Gladiatrix
From time to time, as I browse through the magazines on offer in W.H. Smiths, our local newsagent, my eye is caught by magazines of a certain type, whose covers feature young ladies in various states of undress, posed in a manner to emphasise their best anatomical features. I would be less than truthful if I did not admit that, like any other red-blooded male, my eye lingers on these displays before I resume my hunt for whatever it was I was looking for (usually Archaeological Diggings, of course).
There is, however, one magazine with a semi-nude female on the cover that I pass over hastily, usually with a shudder of distaste. Called "Body Builder" or something like that, it usually features a young man in a miniscule triangle of cloth but displaying an excess of muscles - muscles that I didn't know it was possible for a human to have (and, given the advertisements I see from time to time offering to surgically implant fake "muscles", I'm not sure that my initial reaction isn't correct!) Every so often, though, the figure on the front of the magazine is female, signalled by the addition of two further triangles of cloth.
Partial though I am to the female form devine, particularly in its larger and curvier forms, the large curves of these muscle-bound females do not attract me in the least. A smooth leg is one thing, but when it is gleaming with baby oil and bulging with muscles at thigh and calf my mind suffers an unpleasant jolt as it turns from "glamour" to "stevedore". A sleek, flat stomach causes the mouth to water, but a slippery six pack is another thing entirely. As for the chest area, with bulging pectorals where there should be plump, well-rounded ... well, never mind.
Nevertheless, it would appear that the phenomenon of the body-building female is not as modern as today's liberated woman might wish you to think. Archaeologists at Credenhill, north-west of Hereford, are excavating a 30' wide strip on the edge of town between the houses and the industrial park where the council wants to install a flood-relief drain.
No sooner were the first sods turned in this project than Roman pottery began to appear and the contractors were forced to call in Worcestershire Historic Environment and Archaeology Service, who provide such services for Hereford Council as well as Worcestershire. A trial excavation turned up the foundations of Roman buildings and some interesting rubbish pits on either side of a Roman road that ran east from the Roman town of Kentchester into England. A full-scale excavation has resulted, which is planned to conclude at the end of July, 2010.
It was already known that the Roman army had constructed the road into England as part of their push westwards into Wales, enabling them to use Kentchester as a base for their operations. Naturally the archaeologists expected that a suburb would grow up along the road, something which happens even in modern towns. What they did not expect was the size of the suburb, which grew up during the second and third centuries AD to quite a densely settled area.
Naturally there were houses, shops and workshops - all the sorts of things that would be found along a busy road. The one thing the archaeologists did not expect was a burial, because Roman law strictly forbade burials within the limits of a town. Nevertheless, that is what has just been found, and it is causing the archaeologists to scratch their heads in bewilderment.
They were first alerted to something unusual by several rows of iron nails, which had obviously been used to fasten something made of wood that had rotted away. As they cleared the ground, they then discovered three substantial iron straps that had once secured what must have been a heavy wooden chest of some sort.
Inside the chest - in other words, lower down in the dirt which now filled it - the archaeologists found a pot and a bone from a cow's leg, obviously all that remained of a once delicious joint of beef. (The pot may have contained beer with which to wash down the beef.)
Then came the surprise: a complete skeleton buried in a crouching position which might have indicated that it was stuffed into a chest that was too small for it - bodies found in a foetal position are always lying on their side.
Once the camel-hair brushes had been put away and the photographs taken, it was time to remove the bones and hand them over to the experts for examination. The long bones came first, and as the leg and arm bones were passed up to the waiting boffins they noted the strength and weight of the bones and the large muscle attachment points and said, "What ho! A hefty day labourer!" (or words to that effect). However when the pelvis was passed up the boffins took one look and said "What ho! A woman!" and then gulped and did a double take.
As project manager Robin Jackson said: "When we first looked at the leg and arm bones, the muscle attachments suggested it was quite a strapping big bloke, but the pelvis and head, and all the indicators of gender, say it's a woman." Scratching his head, he added, "It's quite an elaborate and probably a very expensive coffin, and yet the person in it looked like they had a hard working life, and so there's an anomaly there."
Well-muscled day-labouring women are not unknown, even today, but such women are not able to afford expensive funerals with iron-bound coffins. On the other hand, as a glance at any footballer's WAG will tell you, although rich women commonly have large body parts, heavy muscles don't come into the picture.
The solution, according to Mr Jackson, is that the lady in question was a female gladiator.
Female gladiators were not unknown in the Roman world - and burial with a joint of beef and a pot of beer certainly appears to point to some unlady-like tastes - and their first recorded appearance was under Nero (nothing surprising there!). Domitian enjoyed fights between dwarves and women, which were a novelty act with erotic overtones, for the women fought bare headed and bare chested. The fact that gladiatrices (the plural of gladiatrix) fought at night, when the most important acts in a Games took place, is testimony to their drawing power. There is even an inscription from Pompeii whose author boasts of being the first editor to include women in the Games in that city.
It would seem that many upper-class women went in for gladiator training - though probably in the spirit of a film star training as a boxer as a mean of keeping fit and with no intention of appearing in the arena. Juvenal, in his Sixth Satire, waxes scornful over the attractiveness of such women:
Who has not seen the dummies of wood they slash at and batter
Whether with swords or with spears, going through all the manoeuvres?
These are the girls who blast on the trumpets in honour of Flora.
Or, it may be they have deeper designs,
And are really preparing for the arena itself.
How can a woman be decent
Sticking her head in a helmet,
Denying the sex she was born with?
Manly feats they adore,
But they wouldn’t want to be men,
Poor weak things (they think),
How little they really enjoy it!
What a great honour it is for a husband to see, at an auction
Where his wife’s effects are up for sale, belts, shin-guards,
Arm-protectors and plumes!
Hear her grunt and groan as she works at it, parrying, thrusting;
See her neck bent down under the weight of her helmet.
Look at the rolls of bandage and tape, so her legs look like tree-trunks,
Then have a laugh for yourself, after the practice is over,
Armour and weapons put down,
She squats like a man as she uses the toilet!
A female skeleton found in London was also claimed to be a gladiatrix on the basis that she was buried outside the main cemetery, had a lamp with a picture of a gladiator in her grave as well as bowls containing burnt pine cones from Stone Pines, a kind of pine tree grown exclusively around the London Amphitheatre. None of this proves that the young lady was a gladiatrix, as it could simply indicate that she was a fanatical follower of the Games and many experts dismiss the idea, though the Museum of London claims a 70% probability that the woman was a female gladiator.
There is no certainty that the newly found skeleton is indeed that of a gladiatrix. It is one possible explanation of the anomaly of a strong body and an expensive burial - but one thing is certain: it is a theory that will guarantee the greatest possible publicity for Mr Jackson and his team.
© Kendall K. Down 2010
