<P> The trade in gladiators was empire - wide, and subjected to official supervision . Rome's military success produced a supply of soldier - prisoners who were redistributed for use in State mines or amphitheatres and for sale on the open market . For example, in the aftermath of the Jewish Revolt, the gladiator schools received an influx of Jews--those rejected for training would have been sent straight to the arenas as noxii (lit . "hurtful ones"). The best--the most robust--were sent to Rome . In Rome's military ethos, enemy soldiers who had surrendered or allowed their own capture and enslavement had been granted an unmerited gift of life . Their training as gladiators would give them opportunity to redeem their honour in the munus . </P> <P> Two other sources of gladiators, found increasingly during the Principate and the relatively low military activity of the Pax Romana, were slaves condemned to the arena (damnati), to gladiator schools or games (ad ludum gladiatorium) as punishment for crimes, and the paid volunteers (auctorati) who by the late Republic may have comprised approximately half--and possibly the most capable half--of all gladiators . The use of volunteers had a precedent in the Iberian munus of Scipio Africanus; but none of those had been paid . </P> <P> For the poor, and for non-citizens, enrollment in a gladiator school offered a trade, regular food, housing of sorts and a fighting chance of fame and fortune . Mark Antony chose a troupe of gladiators to be his personal bodyguard . Gladiators customarily kept their prize money and any gifts they received, and these could be substantial . Tiberius offered several retired gladiators 100,000 sesterces each to return to the arena . Nero gave the gladiator Spiculus property and residence "equal to those of men who had celebrated triumphs ." </P> <P> From the 60s AD female gladiators appear as rare and "exotic markers of exceptionally lavish spectacle". In 66 AD, Nero had Ethiopian women, men and children fight at a munus to impress King Tiridates I of Armenia . Romans seem to have found the idea of a female gladiator novel and entertaining, or downright absurd; Juvenal titillates his readers with a woman named "Mevia", hunting boars in the arena "with spear in hand and breasts exposed", and Petronius mocks the pretensions of a rich, low - class citizen, whose munus includes a woman fighting from a cart or chariot . A munus of 89 AD, during Domitian's reign, featured a battle between female gladiators, described as "Amazons". In Halicarnassus, a 2nd - century AD relief depicts two female combatants named "Amazon" and "Achillia"; their match ended in a draw . In the same century, an epigraph praises one of Ostia's local elite as the first to "arm women" in the history of its games . Female gladiators probably submitted to the same regulations and training as their male counterparts . Roman morality required that all gladiators be of the lowest social classes, and emperors who failed to respect this distinction earned the scorn of posterity . Cassius Dio takes pains to point out that when the much admired emperor Titus used female gladiators, they were of acceptably low class . </P>

The following facts about the famous roman sports arena are true except