Gladiatrix

[7] Vesley suggests that some might have trained under private tutors in Collegia Iuvenum (official "youth organisations"), where young men of over 14 years could learn "manly" skills, including the basic arts of war.

One is identified as Amazonia and the other as Achillia; their warlike "stage names" allude to the mythical tribe of warrior-women, and a feminine version of the warrior-hero Achilles.

In an edict of 22 BC, all men of senatorial class down to their grandsons were prohibited from participating in the games, on penalty of infamia, which involved loss of social status and certain legal rights.

[4] An inscription at Ostia Antica, marking games held there around the mid 2nd century AD, refers to a local magistrate's generous provision of "women for the sword".

"[22] Their self-indulgence was held to have brought shame upon themselves, their gender, and Rome's social order;[23] they, or their sponsors, undermined traditional Roman virtues and values.

[23] Women beast-hunters (bestiarii) could earn praise and a good reputation for courage and skill; Martial describes one who killed a lion - a Herculean feat, which reflected well on her editor, the emperor Titus; but Juvenal was less than impressed by Mevia, who hunted boars with a spear "like a man.

Septimius' attempt to give Romans a similarly dignified display of female athletics was met by the crowd with ribald chants and cat-calls.

[27] There may have been more, and earlier female gladiators than the sparse evidence allows; McCullough speculates the unremarked introduction of lower-class gladiatores mulieres at some time during the Augustan era, when the gift of luxurious, crowd-pleasing games and abundant novelty became an exclusive privilege of the state, provided by the emperor or his officials.

Septimius Severus' later wholesale ban on female gladiators may have been selective in its practical application, targeting higher-status women with personal and family reputations to lose.

Only one near-certain image of female gladiators survives; their appearance in Roman histories is extremely rare, and is invariably described by observers as unusual, exotic, aberrant or bizarre.

[28] Among the pictures commissioned in Italy by King Philip IV of Spain for his Palacio del Buen Retiro in Madrid, there is a series on Roman circuses including a duel between two female gladiators.