Episode 4: Rome – Blood Sport

Buongiorno! I’m Dr. Rocky Ruggiero, join me in rebuilding The Renaissance and making art and history come to life.

Welcome to the Rebuilding The Renaissance podcast, your guide to the art and history of Italy, from the glory of Rome to the magnificence of The Renaissance. And now here’s your host Dr. Rocky Ruggiero.

So the topic of this podcast is bloodsport, or the gladiatorial games that actually went on inside of The Colosseum. Now consider that if you were to visit The Colosseum 2000 years ago on game day, it would not look much different than a football stadium or a baseball stadium does today. And that essentially different people arriving at the structure at different times, and we’re told by Roman chroniclers that usually the first person to arrive were those men who were actually laying the odds on the gladiatorial contests. In other words the bookies, right. Now consider that again there was a published card of which gladiators would be fighting on that particular day. These gladiators were nothing less than modern day sports celebrities.

And because the gladiatorial barracks were located just across the street from The Colosseum, these bookies could go and essentially pay off the guards to find out if so and so still had a cold or if so and so had broken up with his girlfriend the night before contest. And this, of course, like today, right, with them laying the odds, would influence just which gladiator was favored over which other. Now a little bit later we’re told the persons who ran the concession stands would show up, right. To sort of lay out their wares before people began to arrive. Now consider that usually the spectators began arriving at The Colosseum sort of mid-morning right. Let’s say about 10:00 AM or so modern time.

And when they entered into The Colosseum what they saw was performance. In other words, there were a series of performances whose intensity gradually increased respective to the number of people inside. In other words, when you first walked into The Colosseum what you saw would be tamed animal tricks, right: the dancing bear, the tigers leaping through hoops of fire, and what have you. So entertainment for the kids as I like to describe it. And then as more people gradually filled into The Colosseum, another spectacle would be performed. And this was one that was actually introduced by Emperor Nero in another amphitheater, not The Colosseum itself, but it was a comic performance involving women dressed as gladiators fighting against dwarfs dressed as gladiators.

This was not a fight to the death, but, of course, they would find a comic relief in seeing this particular stage battle, or what have you. And as this happened, of course, people would focus their attention more on what was going on, right. While also mingling, obviously, in the stands as well. Okay. Once that finished, the next event is the one that I’m most fascinated by, because it involved animal contests And those animals that actually fought inside The Colosseum were animals that had no business at all seeing each other in nature. Okay. Now we’ve already discussed the far reaching borders of the Roman Empire and how vast the territory actually was. So consider that, what the Romans would do was to capture certain animals, exotic, the more exotic the better, of course; and then essentially starve them, and taunt them, and have them foaming at the mouth, so that once they got inside The Colosseum they were, obviously, ready to explode.

And they would set these animals against each other. Okay. So an example that my son, six and a half year old, effectively came up with was a contest between a black bear and a rhinoceros, right. Animals that had never seen each other before, but obviously now were so beside themselves with confusion, and rage, and what have you, that would actually tear each other to pieces. And there would be multiple contests going on at one time. Now, the rhinocerosai themselves were kind of a mainstay or a norm, right. In fact, we’re told that while certain animals were fighting against each other: a tiger versus a lion or what have you, that there would actually be domestic cows that were kind of randomly scattered throughout the performance space and then rhinocerosai who were actually instigated to essentially charge randomly, right, and wildly throughout the space.

And one Roman chronicler describes what happened when a fully accelerated charging rhinoceros slams into the side of a domestic cow and how the explosion, sending the cow into the stands, and the blood, and what have you, sending the rest of the animals into a frenzy. And it was just full out melee. And so, A: fascination of seeing certain animals for the first time. You can only imagine what it was like when a Roman first saw a giraffe, or first saw an alligator, what have you. And then, of course, the appeal of seeing these animals that sort of butcher and slaughter each other inside. Now once this was over, right. You’d have the attendants come out and they would carry off all the animal carcasses. They would turn over the sand. And that’s what makes sand so efficient as a material to cover that wooden platform, because all one had to do was to turn it over to hide the blood and the guts, and the flesh, and what have you that were actually there.

If that sand became saturated with blood and guts and what have you, then they would essentially clear it out, go to Ostia, right, the nearby beach, and then bring some more sand into essentially replace it, right. It’s almost like zamboning, if you will, of The Colosseum to kind of clear the whole thing off. Now the next event is the one also that drew quite a bit of attention and it involved a type of performer known as a bestiarii. Now, a bestiarii was a professional beast hunter, so that those same men who were out in the jungles or in the Sahara capturing the lions and capturing the gorillas, and whatever they brought back to Rome, would now be performing for the Romans in The Colosseum.

It’s not that different from what today we would call sort of virtual reality on computers, in the sense that many of us would like very much to go on safari, but it’s too expensive or too risky or what have you. Well, you don’t have to go on safari, because all you have to do is turn on National Geographic channel and watch as they film the Serengeti plain and what have you as well. Well, that’s essentially what was happening in Rome, was this kind of vicarious experience that one could enjoy inside The Colosseum. So that these bestiarii would actually dress and be armed the way they would were they out in the jungle or the plains of the Serengeti.

They would actually, the Romans, go to great lengths to put up props, right. They would actually recreate the actual terrain and the topography of these far off places, so that the Romans would know what they actually look like. And the bestiarii would march out into the performance area accompanied by music, because considered that there wasn’t orchestra inside The Colosseum that was trained to essentially play music that would reflect the intensity of what was happening inside. Okay. In other words, a soundtrack let’s say, to the actual event. And as the bestiarii marched out, and today they’re in the plains of Serengeti, what have you, then suddenly the trapdoors would open in The Colosseum and dozens and dozens of lions would come out, dozens of tigers would come out, dozens of cheetahs, or whatever, and then the hunt was on.

It was beast hunter against beast and it was a contest, so that the Romans would of course cheer on the hunter, but if a particular animal, we’re told, performed quite well and quite successfully, might actually cheer on the animal instead. And this would continue until A: all the animals were dead. Or B: there wasn’t any fight left in either hunter or hunted, and then the whole thing would stop. So, again, you’d have the attendants come out, they would clear off the carcasses in preparation for the next event. Now consider the degree of spectacle inside of The Colosseum is a level that I think has never been paralleled again, even Hollywood I think relatively speaking could not stand up against what was going on inside.

The preferred animal of slaughter inside The Colosseum was the elephant, right. Some imagine it was a sort of leftover psychoses off from the whole Hannibal incident. I instead think it was the elephant, because it’s such a spectacular animal to take down even today: big game hunters, right, the biggest game you can find on land is the elephant. And there is a legend concerning opening day at The Colosseum where supposedly some 5000 animals were killed in the first day. And now if you run the numbers on that it logistically is nearly impossible, because it would break down to a certain number of animals per second, and it’s more than likely that 5000 animals were killed over the 100 first days of games when The Colosseum opened. Either way though, it’s a staggering figure. And consider that one of the most gruesome stories I’ve ever heard concerning The Colosseum was in fact the laying of the metro line.

And if you don’t know, you can actually get to The Colosseum by subway or what we call a metro, and the metro stop just across the street which was laid down in the early part of the 20th century. And the story goes that as they were digging the tunnel to bring the metro to The Colosseum, the workers came across an underground mass grave of elephants, right. In other words, on a particular day in The Colosseum they had slaughtered these elephants, they dragged their carcasses across the street, and then buried them in a mass grave. And when these workers, 1900 years later, came along and found this mass grave, they began to pull these elephant skeletons out and there had been so many of these elephants packed into that space that the ones at the bottom still had rotting flesh attached to the bones.

I mean, just to give you an idea again of the level of production and the amount of money that went into creating these extraordinary events inside of The Colosseum. Now, at this point you’re at The Colosseum, you’re probably tired of hearing me describing the events that went on, imagine how tired a spectator might have been. So it was intermission, right, or interval, and if you lived nearby you could go to your home and have something to eat, perhaps take a [inaudible 00:10:09] or what have you. If you did not, then you could go outside to one of those concession stands and you could get a hotdog, right. And hotdogs have existed as long as meat filled animal intestines have existed. You could get yourself a beer or if you like you could get some spiced wine instead.

So just about everything was available there at The Colosseum. And again very similar to our own sports stadia today. Now, in the afternoon we’re told that usually the spectator showed up before the spectacle began, because this is, of course, is what everyone wanted to see and that was the gladiatorial contest: the fights to the death. So that the producers at The Colosseum, of course, really knew how to build up the suspense and the anticipation by making the spectators wait, right. And so the idea that the whole place would fill up, that the people would be kind of beside themselves in anticipation, pounding their feet, and chanting, waiting for these gladiators to come out. And just as The Colosseum was about to become unhinged, the trumpets would sound, and then the gladiators would enter into the performance area.

And they would walk around one full revolution as people were just beside themselves with enthusiasm, and screaming, and applauding, and what have you as well. In fact, again, as I described them earlier, these were celebrities in their day. And so I always [inaudible 00:11:30] these images you see of people at concerts, right, who are so overwhelmed by emotion that they’re actually crying, and the same thing would’ve happened with these gladiators, many of whom had been celebrated before they came to Rome. In other words, you are at the peak of your profession. So when these people came to Rome for the first time, you could imagine the enthusiasm that surrounded them.

They would walk one full revolution, they would stop in front of the imperial box, they would raise their hand and greet the Emperor. “Hail, Emperor, those of us who are about to die for you salute you.” Okay. And if you’ve seen the movie Gladiator, that’s, of course, this is the salute that that rebel Russell Crowe does not make. Okay. And then afterwards, the gladiators then retreat down into the sort of locker room area that was below The Colosseum. So it’s not just one on one, that happened very rarely inside. Usually there were multiple pairs of gladiators fighting simultaneously. Okay. As many as 15 of these pairs fighting at one time. And the way the spectacle was arranged was that each gladiator, who remember was a slave, right, but not a slave in a generic sense of the term; most of these gladiators word fact captured soldiers.

So that if I’m a Roman I’m fighting out in Gaul, and I see this particular Gaelic warrior fighting rather bravely, instead of killing this warrior, what I do is to capture him and then to sell him to a gladiator school, so that he’s already very well trained in martial arts. But, what’s going to happen at the gladiator school is that he will specialize in a martial art, so you are a gladiator who uses a short sword and a circular shield. You are a gladiator who uses a trident and a net. You are gladiator who uses bronze boxes. In other words, these were all the different weapons, and each gladiator would specialize in a single type of weapon. It’s roughly the equivalent today of kung fu versus ju jitsu, of Greco-Roman wrestling versus judo, right.

You would have these men specialized in a particular way of fighting, and then fighting against each other to the death: blood sport, which in fact is what we’ll be talking about in our next podcast, right. The tradition from which this whole gladiatorial contest was born. They would fight to the death, this was the idea. So a knockout in these gladiatorial contest was fatal. Now if a gladiator was incapacitated. Let’s say a gladiator had an arm severely injured or a leg and they could no longer fight, the gladiator did in fact have the right to throw himself at the mercy of either the Emperor or the next highest ranking person inside The Colosseum.

And the way he did this was by simply extending his hand with his index and middle finger adjoined and this would indicate that he was yielding, right. That he was essentially giving up and saying, “I submit”. It was then up to the emperor, or the vestal virgin, the senator, whoever it might be, to essentially exercise the power of life or death, right. Now, again, there is some controversy concerning exactly how this happened. Hollywood has, of course, immortalized the signal given by the emperor as either the thumbs up, meaning let him live; or the thumbs down, meaning execute him, right, or kill the person. The idea essentially that if the gladiator had performed valiantly enough to earn the opportunity to live and fight another day, or if the gladiator instead had not fought valiantly at all, and so essentially deserved to die.

And so the idea of the thumbs up or the thumbs down. Then that gesture was contested. An archeologist actually suggested that the gesture was a thumb extending to the left, meaning let him live; or to the right, meaning let him die. Most recently, it’s been proposed that the gesture actually was a thumb that remained extended to the left regardless, but the gesture that indicated the judgment was actually an open hand, so let him live. Or, a closed fist, the thumb extended the entire time indicating let him die. Okay. But, more importantly, it was the word that accompanied the gesture. that indicated the judgment of the person passing it, so that a let him live was mitte in Latin. Or, let him die was iugula, because to kill essentially was exposing the neck of the defeated gladiator and then drawing that sword across the neck, cutting the jugular.

Iugula: the jugular vein, the blood gushing out, the gladiator taking his last gasp of breath. And the victorious gladiator, of course, then walking around, receiving his accolades, the cheers of the crowd standing amongst those 50 to 80000 people at the center of what was the entire world: the caput mundis they called it, on top of the world. Then the adrenaline and the testosterone pumping through the veins of this victorious gladiator who had lived through the day, but knew very well that his next contest may have been his last contest, right. This is what was happening inside of the policy. And from a social perspective it’s absolutely fascinating, because in a way the popularity of the gladiatorial games was reflective of the decay of Roman society.

In other words, those Romans who were sitting out in the stands of The Colosseum, were once those Romans who were out on the battlefields. They were fighting for the glory of their family, they were fighting for the glory of the city of Rome itself, but Rome had become so powerful that a majority of its soldiers were now mercenaries. And so the Roman himself was sitting back in Rome, getting fat and lazy, and living vicariously through the contests that were going inside The Colosseum. And so the idea that it gradually drained, The Colosseum did, and what went on all aspects of Roman society. For instance, just down the street from The Colosseum is the famous Theater of Marcellus. It was actually built in the 1st century BC under Roman general Julius Caesar who we discussed in an earlier podcast. And still today the Theater of Marcellus is the largest in the world with a capacity of something like 10,000 people. Consider that La Scala, the world’s most famous opera house, has a capacity of about 3,500 people instead.

Night after night, the Theater of Marcellus was empty, right. No one wanted to go to theater anymore. Who wanted to think, who wanted to feel as they watch these theatrical events? What they wanted was immediate and gratuitous violence, and they got that inside The Colosseum so much so that the theatrical producers over at the Theater of Marcellus tried to play to the public’s taste for blood by actually introducing what today we call the stunt double. So that if during a theatrical performance the protagonist or the antagonist was killed, they would substitute the actor with an actual slave and then kill that person during the performance, hoping that these kind of graphic special effects or what have you would draw more people, but of course it did not work; what people wanted was bloodsport.

And the only place you could get it was inside of The Colosseum. So stay tuned, in our next podcast we’ll actually be talking about the era, the historical context of The Colosseum and what we have deemed the era of bread and circus.

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