Looking at gladiatorial games helps us understand Roman entertainment and the complex role of gladiators in ancient Roman culture. The Colosseum was more than just a place for gladiator fights.

Gladiator culture united this north-western extremity of the Roman Empire with hundreds of towns across the Roman world, from Algeria to Israel, Spain to Syria. Britannia was no rustic backwater ...

adding that if Jews were combatants in the games, they would have been more inclined to battle beasts than other men. In the original “Gladiator” film, Crowe plays Maximus, a Roman general who ...