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PHOTOGRAPHS BY REMI BENALI
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They came from the lower classes—some were enslaved people, criminals, prisoners of war. However, as the Roman Empire went on, gladiators enthralled bigger and bigger crowds. The position became lucrative, and some warriors won their freedom in battle.
“They were like sexy rock stars,” art historian Katherine Welch says. (Pictured above, two modern-day reenactors prepare to rumble.)
Training was brutal. Gladiators—most often men but occasionally women—could lose their lives in a fight. But new archaeological studies have determined gladiator spectacles were not bloody free-for-alls, but highly regimented and systematized performances executed by expertly trained athletes.
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