Anatolia's gladiators: Ancient stelae offer new insights into their complex lives

Grave stelae found in the provinces of Anatolia are a main source of information about Roman gladiators.

By RAQUEL GUERTZENSTEIN FROHLICH NOVEMBER 27, 2024 11:45 Updated: NOVEMBER 27, 2024 11:58

Artwork showing gladiators riding on elephants and horses in a a Roman amphitheatre. A print by Professor Wagner. (photo credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

A variety of reliefs, inscriptions, and grave stelae unearthed by archeologists help expand the understanding of gladiator history in the region of ancient Anatolia, a recent story published in Archeology Magazine revealed.

Reliefs are a form of sculpture, inscriptions are texts engraved on materials, and grave stelae are stone slabs. Grave stelae found in the provinces of Anatolia are a main source of information about Roman gladiators, the magazine noted. These stelae include both private memorials to the gladiators’ lives and public inscriptions and artwork that contain information about the fighters and their sponsoring families.

The article explained that gladiators received not only coaching and food but also medical care. Galen, a physician who lived in the Anatolian city of Pergamon in the mid-second century a.d., had written that no gladiators died in the five-year period he provided them with medical care.    

The death of a gladiator was not something a school owner would want, archaeologist Martin Steskal of the Austrian Archaeological Institute explained to the magazine. If a gladiator died in their first fight, it would mean the investment was wasted. 

“Although gladiators were legally regarded as slaves, they were often revered as popular and admired figures,” Steskal said. “Some men, seeking to pay off debts or amass wealth, voluntarily chose the gladiator’s path. In doing so, they faced the peril of forfeiting all legal rights. But, if victorious, they could secure both wealth and the opportunity to live a liberated life.”

A group of gladiators salute the emperor, at the Circus Maximus in Rome. Circa 55 BC. (credit: THREE LIONS/GETTY IMAGES)

The existence of Jewish gladiators—especially in the region of Judea—has been suggested before, and the number of Jews living during the Roman period was estimated to be between four and a half to 7 million.

“Although the possibility that Jewish gladiators were active in the 1st to the 4th centuries CE cannot be ruled out entirely, the evidence remains inconclusive, suggesting that their number was very limited at best,” wrote Dr. Haggai Olshanetsky in Atiqot, a journal published by the Israel Antiquities Authority. 

Gladiator games were found to have had supervision, Archeology Magazine reported, and inscriptions from the provincial city of Hierapolis provided evidence that “games were governed by detailed sets of rules and overseen by arbiters, or referees.” 

Common perception of gladiatorial games

A common perception of gladiatorial games is that they were violent and gruesome because a person always died, archaeologist R. R. R. Smith of the University of Oxford told the magazine, but that wasn’t always true. 

“In gladiatorial games, most of the time, both participants left the arena on their feet,” Smith said. “The games weren’t about killing, but about the excitement of two men fighting, about showcasing skill, discipline, endurance, strength, tactics, and different weapons.”

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But, in the rare cases when gladiators were killed or condemned to death, they were trained to die theatrically to enhance the impact of the performance.

One of the first Anatolian cities to host gladiatorial games was Ephesus—in modern-day Turkey—and the concept captured people’s attention, reported the magazine. The Roman-style games spread throughout the region, and archeologists have uncovered figurines, graffiti, friezes, and grave stelae depicting gladiators in the region.