At the Roman games, women sometimes broke into hysterical spasms — or had orgasms — and not only the commoners in the upper tiers. When one handsome young gladiator, until recently a farmboy from the Apennines, was paraded before the podium with his bloody sword upraised, a great lady screamed uncontrollably and flung her brooch and necklace into the arena. Then she stripped off her rings, threw them onto the sand, and finally ripped off her undergarments and threw them also. When he encountered the crumpled garments, he thought the lady had simply thrown him her scarf or cloak. As he picked up the clothing to toss it back, the underwear unfolded. The simple boy stood gazing horrified at what he was holding. Then he dropped the garments and fled from the arena ‘more terrified of a woman’s underwear than he had been of his enemy’s sword.’ The crowd thought this was killingly funny and nearly died laughing. The patrician lady’s husband, however, was not amused (51).
Hippla was a noble lady who left her husband and children and fled to Egypt with a gladiator named Sergius. As Juvenal, the first century poet, says, ‘Sergius was maimed, getting old, had a battered face, his forehead was covered with welts from his helmet, his nose was broken and his eyes were bloodshot. But he was a swordsman!’ Many great ladies enjoyed the company of famous gladiators in their private apartments. At Pompeii, a series of crude sleeping rooms were discovered which turned out to be a gladiators’ dormitory; and there, frozen in time, was a gladiator who was holding in his arms, and no doubt protecting her from the hot ashes, an upper-class woman still wearing her jewels.