02-13-2006, 10:00 PM
Since I'm doing a reenactment of a gladiatrix I of course read a lot about this topic lately. One always stumbles across the famous Halicarnassus relief which the Harvard professor Kathleen Coleman has described in her article "Missio at Halicarnassus" in detail (published in "Harvard Studies in Classical Philology - Volume 1002). She comes to the conclusion that the two women were honored at their ludus with this relief because they faught to a draw and were released from the arena for that day stantes missio. This shows that women were fighting against each other in serious combat and not just in mock battles against dwarfs.
