I am clad in a scratchy tunic and sandals, wielding a sword that weighs as much as a small child and peering through the visor of a helmet that threatens to smother me under the Hades-hot Roman sun. The mosquitoes are feasting on my ankles, but worse, somewhere out there, in the segment of my vision that is blocked by the helmet, my opponent waits to lunge. Such are the trials of a gladiator wannabe.
I am here, at Ludus Magnus – gladiator school – largely because my 14-year-old son, Ben, and I share a fascination with the ancient Romans. It began when I was looking for a way to get Ben to move beyond his continuing obsession with Harry Potter to some new reading material. I hit upon British writer Conn Iggulden's four-book series on Julius Caesar. Ben ate it up … and so did I.
Gladiator school was intended to be a more hands-on activity for Ben, to offset the boredom of being forced to view priceless art and ancient stone piles while on a family trip to Rome.
Gladiator school is usually a day-long session, but we've talked Giorgio Franchetti, the school's founder, into doing a special two-hour class for us. The big bluff Italian played at Romans v. Gauls as a kid, sparring with sticks and wooden swords. That interest in the centurions and gladiators of ancient times grew as he got older. He began to follow up on archeological digs, talk to scholars and read everything he could get his hands on about the early fighters.
In 2004, riding on the success of Ridley Scott's Hollywood blockbuster Gladiator, Franchetti formed the Associazione Culturale S.P.Q.R. with a group of fellow history buffs. The 54-member troupe engages in swordplay regularly as a form of workout, and performs re-enactments both in Italy and abroad. They've been featured on the History Channel (Don Wildman spent a day at gladiator school for Cities of the Underworld) and on National Geographic channel in a segment on Pontius Pilate. Ludus Magnus (www.ludusmagnus.info), which followed shortly after, offers a hands-on experience of life as a gladiator for Italian schoolkids and visiting tourists. “You see the movies. You read the books. But if you want to experience the point of view of the gladiator, you have to come and live it,” Franchetti says.
The problem, he tells us, is that little is known about gladiator training. Much of what Franchetti and his companions have discovered comes from replicating and then sparring in the equipment that gladiators would have worn.
After a journey to a park on the outskirts of Rome, Ben and I don tunics and sandals, like the rest of the troupe. The shoes have been hand-tooled to match those worn by the gladiators of old, and they're surprisingly comfortable. I can't say the same of the impenetrable-looking helmets Franchetti lines up on a hobby horse. “You may believe that these were meant to protect the gladiators,” he says. In fact, he points out, the heavy helmets were more of a hindrance than a help. As I soon discover, they block your vision and are hot and confining. Ditto for the body armour that hinders movement and leaves fighters overheated.
