01-15-2002, 05:55 PM
According to Tacitus the first women gladiators appeared during Nero's reign in AD 63.<br>
Frankly, I'm not surprised. The man was definitely an artist...:LOL<br>
"That same year he gave gladiatorial spectacles as magnificent as the previous ones, but several women of high rank and senators degraded themselves by going down i to the arena" (Annals, XV,32)<br>
In Petrone's Satiricon, I remember a woman essedarius (fighting on a chariot).<br>
We don't have the bodies of women gladiators, but we have a stela today in the British Museum. It was found in Halicarnassus, in Turkey and represents two women, "Achilia" and "Amazon", bared headed but otherwise equipped with rectangular shield, arm guard in the case of one, and straight short sword. There may be cnemides too, but the sculpture is damaged.<br>
No doubt those two were not the evanescent romantic type..<br>
It seems women gladiators were particularly appreciated during Domitian's reign.<br>
The funny thing about it is that women gladiators were proscribed in AD 200 by Septimus Severus after a spectacle organised for the decennalia (ten years reign) of that emperor, during which they kept insulting the court sitting on the loggia while fighting with the utmost vigor...<br>
I don't want to think about what kind of insults these were...:LOL<br>
<br>
The comments are mine. I picked up all the serious info in "Amphithéatres et Gladiateurs" J.C. Golvin and C.Landes, ed. Presses du CNRS.<br>
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Frankly, I'm not surprised. The man was definitely an artist...:LOL<br>
"That same year he gave gladiatorial spectacles as magnificent as the previous ones, but several women of high rank and senators degraded themselves by going down i to the arena" (Annals, XV,32)<br>
In Petrone's Satiricon, I remember a woman essedarius (fighting on a chariot).<br>
We don't have the bodies of women gladiators, but we have a stela today in the British Museum. It was found in Halicarnassus, in Turkey and represents two women, "Achilia" and "Amazon", bared headed but otherwise equipped with rectangular shield, arm guard in the case of one, and straight short sword. There may be cnemides too, but the sculpture is damaged.<br>
No doubt those two were not the evanescent romantic type..<br>
It seems women gladiators were particularly appreciated during Domitian's reign.<br>
The funny thing about it is that women gladiators were proscribed in AD 200 by Septimus Severus after a spectacle organised for the decennalia (ten years reign) of that emperor, during which they kept insulting the court sitting on the loggia while fighting with the utmost vigor...<br>
I don't want to think about what kind of insults these were...:LOL<br>
<br>
The comments are mine. I picked up all the serious info in "Amphithéatres et Gladiateurs" J.C. Golvin and C.Landes, ed. Presses du CNRS.<br>
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