Gladiator Diets Were Carb-Heavy, Fattening, and Mostly Vegetarian

Author: Ryleigh Nucilli / Source: Atlas Obscura

What epitomizes the ideal Western male physique more than the Roman gladiator? Rippling with lean muscle, gladiators’ bodies represent corporeal perfection—or so films and television shows such as Gladiator and Spartacus would have us believe.

In reality, what we know about gladiators’ diet and physiques suggests a very different physical appearance than the one depicted in classical art and contemporary popular culture. According to archaeological research, their abdominals and pectorals were likely covered in a quivering layer of subcutaneous fat.

Why? The evidence suggests gladiators carbo-loaded. They ate a diet high in carbohydrates, such as barley and beans, and low in animal proteins. Their meals looked nothing like the paleo or meat-and-fish centric diets now associated with elite warriors and athletes.

Current knowledge of gladiators’ physiques comes from a group of medical anthropologists at the Medical University of Vienna and a nearly 2,000-year-old gladiator grave located in what is now Ephesus, Turkey. (When its inhabitants were interred, the area was part of the Roman Empire.) The mass grave houses the bones of 67 gladiators and one female slave, thought to be the spouse of one of the men buried there.

Researchers were able to identify the buried bodies as gladiators through reference to a set of reliefs carved into the marble slabs that marked the grave. These reliefs depict gladiatorial battle scenes and were dedicated to fallen gladiators.

Although none of the 68 skeletons was complete, enough arm and leg bones, as well as skulls and teeth, were preserved for researchers to be able to study and understand the nutritional and medical realities of the men to whom they once belonged.

Using a technique called “isotopic analysis,” the team was able to test the skeletal remains for elements including calcium and zinc. This enabled them to partially reconstruct their diets. Based on the elemental mixtures they recovered using the analysis, the team concluded that the bodies in the grave ate few animal proteins and plenty of carb-rich legumes, as well as a healthy dose of calcium. This relatively meat-free diet is described in texts from the time, too: Pliny’s Natural History refers to gladiators by the nickname hordearii, which translates to “barley eaters.”

Interestingly, according to the researchers, gladiators’ primarily vegetarian diet was not a consequence of their poverty or slave status. While it is popularly believed that the ranks of men and women who fought as gladiators were comprised entirely of slaves, that’s only partly true. Though the majority of gladiators were prisoners of war and convicts, some rejoined voluntarily to earn wages after their initial term of conscription had ended. Nonetheless, given this lowly status, one might assume that a carb-heavy, mostly meat-free diet was a cost-cutting measure. After all, why feed prisoners extravagant fare?

Well, you might do it to improve their battlefield performance. The Vienna team posits that the fighters ate weight-gaining foods because extra fat created…

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