Although we generally associate the expression "going on a diet" with the drastic reduction of food to recover the lost figure, don't be fooled, because you can only recover what you once had . The term diet derives from the Latin diaeta which could be translated as a balanced lifestyle. So, if the Romans already knew this, let's put aside those brutal diets that simply involve stopping eating and let's get back to the diaeta … of the gladiators.
In every school of gladiators (ludus ) slaves, prisoners of war and even free men thirsty for blood or glory practiced and exercised in the art of fighting to emerge victorious from combat in the arena. Logically, his physical preparation and diet were also very important. Contrary to what we might think, due to the images of muscular and stocky men that movies and TV have burned into our retinas, their diet was not rich in fats and animal proteins, but quite the opposite. Scientists from the Universities of Bern and Vienna have studied the remains of dozens of gladiators found in a necropolis in Ephesus (an ancient city located in present-day Turkey) and have concluded that their diet consisted mainly of cereals, legumes, vegetables and hardly any meat. So we could consider them almost vegetarian. So, his diet was indistinguishable from that of the rest of the mortals? Something was different, because comparing the bones of the gladiators with that of other bodies of the time, those of the fighters present higher levels of certain elements, such as strontium. And what was it due to? Then to your energy drink.
Just as athletes today take energy bars or isotonic drinks to recover from exertion, gladiators drank a concoction of vegetable ashes dissolved in water and sweetened with honey. Yes, but without giving them wings.
And about Viagra, it's not exactly that they consumed it, but that it was obtained from their bodies:it was believed that the sweat and blood of gladiators could cure impotence -I suppose because of the virility of these fighters-. In fact, some merchants dedicated to the noble art of deception of the naive waited in the spoliario (place where dead gladiators were stripped naked and the mortally wounded were auctioned off) to collect the substances of love and sell them in small vials.
Source:The inventions of the ancients
Illustration:Xurxo