THOSE WHO ARE ABOUT TO DIE

Into the fray.

The Roman Empire will likely never go out of style. For the sword-and-sandal set, this book charts the daily life of a Roman gladiator, from morning bread to evening dreams. A lecturer in ancient history at Lincoln College in Britain, Sidebottom writes that gladiators were “at the heart of Roman culture,” discussed by philosophers, cheered by throngs, and admired as “sex symbols”—even though they were overweight and often had “bad teeth, bad breath, and bodies marked and altered, sometimes to the point of deformity, by combat.” The gladiator’s day involved sleeping, eating, preparing for the fight and, of course, demonstrating prowess. Among those shows were clashes with beasts as well as other men. Staged scenes of hunting and of battle offered up symbolic, controlled representations of the two key formative activities of the Roman man. And if the animals let loose inside this diorama of death were exotic—elephants, rhinos, tigers, bears—so, too, were the men. The gladiators often were recruited from the enslaved population, and a spectator might see men from Greece, Iberia, North Africa, and Asia Minor. Readers get a lot of detail, but what they really get is a double history of theatricality and privacy. The gladiator was the object of spectatorship, and his fights and feints contributed a larger, performative quality to Roman life. But the gladiator was looked upon in private, too. No one was ever alone, even when going to the bathroom. (Sidebottom offers an extended tour of the sights, sounds, and smells of the public latrines.) Read this book, then, not just to slake your cinematic thirst for Rome, but for the rich details that show us how these men who were about to die sought to preserve their inner lives behind the public show.

An earthy, vivid tour of daily life among ancient warriors.