COBI Gladiator School Set 20070

COBI's Gladiator School is built from 583 blocks: the school building and its training ground, with three figures and a large set of weapons and accessories.

The ludus was a business

A gladiator school was owned and run by a lanista, who bought or recruited fighters, housed and fed them, trained them for years, and rented them out to whoever was staging the games. That arrangement explains more about the arena than the films do.

A trained gladiator represented years of investment, and if one died in a bout the man who hired him compensated the owner at a far higher rate than the hire fee. Killing the talent was expensive. The fighters were fed a deliberate diet, treated by doctors — Galen, the most famous physician of the ancient world, began his career as a surgeon at a ludus — and kept in condition the way any costly asset is kept.

The largest school, the Ludus Magnus, stood beside the Colosseum and was connected to it by its own tunnel, so the fighters never crossed a public street.

In the COBI range

The Gladiators set (20066) adds three more fighters for sparring, and the Romans set (20067) supplies guards. Weapons and headgear swap freely between all the Imperium Romanum figures.

Specifications

Pieces: 583 · Figures: 3, with accessories