You could BE a dragon, choose dragon subtype, and get a gargantuan size for example, pick movement type Fly, perhaps alternate form, into that spartan gladiator you mentioned early. Pick natural attacks, a breath weapon and a couple of spell like abilities to emulate dragon spells. Fast healing would be nice, a fear aura also. Don't know, there are many things you could try out.
Here are the Dragon type Traits
A dragon possesses the following traits (unless otherwise noted in the description of a particular kind).
* Darkvision out to 60 feet and low-light vision.
* Immunity to magic sleep effects and paralysis effects.
* Proficient with its natural weapons only unless humanoid in form (or capable of assuming humanoid form), in which case proficient with all simple weapons and any weapons mentioned in its entry.
* Proficient with no armor.
* Dragons eat, sleep, and breathe.