When the Colosseum opened its doors in A.D. 80, tens of thousands of Romans had the opportunity to stand alongside each other and watch a cavalcade of gruesome events.
Before then, Roman leaders had avoided building permanent entertainment buildings. Combat events took place at funerals, the Circus Maximus, or bleachers would be put up around the Forum. Romans didn’t want to “become lazy and addicted to shows like the Greeks,” explains Gregory Woolf, the Ronald J. Mellor Chair of Ancient History at University of California, Los Angeles. Romans saw themselves as agrarian, hard-working and militaristic, and thought the Greeks wasted their time in theaters.
But as gladiatorial fights became more politicized and used as a show of strength, Roman Emperor Vespasian ordered the construction of the new amphitheater in the city center in A.D. 70. The Colosseum, completed a decade later, was the largest amphitheater ever built. “Building a purpose-built killing zone was a sign of wealth from the Emperors,” explains Woolf.
What made it even more extravagant is that the Colosseum was used only about a dozen times a year, on religious holidays, festivals or the Emperor’s birthday. These all-day spectacles were typically divided into three parts: animal hunts in the morning, executions at midday, and gladiatorial games in the afternoon.
In order to keep the crowds coming back for more, Roman officials devised increasingly brutal extravaganzas. Here are some of the most over-the-top shows ancient Romans could watch at the Colosseum and other amphitheaters.
1. Staged Naval Battles
To mark the opening of the Colosseum, Emperor Titus held 100 days of games across Rome—all free to the public. “This was his way of launching himself and his new dynasty and trying to prove that he was just as powerful as his dad,” says Woolf. It was Titus’s father Vespasian who had initiated construction on the Colosseum before his death in A.D. 79.
The 100 days of games included two mock naval battles, known as naumachia, one of which somehow unfolded inside the Colosseum. This is all the more remarkable, because “the arena floor of the Colosseum was simply not large enough to accommodate that,” says Nathan Elkins, deputy director of the American Numismatic Society. “We can’t think of it as a full-scale naval battle, as the arena could only fit two full-size Roman warships. So they couldn’t maneuver.”
Woolf believes that in the Colosseum, smaller, scaled-down boats were used. They had flat bottoms so they could stand up in the shallow water. The boats wouldn’t have been able to ram each other, as they couldn’t build up enough speed. Fighting platforms were erected so that people could have a better view of the hand-to-hand combat.
“You’d see a couple of boats coming together, the people onboard would grab hold of each other’s boats, they’d get on board, and then have armed combat,” says Woolf. Naumachia is believed to have only taken place in the Colosseum on two more occasions, in the years 85 and 89.
Instead, Naumachia Augusti was the primary location for the practice, as it was a low-lying area of land on the banks of the Tiber River that could be more easily flooded. Titus’ mock naval battle at Naumachia Augusti is said to have included several thousand men and “full scale warships with condemned criminals fighting to the death,” says Elkins.
Elkins believes that naumachia was less about executing criminals and more about impressing and captivating the audience.
“A big theme in the amphitheater is the idea of the Emperor’s command over nature. It was a wonder to see dry ground become flooded, then the Emperor saying, “Drain,” and it becoming dry again.”
2. Exotic Animal Fights
Always on the lookout to make Colosseum events bigger, better and more unusual than their predecessors, Roman leaders leveraged their vast empire to bring in animals from different regions and pit them against each other. “They got in some exotic animals,” says Wolf. This included lions, tigers and elephants, which would then be made to fight or at the very least perform tricks.
“There’s even one story about a Caledonian bear taking on a lion. The mindset being, let’s have the fiercest animal from the north of the Empire against the most fierce one from the south,” says Wolf.
Elkins notes that one of the most memorable animals to be unleashed before Roman audiences was a rhinoceros. Initially, poets wrote with “frustration” because the rhino just sat there, says Elkins. “Then finally it got into a wild rage and started tossing bulls up into the air.”
3. Forest Hunting
They didn’t just pit animals against each other. Emperor Probus also transformed the Colosseum into a forest, making it full of trees and greenery, before then putting animals and trained hunters inside to duke it out.
“Usually the trained hunters would win,” says Elkins. “But the crowd would often have sympathy for the animals and root for them. Sometimes a hunter might be trying to stalk an animal like a leopard, but the leopard is actually stalking him, and the animal would kill the hunter.”
One of the most famous hunters was Carpophorus, who is believed to have killed a bear that charged at him, as well as a lion. He was even compared to Hercules by the poets.
But not everyone who fought animals in the Colosseum impressed the crowd. Emperor Commodus, who viewed himself as a reincarnation of Hercules and was deemed mentally unstable, fought animals naked. He apparently had specially shaped arrowheads designed so he could take the heads off of ostriches.
“There are eyewitness accounts of Commodus getting into hand-to-hand combat with an ostrich and decapitating it,” says Elkins. “Apparently he was waving the animal's head around and everyone was chewing on their laurel leaves to stop themselves from laughing at him.”
Just like in modern stadiums, audiences could buy food and drink at concession stands in the amphitheaters. But accounts suggest the Roman food was a lot fresher. “There’s even some evidence that some of the animals that were killed in the morning were butchered and sold for snacks later that afternoon,” says Elkins.
4. Human Executions
The execution of convicted criminals, early Christians and non-citizens of Rome was the “midday spectacle,” says Elkins. While many ordinary Romans would watch these executions, the noble and "respectable" citizens left to take their lunch outside of the amphitheater during the violence, before returning for the gladiatorial fights in the afternoon.
To amp up the drama and suspense even further, Elkins says that executions were often conducted in ways that “visualized or reenacted Greek and Roman myths.” Kathleen Coleman, a classics professor at Harvard University who has written extensively on this topic, has even referred to this as fatal charades.
One of the most popular characters in Roman culture at that time was the mime Laureolus, a notorious bandit. Laureolus would be depicted committing crimes and religious taboos, before eventually being captured, crucified in the amphitheater, with a bear then ripping him to shreds, explains Elkins. Other roles imposed on criminals included the mythical Greek inventor Daedalus and his son Icarus, who died because he flew too close to the sun.
“They would build these contraptions and swing criminals in the air like they were flying. But then they’d let the criminal get lower and lower so that the bear could pull him down,” says Elkins.
There is even an account of a criminal being dressed as Icarus and then being pushed from the top of the wooden Amphitheater of Nero. “He apparently landed so close to the Emperor that he splattered him with blood,” notes Elkins.
Sometimes the convicted put themselves out of their own misery. It’s alleged that 29 Saxon prisoners strangled each other to death the night before they were due to be killed for entertainment. The Roman philosopher Seneca even recounted an instance where a German prisoner suffocated himself using a public restroom sponge.
5. Gladiator Battles
The main attraction at these all-day events was the gladiatorial fights. While the likes of Spartacus, Marcus Attilius and Spiculus are examples of Gladiators who became known for their skills as fighters, the most famous individual fight was between Priscus and Verus.
During the opening day games sponsored by Titus, they allegedly fought so well, so violently, and for so long that the gathered masses stopped thirsting for blood. “The crowd started begging the Emperor to stop the fight, because it just kept going and going and going,” explains Elkins. “They’re exhausted and injured and the Emperor’s law is that you can’t stop the fight until one of them submits.”
Titus just let the fight continue. When one of them finally raised their finger to quit, they both submitted at the same time. Rather than just picking one, “The Emperor gave both their freedom, declaring them both victors.” The crowd reacted uproariously to his decision.
Impact of Colosseum Spectacles
The Colosseum and Rome’s amphitheaters offered much-needed, albeit bloody entertainment for the populace. The sheer size of the arena and scale of the performances showed off the power of the Empire, while segregating spectators by class reinforced the status quo. “It also created a sense of solidarity and community amongst the spectators,” says Wolf.
Sometimes, though, violence would spill out into the crowd. During the reign of Emperor Honorius, Telemachus, a Christian monk, leapt from the stands and tried to separate a gladiatorial fight. In response, spectators stoned him to death. “This is what allegedly led to the end of the gladiator fights in the Colosseum and the Emperor outlawing the games,” says Elkins.
In Pompeii, when visitors from nearby Nuceria clashed with local attendees, the fight escalated beyond the amphitheater and spilled into the streets, resulting in a full-scale riot. This incident was depicted in a wall painting discovered in Pompeii. Ultimately, the Emperor banned the games in Pompeii for several years as punishment.
“In the end, the games were about othering people and dehumanizing them,” Elkins says. “It was about watching and enjoying somebody else suffer because Romans felt they were better and more privileged.”
