It was definitely violent, but professional gladiators generally didn't fight to death. The purpose was to provide a good show and good combat prowess. The nasty things you mentioned were actually reserved for criminals and prisoners of war. Anyone sentenced to death could've been placed in the arena in some sort of show before the main event where they'd get a death sentence in... an innovative way. There were also professional "gladiators" to deal with wild animals; these shows were called "venationes" or "hunts." But the actual gladiatorial combat was mostly safe. A gladiator was a costly investment and losing one was generally not something a lanista would want. A gladiator would get executed only if he displayed exceptionally poor skill or done something to repeatedly offend his fans with his performance (at that point, he was no longer a good investment). Fans were crucial for a gladiator's survival as they often paid a lot of money to come and watch their favourites train or buy souvenirs (bottled gladiator's sweat was popular. Weird times.) and they almost always pleaded for their favourite to stay alive even if he lost the battle.JoJo said:Depends how gruesome, allegedly Roman ones could get very brutal with the executions (burnings, crucifixion, castrations, torn to pieces by animals), though some of that may be exaggeration by later historians, I doubt many of us raised in a modern Western society could enjoy that sort of violence close up.
Yep, this is true. We actually know what their diet was. It consisted of various plants such as barley and beans; they didn't eat meat. They were even called "hordearii" ("the ones who eat barley"). The purpose of the diet was to give them enough fat (injury protection) and enough energy. We know from records that they also ate some special mixtures with unknown ingredients; some records talk about bones grind to ash, but we don't know if that was actually the case. Whatever it was, it worked. Bone analysis of gladiator skeletons shows that their bones had higher values of calcium than the rest of the population.evilthecat said:Gladiators generally were quite chubby. They probably would have looked more like "world's strongest man" contestants or powerlifters than bodybuilders or professional wrestlers. In real life, without using steroids, it's very, very rare for someone to be very strong and not to also be fat because growing muscle takes energy. Gladiators' diet would basically be an extremely high-calorie mixture of carbs and protein. Plus, as thalukain said, the fat would also help protect them from injury.
OT: Despite my intense interest in these shows (wrote my bachelor's thesis on gladiators), I wouldn't actually want to watch it live, at least not if wasn't just make believe. Even if it involved only volunteers and deaths weren't common, there's just something wrong about the whole idea of watching someone potentially getting seriously injured or killed for entertainment. Though, I do like a good gladiator movie or show or game. And I watched historical re-enactments which were great.