Freedom 250AD
Poor fisherman found himself in a gladiator arena. Looks to be about half a second from being stabbed.
Funny enough, the Romans themselves had strong ideas about the ‘balance’ of match-ups. It was considered that a decent retiarius (the fisherman fellow) would generally lose to a decent murmillo (the helmeted one), but that an excellent retiarius would usually win against even an excellent murmillo.
Also, the fisher motif is intentional - the murmillo wore partly scaled armor (as can be seen on the arms) and often had fish motifs on their helmet! Fish vs. Fisherman!
I have to say, that’s actually really neat. And I can see an expert retiarius being really hard to beat with the entanglement and reach they have.
You may also find it interesting that there was a ‘special’ match-up (the Romans had many, but we know the details of only a few) that was relatively common where one (expert) retarius would be on a raised platform, and have to fend off two heavier gladiators from coming up two sets of stairs.
It was considered to be a balanced (and exciting) match, if the retiarius was a master!
