Which of the following statements is true about the Roman gladiatorial games?

Gladiatorial bouts were held as part of a funeral ceremony.

Most historians now argue that gladiator fights got their start as a blood rite staged at the funerals of wealthy nobles. When distinguished aristocrats died, their families would hold gravesite bouts between slaves or condemned prisoners as a kind of macabre eulogy for the virtues the deceased person had demonstrated in life.

Writers Tertullian and Festus provide a rational for this practice- since Romans believed that human blood helped to purify the deceased person’s soul, these contests may have also acted as a crude substitute for human sacrifice.

Later, the funeral games increased in scope when Julius Caesar staged bouts between hundreds of gladiators in honor of his deceased father and daughter.

Historians are not sure exactly when women first suited up to fight as gladiators, but by the 1st century CE, they had become a common fixture at the games. Female slaves were regularly condemned to the arena alongside their male counterparts. A few citizens took up the sword of their own free will. The Emperor Domitian enjoyed pitting women against dwarfs, but a few women appear to have proven themselves in single combat.

A marble relief dating to around the 2nd century CE depicts a bout between two women dubbed “Amazon” and “Achillia” with an inscription saying they fought to an honorable draw. In 200 CE, the Emperor Septimus Severus banned women from participating in the games.