40 Facts about the Gladiators of Ancient Rome

40 Facts about the Gladiators of Ancient Rome

D.G. Hewitt - April 24, 2019

40 Facts about the Gladiators of Ancient Rome
Gladiators and their trainers lived apart in the specialist schools. Wikimedia Commons.

21. Gladiator schools were usually staffed by retired fighters called magistrii

Few gladiators lived long enough to retire. And many of those who did make it out alive had few useful skills they could use to get by in ‘normal’ Roman society. Unsurprisingly, then, many went back into the gladiatorial business. Almost all magistri, or gladiator trainers, were former gladiators themselves. They would pass on the skills they learned in the arena to a new generation of fighters – and they would usually only train men who fought in the same class as them. The magistri lived in the training camps, though they had bigger rooms than the gladiators and their quarters were kept separate.

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