PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY—Many graffiti in the Greek-speaking ancient city of Aphrodisias, named for the goddess Aphrodite, depict battling gladiators, according to Angelos Chaniotis of the Institute for Advanced Study. “And this abundance of images leaves little doubt about the great popularity of the most brutal contribution of the Romans to the culture of the Greek east,” Chaniotis said in a lecture given at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto and reported in Live Science. The images, most of which date to between A.D. 350 and 500, may have been scratched into the rock by spectators who had seen gladiator battles in the arena. There are also sexual images, pictures that show chariot races, and religious graffiti, including Christian crosses, the double ax of Carian Zeus, and a depiction of a Jewish Hanukkah menorah. “This may be one of the earliest representations of a Hanukkah menorah that we know from ancient times,” he said. The graffiti declined around the time that Justinian became emperor of the Byzantine Empire, in A.D. 527. Justinian restricted or banned polytheistic and Jewish practices, and renamed Aphrodite’s city Stauropolis. For more, go to "The Gladiator Diet."
