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The tombstone depicts two gladiators in the midst of a battle — one knocked to the ground with a hand out pleading for mercy, the other looming above with his own dagger in one hand and his rival’s seized weapon in the other.

The translated inscription reads: “Here I lie victorious, Diodorus the wretched. After breaking my opponent Demetrius, I did not kill him immediately. But murderous Fate and the cunning treachery of the summa rudis killed me, and leaving the light I have gone to Hades. I lie in the land of the original inhabitants. A good friend buried me here because of his piety.”

The tombstone, now held by the Musee du Cinquantenaire in Belgium, is well-known among scholars, said Mr. Carter, “but no one has ever really talked about what seems to have happened” to Diodorus to prompt the erection of his “quite unusual” memorial.

“There’s no parallel for this sort of detail about combat on a gladiatorial tombstone,” he told Postmedia News.

Mr. Carter believes the carved scene shows the “victorious” Diodorus at the moment of what should have been his triumph. But the summa rudis — essentially the referee of the gladiators’ clash — must have issued a ruling at that point to allow Demetrius to get up, reclaim his dagger and start fighting again, Mr. Carter said.

He explained that only the battle’s sponsor — typically a leading figure in one of Rome’s conquered lands — could order a match halted before a downed gladiator was killed.