STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
All right, I don't know about you, A, but I only took one language in high school - Latin.
A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Latin? Wow, look at the big brain on Steve there.
INSKEEP: (Laughter).
MARTÍNEZ: Maybe not as practical, though, as it used to be when traveling.
INSKEEP: Yeah, maybe that wasn't such a big-brain choice anyway. But we did have to learn ancient Roman history as part of the class, so this next story caught my attention. A Roman man will train a few dozen tourists as gladiators at the Colosseum in Rome.
MARTÍNEZ: OK, so let me guess, it has to do with the new "Gladiator II" movie coming out.
INSKEEP: How did you know?
MARTÍNEZ: It has to be.
INSKEEP: It does. It is also an Airbnb promotion.
MARTÍNEZ: So of course, travel to Rome and put your life at risk (laughter).
INSKEEP: Indeed. Now, this is NPR, so when we heard of tourists training as gladiators, we naturally called a scholar to ask what being a gladiator was really like. Lauren Donovan Ginsberg is at Duke.
MARTÍNEZ: Oh, like, duke it out?
INSKEEP: No.
MARTÍNEZ: Oh.
LAUREN DONOVAN GINSBERG: A gladiator was a highly professional athlete, but they usually came from a lower socioeconomic status in ancient Rome. And they were trained in a specific form of combat that was for Roman entertainment for the masses.
INSKEEP: OK, sounds a little like ancient UFC, and it certainly looks entertaining in the movies, although some people have their doubts about re-creating this experience. After all, the gladiators tended to be enslaved people, and they were exploited, and they were very often killed. That was the point. But Ginsberg says she does understand why gladiators have captured people's imaginations for so long.
GINSBERG: It's probably the ultimate physicality of trying to embody that of the gladiator - sort of the ultimate fit human being - so the person whose job, whose occupation, whose profession, whose labor was aimed at training their body to be the ultimate fighter.
INSKEEP: The ultimate fit human being. A Martínez, over to you.
MARTÍNEZ: You know why I jog, Steve? So I can run from a fight.
INSKEEP: (Laughter).
MARTÍNEZ: Not so I can run toward that fight.
INSKEEP: Fight or flight? Flight is better.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG "NOW WE ARE FREE")
LISA GERRARD: (Singing in non-English language). Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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