One of the most common examples used to promote plant-based eating is the Roman gladiator.
The argument is familiar: the toughest fighters in the ancient world supposedly lived on barley and beans. The Romans even had a name for them, hordearii—the “barley men.” Pliny the Elder recorded the nickname, and it is often presented as proof that history’s greatest warriors thrived on a largely vegetarian diet.
There is truth in that story, but it is not the whole story.
In 1993, archaeologists uncovered a gladiator cemetery at Ephesus, the Roman capital of Asia. The site contained the remains of 68 young gladiators, some still bearing unmistakable evidence of the fatal injuries that killed them. Researchers from the Medical University of Vienna later analyzed the skeletons, publishing their findings in 2014.
The chemistry confirmed that these men consumed large amounts of barley and legumes. Their bones contained strontium levels roughly twice as high as those of ordinary citizens buried ...