Anthropologists Say Gladiators and Soldiers in Ancient Rome Were Vegetarian | Hacker News Reader

Anthropologists Say Gladiators and Soldiers in Ancient Rome Were Vegetarian

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

83 pointsOsiris30104 comments

An interesting hypothesis, but I have a hard time buying it. If everyone around them is eating meat, where's the motive for them to abstain?

> Plants contain higher levels of strontium than animal tissues. People who consume more plants and less meat will build up measurably higher levels of strontium in their bones.

How can we rule out that they weren't just eating tons of strontium-rich meat like seafood and less strontium-deficient meat like chicken? Or that they weren't just eating WAY MORE plant carbs than your average person being warriors and all? Maybe gladiators were like marathon runners and were always carb-loading to pack calories. That would effectively multiply their plant over meat intake by orders of magnitude. But just because marathon runners eat way more grains than meat doesn't mean they are vegetarians.

You don't have to subscribe to a 21st century hypothesis, you simply have to believe or disbelieve the credibility of authors at the time describing the gladiator diet. This article is not controversial news, but scientific support for the existing narrative.

> If everyone around them is eating meat, where's the motive for them to abstain?

Presumably as a gladiatorial slave you wouldnt need to worry about abstaining from food choices.

I’m a marathon runner and my best runs are in full on ketosis. I’ve experimented with a vegitarian ketosis diet but never did a full marathon while eating like that, but felt pretty good otherwise.

There are some UFC fighters who eat vegetarian, paleo, keto, some trying the “warrior diet” (which I think is like paleo with some intermittent fasting...but not entirely sure what those athletes are really doing daily). It’s also worth noting most of the recent studies on gladiators also suggest they were not lean and resembled more of the strongman contest physiques.

>Presumably as a gladiatorial slave you wouldnt need to worry about abstaining from food choices.

It is worth noting that many gladiators, and Olympic competitors, were in fact not slaves and many were actually quite wealthy.

Gladiators would do alright purely off of sexual relationships, rather high-class Roman maids and matrons like Hippia actually walked away from her family to be with a gladiator. There are many rumors from the time that allege various sons of powerful people to be bastard offspring of gladiators. There's even tell of some being 'the care and suffering of women' such as one byt he name of Hermes that Martial wrote of.

You can tell how wealthy some were simply by looking at the fines issued to them. If you look at charioteers Theogenes and Porphyrius you can see good examples, Theogenes for example was once fined 2 talents for withdrawing from an event (about 250k dollars).

If you look at a 2nd century prize table from Aphrodisias you see 500-3000 drachmas and there were several games referred to as 'the 3000-drachma Games', some would see prizes of 6000 drachma and in at least one instance of 30,000 drachma (about 100 years of a solderier's pay) being paid for a single athlete just to appear. At the Panathenaic games the lowest prize was 100 amphrae of olive oil, about 225k$ worth and winners were often fed by their home city for life if they won. Diocles, another charioteer, would compete for prizes up to 60,000 sesterces at a time which would be worth 2.5-3 million dollars today and if you look at his known life time winnings you get 35.8 million sesterces making him a billionaire and then some in today's dollars.

Where did you learn all this? I feel like I could have kept reading this post forever. If you have any books to recommend, that would be amazing.

A book titled "Manthropology: The Science of Why the Modern Male Is Not the Man He Used to Be" by Peter McAllister (bahahaha I just realized that's the same name from Home Alone).

Everything in the book should be taken as liberal interpretation of history, however that being said he does cite where he gets facts and figures from so you can do your own research of the subjects.

Here's a source of the 30k figure https://books.google.com/books?id=QMgsAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA74&lpg=P...

Here's an article that actually puts Diocles worth 15 billion https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/794...

>It is worth noting that many gladiators, and Olympic competitors, were in fact not slaves and many were actually quite wealthy.

Hence my qualifier gladiatorial slave. Yes presumably a free gladiator had more choice than a gladiatorial slave.

Your use of “many”, doesn’t shed much light on the subject, by all accounts most were slaves, free gladiators were definitely the exception not the rule. But yes some were the superstar athletes of their day and the wealth (women) that goes along with that status.

Wikipedia On Diocles (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaius_Appuleius_Diocles):

His winnings reportedly totaled 35,863,120 sesterces, allegedly, over $15 billion in today’s dollars, an amount which could provide a year's supply of grain to the entire city of Rome

I think this was brought up in another place on HN recently, and somebody argued it's probably a couple orders of magnitude off in the conversion to "today's dollars" apart from the accuracy of the figure in sesterces.

My thought is $15 billion in today's dollars is an absurd amount for "a years supply of grain for Rome", since Rome was supposedly around a million people. $15,000 per person for food alone is more than the global per capita GDP in 2018!

>$15,000 per person for food alone is more than the global per capita GDP in 2018!

So in the United States, one acre of wheat yields an average 37.1 bushels of wheat. That's about 210,000 kcals of flour per acre using modern machinery.

If we look at https://livinghistoryfarms.wordpress.com/2015/07/28/grain-ha... we find that in the 19th century a skilled cradler could harvest 1 ½ -2 acres a day.

Grain was harvest by hand until the first century when the vallus was invented so I'm going to just estimate a difficulty increase of 4 people being able to harvest an acre in a day without a vallus or a cradle.

Beloch's 1886 estimate for the population of the empire during the reign of Augustus suggests there were 23 million European Romans, if we assume 'Rome' means the city I haven't a clue what the population would have been, if we assume the whole empire then Beloch's estimate was 54 million.

Let's just assume 1 million people with 20% of their caloric intake being grain and assume an even 2000 kcals per person.

So we need a bit over 1900 acres assuming no spoilage per million people. Wheat has a fairly narrow harvest window as you need to harvest it once it reaches a certain moisture level and if you leave it too dry too long it can easily be damaged/detached from wind and rain.

Let's assume a team of 4 people can realistically harvest, and prepare for further drying, 5 acres in the window.

That means we need 3800 people per million mouths fed a diet that gets 20% of it's kcals from wheat using ancient harvesting methods. Obviously this is an estimate but I tried to be generous in favor of the harvesting and my kcal number is likely low. Yields would also be markedly reduced back then without chemical fertilizer/herbicides/pesticides.

So 3800 people per million mouths earning 800-1000 sesterces a year ( https://www.slideshare.net/javierredondas/jobs-salariesrome ) let's assume another 10% in cost for milling (probably low) so we'll assume 3,762,000 sesterces per 1 million people for 20% of their kcal needs.

Converting sesterces to modern money is a bit tricky but at 1990 silver prices a single sesterce was worth about $1 and by mid 2010 would have been about $3.25 according to https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/spqr/money-1.h...

So anywhere from 3-12 million dollars per million people. I'm guessing this would have been more like 15-45 million dollars per million people so even with that figure we're looking at maybe 2 billion dollars for all of the Roman empire.

So yeah, I like the (IIRC) 1.5 billion dollar figure mentioned in the book I referenced elsewhere which is why I left it at 1 billion and then some in my comment.

> It is worth noting that many gladiators, and Olympic competitors, were in fact not slaves and many were actually quite wealthy.

Gladiators and Olympic competitors are completely different things. Olympic competitors were free men - I don't think slaves where allowed to participate.

Gladiators on the other hand were mostly slaves. It was considered a dishonorable occupation - basically on the level of prostitution - and therefore not suitable for a free man. If a free man partook in gladiatorial combat he would lose a number of civil rights.

Chariots were owned by wealthy free men, and presumably they would be the ones paying a fine.

I'm thinking its more to do with the fact that meat was expensive and takes much more effort to cook back then, not that they were willing to just eat grains and vegetables, likely grains and vegetables were cheap and much easier to cook.

Farmed meat was a luxury in Roman times and game or wild meat was likely also expensive enough to not be eaten every day. We live in different times.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Roman_cuisine/

https://www.historyhit.com/what-did-the-romans-eat-food-and-...

https://www.quora.com/What-did-soldiers-eat-in-the-Ancient-R...

https://www.thoughtco.com/did-roman-soldiers-eat-meat-120634

right that's the first thing I thought of as well.

If they had access to big mac they'd be eating that all the time

Totally agree. Meat is expensive, so general fighter can't get one. Another issue meat is perishable product, that's why you just can't really on meat in a war time when supply chain may be broken. It's the same idea was used during Civil War when soldiers main ration was griffins (salty flour crackers) - 2000 years and nothing changed.

Agreed... given the training regimes, they were probably consuming more than twice the amount of total food of people today. Which likely means they are eating a lot of foods from barley, etc. That doesn't preclude the intake of meat. Beyond that, it's 0.8-1.2g of protein are recommended MINIMUM daily intake to avoid diseases originating from protein deficiencies. At 220# that means 80-120g protein as a minimum. That's a fair amount, and far more than you're likely to get from vegetarian sources at the time alone.

There's also a minimum amount of essential fatty acids to consider... at the time it's not like they had canola oil. So there was definitely animal products in their diets. Revisionist theories in order to support a vegetarian agenda are pretty annoying to me. A lot of it doesn't even pass a common sense sniff test.

IIRC Barley + Lentils can give you a complete protein profile, and it's possible that maybe 1/3-1/2 of their protein intake was from non-meat sources. But I seriously doubt that even a significant minority were abstaining from meat.

80 grams of protein is 320 calories. 220lbs male needs to eat at least 2000 calories (basal metabolic rate), likely closer to 3000-4000 after all the exercise.

So protein only constitutes 12% or less of their caloric source. Just about all food have some proportion of protein. Cooked oatmeal is 16% protein by calories.

I've seen a reference in another quote that suggests 78% if diet from carb sources... that leaves 12% from meat. That is emphatically NOT vegetarian by any modern definition.

edit: could include fish, depending on the location.

Your math is off by 10%. And saying 78% carbs in no way implies the rest is meat. The remaining 22% could be non animal sources of fats and protein. I’ve done vegitarian keto where about 70% of my daily intake is non animal fat, 15-20% non animal protein and 10-15% carbs.

Could you suggest some vegetable sources of protein that might have been used at the time, that would not be considered a carb, practically speaking? I mean, it's not like they had a lot of canola oil and tofu.

Beans, grains for example? They provide carbohydrates and protein.

Given the reference to Barley as specifically a significant portion of the diet as part of that 78%, why do you think that Beans/grains would be excluded in that number?

I don't. I was listing vegetarian protein sources they might have used. Foods are not just carbohydrates or protein or fat, they're a mix. Saying 78% of their calories came from carbohydrates just describes the macronutrients their diet provided. If you were to eat just beans (not recommended!), you might arrive at a ratio of about 80-90% carbs.

Not a vegetable source, but eggs are generally considered vegetarian.

For vegetable sources, they were referred to as barley-eaters and barley is 12% protein.

Barley is not a complete protein iirc.

Also, why are people fighting so hard to insist that memebers of a pre-industrial society got 12% of their calories from animal sources (including meat)?

I could have sworn that was your position. Hang on, are you three kids in a trenchcoat?

I meant s/insist/resist/

>Could you suggest some vegetable sources of protein that might have been used at the time, that would not be considered a carb

It’s doesnt matter if a vegetable is considered a carb, that can still have a significant amount of protein.

Some that fall in that category include: broccoli, spinach, asparagus, peas, Brussels sprouts, mushrooms, (as others has said legumes).

In my own regimen when I was trying to maintain ketosis while eating vegitarian I ate a lot of seeds and nuts, they of course have carbs but significant amounts of fat/protein. Also I had tons of coconut oil and coconut butter (about the best fat you can get from an energy perspective medium chain triglyceride).

They may not have had canola, but olive oil was a big staple, and that’s an example of a non-meat that packs significant calories and fat.

> Beyond that, it's 0.8-1.2g of protein are recommended MINIMUM daily intake to avoid diseases originating from protein deficiencies.

Eating below the minimum RDA of 0.8 g/kg is unlikely to cause diseases of protein deficiency. The RDA minimum is fairly generous to allow for a certain margin of error. Most of the studies cited by https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK234922/ indicate that 0.6 g/kg is likely a sufficient reference, and that a recommendation of 0.75 g/kg allows for enough confidence to cover individual variation. There was one study cited which found a 0.8 g/kg minimum, but most of the rest found that lower values should be sufficient; it sounds like 0.8 was picked just to be on the safe side.

> At 220# that means 80-120g protein as a minimum. That's a fair amount, and far more than you're likely to get from vegetarian sources at the time alone.

I doubt that most Roman soldiers were 220#. The minimum height requirement was 5'5", and estimates are that the average height was 5'7".

> There's also a minimum amount of essential fatty acids to consider... at the time it's not like they had canola oil.

There's a certain vegetable oil that Rome and Italy are quite well known for.

I'm with you on being skeptical that they were vegetarian, but I think you're overstating the requirements a little bit. I think it's fairly likely that they ate a fairly low meat diet just due to the logistical difficulties of obtaining fresh meat or carrying preserved meat.

Olive oil is relevant:

The word "linoleic" derived from the Greek word linon (flax). Oleic means "of, relating to, or derived from oil of olive" or "of or relating to oleic acid" because saturating the omega-6 double bond produces oleic acid.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linoleic_acid

>Agreed... given the training regimes, they were probably consuming more than twice the amount of total food of people today.

Likely. Guys like Brian Shaw eat 10-12k kcals a day but they are walking around near 400lbs, amateur and semi-pro male powerlifters and oly lifters will eat 3-6k for maintenance and lean bulk depending on their size and weight class and that's just an hour or two of lifting 3-5x a week.

They'd have been shorter and likely leaner so I'd say 3k-4k kcals is a good guess based on my experience in strength sports and martial arts.

>Revisionist theories in order to support a vegetarian agenda are pretty annoying to me. A lot of it doesn't even pass a common sense sniff test.

That Plinius with his historical revisionism. Calling gladiators barley-eaters is obvious propaganda from the vegetarian lobby of ancient Rome.

I'm not saying that a bulk of their calories came from non-animal sources... the bulk of most meat eaters' calories comes from non-animal sources. That said, I find it entirely improbably that they were abstaining from meat.

Abstaining from meat isn't a new thing though. In many historical cultures banning meat from certain groups was enforced as an indication of status for those that were allowed.

This is suspected to be part of the reason for the neotenic expression of blond hair and blue eyes that emerged in Scandinavians, as you would normally get enough vitamin D from meat sources, so the evolutionary pressure for very fair skin is presumed to have come from the lower strata of society trying to live off grains and other vegetables while getting very little sunlight.

> 80-120g protein as a minimum. That's a fair amount, and far more than you're likely to get from vegetarian sources at the time alone.

The article says legionnaires and gladiators were eating 5000-6000 calories daily, with 78% from primarily wheat and barley. An average ancient whole wheat would probably be somewhere near 15% protein by weight. Daily consumption of those grains even on the low end of their estimates would contain well over 100g of protein.

clickbait headline.

"The legionnaire's daily ration consisted of 78% carbohydrates, mainly from wheat or barley. This diet has the advantages to provide slowly absorbed carbohydrates, to be provide high energy, and to be easily digestible. It provided good intestinal ballast, and was able to restore the energy reserves of the organism (Fornaris and Aubert, 1998; Lemon et al., 1992). The best fighters in the ancient world were essentially vegetarian."

78% from carbs != vegetarian. by their measures, I'm pretty sure most people are vegetarian.

Yeah this article is a little too glib in its conclusion. Obviously, 'ate plenty of vegetable matter' !== vegetarian. Then without a discussion of logistics and pricing of specific foods at the time, its odd to try and conclude intention vs necessity, etc.

> we should expect that gladiators had a high protein diet. However, analysis of their bones has put forward the hypothesis that gladiators were vegetarian athletes

Who says that a mostly vegetarian is low-protein? No mention of specific foods that were eaten in ancient Rome, such as lupines ("lupini beans"), which are low carb high protein and easily dehydrated, transported, etc, and would make an obvious staple for soldiers.

As you say, what if the roman soldiers ate mostly lupines + dried fish? And perhaps not because they thought it was ideal for a warrior (though it may be), but simply because they were easy to carry?

”If everyone around them is eating meat”

Is that likely? Per calorie, meat is more expensive, and people weren’t that rich, on average, at the time. Also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Roman_cuisine states: John E. Stambaugh writes that meat "was scarce except at sacrifices and the dinner parties of the rich."

Also, gladiators may have been loading carbs to gain a protective layer of fat. https://archive.archaeology.org/0811/abstracts/gladiator.htm...:

”Gladiators, it seems, were fat. Consuming a lot of simple carbohydrates, such as barley, and legumes, like beans, was designed for survival in the arena. Packing in the carbs also packed on the pounds. "Gladiators needed subcutaneous fat," Grossschmidt explains. "A fat cushion protects you from cut wounds and shields nerves and blood vessels in a fight." Not only would a lean gladiator have been dead meat, he would have made for a bad show. Surface wounds "look more spectacular," says Grossschmidt. "If I get wounded but just in the fatty layer, I can fight on," he adds. "It doesn't hurt much, and it looks great for the spectators."”

I'm trying to imagine a gash in my fat gladiator arm that's big enough to see from across the Colosseum and describing it as "doesn't hurt much."

It's just a flesh wound!

Blood conveniently is an intense red and it can spread over a large area without losing much of its color. A nosebleed, for example, can look quite dramatic.

Pain also is highly subjective, and can depend on psychological factors. A gladiator may have thought “that looks as if I fought hard, so they will let me live, and it is survivable”, rather than “that’s half an inch deep, bleeds like , and I will never be able to use that arm again!”

Regardless, that gash in your fat arm easily beats an equally sized gash hitting a major artery or cutting into a bone.

> An interesting hypothesis

This is not a hypothesis (a speculation to be confirmed or denied), this is a conclusion derived from a series of palaeoethnobotanical and stable isotope analysis studies.

Ethical and environmental debates aside, I chose to be a vegetarian 10 years ago as a way of forcing myself to have diversity in what I consume. It was too easy to fall into the trap of eating junk.

Giving up meat doesn't ensure health by any stretch, but it does force you to consider and plan what you eat. It's worked out well for me.

aside: dietary preferences aren't an affront to someone else's lifestyle or eating decisions. I don't judge meat eaters, I hope you won't judge those who choose not to.

I recently started preferring the vegetarian option over the non-veg one. And what you say exactly is the same problem I am facing, having to come up with what to eat. With meat its really easy to come up with what to eat, but whenever I try to think of something vegetarian it gets hard.

Do you have any tips for someone starting to switch to a vegetarian diet? Especially when it comes to variety and how I can do this a bit easier?

Look at Indian cuisine. They have a ton of vegetarian options.

> "Whenever I try to think of something vegetarian it gets hard. Do you have any tips for someone starting to switch to a vegetarian diet? Especially when it comes to variety and how I can do this a bit easier?"

Having the raw ingredients available is like knowing syntax/functions to a programming language but not having the experience to structure it. There are so many frameworks/libraries/tutorials (recipes) that already exist so you don't have to spend copious amounts of time with trial and error.

What I do is I'll sit down and search the web for vegetarian recipes that look good and commit to making them on certain days.

Also I never thought I'd be recommending anything Buzzfeed related to anyone, but actually a good source is "Tasty Vegetarian" (https://www.facebook.com/tastyvegetarian/) which posts random vegetarian recipes that are really easy to make (I've had really good ones and also some kind of bad ones. If it's bad, usually the comments will be full of people complaining)

Look into Indian cooking. They've lots of delecious vegetarian cuisines.

This is certainly true, but Indian cooking is a commitment. You need to have several spices on hand (turmeric, cumin seeds, mustard seed, both coriander seed and powder, fenugreek, kashmiri chili, cinnamon bark, asafoetida, a decent garam masala, fresh or frozen curry leaves); you will need to understand how to grind these spices and then temper them in oil or ghee; you will need to have a variety of legumes (split dried chickpeas, split dried mung bean, red lentils); you will also need basmati rice and yogurt; you might like to have tamarind and mango pickle; you will need the ability to constantly mash together ginger, garlic, and fresh chili; you must have the capacity to finely chop onions.

Indian food has subtleties, and it's not easy for the beginner.

South indian food is super simple at the core level - heat oil, add mustard seeds, when they pop, add asefoteda/fenugreek & curry / spices (I buy them at a local Indian store - usu. curry + cayenne), then whatever veggies you want (green beans or potatoes are nice)

You forgot cumin seeds. Add some coconut milk and you get an excellent dish.

It's really not that difficult if you take a few classes.

Not vegetarian, but have some related experience.

The problem isn't vegetarian vs. non-vegetarian, the problem is moving away from whatever diet you grew up in. There is a ton of "a meal looks like this" knowledge you don't really know you've absorbed, but changing it means you have to learn new things. This is especially true about achieving overall reasonable balance.

Two suggestions. 1) Look at major international vegetarian cuisines (e.g. Buddist, various Indian regions, some middle eastern) and learn some basics, practice until they are easy. 2) Find a broad range cookbook like "How to cook everything vegetarian" pitched and your comfort/skill level with cooking.

If you are really worried or confused about dietary balance, read something like "becoming vegetarian" or the like, a nutrition book rather than cook book. Actually, read a few, it will help you avoid the diet fad issues that plague food & nutrition. Question anything you feel sounds extreme.

I found the same thing when switching to a vegetarian (now vegan) diet--you experience a whole new universe of cuisine you never had before. For example, I'd never even heard of nutritional yeast, but it's absolutely delicious and now always readily available in my pantry.

It's easier, in my personal experience, to live on a repetitive diet largely consisting of rotating meats. But when you're constrained to fruits/vegetables/grains/seeds, it becomes very boring quickly and forces you to be creative. Then you suddenly have a lot more interesting culinary experiences.

My religion(I'm a recent convert) has frequent fasts of vegan, or nearly vegan eating, and it's HUGELY expanded my culinary repertoire.

Why would that work? Pringles aren't made from meat.

#1 - ham and other processed meats are in a lot of "real" meals. Easy to avoid by simply convincing yourself you can't eat those foods and can only eat veggies.

#2 - pringles/chips are easier to avoid because they're snacks. Just avoid all snack food.

To extend the aside a bit: everyone's body (and microbiome) is different. We should really never judge dietary choices made for personal health/lifestyle reasons. Because what works for our body won't necessarily work for anyone else's. They have different metabolisms, different microbiomes, different allergies and sensitivities, they're going to react differently to different diets.

I mean, I guess one could quibble with where others get their food (sustainable vs non-sustainable sources, for instance), but beyond that, if it's just a personal choice for personal reasons - it's really not debatable.

It's when people start proselytizing their diet choices that they become fair game. Or if they publicly advertise that these choices were made for reasons of ethics or sustainability (which are thoroughly debatable and really should be continuously re-examined).

In my experience it's not the orientation in pretty much any situation or choice, it's the zealotry that seems to accompany new converts. I'm not sure if this trait mellows with age (and experience) or ossifies...

I've gone almost the opposite direction... I seem to have a negative reaction to so many foods. When I gave up all heavy carbs, I've done much better and lost about 60# (I'm still fat and diabetic, but still working on it). But just about any foods with any significant carbohydrate I seem to respond negatively to. When sticking to mostly meet and greens, I feel significantly better.

It's worth noting that I seem to be allergic to legumes (and cranberries). So that precludes complete protein from non-animal sources. My biggest issue is actually eating the more fatty meats. I've also never cared for organ meat of any kind. I'm getting more used to it now, but it isn't always easy to swallow so to speak.

You may want to look into leaky gut syndrome and how it (may) cause allergies.

> eating the more fatty meats

Try cooking with duck fat. That stuff is amazing.

Foie gras is absolutely delicious.

If you're ever in Madison, WI, you should visit the restaurant 'Pig in a Fur Coat'. They have this foie gras mousse thing: a dollop of foie gras on a cream puff smeared with fig preserve [0].

[0] http://www.apiginafurcoat.com/menu.html

Leaky gut syndrome appears to be mostly bullshit.

https://www.badgut.org/information-centre/a-z-digestive-topi...

The real issue with meat was that it spoils easily on a military campaign and it's hard to be cured on campsites. That's logistic 101, the nutritionist angle is not needed and borderline revisionistic.

If you prefer citations instead of logic "The logistic of Roman army at war" by Roth also gives out all the needed information and points to the archeological evidence.

The provided food was what could be transported, while the foraged included game and other meats, in moderations because of costs, spoiling, and other.

The article says the higher levels of strontium in their bones is from vegetables, but this source[1] says it's from consuming a tonic of plant ashes after their fights. They're trying to then correlate this to vegetarianism, but it's unrelated: they were artificially increasing their strontium-calcium ratio.

It's pretty well documented that bread and porridge were the staple foods of the Roman world[2]. You could mix anything into your porridge, from vegetables and dried fruits to expensive things like olive oil, meat and fish. Garum, a fish-based condiment, was put on everything.

Their higher carb intake is probably not because they were avoiding meat or protein, but because they just needed more calories, and carbs like grains and beans are a cheap plentiful source of them. There were many different kinds of gladiator from all walks of life, so it's insane to think at least some didn't eat meat. In fact, in the bone studies quoted, at least 2 of the 22 gladiators analyzed showed elevated consumption of meat.

If you're a slave gladiator and your owner is a cheap bastard, then your dinner (like the rest of the poor people of Rome) will be mostly carbs. But if you're a well-off gladiator, you probably ate meat when you felt like it.

[1] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/10/141020090006.h... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Roman_cuisine

>Garum, a fish-based condiment, was put on everything.

Aside: It's always been so interesting to me to learn about the smells, flavors, and real life of people back then. Garum is a perfect example of this. The Romans really did put the stuff on everything. It's not just a fish based condiment, it was a very integral part of Roman food and life. You make it by fermenting fish in salt in the Mediterranean sun for a few months and then go about straining the 'pulp' until it runs clear (there is a LOT more to it than that, but thems the basics). Think something like fish sauce. Modern versions are very savory and deep in flavor; super umami sauce. Such things are, today, very foreign seeming.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLDlUGXJMFY

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garum

https://www.amazon.com/Nettuno-Colatura-Anchovy-Sauce-Campan... (a modern type of Garum)

A large part of being a soldier was that you had your own land that you could produce enough food to survive and buy equipment go to war. War where you could capture slaves to work your land and and riches to afford more land. The idea of the state providing the means and equipment to send soldiers to war only happened in the later era where men couldn't get land because of the artistocrats owning it all and the state had to outfit them so they could go to war.

This is true for The early and middle republic Rome, but after the Marian Reforms, and especially during the Principate, Rome maintained a state sponsored standing army, with standardized arms.

Of course after the crisis and eventual fall of Rome, it went back the older way

> previous reviews of the scientific literature have concluded that a well-planned and varied vegetarian diet can meet the needs of athletes, as it was for Roman gladiators or legionnaires.

What does this even mean? "Meet the needs" is relative to a certain quality of life. Even if the gladiators or legionnaires were vegetarian (questionable even with the paper's assumptions), who knows what their quality of life was. Probably not acceptable to our standards.

Vegetarian diets were easier to transport, so it could be a primarily logistical issue. An Army moves on its stomach. Much of Napoleons speed over land was due to how quickly and stably they could move food due to canning.

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/03/01/147751097/why-...

> Considering the modern diets of strength athletes, we should expect that gladiators had a high protein diet.

Why should we expect that? Gladiators were slaves. I would expect slave owners to feed their slaves as cheaply as possible. What evidence is there that they even considered diet to be a factor in athletic performance and that they would try to maximize nutrition if they did?

Meat was expensive, grain was cheap.

A good resume from Nutrition Facts with a few other related papers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2e9sLsCowaE

Ah yes Michael Greger the plant-based quack M.D

https://i.imgur.com/Bl5Kq4w.jpg

Dr. Greger just released a video about this, too -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2e9sLsCowaE

The reasoning I heard was that since most gladiators were unlikely to make it past the first few fights, why waste expensive food on them?

For celebrity gladiators I imagine the calculation was different.

All the time, never any deviation? I understand it was expensive, so they never got a treat for doing good?

> The legionnaire's daily ration consisted of 78% carbohydrates, mainly from wheat or barley

While calling that "vegetarian" is technically correct, it's not really what people understand by "vegetarian".

What, wheat and barley are not vegetarian?

GP's point was:

Maximus's diet consists of 78% cereals and grains and 22% meats. Is Maximus a vegetarian?

I don't understand, where does it say that the remaining 22% are from meats?

It also doesn't say that the remaining 22% aren't from meat.

There are these things called "vegetables" which some people eat. You may have heard of them?

And then there's dairy (like milk and cheese). Just because someone's diet is vegetarian, it does not mean that they must exclusively eat wheat or barley.

> 78%

That was my take also - when eating 5000 calories that a lot of it is pure carb 'fuel', yes it's a low protein %, but probably a similar protein amount (in grams) to a standard diet.

After reading the article I picked out this sentence:

> The best fighters in the ancient world were essentially vegetarian.

"Essentially vegetarian" is not the same as "vegetarian". I would bet most endurance athletes are "essentially vegetarian" in that they eat way more grains than proteins, but they are not vegetarian in the sense than they have a reason (moral or otherwise) to abstain from meat.

How so? The only thing I assume when somebody tells me they're vegetarian is that they don't eat meat.

I am not surprised at all. I am from India. Most people I knew in my childhood were vegetarians. I knew a few wrestlers who practiced in the "akhadas" of Varanasi. Big guys, all "Hanuman" devotees, celibates (Brahmacharis) and vegetarians. Sushil Kumar the wrestler, Olympics medal winner, is a vegetarian: https://www.petaindia.com/blog/sushil-kumar/

EDIT: People are getting triggered left and right. Man, this is the truth in the East. We were\are mostly vegetarians. Only recently did we start eating western food. Only recently did we see people getting terribly obese and chronically sick.

What's surprising?

You can get enough protein from milk based products and eggs.

One scoop (40g) whey contains 25-30g protein

Eggs are not vegetarian.

Eggs are not vegan, but they are vegetarian ("ovo-vegetarian")

Please read the definitions clearly. How can an animal product be vegetarian? Does it even make sense?

Ovo-vegetarianism = eggs + vegetarian food. This is certainly not eggs = vegetarian.

I'm just explaining what is actually being communicated in the veg culture (at least in the US). Just about any vegetarian and vegan knows the distinction: vegetarians are known to consume dairy/eggs/honey, vegans do not. If a vegetarian doesn't eat eggs, they will say "I'm a vegetarian, but I don't eat eggs either"

So basically when you read "vegetarian" you can safely assume it's shorthand for "ovo-lacto-vegetarian"

You're using a definition of "vegetarian" that is not standard in the US (and, I'm guessing, Europe). Vegetarian = foods other than animal flesh. Vegan = plant based foods only.

Different diets are practiced by all manner of different communities in the US for many different reasons. There are more possible variations than we could ever agree upon terms for.

Some people consider honey non-vegetarian because it comes from animals. Some don't eat the crackers shaped like goldfish. Some will eat dairy, but only if it's known to be processed without certain animal-derived additives. I once met someone who had a simple rule: he didn't eat anything with opaque eyelids.

(Personally, I just aim for 99.9% vegan and I don't worry if some sauce has a tiny bit of fish dust in it.)

If milk or honey can be considered to be part of a vegetarian diet, then presumably unfertilised eggs can too. Roughly speaking, at least in the UK, if you don't eat dead animals you are vegetarian, and if you avoid all animal products where possible then you are vegan.

Mind you, the only people I know who have eaten human placenta all classify themselves as vegan.

Language confusion. In the west, "vegetarian" usually means "milk and eggs, but no meat". I understand that in India it normally implies lacto-vegetarianism (ie milk but no eggs or meat).

This wasn't always the case, by the way. Originally, "vegetarian" in the west was usually used to mean what we now call vegan.

Protein isn't the issue. Even now, most plants have as much %DV protein as calories. Back then, when carbohydrate content of plants was much lower, it would have been difficult to get inadequate protein.

Isn't it more likely they were vegetarians not by choice but because they were essentially slaves, being fed the cheapest food possible (grains, etc)?

Though I'm sure many will use this as evidence in favor of vegetarianism... "Yeah but even the mighty gladiators were vegans!"

Anecdote storytime; I was actually born and raised into a vegetarian household, and spent the first approx 22 years of my life as a vegetarian. Then I switched to eating meat (really, just chicken and fish, maybe red meat once a year) and for me I feel healthier this way. When eating meat I can just eat less total volume of food to get the same amount of calories and nutrients compared to fueling up on a plant based diet. I love running, hiking and rock climbing, and nothing quite hits the spot like a nice protein rich chicken sandwich after a day in the mountains. YMMV, but for me, for now, I think I will continue with my consumption of animal flesh. I think to pull off the veg diet you have to carefully measure and monitor things, you can't just omit entire food groups from your diet and expect to be healthy. It's very naive but many vegan and vegetarians think this way; As long as the food has that VeganTM label, it must be good, why bother even checking the ingredients?

Tldr; ex-vegetarian since birth prefers chicken sandwiches for climber fuel

> "It's very naive but many vegan and vegetarians think this way; As long as the food has that VeganTM label, it must be good, why bother even checking the ingredients?"

This has not been my experience. The vegetarians and vegans I meet are typically very conscious of what they're putting into their bodies.

The evidence is that you can be a great climber (the world's greatest free-solo climber Alex Honnold is a vegetarian.) or a gladiator without meat , and the humans' insatiable meat consumption is ruining the environment even more quickly than oil.

But I wish more people who ate meat had your disposition--at least have it in moderation rather than every single kind of meat piled on a plate 3 times a day 7 days a week which is basically the norm and sadly barely hyperbolic.

You're right, I'm sure there are alot of very health conscious vegetarians who actively monitor their health. Perhaps that's actually more common. My experience has been, perhaps contrarily, that the vegan/vegetarians I've met think that by simply omitting meat they don't need to be concerned about monitoring their health. Since that was my observation and was counter intuitive I thought I'd share.

I appreciate your experience. For what it's worth I didn't downvote you, but my guess is it happened because your post comes across as mildly aggressive toward veganism even though that probably wasn't your intention.

Bullshit. Maybe they were forced to be a vegetarian when they couldn't get meat.

Also, it's not like they had modern vegetarian protein powders and supplements which are most likely being used in their assessment of the modern vegetarian athlete.

And it's super flawed reasoning to assume that because they have markers of eating plant-based food, they therefore only ate plant-based food.

This just seems like vegetarian propaganda masquerading as science.

It's not even new information -- it has been known by historians for decades that most non-elite Romans had no ability to regularly consume meat and they existed on a heavy carbohydrate diet supplemented by seafood when they could get it.

It's one of the things remarked on by contemporary Romans about their Germanic and Celtic foes -- that they ate so much meat, that they used 'disgusting' animal fats (lard and butter) instead of olive oils in their cooking. And that they were much taller. Likely because of higher meat and dairy consumption over several generations.

The Roman agricultural economy could not support high meat consumption.

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