A new analysis of the famous Colchester vase indicates that gladiators fought in Roman Britain during the second century A.D.
Vivid depictions of battling gladiators on a clay vase are the first concrete evidence that these combatants duked it out in Roman Britain, new research finds.
Measuring 9 inches tall and weighing over 2.2 pounds , the Colchester vase depicts three gladiator scenes with three types of combatants: human-human, human-animal, and animal-animal. In one scene,"bestiarii" , labeled Secundus and Mario, are fighting a bear, while in another, Memnon and Valentinus fight as"secutor" and"retiarius" , a fight that pitted a lightly armored man against one with a trident and a net, as a metaphor for the fisherman and his prey.
The vase was likely created as a type of commemorative cup that was then repurposed as a funerary urn. Steven Tuck , a professor of history and classics at Miami University in Ohio who was not involved in this study, told Live Science in an email that"the cremated individual could have been a fan of gladiators in general or of a particular gladiator."
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