Posted on 10/21/2014 12:59:30 PM PDT by dware
You'd figure a typical Roman gladiator to be a real meat-and-potatoes guy, right? You'd be figuring wrong—at least if you were talking about gladiators from the city of Ephesus.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
So true.
Yeah...because that's (uuuuurp!) the only way you can get barley into yer diet...
Grain powered the empire, school kids used to know this.
Pasta didn’t arrive until the 12th century. What the heck were the Italians eating before then?
Gladiators were part of a business and meat was expensive, hence very little meat was served them.
I remember from high school Latin class as we were reading Caesar’s commentaries on the Gallic Wars that everybody in class was a little shocked about the legionnaires complaining when they had to eat meat when grain supplies ran short. A diet heavy on animal fats and proteins was considered barbaric. Their protein came mainly from fish and fowl (although roasted door mouse was a nice little gourmet appetizer). The Roman staple was always wheat or some other grain (barley) in a pinch. Bread riots resulted when supplies of wheat from Egypt were interrupted by politics or pirates.
Omelets, French toast, thrush (ortolans), cranes, ducks, peacocks, oysters, sea urchins, capons (to get around the grain laws), laser, pigs, lamb, goat, beef was available after a public sacrifice of a bovine, ...
Ha! That’s my favorite story arc for OotS! “Thog already know how to use best ability score.”
Must be where Moochelle got her school lunch plan from.
Of course they were poking around the boneyard of the losers.
I wonder what the winners of the contests were eating??
Ancient Rome was NOT known for valuing the individual. That came in with Christianity. People nowadays have no idea what it was like to live in a culture that was truly hedonistic without a Judeo-Christian basis.
Folks had no value except as objects and slavery was rampant. People were stuck in immovable classes and brothels were everywhere. The commercialization of sex and violence were a way of life. Christianity was a radical force that changed everything.
If they ever did a miniseries that was absolutely true to ancient Rome, the way people really lived, and the changes Christians really brought, they wouldn’t show it on tv and people would truly be shocked.
“Pasta didn’t arrive until the 12th century. What the heck were the Italians eating before then?”
Losing gladiators?
Hail Caesar! We who about to die salute you!!!!
Gladiators were slaves and as such mostly ate a diet based on barley as it was the cheapest
Ate a stew made from bolied barley, beans/lentils, olive oil
flavored with onions, garlic and herbs
As for being perfect physical specimens most gladiators were
chubby if not obese
The fat around the middle protected the internal organs
As for fights to the death......
Were fairly rare because the owner of dead gladiator would be compensated - sometimes up to 20 times their worth
They were highly trained and valuable athelethes - killing them off every day would soon exhaust the supply.....
ditto that
and stay away from the poison fruit
FABULOUS post! Bump to the top!!!
Imagine a world in which every life was precious and was recognized as a potential for grace.
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