1st century C.E. Roman relief portraying gladiators and lions fighting. Roman gladiators’ fights to the death have inspired morbid fascination for millennia. But for something seemingly so ...

In April 2025, archaeologists announced an amazing discovery from Driffield Terrace cemetery in York: the bite marks on a third-century skeleton proving combat with a lion. This is the first hard ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. This oil painting by French artist Firmin Didot (1764-1836) depicts human-animal combat in ancient Rome. New evidence shows it ...

See more of our trusted coverage when you search. Prefer Newsweek on Google to see more of our trusted coverage when you search. It has been revealed that the skeletal remains of a man from Roman-era ...

A dramatic new discovery from a Roman cemetery in York has revealed the first osteological proof of gladiator combat with wild animals, after bite marks on a skeleton were matched to those made by a ...

Lions, tigers, and bears. These, among many other exotic animals, are the beasts with which gladiators did battle in amphitheaters across the Roman empire. It’s a spectacle that has long captured the ...

Bite marks found on a skeleton discovered in a Roman cemetery in York have revealed the first archaeological evidence of gladiatorial combat between a human and a lion. The skeleton was excavated and ...

Wed, April 23, 2025 at 6:00 PM UTC Gladiators, for instance, fought each other—and often animals—to the death in arenas where bloodier was better. Ancient Romans often delighted in watching carnivores ...

Puncture injuries by large felid scavenging on both sides of bone. A skeleton from Roman-era England has bite marks consistent with those of a large cat like a lion, suggesting that this individual ...

Fearsome Roman gladiators dueling for the entertainment of a roaring amphitheater looms large in the cultural imagination, perhaps now more than ever with Ridley Scott’s blockbuster Gladiator sequel, ...

Gladiators only fought 2-3 times annually, spending most of their time training intensively in gladiator schools called ludus. Their diet was predominantly vegetarian, featuring barley-based meals ...