Ancient Roman gladiators were often pitted against animals in the arena—animals capable of killing a human being.
Skeletal remains in a Roman burial ground in northern England were found to have lesions that looked suspiciously like bite marks.
Modern forensic techniques found that the teeth behind the marks probably belonged to a large feline, and the part of the skeleton that had been in the creature’s mouth further indicated it must have been a lion.
Ranging from as far as Egypt in the east to England in the west, the power and influence of the Roman Empire remain legendary. But certain voluptas, or pleasures, that the populace indulged in cast shadows on its glory.
Gladiators, for instance, fought each other—and often animals—to the death in arenas where bloodier was better. Ancient Romans often delighted in watching carnivores tear apart criminals and other perceived deviants, or staging “beast hunts” known as venationes. Hunt scenes recreated in the arena put gladiators up against bears, bulls, stags, wild boars, and some more exotic species such as lions, leopards, tigers, and even elephants.
These spectacles were documented in mosaics, pottery, metalwork, and other artifacts, some of which show menageries of dangerous and exotic creatures snarling at human combatants. Hardly any skeletal evidence of gladiatorial combat has survived. But in what was once the city of Eboraceum (now York) archaeologists have unearthed bone fragments that most likely belonged to one of these gladiators, and they showed marks that looked suspicious to archaeologist Tim Thompson. It appeared that this gladiator had, at one point, ended up in the jaws of a lion.
“The analysis of the lesions on skeleton 6DT19 provides convincing evidence that these were produced from the teeth of a large cat, such as a lion,” Thompson and his team said in a study recently published in the journal PLOS ONE. “Whether the trauma inflicted happened as part of a show or an execution, this evidence from York also carries several further potential insights.”
York used to be a legionary fortress in Roman times. Because it was forbidden to bury the dead within settlements, they were instead laid to rest at the edges of roads leading out of urban areas, which is evident in Driffield Terrace. Roman burials in the area date back to as early as the first and early second centuries A.D., and bodies would continued to be interred there until the late fourth century A.D. What stands out about many of the skeletons exhumed from this site are antemortem and perimortem injuries. It appears that these were gladiators—young to middle-aged men who may have come out of at least one fight alive, only to meet their end in the next.
The gladiator this team identified as 6DT19 was found to have been decapitated, but (notably) buried with his head on his shoulders, when a common practice at the time was to place a disembodied head between the feet. This might have been done to put him out of his misery. The reason for the torture was probably combat with a lion—and trauma that occurred near or at the time of his death suggested that the animal had probably dragged him across the arena during his last gasps. Lesions on either side of his pelvis were analyzed with three-dimensional scans, and were consistent with bite marks from a large feline.
Which animal left behind the marks—and whether they were bites meant to kill or scavenge—can be determined by their depth, size, shape, and location. Some carnivores prefer lunging for the throat of their prey, while others go for the head. Scavenging methods also differ. It is unlikely 6DT19 was killed by a lion, because lions bite down on the neck, but lions and tigers do tend to drag prey away by the legs. Lions may also grab prey by the pelvis. While the actual cause of death remains unknown, Thompson determined that this unfortunate gladiator must have been on the verge of death when he was dragged away and subsequently decapitated.
“By adopting a multidisciplinary approach to the analysis and interpretation of this individual’s final moments, we were able to further underline the importance of osteological evidence in understanding the lives and deaths of those in the Roman past,” Thompson said in the same study.
How a lion ended up in Britain is something of a mystery. It was previously thought that more exotic species were limited to Rome, but further investigation into Roman depictions of venationes and executions carried out by animals revealed that the demand for these shows meant that exotics were transported throughout the Roman empire—apparently, including to its furthest corners.
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