Recent news reports of the only physical evidence of a Roman man having been bitten by a lion, found in a Roman cemetery in York, raise the prospect of an encounter in the Roman arena as seen in numerous film and TV representations of the ancient world. In this talk, we will review this latest evidence of a potential Gladiator cemetery alongside the extraordinary evidence from the other 81 people found in the excavations, 40 of whom had been decapitated and a number of whom displayed many unusual or distinctive characteristics. We will dive deep into the world of these…