Universal
You don’t have to be one of those people who can’t go a single day without thinking about the Roman Empire to know about the gladiators who played a central role in the bread and circus that helped it function. Historians have long drawn from written historical accounts chronicling their exploits, but scientists believe they have the first piece of physical evidence that proves they went face-to-face with lions back in the day.
The origins of the gladiators who continue to capture the minds of people thousands of years after they became A Thing are still a bit murky, but Roman historians who were alive to witness their battles transpire trace their origins to ceremonies that started being held at some point in the 3rd century BC.
It’s pretty easy to understand why gladiators remain a topic of fascination more than 1,500 years after the games where they provided entertainment to the masses were discontinued in the waning decades of the Roman Empire; after all, we’re talking about a full-fledged profession revolving around a bloodsport held in a packed stadium filled with people drawn by the promise of fights to the death.
Ridley Scott would be the first person to admit he was not striving for historical accuracy with Gladiator and the sequel that was released in 2024, but those movies drew from historical records chronicling elaborate events involving massive recreations of famous battles and showdowns with deadly and exotic animals.
There is plenty of written history that suggests gladiator festivals tasked participants with holding their own against rhinos, tigers, and lions, but there was never any physical evidence to back up those accounts—at least not until now.
According to The New York Times, researchers behind a paper that was published earlier this week say a set of skeletal remains that was first discovered in York, England two decades ago features bite marks that are the first piece of concrete proof concerning the presence of lions in gladiatorial games.
The remains, identified as “Individual 6DT19,” were found in a grave alongside other bodies featuring wounds consistent with those detected at other sites that have been identified as the final resting place of former gladiators and boasted ” small indentations in the hip bones” that caught the attention of some the experts that examined them.
Tim Thompson, an anthropologist at Ireland’s Maynooth University, oversaw the research that led to him and his team consulting with various zoos to compare the bite marks left on carcasses devoured by carnivores including tigers, cheetahs, and leopards before determining they were most consistent with the bite of a lion.
The paper notes the victim was likely deceased before being bitten by the lion that probably dragged his body away from where it had fallen, but it seems safe to assume there were probably some other subjects of the Roman Empire who met their fate courtesy of that particular species of big cat at some point.
Content shared from brobible.com.