Women Could Become Gladiators in Ancient Rome

Explored Planet website reveals many fascinating facts about Roman society and culture this week, many of them contradicting established beliefs about the ancient world.  The Roman Empire existed from around 500 BCE to the collapse of the Western Empire in 476 CE, with the Byzantine part of the Empire surviving into the Middle Ages a thousand years later. The Empire reached its greatest extent during the Imperium of the homosexual leader Hadrian.   Explored Planet reveals that women could become gladiators!  That's right.  The website reports "As slaves, many females were forced to fight to the death alongside their male counterparts, yet few females volunteered for the games. Although it's not exactly known when women first began fighting in the arena, by the first century A.D., they were a regular part of the games.   One marble relief dating around the 2nd century A.D. depicts two women fighting named "Amazon" and "Achillia," with an inscription that reads that they fought to an honorable draw. Women also participated in animal hunts until they were banned from the games by Emperor Septimius Severus in 200 A.D."  We won't linger on Explored Planet's finding on same sex relationships though.  Whilst Hadrian had male lovers and was devoted to them, particularly Antinous of Bithynia, the behaviour of Emporer Nero shows that sexual morality in Rome was not liberal per se, but just very, very different to ours.  Historians squabble over details and there are differing schools of interpretation, but Nero's cruelty in sex is reported by several sources.