Fat Gladiator
A recent issue of Archaeology magazine (November/December 2008) had a fascinating article called “The Gladiator Diet: How to eat, exercise, and die a violent death.”
The world’s only known gladiator graveyard has turned up at Ephesus in Turkey. Analysis of the bones reveals that Roman gladiators ate an almost exclusively vegetarian diet. Why? Apparently so they could fatten up on simple carbohydrates like beans and barley. A thick cushion of fat protected against injuries. And for extra showmanship points, a gladiator who got cut in their fat bled wildly, like a Monty Python skit-victim, without having his fighting abilities impaired.
There’s more good stuff in the article, including notes on the excellent medical care the gladiators received while they were salvageable and a weird four-pointed dagger I’d never seen before along with a photo of the distinctive wound it made in a gladiator’s knee bone.
I quite enjoyed the D&D gladiator arena fighting style feats that Schwalb wrote for Dragon #368 online, but I don’t see “Barley-Fed Hulk” as an especially useful addition to that stable of fighting styles. I’m more likely to use lineman-sized gladiators as color for a gladiator school which will fit nicely into the campaign I’m running in 2009.