Unique Roman gladiator school unveiled in Austria

Petronell-Carnuntum, Austria (World News) - They lived in cells, barely large enough to turn and usually beaten in the until they die. This was the fate of those who made a sensational discovery scientists announced on Monday are known. The well-preserved ruins of a gladiator school in Austria

Carnuntum The ruins of part of a town with 50,000 inhabitants 28 miles (45 kilometers) east of Vienna, which flourished from about 1700 years ago, a military large commercial and Outpost linking the Asian boundaries away from the Roman Empire in its central and northern European countries.

back by radar, the ruins remain of the gladiator school U-Bahn. However, officials say opponents of the famous Ludus Magnus to find - the largest training schools for gladiators in Rome - in its structure. And they say that the Austrian side is more detailed than the famous Roman ruins to the remains of a thick wooden pole in the middle of the training area, an enemy that is fun to hack desperate young gladiators who centuries ago.

Gladiator The complex is part of a 10 square kilometer (3.9 square mile) site of the old town, now an archaeological site visited by hundreds of thousands of tourists annually. The officials told reporters that they had no date for the beginning of the excavations of the school, said experts need time to settle on a plan that preserves as much as possible.

"If we had a serious injury if you are a first series of scanners, before you let a surgeon do his job," said Wolfgang Neubauer, director of the Ludwig Institute Bolzman who participated in the discovery.

Digging the site of the city began around 1870, but only 0.5 percent of the colony was due to the enormity of what is below and to the painstaking process of restoring this sought has already been discovered.

Virtual Video Presentations Monday of the old school of gladiators Carnuntum showed pictures of the underground ruins, which turned into what would the complex in the third century.

It was really a school of hard knocks.

"A school of gladiators was a mixture of a barracks and a prison, a sort of high-security center," said the Roman-Germanic Central Museum, one of the institutions active in research and the evaluation of the discovery. "The fighters were often criminals, prisoners of war and sentenced usually the slaves."

There were some advantages for the men who sweated and bled, what they hoped at least a few brief moments of glory before her disappearance.

At the end of a dusty day and bruises, could they take care of their bodies in hot water baths, hot and cold. And savory dishes of meat, cereals and grains were plentiful for men who have burned thousands of calor ies per day in the fight for the entertainment of others.

thick walls surrounded

11,000 square meters (13 160 square meters) of the website, and an extension of the school and adjacent buildings over 2,800 square feet ((3,350 square meters).

Inside

, was a court of residential and other buildings surrounded and contained a round of 19 square meters (23 square meters) training area - a small stage with wooden seats dominates and the terrace of the head coach

The complex also contains about 40 small sleeper cells for the gladiators, a large swimming area;. .. show training bathrooms with heated floors and a selection of office buildings outside the walls, radar scans, which archaeologists believe was a graveyard for the killed during training

The Department of Education said, in which the value was the market of men "and at the end of the effect of their destiny" was adopted. At the same time, he gave them a small chance of survival, celebrity, and p erhaps to freedom.

"If it succeeded, had they have a chance to progress to the "superstar" status -. and perhaps even achieve freedom, "said Franz Humor Social Carnuntum Park

---

George Jahn can be reached http://twitter.com/georgejahn