All language subtitles for Colosseum.S01E04.720p.WEBRip.x264-GalaxyTV Eng

[crowd roaring]

- I'm ready.

[dramatic music]

- Right, your opponents
are strong, but you're fast.

So use your speed and remember:
You stay alert.

♪ ♪

Look at this.

"as for mevia,
the roman gladiatrix,

She's an insult to her people
and her sex."

♪ ♪

[crowd chanting "mevia!"]

♪ ♪

- The colosseum
is the roman empire

Distilled to its most
basic essence.

♪ ♪

- It is a symbol of conquest.

♪ ♪

It is a symbol of dominance.

It's a symbol
of imperial power

Radiating throughout
the roman world.

♪ ♪

- Now.

♪ ♪

- Any emperor had
the colosseum at his disposal

To use as a tool to reassert
his power and authority.

♪ ♪

- The message
to the roman people

Is that life is a combat.

♪ ♪

- It was also
a judicial warning.

Do not test the power of rome.

It was a
death penalty offense.

♪ ♪

- If you live by the sword...

♪ ♪

You die by the sword.

♪ ♪

- It demonstrates the power
of the colosseum.

It made slaves into heroes

Upending the power structure
of rome.

♪ ♪

- The colosseum
will come to symbolize

The rise and fall of rome.

♪ ♪

- It's all there.

The blood, the glory,
the magnificence,

And the flaws that made rome

The greatest empire
that europe has ever seen.

♪ ♪

Narrator: It's 107 a.D.

The colosseum has been
open for 27 years

And stands as the ultimate
symbol of roman values.

- The colosseum was the purest
expression of the roman empire.

Put simply, it was the symbol
of how to live as a roman

And how to die as a roman
with strength,

With courage, and with honor.

- Let the games begin.

[cheers and applause]

♪ ♪

Narrator: But now,
controversial new fighters

Are stepping into the arena.

Both: Hail caesar!

♪ ♪

Narrator: Women.

♪ ♪

- Female gladiators or also
known as a gladiatrix

Were extremely uncommon
in roman society

For several reasons.

Most of all because they
represented an inversion.

Gladiators embodied
masculine energy.

♪ ♪

Narrator: This twist
on gladiatorial combat

Is supported by emperor trajan

Who came to power nine years
earlier in 98 a.D.

- Trajan was
an amazing character.

He was a tough general.
He was incredibly successful.

He was unpretentious.
He was immensely popular.

He was really chosen
as the ideal emperor

From the beginning.

[crowd cheering]

- Trajan had
an interesting self-image.

Best emperor.

That was his self-image.
The best.

And he saw himself as rome's
emperor par excellence.

He took all the best qualities
of his predecessors,

But also expanded rome's empire
to an unprecedented level.

Narrator:
During his 19-year reign,

Trajan pushes the boundary
of rome

To its greatest ever extent,
winning arabia,

Armenia, mesopotamia,
and dacia,

Which is modern-day romania.

By the end of trajan's rule,

The empire will stretch
across 2 million square miles.

♪ ♪

The victories bring
hundreds of thousands

Of prisoners of war to rome,

Including female fighters
from dacia.

They provide
the perfect opportunity

For fresh entertainment.

- Trajan might have looked
at a female gladiator

As yet another sign
of his greatness

And his ability to bring ever
new and more exotic spectacle

To the people of rome.

- Politics is partly
show business.

The audiences in the colosseum
expected more

And more forbidden
and fascinating things.

A fighting woman
was the ultimate new delicacy

To please the jaded appetites
of the roman crowd.

♪ ♪

Narrator: But one gladiatrix
is different.

Mevia.

[crowd cheering]

She is a rarity.

A free citizen of rome--

And that fact enrages
the popular satirist, juvenal.

♪ ♪

- Juvenal expresses
a real social anxiety.

There's a conventional
moral attitude

That rome had grown soft

And that old-style
roman virtues

Had virtually disappeared.

There was also a worry
when fads

Such as women practicing
as gladiators come in

That this will somehow tear
the fabric of roman society.

♪ ♪

- Fighting women might be seen
as a dilution

Of what made rome great.

It was also something that you,
you know,

You wouldn't see a roman do.

So in many ways,
it was a menace.

It was a threat
which was threatening rome.

♪ ♪

Narrator: Mevia's journey
to the colosseum

Most likely began
in rome city slums.

- We know the name mevia
from--from

The writings of juvenal,

But we also know it's a very
familiar plebeian name

From rome itself
from descriptions.

- Rome was built
on a malarial swamp

And often, the living
conditions were very cramped

And very crowded with
multi-generational families

Often living only
in two or three rooms.

- For a girl
in an average family,

It was a pretty tough life.

♪ ♪

- Hey!

♪ ♪

What did you call me?

♪ ♪

- I don't want to hear of you
fighting again, understand?

- I hate you.

♪ ♪

- Mevia, come help me here.

- They were expected to help
out with domestic chores

From an early age.

They had to help their mother

Do all of the menial jobs
around the household.

But above all,
what you're expected to do

Is learn the sort of
womanly virtues,

Domestic skills,
organizing the household,

Preparing food,
weaving, mending clothes.

♪ ♪

- Girls received no
formal education

And would be put to work
as young as age ten,

And one can imagine
someone like mevia

Falling into that category.

♪ ♪

Narrator: From the earliest
days of his reign,

Trajan knows the value
of spectacle.

And even rome's poorest could
attend games in the colosseum.

♪ ♪

Where they sat
reflected their status.

- We're this way.

♪ ♪

- The people who were at the
very top of society, senators,

Equestrians, the really
important people in rome

Were the ones who sat closest
down to the sands.

And as you went further up,

You got through the middling
ranks of roman society

Until finally, you reached
the poorest ranks of citizens,

And beyond them
were slaves and women.

That tells you something about

How roman society
viewed women,

About what their place
in the social order was.

- The working class
and plebeians like mevia

Could go to the colosseum
for entertainment.

In their daily lives,

There was very little time
or opportunity for such games,

So this would have been a very
special occasion for them.

♪ ♪

- Gladiators were pop
culture figures.

One of the ways that we know
that gladiators were popular

And we know that their names
were known

Is because there was
essentially merchandise.

There were things that were
almost action figures.

There were lamps
with the likenesses

Of gladiators on them.
There were plates.

We know this because these
kinds of things have been found

In archeological sites
across the roman empire.

♪ ♪

Narrator: Gladiators were
traditionally men

Until emperor trajan breaks
the mold with female fighters.

♪ ♪

- For your pleasure
and entertainment.

By order of our
conquering emperor himself,

These two prisoners of war
will now fight to the death.

Both: Hail caesar!

♪ ♪

- Trajan knew that
every emperor is judged

By the quality of the spectacle
in the arena

By the games themselves.

He also knows that
a female gladiator

Will go against all the
principles of roman patriarchy.

So on the one hand,

He's paying lip service
to tradition,

To the status quo.

While at the same time
upping the ante

By giving the people of rome

The new spectacle
of female gladiators.

♪ ♪

- The female prisoners
of war were fierce.

They're not really
seen as human.

They're just seen
as fighting machines.

♪ ♪

They fought to the death
purely for the pleasure

And entertainment
of the roman crowd.

♪ ♪

[crowd cheering]

♪ ♪

- The romans had no problem
whatsoever with violent sport,

And that's what rome wanted
to instill among its citizens.

Don't be afraid.

Be strong. Go out and conquer.

You are roman.

♪ ♪

- Mevia must have
been awestruck,

But what's interesting
about mevia

Is that it doesn't repulse her.

♪ ♪

But there's a spark.

There's something about
how she's been brought up

Or just something in her soul

That says I want more.

♪ ♪

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

Narrator:
Mevia's childhood in rome

Comes at a time
when the lives of women,

Especially plebeian women,
are not valued.

- It's quite unusual for us
to hear of the names

Of roman women who aren't
the--the absolute elite class.

They are 50% of the population,

So there are a lot
of them around,

But they're almost absent
in the historical record.

Narrator: What little
we do know about women

Comes from the writings

Of influential authors
like juvenal.

- Juvenal was perhaps
the greatest

Of the roman satirists,

And he speaks
in a certain persona, right?

Juvenal has his own persona,
which is the angry persona.

So there's a lot of hyperbole,
a lot of exaggeration,

And a lot of caricature.

- Of all the literary forms
that existed

In the ancient world,

Satire is the most
purely roman.

It was a bit
of a safety valve.

It was very edgy because
you have a person taking shots

At everything they see
going wrong in society.

- Satire does, of course,

Purport to deal
with the real situation,

And the sense among
the upper classes at this time

When juvenal is writing is that
the real rome is losing ground

And falling into decay.

- Every empire at its height
combined two things.

Superior arrogance is always
mixed with a gnawing insecurity

And fear that everything
is about to be lost.

That decadence and perversion

Is somehow
undermining society.

Everything's rotten.
Is there a worm in the apple?

- There's an extraordinary
piece of work

Written by juvenal
called "satire six"

Where we hear about this kind
of golden age in the world

Where women were very demure,
where they knew their place,

Where they didn't challenge
the men in their lives at all.

And this is really what
the romans want the women

In their world to be.

- They aren't allowed
the vote.

They don't have
a lot of legal rights.

There is a stereotype
that women were weak,

Both mentally and physically,

And this led to a lot
of restrictions on their legal

And social standing.

- [sobbing]

Narrator: The life expectancy
of a plebeian woman

Was just 20 to 30 years.

♪ ♪

- The statistics
for infant mortality

And maternal mortality
are dismal in ancient rome.

♪ ♪

- A roman woman might have
nine pregnancies

And maybe two living children

Who make it past
the age of seven.

They married so young

And they became pregnant
at such a young age

That it could be a death
sentence to have children.

♪ ♪

- In roman law, the legal age
of marriage for girls was 12.

♪ ♪

Girls marrying out
of the family needed a dowry.

So to go with them, you'd have
to settle property on them.

Of course,
because they're marrying out,

Any property settled on the
woman would leave the family.

So of course, this made
having girls expensive.

♪ ♪

- The options open to mevia
were really very few.

If you look at the number
of occupations

That are listed for men,
it numbers around 225.

There are only 35 for women.

♪ ♪

Among those 35 were baker,
laundress, midwife,

And of course,
actor or prostitute,

But you didn't wanna be
an actor or a prostitute.

That was just
the lowest rung of society.

♪ ♪

- Those who appeared as
performers in the public eye

Were considered infamous.

- By law, gladiators fall
in the class of those

That are more or less
untouchable.

They're like prostitutes.

Gladiators use their bodies
to please the masses,

And that's one reason why they
have this kind of standing.

[cheers and applause]

♪ ♪

Narrator: Juvenal's writings
suggest that towards the end

Of trajan's second
military campaign in dacia,

Mevia makes a bold decision.

♪ ♪

- Despite roman society's
judgment on gladiators,

They actually made
a lot of money.

They were celebrities
in their time.

Wasn't only an opportunity
to win their freedom.

It could also be an opportunity
to gain enormous fame.

And in the case of mevia,

To escape
from your social class.

♪ ♪

- I wonder if she
looked at the kind of

Superstar gladiators around
and thought well, you know,

There's nothing much
in life ahead of me.

Why not have a go?

♪ ♪

- Mevia undertakes
a very dangerous path.

If she fails, her failure
is attributed to all women.

If she succeeds,
she violates the norm.

[cheers and applause]

♪ ♪

[weapons clacking,
fighters shouting]

♪ ♪

- Power comes from the base.
Speed from the arms.

♪ ♪

Narrator:
To become a gladiatrix,

Mevia needs to enroll
in a training school.

The most important in rome
is run by trajan's close ally,

Quintus turbo.

- Halt! Halt!

I want you to think about
what is at stake in that arena.

Fight.

- What we know about
quintus turbo

Comes from an inscription
on a tombstone.

He was a politician,
he was a military man,

But he was also the procurator
of the ludus magnus,

Which was the great
gladiator school of rome.

So of course,
it's a great responsibility

Because the ludus is owned
by the emperor himself.

So all big decisions
that would need to be made

About the ludus
would have to go through him.

He's really responsible
for the success of the ludus.

♪ ♪

- Good.

♪ ♪

- Recruiting someone
like mevia

Into the ludus magnus
is a two-way street,

And there's tremendous risk.

On the one hand, the amount
of intensive training

And expensive training
would have to go

Into bringing mevia up
to colosseum standards.

That's a very, very
substantial investment.

On the other hand, the payoffs
were also quite substantial

Because if she were a hit,

Well, there'd be
no stopping her.

♪ ♪

- Sir.

♪ ♪

Please, sir.

I want to be a gladiator.
- [sighs]

- I want to fight.

- You don't belong here.

♪ ♪

- Teach me!

♪ ♪

What are you afraid of?

♪ ♪

[dramatic music]

Narrator: To have come
to juvenal's attention,

Mevia most likely trained
in the ludus magnus.

♪ ♪

- So here was a young woman
with that glint in her eye

Who wanted to fight,

And so I imagine someone like
quintus turbo said,

"this is my ticket
to greatness."

♪ ♪

- There's very little evidence
that a male gladiator

Would've been subjected
to a medical examination,

But for mevia, it probably
would have been different.

They would've wanted
to make sure

That she at least
wasn't pregnant

Before taking her on
as a potential gladiatrix.

- Too skinny, right?

- I'm still strong.

- You've got a big mouth.
It's not the same thing.

Well?
- She'll do.

♪ ♪

- Look here. Look at this.

You want this?

- Trajan wants turbo to ensure
that a flow of enticing events

Continue to pass
through the arena,

And a female gladiator
like mevia fits the bill.

Narrator: Historians
cassius dio and tacitus

Describe some roman women
performing for emperor nero

Around 50 years earlier.

Most of these women weren't
gladiators, but athletes.

- It was important
for gladiatorial trainers

And for promoters
to keep giving the crowd

Something that
it hadn't seen before.

Something new
and something exciting.

Female gladiators
fit that bill.

They were different.
They were transgressive.

Narrator: Mevia could well
have been the first

Documented roman woman
to take the gladiator's oath.

- Repeat after me.

I will endure.
- I will endure.

- To be burned.
- To be burned.

- Chained.
- Chained.

- Beaten.
- Beaten.

- And slain by the sword.

- And slain by the sword.

♪ ♪

- Make your mark.

♪ ♪

You understand
what this contract means?

- I'm freer here
than I was at home.

♪ ♪

- The roman poet seneca
is the one who tells us

What the gladiator's oath was.

The gladiator's oath
binds together

The trainer and the gladiator.

For better or worse,
they are in it together.

This is like
a macabre marriage oath.

She is signing herself over
body and soul.

- The gladiator oath is one

Of the most
serious vows you can take.

You are committing yourself
life and limb

To the life of gladiators.

So you are willingly or
voluntarily subjecting yourself

To this rigorous training
knowing that at the end of it,

You might die on the sands
of the colosseum.

♪ ♪

[people shouting]

- Mevia willingly going
into a ludus

Means that she's turning
her back on her family.

There's no way out for her.

Her family probably
would've disowned her

Because it would've been
an embarrassment.

A stain on
the family's history.

♪ ♪

- She would never have
been able to go back to them.

She would never have been able
to get married or have the life

That her parents
had expected for her.

[laughter]

- A gladiator school
was effectively

A male prison or a barracks.

It's nearly entirely
full of male gladiators

Who are kept
under lock and key.

So for a woman
to come in there,

It would've been
a completely alien experience

And environment for her.

[people shouting, laughing]

♪ ♪

- It's for your protection.

- Gladiators were thought
to be a danger

To the rest of society.

So for mevia as a free person
committing herself to that

Was crossing
a distinct boundary.

They might have thought that a
woman didn't belong among them.

Another way of thinking
about it is that anybody who

Was willing to enter that life
would be worthy of respect.

♪ ♪

- Mevia is in many ways
a radical

Because she has to weigh
the life that she has

Versus the life
that will let her

Become the person
she wants to be.

♪ ♪

[dramatic music]

Narrator:
To get to the colosseum,

Mevia must first
survive her training

And face
her most ferocious enemy

Armed not with a sword,
but a pen.

- Juvenal has a whole satire
devoted to women

And their behavior
and their misbehavior.

When he mentions mevia,

It's in the context
of rome becoming decadent.

Juvenal's concern
about decadence had to do

With the fact
that certain people

Had crossed the line in terms
of appropriateness.

- Roman society
saw manly virtues

As being connected
with warfare.

You were expected to be brave,
tough, skilled in fighting.

For many romans, when they
looked at a female gladiator,

They saw moral decay
at work in their society.

It was something
that was undermining

The very military values

That gladiators
were meant to represent.

And of course, they were
the very military values

That had won rome its empire
in the first place.

Narrator: Yet by the time
of trajan's rule,

Most roman men no longer
fought in the military.

- And for
roman traditionalists,

Looking back at--compared
to previous generations,

This was a cause for concern.

They may have felt--
in fact, they did feel--

That rome was going soft.

By juvenal's day,
this attitude was rampant.

♪ ♪

Here's some
of juvenal's lines.

"how can a woman be decent
denying her sex

"she was born with?

"poor weak things.

How little
they really enjoy it."

- Who are they?

- Spectators.
- Why?

- They heard I had
a roman woman.

♪ ♪

- When do I get a sword?
- When I say so.

Now, you hold it
tight like this.

There. Go on. That's it.

- Times of social change
and social stress often evoke

In people strong interest
in turning back to the past,

Which is perceived as a time
of simplicity and safety.

And juvenal may have been
playing on these kinds

Of fears, these insecurities,

And this nostalgia
in his readers.

- You ask, "when will we be
great again, rome?"

♪ ♪

Shame on you, turbo.
- And what about you?

You just feed
on people's fears.

Ignore them.

No, better yet--use it.

Think of him and how he wants
to see you fail.

♪ ♪

- [yells]

- Again. Harder.

♪ ♪

Get going!

♪ ♪

- When mevia
undergoes training,

All indications are,

She undergoes the same training
as the men.

♪ ♪

Female gladiators
would have used

A short, curved dagger
called a sica.

This was the weapon of choice
for assassins.

It was designed to do major
damage to internal organs.

It was a nasty, nasty weapon.

♪ ♪

Narrators:
All gladiators first train

With a different weapon.

- You're given a rudis,
which is a wooden sword,

But it's weighted as twice
the weight of the sword

Or the weapon you're gonna
be using in the arena.

So they're going to
physically build you up.

- Keep going. More. Yes.

- The training was brutal.
It was intense.

- Come. Dig in. Go.

- And it really was meant

To separate the weak
from the strong.

[mevia yelling]

- Good.

- You may not make it
at the end of it.

They might say you're not fit
for being a gladiator.

You are at the mercy
of the trainer

Because their goal is to
make you the perfect gladiator.

♪ ♪

- You know what is
at stake here?

Reputation and honor.

- When you become
a professional gladiator,

You have fame, you have money,
people love you,

And you have that certainty

That your deeds
will become immortal

And that your name
will echo through history.

♪ ♪

- The only way for a trainer
to make money

Off a gladiator
was if they were fighting.

If she won this bout, maybe
for the first time in her life,

Mevia could get paid.

She would get 20%
of the winnings

With the other 80%
going to her trainer.

♪ ♪

After a few months
of training,

Turbo had every reason to want
to get mevia into a bout.

It was time to see
if she could fight

Or if it was time
to cut bait and run.

♪ ♪

Narrator:
Mevia's first public match

Against a rival gladiatrix
will be in the colosseum...

♪ ♪

In a probable fight
to the death.

[crowd chanting "mevia!"]

♪ ♪

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

Narrator: Mevia's notoriety
as a gladiatrix

Born a free citizen of rome

Makes her the star attraction
for her first colosseum fight.

♪ ♪

- Pamphlets and posters
would've been pasted up

In and around the colosseum
advertising the fights

That one could expect
at the next set of spectacles.

The advertisement of a fight
between two women?

This rare occurrence would have
generated a lot of buzz.

♪ ♪

Narrator: Not everyone in rome
is thrilled that the prospect.

- Even today
in the 21st century,

There are plenty of men
who watch combat sports

Who don't wanna
watch women fight.

And I think in a society
that was even more patriarchal

That did not have
the same kinds of traditions

Of women's sports
where gender boundaries

Were even harder to cross,

I think the response
would likely have been

Even more negative.

[protestors shouting]

♪ ♪

Rome was a volatile place.

We're talking about a city
of a million people or more

With a lot of time
on their hands.

The city was always
a boiling cauldron of tension.

All sorts of tensions.

Ethnic, religious, linguistic.

All of these things
were constantly boiling

Under the surface and were
barely kept contained.

Keeping a lid
on that sort of tension

Was every emperor's job,

But no matter
how hard they tried,

The city was always capable
of exploding into violence,

Which it did.
Regular riots every few years.

Narrator:
Hostility toward women in rome

Could be especially brutal.

- Sexual violence
against women

Was written into the myths

That had to do with the
very founding of rome.

The rape of lucretia,
which was

The founding event
that set into motion

The formation
of the roman republic.

So gendered violence was really
a deep part of the roman world.

The fate of other women

Who transgressed
social norms in rome

Was practically
always a bad one.

The romans enforced
those boundaries,

And they did so powerfully
with violence.

[protestors shouting]

♪ ♪

For some people looking
at a female gladiator,

That was precisely
the kind of thing

That could serve as a spark
in this tinder box.

Exactly the kind of thing
that could set off a mob

And produce a riot.

♪ ♪

- There's only one language
these fools understand.

- Any dissent in the city
had to be quelled immediately

Because it would have
disastrous consequences.

If it was to spread and spread
throughout the roman empire,

That would be the collapse
of--of society for the romans.

♪ ♪

- Get some sleep.

Tomorrow is an important day.

♪ ♪

- Trajan,
like all roman emperors,

Measured himself by conquest,

And he completely devastates
the dacian tribes.

Brings back vast numbers
of slaves

And the place you see
all his conquest,

All his slaves is,
of course, the colosseum

'cause in the colosseum,
you have more people to throw

Into the arena
to fight and be killed.

- Thanks to trajan's
dacian campaigns,

1/2 million enslaved people
were brought into rome.

Many of them were women.

♪ ♪

Narrator:
Mevia will be fighting

A dacian prisoner of war.

♪ ♪

- You know juvenal's out
there watching.

- Should I ignore him
or use him?

♪ ♪

- Let's go.

♪ ♪

- The pressure
on any gladiator is intense

Once you're in the colosseum,

But if you're
a highly touted fighter

Such as mevia, everything
was riding on your success.

[cheers and applause]

- I'm ready.

♪ ♪

- Right, your opponents
are strong, but you're fast,

So use your speed,
and remember, you stay alert.

♪ ♪

Look at this.

"as for mevia,
the roman gladiatrix,

She is an insult
to her nation and her sex."

He goes--

♪ ♪

- Failure could cost mevia

Any potential reputation
that she'd gained,

But more importantly,
it could cost her her life.

[crowd chanting "mevia!"]

[dramatic fanfare]

♪ ♪

- Let the games begin!

[crowd roaring]

- Mevia clearly
caused a sensation

When she first appeared
in the amphitheater.

Both: Hail ceasar!

- I think one of
the key insights

Is that it's not enough to win;

It's that you have to do it
in entertaining fashion.

The crowd wants to see
something happening.

They want to be entertained.

You want the crowd
to walk away with a sense

Of who you are, of the things
that you've accomplished,

And you want them
to tell stories about you.

- Come on, mevia!

- And if you did die

With grace and courage
and honor,

Then you would know
that you would be remembered

And immortalized.

♪ ♪

[fighters shouting]

[crowd roaring]

[dramatic music]

Narrator: In her first fight,
it's likely

That mevia is outfitted
as a legendary warrior.

♪ ♪

Her opponent would also
take on a mythic role:

The greek hero.

♪ ♪

- A relief in marble
from halicarnassus

From the first
or second century c.E.

Depicts two female gladiators

Who are either being
discharged from service

Or receiving a reprieve
after coming to a draw.

♪ ♪

Amazona and achillia
are their names.

Amazona is resonant
of the amazon's

Famed warrior women of legend

Who live beyond
the pale of civilization.

Achillia, of course,
calls back to achilles.

Swift achilles
from homeric legend.

- The colosseum was a chance
to teach people.

If you think about the fact
that a majority of the romans

Were illiterate,
they didn't read mythology.

And sometimes they would
reenact scenes of mythology

Much in the same way
that biblical stories

Are to teach
a morality lesson,

So were these myths a way

To teach the romans
an important lesson.

♪ ♪

- I think it would've
fascinated the people of rome.

It was as if it were
an amazon come to life.

A character out of myth
and legend.

♪ ♪

- All gladiatorial combat
was a fight to the death

Because if someone
did not surrender...

♪ ♪

It basically indicated
that they had given up.

The fight would continue
till someone was killed.

♪ ♪

- A gladiator could submit.

They would raise their finger
in submission.

The emperor will turn
to the crowd

And ask for their opinion
about what he should do.

Whether the
submitting gladiator

Should be allowed to live
or whether he should be killed.

[crowd shouting]

- Mevia! Mevia!

♪ ♪

- The roman idea of clemency
is an imperial virtue.

This goes all the way back
to julius caesar.

But when we see it
being activated,

There's a positive side,

But there's also
a sinister side,

And it's a way of the emperor

Signaling that
I'm in total control.

♪ ♪

[crowd cheering]

♪ ♪

Narrator:
Mevia's victory resonates

Far beyond
the colosseum's walls.

♪ ♪

But after her documented
appearance in the arena,

Little is known about her.

To have earned a place
in juvenal's writings,

It's possible
that she dominated

Female gladiatorial combat
throughout trajan's reign.

♪ ♪

A century later,

Rome's uneasy tolerance
of women gladiators ends.

♪ ♪

- The emperor
septimius severus

Bans female gladiators in the
early third century c.E.,

And if anything,
that goes to show

How popular they have become.

[crowd cheering]

♪ ♪

- I told you I could fight.

- You did.

♪ ♪

- The ultimate irony is
that mevia is remembered

Despite the fact
that juvenal mocked her,

Despite the fact
that he scorned her,

And despite the fact
that this most crochety

Of crochety romans disapproved
of what she was doing.

Today we know mevia

And today
we can celebrate her.

[crowd chanting "mevia!"]

♪ ♪