A rare Roman glass fragment from the bottom of a drinking vessel with a gold and silver depiction of a retiarius gladiator, dating to the 4th century AD, from Rome. It was purchased by the British Museum in 1898 from Count Michel Tyszkiewicz, who received it as a gift from the Italian collector and patriot Alessandro Castellani. The piece depicts a gladiator of the retiarius type, the retiarius, meaning "the net fighter." A net equipped with weights, part of his equipment and his true specialty, was thrown to quickly trap his opponent. The retiarius was a "light" fighter who did not wear a helmet or wield a shield, and wielded a dagger, the pugio, and a trident, the fuscina, his primary weapon.
The retiarius's appearance clearly resembled that of a fisherman, from whom he borrowed both his armament and fighting technique.
His usual opponent was the gladiator secutor, meaning the pursuer, a heavily armed gladiator with very limited mobility; combat between retiarii and secutores presumably became widespread in the second half of the 1st century.
Over time, the retiarius versus the secutor became one of the classic confrontations in the munera, the gladiatorial shows, in Roman amphitheaters.
In the depiction, the retiarius wears a belt, the balteus, trimmed and decorated in red, and at the end of the sleeve, the galerus, a metal plate attached to the left shoulder with leather straps, which served to protect the throat and head from his opponent's blows. He also wears bandages on his ankles and below the knees. Behind him is a leather wineskin container, resting on a column that appears to feature the symbol of two crossed gladiuses. Around the field, there is a gold inscription: "Stratonicae, bene vicisti, vade in Aurelia(m)", translated "you have won at Stratoniceia, go to Aurelia", underneath: "Pie Zeses", that is, "drink so that you may live".