News of the week: San Diego outfielder Milton Bradley tore up his knee while his manager tried to stop him from arguing with an umpire.
What the professor says: Ancient sports injuries were pretty nasty things, but there’s a good reason why no ancient athlete was ever injured while arguing with an official. If you argued with an ancient referee, he got to flog you.
Most ancient athletes ran a fair chance of getting hurt. Boxing was notoriously linked with tooth loss (one boxer swallowed his teeth so his opponent wouldn’t know how badly he’d been hurt) while gladiators risked being run through with a sword, having various extremities lopped off or being speared.
A recently discovered mosaic shows a pensive gladiator staring at a man he has just killed. Indeed, sparring partners of the emperor Commodus tended to lose ears and noses to their overexcited ruler (it didn’t help that they were armed with only wooden swords). Chariot races included people falling out of the vehicle at high speed, and falls from horses were a constant risk in other equestrian events.
The emperor Augustus had set up events for the children of the very rich to show off their equestrian skills, but ended them when the grandson of an especially distinguished man broke his leg.
The dumbest injury on record happened in 203 A.D to the man assigned to tie Christian martyrs to wild boars. He messed up and ended as boar fodder himself.
Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. Milton Bradley is in good company.
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REDEYE SPECIAL CONTRIBUTOR DAVID POTTER, A UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN PROFESSOR OF GREEK AND LATIN, IS AN EXPERT ON ANCIENT ROMAN CULTURE AND AUTHOR OF THE BOOK “EMPERORS OF ROME.”
redeyesports@TRIBUNE.COM
