Vol. 42, No. 09
Panoramic Scrutiny of the Men in the Arena
Those Who Are About to Die: A Day in the Life of a Roman Gladiator, by Harry Sidebottom, New York: Knopf, 2026, 410 pages, hardcover.
A typical reference volume will inform you that a gladiator is literally a “swordsman,” but the book under review will enlighten you about much more — including a new, historical appreciation of the fact that much of what we think we know about such fighters is simply not so.
How many gladiators were there in the Roman Empire? What were such a fighter’s chances of living? Or dying? As we discover, the best contemporary information over 700 or so years of such combat puts their total numbers at (roughly) 18,000, over about 28 generations. The emphasis in this volume on the gladiatorial games is narrowed — to their height from the first century B.C. to the second century A.D.
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