at the grand surroundings of the Colosseum in Rome, but these latest findings show that these sporting events had a far reach, well beyond the centre of core Roman territories. An amphitheatre probably existed in Roman York, but this has not yet been discovered,” says Malin Holst, lecturer in Osteoarchaeology at the University of York’s Department of Archaeology.
“For years, our understanding of Roman gladiatorial combat and animal spectacles has relied heavily on historical texts and artistic depictions,” Thompson adds. The findings also shed light on the display of resources to bring this spectacle to the region, as lions are not native to the UK and a lot of effort was put into bringing them there. “This discovery provides the first direct, physical evidence that such events took place in this period, reshaping our perception of Roman entertainment culture in the region.”
Researchers have found the first physical evidence of human-animal combat in ancient Rome—the marks found on the skeleton of a gladiator who was mauled by a lion.
Sources: Study reveals skeletal evidence of Roman gladiator bitten by lion in combat; Lion Bite to the Butt May Be First Proof of Human-Animal Gladiatorial Combat; Unique osteological evidence for human-animal gladiatorial combat in Roman Britain
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