Gladiators attract our imagination. Slaves fighting each other to death in front of a frenzied crowd of thousands of Romans.
In the Roman hyper-masculine and hyper-warrior culture, the gladiators embodied Roman virtues. The gladiators were sex symbols and the object of women’s sexual fantasies. The Romans even believed a gladiator’s sweat to be an aphrodisiac.
The gladiators got all the girls
The Roman women adored gladiators. They fell crazy in love with these slave warriors. Girls even wrote graffiti declaring undying love for their favorite gladiator.
The gladiators were like superstar athletes of today. They were famous like Tom Brady, LeBron James, or Cristiano Ronaldo. But with one notable difference. If they had a bad day in the arena, they would die.
The Roman men knew where to go to meet women — to the gladiatorial games! There were a lot of women there, trying to see the gladiators.
Rich women who wanted to broaden their sexual experience took the gladiators as lovers. They paid a handsome sum of money to spend a night with a gladiator.
The Roman gladiators were not freely available for sex. To keep their fighting spirit high, their masters put a large ring through their foreskin. So paying to spend the night with a gladiator literally meant getting a ring away from him.
One of the socially accepted ways to get closer to the gladiator was to hire him as a bodyguard. Of course, the Roman ladies made sure the bodyguards examined their bodies.
The gladiators conquered also Roman empresses
Even wives of the Roman emperors were not immune to the lure of sex with a gladiator.
Faustina the Younger (130–175), a wife of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, fell in love with a gladiator. The rumors had it that the gladiator fathered Aurelius’s son and heir Commodus.
Messalina (20–48), a nymphomaniac wife of Emperor Claudius, took gladiators as lovers. On one occasion she even intervened to save a defeated gladiator from certain death. The lucky gladiator happened to be one of her many lovers.
Gladiator’s sweat was used as an aphrodisiac
The Romans believed that a gladiator’s sweat and blood could improve sexual desire. They scrapped sweat from a gladiator’s skin, mixed it with dirt and olive oil, and used the mixture as an aphrodisiac.
Today, it would be difficult to imagine someone drinking men’s sweat to get aroused.
On a wedding day, a bride had her hair parted with an iron spearhead. The best spearhead was the one with which they had killed a gladiator. The gladiators were symbols of virility and brought luck to a marriage. Unless a wife cheated on her husband with a gladiator!
The explicit Roman graffiti about the gladiators
One of the greatest sources of the popularity of the gladiators among the ladies is Pompeii. The city, which was buried under the volcano dust for almost 2,000 years, acts as a time capsule. It gives us a unique opportunity to peep into the daily lives of the Romans.
Here are some writings about the gladiators that were found on the walls in Pompeii:
Celadus, the Thracian, makes the girls moan.
Creces, with his trident, who catches the girls at night in his net.
Creces, the lord of the girls.
The Thracians were a class of gladiators. Obviously, our guy Celadus fought as the Thracian. The members of this class of gladiators were tall, lean, and strong men. Consequently, they were very popular among the Roman ladies (and some Roman men too).
Creces belonged to another class of gladiators — the Retiarius. He fought with a trident and a net.
Conclusion
The lives of the gladiators were short and brutal. Their life expectancy was around twenty-five years. They were glorified slaves, hoping not to get killed in the next fight. Yes, they could get all the girls, but I bet they would trade all the violence, adrenaline, and sex for a peaceful life on a farm.
