© llustration courtesy M. Klein/7reasonsThis illustration shows the almost-complete remains of a school for gladiators found at Carnuntum in eastern Austria.
Ancient Rome's gladiators lived and trained in fortress prisons, according to an international team of archaeologists who mapped a school for the famed fighters.
Discovered at the site of
Carnuntum outside Vienna, Austria, the gladiatorial school, or
ludus gladiatorius, is the first one discovered outside the city of Rome. Now hidden beneath a pasture, the gladiator school was entirely mapped with noninvasive earth-sensing technologies. (See "
Gladiator Training Camp.")
The discovery, reported Tuesday evening by the journal
Antiquity, makes clear what sort of lives these famous
ancient warriors led during the second century A.D. in the Roman Empire.
"It was a prison; they were prisoners," says University of Vienna archaeologist
Wolfgang Neubauer, who led the study team. "They lived in cells, in a fortress with only one gate out."
The discovery shows that even outside Rome gladiators were "big business," Neubauer says. At least 80 gladiators, likely more, lived in the large, two-story facility equipped with a practice arena in its central courtyard. The site also included heated floors for winter training, baths, infirmaries, plumbing, and a nearby graveyard.