WTF Maximus?

BY RACHEL B. DOYLE, PHOTOS BY JÖRG KOOPMANN

The 20 young German applicants took things very seriously.

A 59-year-old German oil magnate, named Hans Schaller, recently spent €200,000 on funding an experiment to transform 20 unhealthy students into modern-day Roman gladiators.

The training took place over six months in Regensburg, Bavaria, and ended in a battle at a racetrack in nearby Straubing. I paid the aspiring gladiators two visits to see if the experiment would work. On my first visit I was sceptical. Many applicants looked like German couch potatoes who spent too much time guzzling pizza and playing Xbox.

The wannabe gladiators, with an average age of 19, were recruited through flyers put up around campus at the University of Regensburg, a medieval town on the River Danube. One ponytailed applicant wore an X-Men shirt, another sported a souvenir from a black metal festival. Gold chains hung from one chubby student, even while he wielded a three-foot-long shield.

At the beginning, their posture was poor and it took them 25 minutes to put on their fighting gear. The school aimed to recreate the authentic conditions of the gladiators, which meant that their gold-plated armour weighed the same as that of the original warriors. Cruelly, their vegetarian, lentil-heavy diet was the same as that prescribed for the first-century fighters by Galenus, the physician of the emperor Marcus Aurelius.

On my return six months later, the students were tan and muscular. Josef Löffl, the historian supervising the project. told me: “We’ve woken the skeletons of Roman gladiators. This was mostly due to the ancient diet, which has bone-building properties. If you go to the steakhouse or to McDonald’s, all the exercises in the world won’t work.”

I asked him if Burger King was allowed, but he shook his head and offered me a plate of beans. I refused it and instead watched the gladiators take part in a mock battle. It was like watching the “Muscle Mary” section of a Gay Pride march doing LARPing, and for that reason we had to take photos.

In ancient times, gladiators were “controlled” by wearing ten-pound-heavy helmets that restricted their vision.

In true Roman style, the proceedings begin with a lot of pomp. Extras dressed in full centurion gear look like peacocks in their red capes and plumed helmets next to the stripped-down fighters.

“That horse-drawn chariot’s got no suspension. It shakes like crazy,” says the man in charge of the chariot race, who is also pictured here in the chariot. He’s equally circumspect about his armour-and-skirt centurion’s outfit: “Hot from above, cold from below.”

While most of the extras were dressed as centurions, some came as regular Roman citizens.

Benedikt hopes to win hearts and minds with his trident and net combo.

The chariots are pulled by Shetland ponies. Steered by a husband and wife team, the ponies run surprisingly fast during their two chariot races.

The gladiators get ready in the backstage area— a circle of hay bales.

The crowd at the racetrack observing the contest as it unfolds before them. “We’re mainly here to see the horses,” says one spectator.

The money for the project comes from Hans Schaller, 59, who sold his oil company a few years ago and now spends his time pursuing his hobby of Roman historical reenactments. An entire floor of his house is dedicated to Roman costumes. Schaller says his favourite part of organising his own battalion of gladiators is “racing them!”. OK!

There’s a lot of male bonding—not just fist bumps and high fives, but bear hugs and fellow gladiators being lifted off the ground. Bromance abounds.

The winner Johannes on his victory lap.