A Roman Gladiator and a Lion Met in Combat. Only One Walked Away(nytimes.com)
nytimes.com
A Roman Gladiator and a Lion Met in Combat. Only One Walked Away
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/23/science/lion-gladiator-romans-bones.html
54 comments
Actual paper: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
> However, the hip bite probably isn’t what killed 6DT19. “We think the individual was incapacitated in some way, and then the animal came along, bit and dragged the body away,” Dr. Thompson said.
Sounds like a polite way to say he was eaten alive
Sounds like a polite way to say he was eaten alive
Likely not the case, given (1) the body was peri-mortem decapitated (by a human) and (2) apparent structural damage was limited to a single bite mark (on the ilium), with no signs of "taphonomic" damage (indicating limited soft tissue trauma)? [1]
(1) > 6DT19 had been decapitated with a single cut between the second and third cervical vertebrae , delivered from behind.
(2) > Additional [to the decapitation] peri-mortem trauma was present in the form of a series of small depressions on both sides of the pelvis [..]
> Taphonomic damage alone is also unlikely due to the appearance and margins of the lesions, which are the same colour as the surrounding bone (this differs if the break is post-mortem; [56]), and the adherence of bony fragments at the injury site (which occurs when soft tissue is present) .
[1]: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
(1) > 6DT19 had been decapitated with a single cut between the second and third cervical vertebrae , delivered from behind.
(2) > Additional [to the decapitation] peri-mortem trauma was present in the form of a series of small depressions on both sides of the pelvis [..]
> Taphonomic damage alone is also unlikely due to the appearance and margins of the lesions, which are the same colour as the surrounding bone (this differs if the break is post-mortem; [56]), and the adherence of bony fragments at the injury site (which occurs when soft tissue is present) .
[1]: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
Could a gladiator win such a fight?
I guess with a long reach weapon like a pilum, the gladiator may have a chance but it would be a hell of a fight.
With a gladius or any other short range weapon, it's just a fancy execution.
With a gladius or any other short range weapon, it's just a fancy execution.
Won't be long now, the level of violence in MMA can only keep people distracted for so long.
Fun fact: Early in their history the UFC turned down a plan to have full contact stick fighting events because they felt that it was too violent.
https://dogbrothers.com/ufc-letter/
https://dogbrothers.com/ufc-letter/
Who needs a stick when you can just stand behind podiums and take turns slapping each other for Dana White's pleasure?
Too violent for pay-per-view, not inherently too violent. The letters shows admiration for the intensity of stickfighting.
If scientists are going to clone a woolley mammoth then we may as well go full techno-dystopia and clone some sabretooth tigers to fight too.
I suspect underground competitions are already bloody enough.
Paper: [Unique osteological evidence for human-animal gladiatorial combat in Roman Britain](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...)
Seems a bit weird to ship lions all the way to York, in the north of England, when local predators such as bears (wolves? killer beavers?) would have been more easily (?) available.
The point is to create a spectacle, something that wows the crowd. Exotic wildlife is better for that just by reason of being exotic. But a secondary point is to show the people the awesome power of the Roman state, with its immense continent-spanning logistics capabilities.
"Are you not impressed?"
Empires should spend part of their budget on impressing. The English lad who spent whole days schlepping a few bushels of turnips to the market would be thinking, "I should join the Empire and transport lions".
Empires should spend part of their budget on impressing. The English lad who spent whole days schlepping a few bushels of turnips to the market would be thinking, "I should join the Empire and transport lions".
> with its immense continent-spanning logistics capabilities.
So, a bit like Amazon? Ave Jeff!
Must see if they have a lion at good price.
This is an attempt at a joke, BTW.
So, a bit like Amazon? Ave Jeff!
Must see if they have a lion at good price.
This is an attempt at a joke, BTW.
FYI hn generally downvotes jokes, as it doesn't want to be like Reddit where there is often a flood of jokes and no discussion
Why ship a lion to the zoo when you can fill it with local animals like rats and pigeons?
Some zoo in China got caught doing that.
https://edition.cnn.com/2013/08/16/world/asia/china-zoo-dog-...
https://edition.cnn.com/2013/08/16/world/asia/china-zoo-dog-...
Isn't that the point? To create a rare and exotic spectacle?
[deleted]
what changed in the world that ended these types of death spectacles?
Christianity. When Emperor Constantine converted Rome to Christianity, he began laying out various restrictions on the games including prohibiting it being used as a punishment or even as an option for criminals, forbade the branding of gladiators, and so forth. Emperor Honorius would then completely ban the games, which had already dwindled by then, in honor of the martyrdom of Saint Telemachus. [1]
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Telemachus
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Telemachus
I guess, but the Catholics brought the death spectacles --- human sacrifice, essentially --- back in another form and kept them going until the 1600s.
Could you please elaborate what you are talking about?
The Catholic Church, amongst others, regularly executed heretics, often by immolation.
Most of the time it was not the church that did the execution. The church was more an expertise if you will and delivered the suspect to civil authorities with a judgement.
The civil authorities then did what the law called for.
In the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions, this is a distinction without a difference. Further, throughout much of the European history of the Catholic church, the distinction between the church and the executive function of the state was practically nonexistent.
I'm just saying we shouldn't get on a high horse about "death spectacles".
I'm just saying we shouldn't get on a high horse about "death spectacles".
A lot of things in history, with regards to the negative impacts of religion, have been rather exaggerated. For instance during the Spanish Inquisition a total of ~3,000 people were put to death [1] over a period of 356 years. So that's a total of 8 people per year. And of course that was throughout the entire Spanish Empire and not just modern day Spain. So, in other words, on average substantially more people were killed by lightning per year than by the Spanish Inquisition.
The reason not to get on a high horse over it however is simply because comparing the norms of one time to the norms of another is quite pointless. The Romans did great things and they did awful things. Like pretty much every culture to have ever existed and most likely like every culture that ever will exist. And comparing which did worse, outside of obvious extremes, is not meaningful if even possible.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Inquisition#Death_toll...
The reason not to get on a high horse over it however is simply because comparing the norms of one time to the norms of another is quite pointless. The Romans did great things and they did awful things. Like pretty much every culture to have ever existed and most likely like every culture that ever will exist. And comparing which did worse, outside of obvious extremes, is not meaningful if even possible.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Inquisition#Death_toll...
I could litigate the first paragraph you wrote but we agree about the second one.
Witch burning, with the capacity to have any woman for any reason marked as a witch.
Witch burning ran largely on public sentiment. It wasn't democratic per say, but relied on a community turning on its members, either out of paranoia or jealousy. More akin to a slow and formalized mob lynching than some top down affair.
The last public execution in the USA was in 1936.
There have been recent (1990s and later) discussions on televised executions in the USA.
This is not only anathema, but also abhorrent to people who live in countries without the death penalty.
These "death spectacles" are far from ended. There are definitely people who would welcome their return.
Here's a serious analysis from the USDOJ in 1999 named "Televising Executions, Primetime "Live"?"
Its annotation is "This article examines the pathways to a televised execution, including First Amendment issues, principles of open government and victims' rights."
https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/televisi...
There have been recent (1990s and later) discussions on televised executions in the USA.
This is not only anathema, but also abhorrent to people who live in countries without the death penalty.
These "death spectacles" are far from ended. There are definitely people who would welcome their return.
Here's a serious analysis from the USDOJ in 1999 named "Televising Executions, Primetime "Live"?"
Its annotation is "This article examines the pathways to a televised execution, including First Amendment issues, principles of open government and victims' rights."
https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/televisi...
Bullfighting is still a thing.
I think you should ask the reverse: What was unique about that time period that created these spectacles?
Entertainment and fighting have always existed (and still do), but usually not to the death.
Entertainment and fighting have always existed (and still do), but usually not to the death.
> and still do), but usually not to the death
It usually wasn’t to the death in ancient Rome either. Unless your were being executed.
I don’t think that the violence part was unique in any way, Romans were the first commercialize it and scale it up to such an extent though.
It usually wasn’t to the death in ancient Rome either. Unless your were being executed.
I don’t think that the violence part was unique in any way, Romans were the first commercialize it and scale it up to such an extent though.
[deleted]
> what changed in the world that ended these types of death spectacles?
I'm afraid that the only thing stopping it are legal barriers to transport and hold such animals.
I'm afraid that the only thing stopping it are legal barriers to transport and hold such animals.
The "news" brings you all the death you want, daily. If you want to try it out for yourself there's plenty of Antifa-type organisations to give it a go. If activism isn't your thing you can join a football (the real type, not that silly American game) hooligan tribe for your ritual combat urges. Still not your thing? Join a gang.
Gladiator 'games' were part of the 'panem et circensis' or 'bread and circuses/games' strategy to keep the populace from revolting against the powers that be. They've been replaced by the above, and more. If the silly plebs still seem to be restless there's always another crisis at hand to keep them down, from climate to COVID to whatever comes next.
Gladiator 'games' were part of the 'panem et circensis' or 'bread and circuses/games' strategy to keep the populace from revolting against the powers that be. They've been replaced by the above, and more. If the silly plebs still seem to be restless there's always another crisis at hand to keep them down, from climate to COVID to whatever comes next.
> what changed in the world that ended these types of death spectacles?
Nothing. Today we have Hollywood and "news" television. 24/7 violence.
Nothing. Today we have Hollywood and "news" television. 24/7 violence.
We like to pretend that stuntmen do not get injured and die all the time in hollywood productions.
Are you sarcastic or is it that bad to be a stunt man?
Sometimes you don't even need to be a stuntman for it to be bad. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandon_Lee
It's rather bad.
How do they know the lion walked away? Couldn't it have been "no one walked away"?
If the lion had been mortally wounded by the man, it seems unlikely it would've found the time to gnaw on his bones.
I doubt that. Big predators don't quit fights even when mortally wounded.
As the paper notes, when truly fighting, big cats tend to prefer attacking the head and neck of human targets. But the primary bite marks are on the man's pelvis:
> Deaths caused by lions and tigers tend to result from trauma to the neck area, involving the crushing of soft tissue structures and fracturing of the vertebrae, causing suffocation. Both species use their weight to push down the victim, often also leaving extensive damage to the shoulders, arms and chest. Species such as leopards and jaguars focus on the head by puncturing or crushing the skull. [...] The bite marks on 6DT19 are located on the pelvis rather than neck and upper body. Lions and tigers have also been seen to drag their prey away, often by the legs, but lions have also been recorded as causing significant damage to the pelvis of their prey. [...]
> It is proposed, based on the evidence from the archaeological, medical and forensic evidence, that the bite marks on 6DT19 derive from a large felid, such as a lion. The shape is entirely consistent with documented cases of large cat bite marks (such as those presented in [35,46]). The location solely on the pelvis suggests that they were not part of an attack per se, but rather the result of scavenging at around the time of death. The decapitation of this individual was likely either to put him out of his misery at the point of death, or for the sake of conforming to customary practice.
So it was more likely dragging him away (before his dead or nearly-dead body was removed and beheaded), something I don't think it would bother with if it had been seriously wounded. Also, this was likely an execution, so I doubt the man would have had much in the way of weaponry to fight back.
> Deaths caused by lions and tigers tend to result from trauma to the neck area, involving the crushing of soft tissue structures and fracturing of the vertebrae, causing suffocation. Both species use their weight to push down the victim, often also leaving extensive damage to the shoulders, arms and chest. Species such as leopards and jaguars focus on the head by puncturing or crushing the skull. [...] The bite marks on 6DT19 are located on the pelvis rather than neck and upper body. Lions and tigers have also been seen to drag their prey away, often by the legs, but lions have also been recorded as causing significant damage to the pelvis of their prey. [...]
> It is proposed, based on the evidence from the archaeological, medical and forensic evidence, that the bite marks on 6DT19 derive from a large felid, such as a lion. The shape is entirely consistent with documented cases of large cat bite marks (such as those presented in [35,46]). The location solely on the pelvis suggests that they were not part of an attack per se, but rather the result of scavenging at around the time of death. The decapitation of this individual was likely either to put him out of his misery at the point of death, or for the sake of conforming to customary practice.
So it was more likely dragging him away (before his dead or nearly-dead body was removed and beheaded), something I don't think it would bother with if it had been seriously wounded. Also, this was likely an execution, so I doubt the man would have had much in the way of weaponry to fight back.