Archaeologists Unearth Bloody Gladiator Fresco in Pompeii



The more Pompeii is excavated, the more we see the city as a once-thriving culture instead of just a site of tragedy. Before the 79 CE eruption of Mt. Vesuvius buried Pompeii under several feet of rocks and ash, it was a bustling place full of commerce, education, vice, and art. A fresco recently unearthed in a building thought to be a tavern and brothel depicts two gladiators at the end of a battle, complete with bloody wounds.

In a statement, Massimo Osanna, director of the Pompeii Archaeological Park, says the establishment probably proved popular among the city’s gladiators, who lived nearby. He adds, “We are in Regio V, not far from where there was a barracks for gladiators, where among other things, there was graffiti referring to this world.”

The three- by four-and-a-half-foot fresco features two types of gladiators: a murmillo armed with a short straight sword, curved shield and distinctive crested helmet and a thraex wielding a smaller shield and angled blade. The painting finds the thraex, who has dropped his shield and is seriously wounded, holding one thumb up in a plea for mercy.

Read more of what this scene, and other recent discoveries, tells us about Pompeii in its heyday at Smithsonian.


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