"Gladiatrices " Topic

Nice!

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Amicalement
Armand

No woman with an ounce of sense and a choice in the matter would wear armour like that, designed perfectly to guide a sword strike directly into the breastbone. They would have worn exactly the same style of breastplate as men would.

Cheers,
John

Actually that was the point: Most Gladiators wore limb armour to prevent loss of limbs, but the body was unprotected SO a swordsman could get a kill. That's what they were there for.

And of course you are assuming that the folks in the arena had a choice.

I wrote something more earlier but seem to have lost it. If it turns up later, apologies for the duplication.

Gladiators may not have had a lot of choice but their owners and trainers did. Gladiators were a very expensive commodity to train and maintain. Far fewer of them died in the arena than is generally assumed. Even the losers typically lived to fight again if they'd demonstrated that they could put on a good show.

The one thing a gladiator's owner or trainer would not do is set them up to be an easy kill. That would have been a quick path to financial ruin.

Cheers,
John

They weren't an easy kill. They were trained swordsmen. As you said, they were there to provide a display of skill.

The women here are no more exposed than the majority of gladiators, who also didn't wear body armour.

And a gladiator's owner was paid for his gladiators by whomever was putting on the games. He was paid more if they died, he wasn't out anything. If they lived, he got to sell their services again.

The crowds wanted blood, they got blood. Gladiators generally didn't wear body armour.

Clearly these are fantasy figurines. They have the typical fantasy women's "breast"plate, that, if used in reality, would direct a blow directly into a lethal target area. No woman would wear such a thing.

Incidentally, I don't imagine a gladiator's owner would go to the trouble of providing a female gladiator with such expensive armour either when, as you say, gladiators tended to wear little or no body armour.

Cheers,
John