検索キーワード： "Harry Sidebottom" ヨーロッパ

On 8 June AD218, a fourteen-year-old Syrian boy, egged on by his grandmother, led an army to battle in a Roman civil war. Against all expectations, he was victorious. Varius Avitus Bassianus, known to the modern world as Heliogabalus, was proclaimed emperor. The next four years were to be the strangest in the history of the empire. Heliogabalus humiliated the prestigious Senators and threw extravagant dinner parties for lower-class friends. He ousted Jupiter from his summit among the gods and replaced him with Elagabal.

Dressed in armour and clutching a bloody sword, the Roman gladiator is the most iconic figure of the ancient world. Both fascinating and repulsive to us now, he was in his own time a deeply controversial character, by turns hated and idealized – and always at the heart of Roman culture. But what did he really mean to the Romans? What did they see in the gladiator and the spectacle of the games? And what does he reveal to us today about the Roman way of life? Brilliantly written and meticulously researched, this book tells the stories of the gladiators and those who observed them.