A Roman gladiator and a lion met in combat. Only one walked away

GLADIATORS BATTLED LIONS and other wild animals in the arenas of the Roman Empire. But for all the tales of glorious combat depicted in ancient texts, marble reliefs and mosaics and then retold in movies and other modern media, archaeologists have never found direct physical evidence, like the skeletons of gladiators bearing animal-induced wounds. At last, proof of classical combat between man and beast has been found in the form of a skeleton from a Roman settlement in Britain. It is the first direct evidence of a gladiator mauled by a lion.

- KATE GOLEMBIEWSKI

The skeleton was discovered 20 years ago, in an excavation spurred by a couple hoping to renovate the yard of their home in the English city of York. An initial survey turned up evidence of an ancient cemetery, halting the construction plans.

"Britain is rich with Roman archaeology," said Tim Thompson, an anthropologist at Maynooth University in Ireland and an author of a paper published Wednesday that describes the discovery in the journal PLOS One. "You pretty much can't shove a spade in the ground without hitting something ancient and archaeological."

The larger site contained the buried remains of more than 80 individuals. Nearly all of them were young men, and many of their bodies showed signs of trauma. The demographics of the deceased, the types of injuries in their bones and the manner in which they were interred suggested that they had fought as gladiators around 1,800 years ago, when what is now York was an outpost of the Roman Empire.