Q&A
A selection of historical conundrums answered by experts
Were there female gladiators in ancient Rome?
Although gladiatorial combat was predominantly a male domain, female gladiators did exist. They were mostly slaves or prisoners of war, and catered to audiences with a taste for the unusual.
The promoters of female gladiators often took inspiration from the ancient Greek myths of the Amazons – legendary single-breasted female warriors. For instance, the poet Juvenal tells us that a female gladiator called Mevia tried to emulate the fearsome fighters by hunting beasts in the ring “with spear in hand and breast exposed”.
We know there was a fear among Romans that upper-class women might want to become gladiators. Prohibitions, including an AD 19 decree barring upper-class men and women plus their descendants from fighting in the arena, show that the activity was attempted. According to the historian Cassius Dio, women participated in the games held to mark the opening of the Colosseum in AD 80, but none were of any prominence.
Female gladiators were banned from the arena altogether by the emperor Septimius Severus in AD 200, but even after this some may still have fought.
Ian Goh, senior lecturer in classics at Swansea University
Where does the word “boycott” come from?
Boycott was a real person. In 1879–80, at the height of the Irish Land War – a period of agrarian protest spawned by a serious drop in agricultural incomes – an English-born land agent called Captain Charles Boycott refused tenant demands for a reduction of rent on Lord Erne’s County Mayo estate. Instead, he attempted to serve eviction notices against several of them.
Tenants and the wider community responded by shunning him at every opportunity: shopkeepers refused him service; his servants and farm employees deserted him; his walls and fences were destroyed; his cattle were mutilated; and his effigy was hanged and burned in a local square.
After witnessing this, it is said that the local Catholic parish priest, Fr John O’Malley, coined the term “boycott” as an alternative to “ostracise”. It was certainly widely used by O’Malley’s friend, the American journalist James Redpath. In the Daily News of 13 December 1880 BOYCOTT was printed in large capitals. The intense international media focus meant that Boycott’s name soon became a term to describe communal ostracism, not just in English but also in several other languages.
Terence Dooley, author of Burning the Big House (Yale University Press, 2022)
Why were the Medici given a giraffe?
Sent in 1487, the giraffe was a present to Lorenzo “the Magnificent” de’ Medici, from the Mamluk Sultan Qaytbay. Then, as now, gift-giving was an important symbolic element of diplomacy. By sending the giraffe, the sultan also conveyed his good wishes to the family who were, by this time, de facto lords of the Florentine Republic.
Lorenzo de’ Medici had come to power in 1469, just a year after Qaytbay had succeeded as ruler of the Mamluk empire, which had its capital in Cairo. Qaytbay was known both as a military leader and for his architectural patronage. Cairo was an important trading city for Florentine merchants, giving access to products from around the Indian Ocean, so the two had an interest in maintaining good diplomatic relations. was put on display and taken out on walks. But it was far from the only exotic animal to be the subject of such an exchange. The Medici had long maintained a lion house in Florence, and the Este rulers of
Once in Florence, the Medici giraffe Ferrara also kept lions. Meanwhile, the Visconti lords of Milan had an ostrich, and King Ferrante of Naples a zebra.
As European powers expanded their empires, exotic creatures, presented as diplomatic gifts, could act as symbols of their reach. The king of Portugal tried to pass on to Pope Leo X (Lorenzo de ’Medici’s son) a rhinoceros he had received from Gujarat. The attempt, however, went tragically wrong when the ship carrying the rhinoceros sank en route to Rome.
Catherine Fletcher, author of The Beauty and the Terror: An Alternative History of the Italian Renaissance (The Bodley Head, 2020)
DID YOU KNOW…?
Shot in the shin
Jules Verne (pictured c1878), the French author of famous science-fiction books such as Journey to the Centre of the Earth and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, was badly wounded by his own nephew in 1886. Gaston, son of the writer’s brother, was experiencing paranoid delusions when he burst into his uncle’s rooms, claiming that someone was following him. He then fired two shots at Verne with a revolver. One missed but the other unfortunately hit his uncle in the shin, causing him to limp for the rest of his life.
Flying high
The current 50-star flag of the United States was designed by a 17-year-old as a school project. Robert Heft was given a mark of B-by his teacher, who said he would upgrade it if the schoolboy could get his design officially accepted. Because Alaska and Hawaii were made states in 1959, a new 50-star flag was required, and a competition for the design was announced. Heft entered it and won. His teacher upped his mark to an A.
Record-breaking road trip
The first man to drive a car across the USA took 63 days, 12 hours and 30 minutes to do so. On 23 May 1903 Horatio Nelson Jackson accepted a $50 bet that he couldn’t complete the journey and, together with mechanic Sewall Crocker, set off from San Francisco in a Winton car (shown below). They arrived in New York on 26 July, after spending more than $8,000 on the journey. The trip today would take about 40 hours (without breaks).
Nick Rennison, writer and journalist specialising in history