Gladiator: Rome's Blood Spectacle

Fine, fresh copy in equally fine dust jacket. First edition, first printing in English translation from the Russian. Illustrated endpapers. 208 pp. with bibliography, index, and illustrated throughout with color and black and white photographs and reproductions. Gladiatorial games are an aspect of ancient Rome with which nearly everyone is familiar---from the blood falling on the sand, the cheering crowds, and the fate of the losing combatant. In this book, author Nossov brings together the newest evidence on gladiators, to revise our one-soded view of them. While it was true that the execution of criminals in the arena were massacres, during the heyday of gladiatorial games, gladiators were far too high-ranking and valuable to be wasted in mindless fights to the death; gladiators were not only slaves, some were volunteers seeking fame and fortune. The author covers the evolution of gladiatorial combat, the types of gladiator, their equipment, their way of fighting, their lives and social status.…