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- Address: Charles Legge, Answers To Correspondents, Daily Mail, 9 Derry Street, London W8 5HY or email charles.legge@dailymail.co.uk
Question: Did gladiators have any safety rules or regulations?
Gladiator contests (munera) were extremely dangerous, but usually not fights to the death. Historians believe that about 1 in 10 matches ended in death.
These were ceremonial battles between highly trained fighters, and the important thing was to provide the audience with a worthwhile fight. Gladiators were expensive to house, feed, and train, so owners were reluctant to see them killed needlessly.
Rules of engagement (Rex Pugnandi) and referees (Suma Ludis) were in place to force the match.
The battle continued until either the referee stopped the fight or the defeated gladiator raised his index finger to signal the match organizer (munerarius) to end the fight and be ejected from the arena alive (misus).
Adopted from the games of the early Etruscans, gladiator games had their origins in sacrificial rituals to appease the spirits of the dead and blood offerings.
They were introduced to Rome in 264 BC when the sons of Decimus Junius Brutus Pella combined three pairs of gladiators in honor of their father.
During the early years of the empire, gladiator contests became increasingly important and sophisticated.
In AD72, Emperor Vespasian had the magnificent Flavian Amphitheatre, known to us as the Colosseum, built. It is regularly crowded with more than 65,000 people.
Commemorating its completion in 80 or 81 AD, Vespasian’s son and successor Titus staged a 100-day non-stop game that included exotic animal hunts, executions, music, and, of course, gladiator fights. We celebrated.
An important figure in controlling gladiator combat was the Summardis. Ludis was a wooden sword that signified the retirement of a gladiator.
Many Rudiali volunteered to remain in the arena, working as trainers, helpers, and referees. The last of them was an elite retired gladiator called Summa (principal) Rudis.
These officials wore white tunics with purple trim and served as technical experts who ensured that gladiators fought bravely and skillfully according to the rules.
They carried batons and whips and pointed out illegal movements. If a gladiator was seriously injured, Smardi could stop the match or force a fight.
Such mercy did not extend to all members of the game. Many were scheduled for public execution (damnati ad mortem), including thousands of Christian martyrs who refused to renounce their faith. For them, there was no hope of survival.
Henry Cotton, Hereford.
Question Why is it (supposedly) unlucky to put new shoes on the table?
This is a common superstition across the country, with penalties ranging from minor misfortune to lifelong inability to marry, and even death.
It’s not an ancient belief. The oldest reference is his 1869 one. One explanation is that it has to do with the practice of dressing dead bodies with new clothes and shoes and laying them out for all to mourn.
In another story, if a miner died in an accident, his shoes were placed on the table as a sign of respect.
A more grim explanation suggests that the boots placed below the ground represent a hanged man. There is no particular evidence regarding these.
Another belief was that superstitions could be counteracted by spitting on the soles of shoes.
Mrs J Dunlap, Biddeford-on-Avon, Woakes.
Question: What is the most counterfeited food?
The king of fake foods is olive oil. In Italy, it is estimated that half of the olive oil on supermarket shelves is fake.
Looking beyond Italy, up to 80 percent of Italian oil on the market is either made from cheaper oils or is fraudulent, mislabeled as more expensive virgin or extra virgin olive oil. Some people believe that there is.
It is part of a highly organized criminal organization known as the Agromafia, whose main trade is olive oil, but also sells fake wine and cheese, especially Parmesan cheese. The agro-mafia is estimated to bring in 15 per cent of all mafia income, or more than £12 billion a year.
Extra virgin olive oil is a deeply flavored, aromatic oil that is popular worldwide. It is made from the first press of olives and the premium oil can fetch as much as £30 per litre.
Fake olive oil is usually a mixture of neutral oils such as sunflower, soybean, and rapeseed. Deodorized and colored using chlorophyll. Aromatic compounds can be added to provide the necessary aroma.
The production costs of these oils are low and profit margins are high. Some estimates suggest it’s more than three times as powerful as cocaine. All this is backed up by the mafia’s famous violence and intimidation.
Wine fraud has been a problem since the 1980s. It’s easy for counterfeiters to change the labels on inexpensive wines to make them look like expensive, collectible wines.
An authentic bottle of Bordeaux’s vintage Château Lafite Rothschild 1982 sells for £3,500, while an empty refillable bottle alone sells for £1,000. Wine fraud is estimated to be a £7bn industry worldwide.
Many products are legitimately fake. Most truffle oils are fake. Real truffles are rare and difficult to obtain, and traditionally they had to be uprooted using pigs, but dogs are now used.
Truffle oil is produced using synthetic aromatic compounds such as 2,4-dithiapentane, the same compound found in foot odor.
Almost all wasabi sold outside of Japan is artificial wasabi with horseradish, sweeteners, and cornstarch. Because it is extremely difficult to cultivate, the real thing costs about 30 times more.
Real vanilla pods and extracts are expensive. These are grown by hand-pollinated orchid flowers, whose seed pods are harvested and massaged to release vanillin, then soaked in water and alcohol to produce an extract.
Lab-made vanilla, usually labeled “vanilla extract,” is extracted from petroleum using clove oil, wood, or bark to create an artificial flavor.
EJ Dunn, Morecambe, Lancs.
Do you have a question you’d like to know the answer to? Or do you know the answer to your question here? Address: Charles Legge, Reply to Correspondent, Daily Mail, 9 Derry Street, London W8 5HY. Or email charles.legge@dailymail.co.uk. Selection will be made public, but individual responses will not be accepted.