Feeding a Roman Gladiator

Of all the jobs in ancient Rome gladiator was  probably one of the worst.

Low life expectancy, you lived most of it in a cell, and you had a pretty monotonous diet.

Mostly a porridge, or puls, of barley and beans.

So thank you to Hellofresh for sponsoring this video as we enter the colosseum and dine as gladiators,

this time on Tasting History.  

Recent archaeological evidence shows that a  gladiator's diet was mostly vegetarian,  

at least on the day to day, and unfortunately there are  no recipes left to us for a gladiator's meal,  

but we can reconstruct one using the writings of Galen.

Galen who is one of the most famous physicians from the ancient world spent quite a bit of time stitching up gladiators

and he wrote about their diet.

"There is also much use made of fava beans... Our gladiators eat a great deal of this food every day,

making the condition of their body fleshy- not compact, dense flesh like pork,

but flesh that is somehow more flabby."

Why do I feel a little attacked by that? <_<

Anyway having that extra layer of flab might  have actually been a good thing when your job  

entailed people stabbing at you because you  know you could bleed a lot.

Give the people a spectacle but you're not endangering your vital organs.

Galen goes on to say that these beans made the gladiators unusually flatulent,

and that it was usually served as a porridge with barley.

What the poet juvenile called, "The hotch pot of the gladiator." 

And Pliny the Elder backs this up by saying,  

"Barley is among the oldest human foods... and the name given to gladiators, who used to be called hordearii, barley-men."

So between these writings and actual  recipes for fancier porridges or puls  

by Apicius and Cato the Elder we can kind of  reconstruct what this gladiatorial puls might have been like.

So for this recipe what you'll  need is one cup or 150 grams of dried fava beans,  

1 cup or 170 grams of barley.

Best if you can find hulled barley for this but if you can only find pearl barley

it's more common. Just cook it for  half as long it's going to be a little bit mushier  

but pretty much the same. One quart or one liter  of water,

one onion chopped, three cloves of garlic pressed

for as Varo says "Ubi allium, ibi Roma."  Where there is the smell of garlic, there is Rome.  

Three tablespoons of olive oil,  

two tablespoons of red wine vinegar, 

and one teaspoon of salt.

Now this is going to make a decent amount of puls

which is required for Seneca writes that for gladiators to

"Withstand the blows and kicks of several opponents at once and to such a degree that a man can last out the day

and resist the scorching sun in the midst of the burning dust, drenched all the while in his own blood...

must have copious food, copious drink, copious quantities of oil."   

But I'm not doing any of that stuff so I'm probably not going to be finishing this entire thing of puls.  

Also because I just made a meal from today's sponsor Hellofresh.  

And to keep with the vegetarian theme of gladiatorial cuisine I have opted for one of Hellofresh's many vegetarian options.

They have meals for every diet:  pescatarian, low-cal, carb smart

and even pizza if you're on that very strict pizza only diet.

We've tried many of their meals and every single one we've loved.

Today we tried the pasta primavera  delivered to the door with fresh zucchini, bell pepper, and peas.

These meals are a great way to save time because one you don't have to go to the grocery store,

and two they arrive to  your door pre-portioned in sustainable packaging.  

Less food waste and a reduced carbon footprint. 

Honestly between the shopping and the measuring by the time I get around to cooking dinner

especially if I've been cooking all day for the show  

I'm usually exhausted and I give up but with  Hellofresh that's all done for me.

So it's just 30 minutes of cooking and dinner is served.

A delicious dinner I might add and a healthier and fresher alternative than take out.

So go to hellofresh.com and use my code tastinghistory14  

to get 14 free meals plus free shipping.

14 free meals people! Just using my code tastinghistory14  

at hellofresh.com but until you order it's  gladiatorial pulse for you.

So first soak the barley and the beans in cool water overnight. 

Once they're soaked remove the peel from the fava beans or you can just buy them pre-peeled it's a lot easier.

Now the order of these next things are kind of up to you but if you want to do it all in one pot

add the olive oil and the onion to the pot coating the onion in the oil then set over medium heat

and cook for five minutes or until the onions are translucent.

Then carefully add the water to the pot and bring to a boil.

Note that if you've used too much oil and you pour water  onto it it can kind of spatter and so be careful  

if you want to completely eliminate that step you  can make the onions outside of the pot and then add them in later on.

Once the water is boiling  add in the barley and cook for about 30 minutes. 

Then add the fava beans, the salt, the wine  vinegar, and the garlic and stir.   

Then cook this down into a thick porridge for about 30 minutes or so.

Now I don't know when a meal like this  became the standard cuisine for gladiators but 

Livy tells us that the first gladiatorial games  

were organized in 264 BC during the first Punic  War by two brothers Marcus and Decimus Brutus.  

They did this to honor their father at his funeral  and gladiatorial games often accompanied funerals.  

In 216 BC the sons of consul Aemilius Lepidus  honored his death with 22 fights held over three days.  

Basically if dad had to die he wasn't going alone.  

But what exactly was life like for one of these gladiators?

Well as our porridge bakes and you hit that Like button, provided you're entertained.

Are you not entertained?

Let's take a look at the life of an ancient Roman gladiator.  

So you're a gladiator? Congratulations!

And my condolences because your life expectancy is  

frighteningly low, about the age of 27,  but that rather short life is going to  

be very exciting as long as you like fighting,  because that is what you're going to be doing  

most of the time, mostly for practice.

See as a gladiator you'd belong to a ludus or  

gladiatorial school. Some of the gladiators  might be captives of war or criminals  

and many choose to be there either as a way to pay  off debt or because they just like killing things,  

but it does matter how you got there because  according to the poet Juvenal

"Net-throwers aren't required to mess with convicted felons... 

even the lowest scum of the arena observed this rule; even in prison they are separate."

And essentially it is a prison of sorts because you spend all of your time in a cell unless you are eating or fighting.

Gladiators were slaves to the lanista or the owner of the school and to him you  must

"Vow to endure to be burned, to be bound, to be beaten, and to be killed by the sword."

And right off the bat I'm out but if you do choose to stay,  

and you're good, then it's not all bad because  Galen talks about Unctores or slaves that  

are in charge of basically making sure that the  gladiators are nice and comfortable and receive daily massages   

before heading back to their cell.  So between the massages, the exciting cuisine,  

and the hours of training your lanista has made  quite an investment in you and he's going to get  

a return on that investment and he's going  to do that by renting you out.

First option the army. In 69 AD the year of four emperors which  we talked about in the episode on Vitelian peas,  

the emperor Othos defenses included "An irregular force of 2000 gladiators,

a shameful assistance of which during the civil wars even strict generals availed themselves."

So it wasn't really looked well upon to have gladiators in your army, but it did happen quite a lot though

it tended not to go well for the gladiators.

So instead of fighting an actual battle you might be better off fighting   

an entertaining battle at a dinner party.

"The Romans would invite their friends to dinner and when they were all sated with dining and drink, they called in the gladiators.

No sooner did one have his throat cut than the masters applauded with delight." 

Bravo. Charming, just charming.

Though a description from the consul Cilius Italicus paints a rather more gruesome picture.

"Often the combatants fell dead above the very cups of the party-goers and the tables were stained with streams of blood."  

That's why I never sit in the splash zone.

Now the other activity that you might be employed in as a gladiator and probably the most famous is to participate in the games

fighting in an arena like the Colosseum, which by the way I just finished putting together the LEGO Colosseum,

and as a huge LEGO fan it was pretty cool to get to put this  together. It's the biggest set they've ever done  

and it really made me want to go back to Rome so someday...

Now most gladiators only participated in these fights three or four times a year so it wasn't a daily occurrence,

but since you had a likelihood of dying in about one out of every five  games the odds not great, but the night before  

the big fight you got a nice fancy meal.  

A cena libera was a sort of feast where the combatants were given all sorts of food and drink

often in a public place as a way to gin up excitement for the next day.

Though several writers say that the  gladiators tend to actually focus on spending time with their family

and setting their affairs  in order rather than gorging themselves, but  

it's up to you. What's not up to you is whether  or not you fight because you're gonna fight.   

It was compulsory.

Though unless you're a condemned criminal and opening the games by having to fight a tiger or another wild beast, 

the editor or the producer of the games would typically pair you up with  

someone that you at least had a decent  chance against, so that's good news.

There were many types of gladiator who were trained to fight with different weapons and equipment  

and there was a way of pairing them up so that  in theory there was no one type that overpowered another,

unlike Batman vs Superman because  it's Superman vs Batman.

How that movie lasted three hours I don't know. I know it's been a long time but I'm still upset about that.  

Also like Batman vs Superman your fight would  be set to a musical score.  

There would often be music played during the fight including horns blasting out each time a blow was hit.  

Now one way to win of course was to kill your  opponent but that happened less than you might think,

namely because if you died then the editor  or the producer would have to pay your lanista  

quite a bit more like 50 times more than what  he paid to rent you. Kind of like if you rent  

a car and destroy it and didn't get insurance. Same thing.

So instead of dying if you were bested you could raise your fingers up in surrender

or "The gladiator may lower his weapon and test the pity of the people..."

And pity was usually given. Not always but usually. An arbiter who was usually the  

editor or if the Emperor was there than it was him  would be the one who decided if you lived or died.  

Though they would often take into account the  voice of the people.

"When the thumbs of the rabble turned up let any man be killed to court the mob." 

So it wasn't actually a thumbs down that sealed your fate

but a thumb in general just kind of  waving around. We don't exactly know.

It was called the pollice verso or turned thumb and if they wanted you to live then they just hid their thumb. 

So you want to see this out there but if indeed  it was your time to go you had to do so honorably.  

"The gladiator no matter how faint-hearted he has been throughout the fight,

offers his throat to his opponent and directs the wavering blade to the vital spot."

The vital spot being the jugular.

Though while this noble death was the ideal it didn't always happen that way.

There was a story of five retiarius, or gladiators with nets, who yielded to five secutor who fought with short swords and shields  

and unfortunately for the retiari the audience  flipped them the thumb

"But when their death was ordered, one of them caught up his trident and slew all the victors,

Caligula bewailed this a public proclamation as a most cruel murder."

And when Caligula calls you cruel, yeesh.

But if you did live you got to basically be a celebrity.

Roman children had figurines made of their favorite gladiators and gladiator sweat could be sold as an aphrodisiac.  

So it's no wonder that they were very popular with the ladies.

Graffiti in Pompeii calls out "The girls' idol,Celadus the Thracian gladiator. Fought 3, won 3."

And "Crescens, the netter of young girls by night."  

Noble women would often pay to have the winner of  a fight spend the evening with them at their villa  

and the poet Juvenal writes of Hyypia, a senator's wife, who runs off with a gladiator to Egypt.

Though he questions why she's willing to throw away her reputation and forsake her children, her husband, and her home

For the gladiator was "Maimed in his  limbs, and verging now to age.

Add, that his face was battered and decayed; the helmet on his brow huge sores had made;

a wart deformed his nose, of monstrous size, and foul discharge trickled from bloodshot eyes:

but then he was a gladiator that alone made every charm in every grace his own." 

A lid to every pot I suppose.

Though most of the ancient writers didn't seem to hold gladiators  in very high regard no matter how much they won.  

Tacitus bemoaned the fact that his students were  always talking about them during his lectures  

and Calpurnias Flaccus said "There is no meaner condition among the people than that of the gladiator."

And Seneca writes in what sounds a bit  like sour grapes.

"How many men I say to myself, train their bodies and how few train their minds! 

and what solitude reigns where the good arts are taught!  

What crowds flock to the games spurious as they are and arranged merely for pastime,

and what a soliture reigns where the good arts are taught!

How feather-brained are the athletes whose muscles and shoulders we admire!"

Just like how the football team at my high school got all the funding even though it was our choir that were the state champs.  

The jocks get everything. Nothing has changed in 2000 years and maybe... maybe I'm the one with sour grapes.

Now if you do live through enough bouts in  the arena

you may be lucky enough to be presented with a rudis or wooden sword.

It was the same type of wooden sword that you would have used to train  

back at your ludus but if it was presented to  you on the sand in the arena that meant you were free.

It was like giving a sock to Dobby.

Dobby is free.

Though many who received this freedom ended up going back to the ludus

either to keep fighting or more often to train others because  

what else are you gonna do?

Now there were multiple times in Rome's history where they tried to put an end to the games,

but it seems that the final straw  came on January 1st 404 AD

when a Christian monk named Telemachus had had enough.

"After gazing upon the combat from the amphitheater, he descended into the arena,

and tried to separate the gladiators. The  sanguinary spectators possessed by the demon who  

delights in the effusion of blood were irritated  at the interruption of their cruel sports,  

and stoned him who had occasioned the secession." 

The Emperor Honorius was so upset by this that he named Telemachus a martyr and put one final official end to the game.

So they probably actually kept going on but not officially.

So that's the life of your average gladiator but

this Friday on Drinking History I'm going to be talking about some of your less average gladiators  

including emperors and women, and I'll be making a drink that the gladiators were famous for  

but for now it's back to our gladiator puls.

So once the puls has cooked down dish it up and serve,  

and here we are barley and bean puls for a  Roman gladiator.

It's not the prettiest dish I've ever made that's for sure. Kind of looks like

oatmeal. Very, very mild color.  

But it smells good so let's give it a shot.  Very garlicky. Not too garlicky but garlicky.

It's not half bad. There's that hint of sweet  from the onion but the garlic is definitely the most dominant flavor.

You know there's not a lot of flavor to barley or the beans  

so they're just like an avenue for whatever else  you put in here.

I like the garlic because I like garlic. I might even put more garlic in but 

anything that you put in here that's that's kind of what the flavor is going to be.  

I think I did a very good job i'm not going to lie.

Be careful not to over salt this. This could become very salty very quickly.  

The thing is this is a side dish. This is not an entire meal. I mean it was an entire meal this is all that they ate

but I don't know if I could eat like huge bowls of it for every meal.  I think that would get very, very monotonous but  

you know that's- that's how it  was the life of a Roman gladiator.  

So thank you to Hellofresh for sponsoring  this video.

Make sure to follow me on Instagram @tastinghistorywithmaxmiller  and check out our Reddit and our Discord.  

I'll put the links in the description and I  will see you next time on Tasting History.