Ben Kane

They would sell themselves into the gladiator school, but they were definitely a minority of fighters.

Correct, yeah.

The first gladiator school was in Capua, and there wasn't actually a gladiator school in Rome at that time.

So there was one in Pompeii as well, although that was later.

But Capua had a large gladiator school, which was run by Lanista, who was a Roman citizen called either Batiatus or Vatia, depending on your source.

And he would have been looked down on by the Roman population, because although this was a very popular sport, it was still a low-class thing that you wouldn't want to be associated with.

So he would have been in the same class as a pimp, for example.

And we don't know where he was bought or how.

I mean, some people would say it was in Rome.

Personally, I would think it's easier to come over the sea to Brundisium and come up the main road towards Rome.

But we don't know.

But he arrived in Capua and he was a gladiator.

We don't know...

any real details about his career in the gladiator arena.

When I've written, for your listeners and viewers, I've written two books about Spartacus.

It was great fun.

And I started it in Thrace and I moved straight into the rebellion.

And I get a lot of emails, or I did when they were first published anyway, about why didn't you have the Spartacus fighting in the arena?

And it was partly because the stuff he did in real life is so exciting.

I didn't want to get stuck.