R
omans flocked to amphitheaters all over the Empire to see two
main kinds of spectacles: gladiatorial combats and animal hunts.
Gladiatorswere professional fighters, usually slaves who had
been purchased to train as hand-to-hand combatants in gladiatorial
schools. Their owners, seeking to turn a profit, rented them out for
performances. Beginning with Domitian, however, all gladiators
who competed in Rome were state-owned to ensure that they could
not be used as a private army to overthrow the government. Al-
though every gladiator faced death every time he entered the arena,
some had long careers and achieved considerable fame. Others, for
example, criminals or captured enemies, were sent into the am-
phitheater without any training and without any defensive weapons.
Those “gladiatorial games” were a form of capital punishment cou-
pled with entertainment for the masses.
Wild animal hunts (venationes) were also immensely popular.
Many of the hunters were also professionals, but often the hunts, like
the gladiatorial games, were executions in thin disguise involving
helpless prisoners who were easy prey for the animals. Sometimes no
one would enter the arena with the animals. Instead, skilled archers
shot the beasts with arrows from positions in the stands. Other times
animals would be pitted against other animals—bears versus bulls,
lions versus elephants, and such—to the delight of the crowds.
The Colosseum (FIG. 10-36) was the largest and most important
amphitheater in the world, and the kinds of spectacles staged there
were costlier and more impressive than those held anywhere else. There
are even accounts of the Colosseum being flooded so that naval bat-
tles could be staged before an audience of tens of thousands, although
some scholars have doubted that the arena could be made watertight
or that ships could maneuver in the space available.
In the early third century, the historian Dio Cassius described the
ceremonies Titus sponsored at the inauguration of the Colosseum
in 80.
There was a battle between cranes and also between four elephants;
animals both tame and wild were slain to the number of nine thou-
sand; and women ...took part in despatching them. As for the men,
several fought in single combat and several groups contended together
both in infantry and naval battles. For Titus suddenly filled [the arena]
with water and brought in horses and bulls and some other domesti-
cated animals that had been taught to behave in the liquid element just
as on land. He also brought in people on ships, who engaged in a sea-
fight there....On the first day there was a gladiatorial exhibition and
wild-beast hunt....On the second day there was a horse-race, and on
the third day a naval battle between three thousand men, followed by
an infantry battle....These were the spectacles that were offered, and
they continued for a hundred days.**Dio Cassius,Roman History,66.25. Translated by Earnest Cary,Dio’s Roman
History,vol. 8 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1925), 311, 313.❚ART AND SOCIETY:Spectacles in the Colosseum
ART AND SOCIETY10-36Aerial view of the Colosseum (Flavian Amphitheater), Rome,
Italy, ca. 70–80 ce.
A complex system of concrete barrel vaults once held up the seats in
the world’s largest amphitheater, where 50,000 spectators could watch
gladiatorial combats and wild animal hunts.The Flavians
Because of his outrageous behavior, Nero was forced to commit suicide
in 68 CE, bringing the Julio-Claudian dynasty to an end. A year of re-
newed civil strife followed. The man who emerged triumphant in this
brief but bloody conflict was Vespasian (r. 69–79 CE), a general who had
served under Claudius and Nero. Vespasian, whose family name was
Flavius, had two sons, Titus (r. 79–81 CE) and Domitian (r. 81–96 CE).
The Flavian dynasty ruled Rome for more than a quarter century.
COLOSSEUMThe Flavians left their mark on the capital in
many ways, not the least being the construction of the Colosseum
(FIGS. 10-2,no. 17, and 10-36), the monument that, for most peo-
ple, still represents Rome more than any other building. In the past it
was identified so closely with Rome and its empire that in the early
Middle Ages there was a saying, “While stands the Colosseum, Rome
shall stand; when falls the Colosseum, Rome shall fall; and when
Rome falls—the World.”^2 The Flavian Amphitheater, as it was
known in its day, was one of Vespasian’s first undertakings after be-
coming emperor. The decision to build the Colosseum was very
shrewd politically. The site chosen was the artificial lake on the
grounds of Nero’s Domus Aurea, which engineers drained for the
purpose. By building the new amphitheater there, Vespasian re-
claimed for the public the land Nero had confiscated for his private
pleasure and provided Romans with the largest arena for gladiatorial
combats and other lavish spectacles that had ever been constructed.
The Colosseum takes its name, however, not from its size—it could260 Chapter 10 THE ROMAN EMPIRE