Women gladiators in historic Rome fought topless and had stage names like Amazon
Historical records, pictures and statues reveal female fighters slugged it out in arenas just like men – but with less body armour and even went bare-chested
Some gladiators in ancient Rome were women who fought without helmets – and topless, boffins say. Historians have uncovered accounts of females taking part in VIP bouts for emperors and high-ranking officials.
Stone signage from Halicarnassus – now Turkey – depicts two women gladiators holding shields and swords with the stage names ‘Amazon vs Achillia’. Like the men, female fighters slugged it out bare-chested.
But unlike fellas they were not allowed helmets either so watching crowds could ogle them. Experts say duels between women were unlikely to have been fights-to-the-death as no female gladiator’s tombstone has ever been found. But they did not pull any punches.
Poet Statius – who lived from AD 45 to 96 – was so impressed by the brutality of one all-female fight he wrote: “You would think a band of Amazons was battling by the river Tanais.”
According to the LiveScience news website: “Several lines of evidence, including historical records and artistic depictions, suggest that female gladiators did exist in the Roman Empire.
“But they were much rarer than their male counterparts. This evidence is limited to roughly a dozen texts and inscriptions and an even smaller number of artefacts that depict them.”
Records show in AD 11 and 19 the Roman senate passed laws banning upper class and free-born women under 20 from fighting as gladiators.
In AD 200 emperor Septimius Severus banned female gladiators because their fierceness triggered jokes ‘directed at other very prominent women’.
Polish university lecturer Anna Miaczewska said: “I believe women gladiators were primarily slaves who committed crimes.”
Others were likely women with high debts who were forced to sell their freedom to a gladiator school.
Ancient texts suggest a few women from the upper classes also competed.
Roman writer Tacitus wrote that in AD 63 a large gladiator show was put on by then-Emperor Nero during which ‘many distinguished ladies and senators disgraced themselves in the arena’.
US classics professor Stephen Brunet said women fought bare-breasted like men. A recovered statue of a female gladiator showed her wearing just a loincloth and no helmet.
University of California Berkeley, US, researcher Alfonso Manas said he suspected appearances played a sizable role in the selection of female gladiators and they were told not wear helmets so their faces could be seen by the audience.
Nicolaus of Damascus, who lived from 64BC to AD4, wrote that women who were selected to fight were not the strongest or most skilled but rather ‘the most beautiful’.
But Virginia Campbell, a lecturer at The Open University in the UK, said physical fitness would also have played a part.
“There is an expense associated with training and keeping gladiators,” she said. “The selection of women – and men – would at least in part depend on their physical fitness and ability to fight. Gladiators, after all, were meant to entertain, not meant to die.”
