It may all have started when female sword fighters performed at funerals in the very early days of Rome.

There may also be some connection between women participating in chariot racing and women gladiators.

The Greek Heraean Games were pivotal: they were a four-yearly female sports event dedicated to Hera and founded by the legendary Queen Hippodameia; they would later become a template for the Olympics and continued for centuries until suppressed by the Christians.

Apart from the usual foot races, javelin throwing and so on, the games included female chariot races.

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According to Pausanias’ Description of Greece Hippodameia assembled a group known as the ‘Sixteen Women’ to organize the Heraean Games, during which the women competitors, incidentally, wore men’s clothes.

A first-century AD inscription from Delphi records that two young women competed in races, possibly those at the Sebasta festival in Naples in the Roman Empire and during Emperor Domitian’s reign there were races for women at the Capitoline Games in Rome in 86 AD.

Read more: Ancient Origins