Shadrake, S: World of the Gladiator

The gladiatorial contest was the high point of the bloody sports witnessed in Rome s Colosseum and in other amphitheatres throughout the Roman empire. This is the first popular book to explore all aspects of gladiatorial lifeits beginnings under the Republic; the organization of the spectacle; the day-to-day-life of a gladiator; a typical show from start to finish; the equipment, weapons and armor used; the symbolic role of the gladiator in society; and the fascination of the gladiatorial spectacle within a 21st-century context."