Nero’s reign was characterized by cruelty and extravagance.   When he wished to acquire land on which to build his new palace, the Domus Aureus, or ‘Golden House’, he resorted to burning down most of Rome to do it.  And then he blamed the fire on the Christians.  The Domus Aureus was the embodiment of decadence.  Suetonius says that one of its rooms was set up with a mechanism that misted scented water on the banqueters below while rose petals were dispensed from receptacles in the ceiling. None of this pleased the Romans, particularly since the huge palace, with its artificial lakes and gardens, was built on land confiscated from them. One scandal followed another, but it was Nero’s obsession with the theatre that ultimately led to his downfall.  Not content to be a spectator, he insisted on acting on the stage as well.  He never failed to receive thunderous applause from the crowd but Nero had disgraced the office.  The Roman senate condemned him in absentia and then force him to commit suicide. 

There followed several aborted attempts by various factions to seize power but it soon became apparent that no one could rule Rome without the approval of the Praetorian Guard.  This elite band of soldiers, chosen to protect the emperor, had essentially usurped the power of the emperor.  The Guard finally chose one of their own, an old soldier from out East, named Vespasian, who was at that time occupied with putting down a violent uprising in the small province of Judea.  When the call came, Vespasian transferred command to his son, Titus, and hurried back to Rome.  In the mean time, Titus continued to wage war against the Jews.  After a seven month siege Titus breached the inner defenses of Herod’s temple, and burned it to the ground in 70 AD.  The spoils of war taken from the small, but very wealthy, province of Judea provided the resources necessary to undertake one of Rome’s most ambition building projects, the construction of the Colosseum.

The Latin word ‘colossal’ was traditionally used with reference to giant statues, like those found in Egypt, or the statue of Helios in Rhodes.  The Roman emperors also constructed giant statues of themselves, the most famous being a statue erected by Nero in the courtyard of his new palace.  After Nero was overthrown, the statue was converted into a statue of Helios, the sun-god, instead.  It was this giant statue or ‘colossus’ that gave its name to the ‘colosseum’ that was erected nearby.  

This location was chosen by Vespasian, who wished to build an amphitheatre of grand proportions but lacked lacked the land to build it on.   Since Vespasian did not wish to confiscate land as Nero had done, he decided to tear down Nero’s palace and build the Colosseum in the same spot.  In this way he could remove a building associated with an unpopular emperor and erect in its place a public building.  Instead of rose petals and roast, suckling pig, enjoyed by a select few, now all the people of Rome could watch as captives, criminals, and Christians were torn limb from limb by wild beasts. 

Origins

The spectacle in the Roman Colosseum had its roots in ancient funerary customs.  It was believed that the ghosts of the deceased received sustenance from the blood that fell on the ground thereby renewing some form of shadowy existence in the afterlife.¹“It is said that these sacrifices were intended to provide him who had gone to the other world with servants and companions, as the offering of a horse gave him a steed, or else that, in case of violent death, they were meant to appease the shade of a victim who claimed vengeance.” (Cumont 1959, 51)  One particularly chilling example of a funerary sacrifice comes from Suetonius, who recounts how the Romans, having put down a revolt in the Italian province of Umbria, marched three hundred of Perugia’s leading citizens outside of the city walls and slaughtered them on Caesar’s altar.  This mass sacrifice was performed on the Ides of March, the day of Caesar’s death. (Suetonius, Aug. 15)

The Romans turned these funerary rites into games performed in honor of the dead person.   Eventually the bloody spectacles took on a life of their own and became a primary source of entertainment.  One indicator of just how popular the games became in ancient Rome comes from an incident that occurred in 160 BC when the people, having heard that the games were about to begin, emptied the theatre in the middle of a performance of Hecyra, written by the famous Roman playwright, Terence, in order to watch the gladiatorial games.  ²Carcopino 2003, 231  Thus already in the 2nd century BC the games had become a favorite form of entertainment among the people.

By the 1st century BC, senatorial candidates were vying with each other for office by inviting people to watch “spectacular scenes of carnage.” ³Carcopino, 231 Despite a law passed by the Roman senate forbidding anyone from seeking office who had sponsored the games in the two years prior to running for office, the games nevertheless became an inherent part of Rome’s political system.  When Julius Caesar campaigned for the office of quaestor, he sponsored elaborate gladiatorial games the likes of which had never been seen before in Rome.  To compound matters, Caesar did it with money borrowed from Crassus, Rome’s richest man.  In return for these loans, Crassus could count on Caesar’s support for his legislation.  The staging of elaborate games became such an entrenched part of the political system during the final years of the Republic that only the extremely wealthy or those with wealthy patrons could afford to run for office.   The games remained an important means of controlling the masses in the Imperial period.  Carcopino writes that, “the emperors, deliberately pandering to the murderous lust of the crowds, found in gladiatorial games the most sure, if also the most sinister, of their instruments of power.” ⁴Carcopino 2003, 232

Construction

The Colosseum is an example of Roman architecture at its finest.  It makes careful use of arches, stairways and corridors to manage the sea of people coming and going.  Seating was largely determined by social class.  Those of senatorial and equestrian rank accessed their seats through the innermost corridors of the Colosseum.  These corridors were lavishly decorated, with marble-clad halls and private rooms.  From there one could ascend a short distance to front row seats.  Behind the senators, sat the equestrians, and behind them, the citizens of Rome, who were further divided by rank and position into different sections of the Colosseum.   Slaves and the poor had to climb to the uppermost reaches of the Colosseum where there was often only standing room. All told, the Colosseum held upwards of 50,000 people.

People did not go to the games simply as spectators, but also to be seen.  Juvenal notes that it was a good place to pick up girls.  In the time of Augustus, women were confined to the very uppermost rows of the Colosseum.  This may have been to distance them from the bloodshed or perhaps to keep some distance between them and the gladiators, who were quite popular with the ladies of Rome.

The construction of the Colosseum required skilled architects and craftsmen, as well as a huge amount of unskilled labour.   We know next to nothing about the nameless multitudes who toiled to move dirt, quarry stone, slake lime, feed and drive transport animals, load and unload materials, man the capstans and treadmills. ⁵Ulrich 2014, 199  Large numbers of these were undoubtedly slaves. Their lives flitted by like shadows, filled with trouble and hardship.  Some eventually did gain their freedom and became an influential part of Roman society. 

One interesting study by Homer-Dixon and Frecker estimates that the construction of the Colosseum required 44 billion kilo-calories of energy.  Today, this amount of energy might be translated into the number of barrels of oil needed to operate equipment but in the Roman era, energy was primarily gleaned from the cultivation of land that supplied food for men and animals.  By this metric, 44 billion kilocalories of energy would require the cultivation of 55 square kilometers of land for five years.  However, this is only a partial calculation since the amount of energy required to build the Colosseum pales in comparison to the amount of energy expended in operating the gladiatorial schools and capturing exotic animals for slaughter.  The games in the Colosseum were such extravagant affairs that they eventually became a major drain on the empire’s finances. A hint of what was to come may be gleaned from the Res Gestae (‘Record of Deeds’) of the divine Augustus:

This is bloodshed on an almost inconceivable scale, but it pales in comparison to those of Titus, who proclaimed 100 days of games at the dedication of the Colosseum in 80 AD.  In just a single day, over 3000 men are said to have fought.  On another day, 9000 animals were killed.  Not to be outdone, Trajan sponsored 123 days of games during which 11,000 animals were killed.  As might be expected, the slaughter of so many animals eventually resulted in a scarcity of wild animals and the extinction of one, the North African elephant.  By the third century AD, the price of big cats was set at 600,000 sesterces apiece (nearly 4 million pounds today).  Such high prices for animals ultimately ultimately forced emperors to reduce the number of animals killed during the games.  When the emperor Philip the Arab proclaimed the games celebrating the Roman millennium in 248 AD, he could only muster 32 elephants, 10 elk, 10 tigers, 60 tame lions, 30 tame leopards, 10 hyenas, 6 hippopotami, 1 rhinoceros, 10 wild lions, 10 giraffes, 20 wild asses and 40 wild horses.  ⁶Bomgardner 2007, 215

In the final analysis, despite the magnificence of its construction, the Colosseum represents an incredible amount of waste, and stands as a monument to an incalculable amount of suffering.

Gladiators

The arena would already have filled with spectators when the emperor entered with his senators and magistrates.  They were relieved when the crowd roared with approval.  If unhappy, the crowd could remain silent with the occasional boo or jeer for the circus was one of the few places where the opinion of the masses could still be expressed.  After the emperor took his seat, the gladiators presented themselves before the Emperor.  They stood before the king’s box and declared, “Hail Caesar, we who are about to die salute you.”  In order to be sure that no secret arrangements between combatants could be made before hand, lots were cast to determine how they should be paired off. Sometimes special pairings were made, such as the two Nubians chosen by Nero, or the dwarf and a woman who fought in the games of Diocletian.  It was also common to pair gladiators armed with different kinds of equipment.  The favorite pairing was a gladiator armed with a short sword and small round shield (murmillo or secutor) facing off against a man carrying a trident and a net (retarius).

An electric charge passes through the crowd the moment the two lock in combat.  In case the contestants do not fight with sufficient energy, an overseer stands by with a whip in hand, in order to whip the men into a murderous rage.  The Colosseum was filled with shouts of “habet! that’s got him!”, or “verbera! strike!”⁷Carcopino As the opponents begin to tire, eventually one gains the upper hand.  The defeated man might drop his weapon and grasp the victors thigh.  It is now up to the victor to determine the man’s fate.  The victor was obligated to consult the emperor who in turn often consulted the crowd.  If the people waved handkerchiefs and shouted “Mitte! Let him go!” then the emperor lifted his thumb and the man was spared.  However, if the people decided that the man deserved defeat, then the amphitheatre was filled with shouts of “Iugula!  Slay him!”  Some were spared but many were killed.  Ultimately, people came to the amphitheatre to watch people die, an aspect of the Colosseum that is often downplayed in modern history books.

Nero’s reign was characterized by cruelty and extravagance.   When he wished to acquire land on which to build his new palace, the Domus Aureus, or ‘Golden House’, he resorted to burning down most of Rome to do it.  And then he blamed the fire on the Christians.  The Domus Aureus was the embodiment of decadence.  Suetonius says that one of its rooms was set up with a mechanism that misted scented water on the banqueters below while rose petals were dispensed from receptacles in the ceiling. None of this pleased the Romans, particularly since the huge palace, with its artificial lakes and gardens, was built on land confiscated from them. One scandal followed another, but it was Nero’s obsession with the theatre that ultimately led to his downfall.  Not content to be a spectator, he insisted on acting on the stage as well.  He never failed to receive thunderous applause from the crowd but Nero had disgraced the office.  The Roman senate condemned him in absentia and then force him to commit suicide. 

There followed several aborted attempts by various factions to seize power but it soon became apparent that no one could rule Rome without the approval of the Praetorian Guard.  This elite band of soldiers, chosen to protect the emperor, had essentially usurped the power of the emperor.  The Guard finally chose one of their own, an old soldier from out East, named Vespasian, who was at that time occupied with putting down a violent uprising in the small province of Judea.  When the call came, Vespasian transferred command to his son, Titus, and hurried back to Rome.  In the mean time, Titus continued to wage war against the Jews.  After a seven month siege Titus breached the inner defenses of Herod’s temple, and burned it to the ground in 70 AD.  The spoils of war taken from the small, but very wealthy, province of Judea provided the resources necessary to undertake one of Rome’s most ambition building projects, the construction of the Colosseum.

The Latin word ‘colossal’ was traditionally used with reference to giant statues, like those found in Egypt, or the statue of Helios in Rhodes.  The Roman emperors also constructed giant statues of themselves, the most famous being a statue erected by Nero in the courtyard of his new palace.  After Nero was overthrown, the statue was converted into a statue of Helios, the sun-god, instead.  It was this giant statue or ‘colossus’ that gave its name to the ‘colosseum’ that was erected nearby.  

This location was chosen by Vespasian, who wished to build an amphitheatre of grand proportions but lacked lacked the land to build it on.   Since Vespasian did not wish to confiscate land as Nero had done, he decided to tear down Nero’s palace and build the Colosseum in the same spot.  In this way he could remove a building associated with an unpopular emperor and erect in its place a public building.  Instead of rose petals and roast, suckling pig, enjoyed by a select few, now all the people of Rome could watch as captives, criminals, and Christians were torn limb from limb by wild beasts. 

Origins

The spectacle in the Roman Colosseum had its roots in ancient funerary customs.  It was believed that the ghosts of the deceased received sustenance from the blood that fell on the ground thereby renewing some form of shadowy existence in the afterlife.¹“It is said that these sacrifices were intended to provide him who had gone to the other world with servants and companions, as the offering of a horse gave him a steed, or else that, in case of violent death, they were meant to appease the shade of a victim who claimed vengeance.” (Cumont 1959, 51)  One particularly chilling example of a funerary sacrifice comes from Suetonius, who recounts how the Romans, having put down a revolt in the Italian province of Umbria, marched three hundred of Perugia’s leading citizens outside of the city walls and slaughtered them on Caesar’s altar.  This mass sacrifice was performed on the Ides of March, the day of Caesar’s death. (Suetonius, Aug. 15)

The Romans turned these funerary rites into games performed in honor of the dead person.   Eventually the bloody spectacles took on a life of their own and became a primary source of entertainment.  One indicator of just how popular the games became in ancient Rome comes from an incident that occurred in 160 BC when the people, having heard that the games were about to begin, emptied the theatre in the middle of a performance of Hecyra, written by the famous Roman playwright, Terence, in order to watch the gladiatorial games.  ²Carcopino 2003, 231  Thus already in the 2nd century BC the games had become a favorite form of entertainment among the people.

By the 1st century BC, senatorial candidates were vying with each other for office by inviting people to watch “spectacular scenes of carnage.” ³Carcopino, 231 Despite a law passed by the Roman senate forbidding anyone from seeking office who had sponsored the games in the two years prior to running for office, the games nevertheless became an inherent part of Rome’s political system.  When Julius Caesar campaigned for the office of quaestor, he sponsored elaborate gladiatorial games the likes of which had never been seen before in Rome.  To compound matters, Caesar did it with money borrowed from Crassus, Rome’s richest man.  In return for these loans, Crassus could count on Caesar’s support for his legislation.  The staging of elaborate games became such an entrenched part of the political system during the final years of the Republic that only the extremely wealthy or those with wealthy patrons could afford to run for office.   The games remained an important means of controlling the masses in the Imperial period.  Carcopino writes that, “the emperors, deliberately pandering to the murderous lust of the crowds, found in gladiatorial games the most sure, if also the most sinister, of their instruments of power.” ⁴Carcopino 2003, 232

Construction

The Colosseum is an example of Roman architecture at its finest.  It makes careful use of arches, stairways and corridors to manage the sea of people coming and going.  Seating was largely determined by social class.  Those of senatorial and equestrian rank accessed their seats through the innermost corridors of the Colosseum.  These corridors were lavishly decorated, with marble-clad halls and private rooms.  From there one could ascend a short distance to front row seats.  Behind the senators, sat the equestrians, and behind them, the citizens of Rome, who were further divided by rank and position into different sections of the Colosseum.   Slaves and the poor had to climb to the uppermost reaches of the Colosseum where there was often only standing room. All told, the Colosseum held upwards of 50,000 people.

People did not go to the games simply as spectators, but also to be seen.  Juvenal notes that it was a good place to pick up girls.  In the time of Augustus, women were confined to the very uppermost rows of the Colosseum.  This may have been to distance them from the bloodshed or perhaps to keep some distance between them and the gladiators, who were quite popular with the ladies of Rome.

The construction of the Colosseum required skilled architects and craftsmen, as well as a huge amount of unskilled labour.   We know next to nothing about the nameless multitudes who toiled to move dirt, quarry stone, slake lime, feed and drive transport animals, load and unload materials, man the capstans and treadmills. ⁵Ulrich 2014, 199  Large numbers of these were undoubtedly slaves. Their lives flitted by like shadows, filled with trouble and hardship.  Some eventually did gain their freedom and became an influential part of Roman society. 

One interesting study by Homer-Dixon and Frecker estimates that the construction of the Colosseum required 44 billion kilo-calories of energy.  Today, this amount of energy might be translated into the number of barrels of oil needed to operate equipment but in the Roman era, energy was primarily gleaned from the cultivation of land that supplied food for men and animals.  By this metric, 44 billion kilocalories of energy would require the cultivation of 55 square kilometers of land for five years.  However, this is only a partial calculation since the amount of energy required to build the Colosseum pales in comparison to the amount of energy expended in operating the gladiatorial schools and capturing exotic animals for slaughter.  The games in the Colosseum were such extravagant affairs that they eventually became a major drain on the empire’s finances. A hint of what was to come may be gleaned from the Res Gestae (‘Record of Deeds’) of the divine Augustus:

This is bloodshed on an almost inconceivable scale, but it pales in comparison to those of Titus, who proclaimed 100 days of games at the dedication of the Colosseum in 80 AD.  In just a single day, over 3000 men are said to have fought.  On another day, 9000 animals were killed.  Not to be outdone, Trajan sponsored 123 days of games during which 11,000 animals were killed.  As might be expected, the slaughter of so many animals eventually resulted in a scarcity of wild animals and the extinction of one, the North African elephant.  By the third century AD, the price of big cats was set at 600,000 sesterces apiece (nearly 4 million pounds today).  Such high prices for animals ultimately ultimately forced emperors to reduce the number of animals killed during the games.  When the emperor Philip the Arab proclaimed the games celebrating the Roman millennium in 248 AD, he could only muster 32 elephants, 10 elk, 10 tigers, 60 tame lions, 30 tame leopards, 10 hyenas, 6 hippopotami, 1 rhinoceros, 10 wild lions, 10 giraffes, 20 wild asses and 40 wild horses.  ⁶Bomgardner 2007, 215

In the final analysis, despite the magnificence of its construction, the Colosseum represents an incredible amount of waste, and stands as a monument to an incalculable amount of suffering.

Gladiators

The arena would already have filled with spectators when the emperor entered with his senators and magistrates.  They were relieved when the crowd roared with approval.  If unhappy, the crowd could remain silent with the occasional boo or jeer for the circus was one of the few places where the opinion of the masses could still be expressed.  After the emperor took his seat, the gladiators presented themselves before the Emperor.  They stood before the king’s box and declared, “Hail Caesar, we who are about to die salute you.”  In order to be sure that no secret arrangements between combatants could be made before hand, lots were cast to determine how they should be paired off. Sometimes special pairings were made, such as the two Nubians chosen by Nero, or the dwarf and a woman who fought in the games of Diocletian.  It was also common to pair gladiators armed with different kinds of equipment.  The favorite pairing was a gladiator armed with a short sword and small round shield (murmillo or secutor) facing off against a man carrying a trident and a net (retarius).

An electric charge passes through the crowd the moment the two lock in combat.  In case the contestants do not fight with sufficient energy, an overseer stands by with a whip in hand, in order to whip the men into a murderous rage.  The Colosseum was filled with shouts of “habet! that’s got him!”, or “verbera! strike!”⁷Carcopino As the opponents begin to tire, eventually one gains the upper hand.  The defeated man might drop his weapon and grasp the victors thigh.  It is now up to the victor to determine the man’s fate.  The victor was obligated to consult the emperor who in turn often consulted the crowd.  If the people waved handkerchiefs and shouted “Mitte! Let him go!” then the emperor lifted his thumb and the man was spared.  However, if the people decided that the man deserved defeat, then the amphitheatre was filled with shouts of “Iugula!  Slay him!”  Some were spared but many were killed.  Ultimately, people came to the amphitheatre to watch people die, an aspect of the Colosseum that is often downplayed in modern history books.