Gladiator's Day

On May 26, visitors to the Roman city of Carnuntum will go on a journey into the past and experience live the fascination and spectacle of real gladiator fights. Carnuntum's own gladiator troupe, the Familia Gladiatoria Carnuntina, will be showing off all their skills. A major concern here is to give the visitor a feeling that gladiator fights were not primitive "slaughtering" for the amusement of the population, but sophisticated sporting competitions of professionals, which followed a strict set of rules, even though these could end fatally.

The fights are real and not arranged. The fights are fought with wooden weapons, as it was the case in ancient times for training purposes and during the morning fights (quasi the "warm-up"). Furthermore, there is a lot to learn on this day about gladiature, which often seems bloody and primitive to us today, although the parallels to today's professional sports are greater than we might think at first glance.