The gladiatorial contest was the high point of the bloody sports witnessed in Rome’s Colosseum and in other amphitheatres throughout the Roman empire. This is the first popular book to explore all aspects of gladiatorial life—its beginnings under the Republic; the organization of the spectacle; the day-to-day-life of a gladiator; a typical show from start to finish; the equipment, weapons and armor used; the symbolic role of the gladiator in society; and the fascination of the gladiatorial spectacle within a 21st-century context.
