tour 10 of 12
Gladiators
Marble relief with female gladiators
According to several contemporary
eye-witnesses, women also performed in the arena. According to the
biographer Suetonius, the emperor Domitian (reigned AD 81-96) made
women fight by torchlight at
night.
This marble relief
was carved on the occasion of the
missio (honourable
release) of two women fighters, 'Amazon' and
'Achilia', who had probably earned their freedom by
giving a series of outstanding performances. They are shown with
the same equipment as male gladiators, but without
helmets.
Women made up a
part of the audience as well, though they did have to sit
separately from men in the top rows at the
back.
The satirist Juvenal
(Saturae 6, 110 ff.)
describes the amorous feelings of a lady called Eppia for a
fighting hero. His many wounds did not trouble her, for after all
he was a gladiator. The satirist adds: 'What these women
love is the sword.' The excavators of the gladiatorial
school in Pompeii found a richly adorned woman, obviously of high
social status, among the gladiators. Had the eruption of Vesuvius
brought a clandestine love affair to a terrible
end?