ROMAN GLADIATORS ATE VEGGIE DIET, DRANK ASHES
London: Roman gladiators ate a mostly vegetarian diet and drank ashes as a healing tonic following training sessions, a new study has found.
The researchers carried out anthropological investigations on bones of warriors found during excavations in the ancient city of Ephesos. According to historic sources, gladiators had their own diet. This comprised beans and grains. Contemporary reports referred to them as “hordearii ( barley eaters)”, researchers said. In the study by the MedUni Vienna, in cooperation with the Institute of Forensic Medicine at the University of Bern in Switzerland, bones were examined from a gladiator cemetery uncovered in 1993 which dates back to the 2nd or 3rd century BC in the then Roman city of Ephesos, modernday Turkey. Using spectroscopy, stable isotope ratios ( carbon, nitrogen and sulphur) were investigated in the collagen of the bones, along with the ratio of strontium to calcium in the bone mineral. The result shows that gladiators mostly ate a vegetarian diet. Meals consisted primarily of grain and meat- free meals. The word “barley eater” relates in this case to the fact that gladiators were probably given grain of an inferior quality, said researchers. The difference between gladiators and the normal population is highly significant in terms of the amount of strontium measured in their bones.