Happy Birthday

While many of us, perhaps, take comfort in the fact that Roman gladiators are a thing of the past, hundreds of Colosseum combat enthusiasts, sporting steel helmets and daggers swinging from scabbards, marched the ruins of ancient Rome Monday in a birthday celebration for the city. The pretend gladiators -- some from as far away as France and Hungary -- poured off buses wearing chain mail and swinging grappling nets to commemorate the city that was founded, legend has it, 2,756 years ago on April 21, 753 BC. "We're all here today because it's the birthday of Rome, so we celebrate the foundation of the city like good Romans," said a Roman Historic Group spokesman. "The beautiful thing is that to feel Roman, you don't necessarily need to have been born in Rome."