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
Some schools were so big they had chariot tracks to train on. Wikimedia Commons.

19. Gladiator schools were usually specialized, and some were so big men trained to ride and fight on chariots in them

In the city of Rome, there was no single school for gladiators. Once a man – or, less commonly, a woman – was assigned a fighter class, they would be sent to the appropriate Ludus for training. The Bestiaries School, for instance, would only train Bestiarii, the gladiators who would fight wild and exotic animals in the arena. The biggest school in the city, the Ludus Magus was so big that gladiators could practice riding chariots or fighting on horseback. Outside of Rome, however, provincial schools often trained all types of gladiators in the same space.

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