Manche de canif aux gladiateurs

Three iron helmets and a bronze penknife handle, discovered in 1998 less than 500 m from the amphitheater of Poitiers/Limonum on the preventive excavations of the Cordeliers block, evoke gladiatorship. They were trapped by the collapse of the buildings aligned in the eastern edge of the major axis of the city following a violent fire dated by the coinage after 257 and before the years 260-270. On the eastern side of this street, on at least 200 m long, workshop-shops framed the entrance of domus or buildings with commercial vocation on which they depended. Six of them have been explored in the Cordeliers. The helmets interpreted as those of secutor were found in workshop P212 and its annex, and in the annex of the neighboring store of a ceramic vase dealer. In workshop P212, where iron, copper alloys and bone were worked, the objects made, being assembled or repaired, were intended for a male clientele, undoubtedly military or warlike (sword, scabbard, folding knife, razor, cutlass, harness...). It is tempting to think of it as the workshop of a "fourbisseur", although the term is anachronistic for antiquity. This exceptional discovery attests to the presence of this armatura in the city.

This object represents two gladiators in hand-to-hand combat: on the right, the unarmed retiaire grasps the helmet of the secutor, on the left, with one hand, and pushes back the helmet of his enemy with the other, who is holding a sword against his side. Despite the rough cast and untrimmed nature of the piece, some of the details of the clothing and faces show perfectly mastered carving. Handles depicting gladiators, made of bone, ivory or bronze, are best known for folding blade knives (penknives), which is the case of the Poitevin example. The bar that develops under the feet of the figures has been detached by twisting, which leads to the identification of the object as a manufacturing failure and argues in favor of a production within the workshop-shops of the Cordelier block.