Professor David Peimer
The Colosseum of Ancient Rome: Much More than Bread and Circuses?
Professor David Peimer - The Colosseum of Ancient Rome: Much More than Bread and Circuses
- So, today we’re going to dive into something of a fascinating architectural marvel with really, I think, pretty profound and interesting questions that it provokes, the Colosseum of ancient Rome. This is such an iconic image, such an iconic architectural structure that we sort of, I think, almost take it for granted. You know, when we think about ancient Rome, ancient times, we barely think twice about. What I want to propose is that this Colosseum had a pretty important, and I would say profound influence on Roman’s sense of their national identity in the way that we today have spectacle, and spectacle today for us can be on the TV, it can be on the internet, it can be on our phones. It can be going to a massive stadium to watch an event, political rally, a sports event, a military parade, whatever. Globally, the notion of spectacle and how much we as societies thrive on them, I suppose, need them, and the overlap between spectacle and political or social-cultural message, and of course, how it engages with entertainment and forging an identity, and how they all go together. And what links it for me is that very word, entertainment. Whether it’s theatre of ancient Greece and the amphitheatres, theatres today, the very notion of a theatrical performance on such a massive, grandiose scale and how that is taken out of a play, actors, et cetera, into this huge spectacles, which can ironically be experienced on a little phone today or on the internet, wherever.
But it’s still the entertaining need for spectacle to convey message, to convey ideologies, faith’s, beliefs, and a sense of how entertainment is so interwoven with these things going way back 2,000 years ago and for us as much today. Just a brief little bit of history and then I’m going to also talk about some examples of the Colosseum and what actually happened there, trying to differentiate fact from fiction, but also what has become myth or legend and show a couple of film clips as we go along. I think trying to bring in some interesting, I suppose, less expected impressions of the Colosseum. So it’s an architectural marvel, no question. Built 2,000 years ago. How did they do it? What did they do? What did they need? The engineering of it, the sheer scale and construction, of course, you know, the thousands and thousands of slaves, mostly Jewish slaves as we know, taken from after the conquest of Jerusalem, around 70, after 70 anno Domini. So Vespasian with his son, Titus, is taking Jewish slaves across and what they’d looted from Jerusalem and the temple and so money from Judea to help finance the building of the Colosseum and the physical, backbreaking labour of the slaves who were mostly Jewish to build it. The ironies of history just keep going round and round. It seated over 50,000 Romans, which if we think about it, this is 2,000 years ago, it’s quite an extraordinary architectural phenomenon. One of the great icons of this empire, and empires need it, nation states need it, mass societies need massive, iconic constructions in a way, have a sense of identity and I guess pride and identity.
So what ideas do the Colosseum forge in Roman identity? Was it just bread and circus in the great classic phrase, you know, “Give the masses bread and circus and you can rule them forever.” Or was it more than “give them bread and circus?” In this case, of course, you know, circus, spectacle, or entertainment. I want to suggest that it’s more than just bread and circus. More than the basic need is entertainment, spectacle, ideology, plus, you know, feed people and so on. Because it’s part of the collective, as Harari would say, the collective fiction, the collective founding story of the empire, of the society. And many societies around the world will have their versions of this and of course come down in the word circus as today. So what do I mean by that? That it’s more than just bread and circus? It creates a fascinating, violent, self-confident, conquering, superior in inverted commas, sense of national identity for ancient Romans. It creates a sense of honour, a sense of pride. And of course, it’s violent and it’s ferocious and it’s based on the military, but it’s much more than military parade and military pride ‘cause we could have many other mere military parades if we like. This is something that goes beyond that. Even if they’re showing conquests and they’re putting water and ships and lakes inside the Colosseum and reenacting conquests of various areas of the empire, which become provinces. They’re showing more than conquests, more than military parade, more even than gladiators, although that’s the highlight, of course.
They’re showing something that they need in such an entertaining way for the message of national identity. It’s for the powerful elite. They have to be there. The emperor is always there. Let’s never forget the emperor is absolutely central. So everybody knows, ultimately this is to serve the emperor. The emperor then has the decision making over life and death over gladiators and others. So the emperor is enhancing his power by showing that ultimately the emperor’s power over, not only the gladiators and all those condemned in the Colosseum, but his power over the Roman citizens, power of life and death. And therefore the emperor himself is so enhanced by the Colosseum. So, it’s a complex set of messages in part of the identity of empire, fundamentally, in ancient Rome. Also for the powerful elite. They need to be seen, they need to go there. It’s a place to be seen, to see others, to make deals, to talk, to converse, to do political plots and all sorts of things as well. You know, I mean, today we can combine, we can imagine from sports stadia, to opera, to theatre, you know, many, many different kinds of spaces where all these things, of course, are going to happen as well. It’s also this great place where the ordinary citizen, the powerful elite, and the emperor all will congregate for one day together. So we have the ordinary citizen, the powerful senators and the elite, the aristocrats of Rome, the wealthy, the rulers. And of course, the emperor ultimately is at the centre, like a God almost. So all of this is carefully, for me, built into the hierarchical structure of the experience of the spectacle and the entertainment in this icon of national identity. Juvenal, one of the great Roman writers and satirists, he was the one to write of the priorities of the Roman people, bread and circus. But he said, “It’s not only that, it’s much more,” There was another Roman called Fronto, who was the tutor of Marcus Aurelius, makes the same point.
And he writes about the Emperor Trajan, that he understood that the Roman people are kept in line by two things beyond all else, horn and entertainments.“ This is writing for the very powerful emperor trajan during Trajan’s time. This is part of when Rome is at its absolute height in terms of empire, power, prestige, wealth, et cetera. Figures as diverse as Byron and many other poets, even God for saken Hitler, go to see the Colosseum, they want to go and physically see it, not just pictures of it. Entranced, mid-Victorians shuttered at its reputation for danger, contagion, temptation, sexual and violent, and all the images that are conjured up by it in the spirit of spectacle entertainment. But ultimately, of course, life and death determined by one human being who may be 5'6”, 5'7", 5'8", 6’, an ordinary guy emperor. Today, of course, it’s a highlight of a tour of Italy and it must be, in fact, probably one of the world for over 4 million visitors a year. It’s a concert arena, Paul McCartney performed, et cetera. It has become, encompassed so many other aspects of spectacle and entertainment as well. It shows the power, the ultimate might of Rome, of course, that’s obvious to all of us.
But it also has the element of game. It has the element of sport, bloody sport and sport to the death, the blood fights and blood lust, et cetera. So it has all of these qualities built in together and in our times we will separate out sport and politics and mass meetings and religions and other things. All of this can happen in one place, the Colosseum here. Man and beast fight. They will have showings of wars. Huge games will happen there. I mean even the Olympics of today, of course they’re based in ancient Greece, but all these ideas feed in to what they, I think, were pulling together in this one literally, colossal spare building, architectural structure. I’m going to pepper this with a couple of little interesting anecdotes, which I find fun and interesting as well. There was a guy called Symmachus and he lived towards the end of empire at the end of the fourth century and one of the richest men in Rome and made a huge amount of money in organising spectacles. And you know, he was basically impresario, but like the Cameron Macintosh or whoever of our times and you know, huge impresario, bring in the masses, make a huge amount of money. Anyway, super rich, bringing in animals from all over, from North Africa, from Europe, from Gaul, from from Britain, from everywhere. Animals, slaves, gladiators, everything, the big show on earth. Symmachus is his name. Super rich guy, one of the great impresarios. And he set up what he wanted to, not only, he wanted to make of course a huge amount of money through the spectacles, but he also wanted to bring back what he saw was the fading glory of Roman identity.
This is towards the end of the fourth century, we need to remember, when Rome is fading, being challenged, Christianity is coming into challenge and say, “Stop these bloodthirsty sports.” Barbaric tribes are invading from all over. There’s unrest within, there’s civil wars starting, et cetera. And he identifies the Colosseum not only to make money, but to help reinstate the great glory and glory of Rome. But there’s a Christian monk called Telemachus. Okay? And he jumps into the arena and says, “Stop all this. This is terrible. Listen to your conscience. How can we get so excited and have such fun watching bloodthirsty gladiators and animals tearing humans to bits and watching animals rip each other apart?” All the rest of it and Telemachus, it’s a moment. And all of the games stop. You can imagine the audience, was the end of the fourth century are shocked and surprised. Somebody jumping into the arena and doing this, and obviously giving his life up because he is going to be killed by the guards or the beasts, whatever. And as a result, one of the last great sense of the games was a disaster. And Symmachus retires. He goes to his villa outside Rome. It’s a disaster, financial disaster. It’s a disaster for him. And identity, every dream of his lost, I share that is one example towards the end, a signal that he saw.
Okay, he tried to make it the last impulse for empire, gone, toast. Okay, I’m going to show the first clip, which is going way back to the beginning of empire, which was set up by, as I said, Vespasian, who starts it after the conquest of Jerusalem and the inter destruction of the temple and taking of thousands, 30, 40,000 at least, Jewish slaves to build this thing and all the money and the loot. It takes eight years to build and it’s finished by his son Titus, who then becomes the next emperor. And this is just a little clip to show, it’s one of the early fights under Titus, of two gladiators who’ve gone down in history ‘cause they were written about, by the Roman poet Martial. And the names were Verus and Priscus. Is one of the grea,t this we’ll come to in a moment, let’s first just show this on the Colosseum. If we can show it please, Georgia.
[Narrator] Each year over five million tourists visit the Colosseum. They are awed by its size and horrified imagining the slaughter. How could a culture as advanced as Rome justify the spectacular bloodshed that took place here?
Gladiatorial games and associated violent spectacles needed absolutely no justification. In any ancient sources, we find just the opposite, that they were believed to stiffen moral fibre.
[Narrator] Romans attending the Colosseum were more than spectators. They were participants. These games showcased the power of Rome and reminded citizens that their prosperity was paid for in blood.
Inside the Colosseum, you have spectacle, you have energy, you have entertainment. The whole building is used as a vehicle for the demonstration of the power of the Roman world and how it came to benefit the populace.
[Narrator] Though Rome falls to the barbarians in 476, the Colosseum, like a victorious gladiator, still stands. Battered and triumphant, it is a lasting reminder of the gore and the glory of-
Rome. Okay, thank you. If we can show the next clip, please. This is going to show an interesting one of the very first gladiatorial fights, which is not that well known about, comes from the poet Martial during the reign of Titus whose Vespasian’s son. So, the Colosseum has just been built and this is one of the first battles that take place between two of the most famous gladiators but interestingly, not many gladiators were written about. Now, if we think about how much writing the Romans did, how much writing is today about celebrities, sports celebrities, heavyweight boxing champions of the world and many, many other sports, Olympic champions. Imagine all of this together in one bloodthirsty sport, Olympics, heavyweight boxing, wrestling, karate, martial arts, all of this, you know, and of course playing out, you know, historical battles of Rome. All of this being played out. And only two, these two gladiators have 12 lines, a 12 line poem by the poet Martial. But he was very closely connected to the emperor and others. So there is a certain, I think significance. And I think we can say that it’s fairly valid. He wouldn’t have just made this up, you know, in praise of Titus. But it’s an example of how they still honour and justice. In addition to all I’ve said, bloodthirsty, national sports, et cetera, but the Roman conception of honour and justice, even in a sport like this. Okay, if we can show this please.
[Narrator] The theatre in the ancient world has just opened.
The Colosseum in Rome is one of the most iconic structures in the history of humanity.
[Narrator] The new emperor, Titus, is a war hero who inherited the throne less than a year ago. The empire he now commands began with Rome’s founding as a powerful city state in 753 BC. It conquers the Italian peninsula, then ancient Greece, the seafarers of Carthage, the Pharaohs of Egypt, and by 80 AD, most of western Europe. To mark the Colosseum’s opening, Titus lines up a fight to the death between two of the empire’s best known gladiators, Rome’s champion Verus and the barbarian, Priscus.
They’re the prime athletes of ancient Rome. And that specific moment, you could say that they are the heavyweight champions of the Roman Empire.
What we know about the fight comes to us from just one source, but it’s a really important source. It’s the Roman poet Martial, who was a spectator at the games. He actually saw this fight and saw how it played out.
[Narrator] Martial’s poem is the only surviving account of its kind. The fight he records captures some of the contradictions of Rome. Its combatants are celebrated, but they are also enslaved.
Can you imagine if you are a gladiator from Germany and you look up at the imperial box, there is Rome’s emperor, in the flesh, with the power of life and death over you. Well, that must have been an overwhelming experience. The emperor’s presence in the imperial box was absolutely key. The emperor could see everyone and everyone could see him.
The games are all about the Roman emperors giving the people what they need. And it’s always described as bread and circuses. They had to feed the people of Rome, but once they were fed, they had to be entertained.
Let the games begin!
[Narrator] The schedule is an astonishing festival of death.
The standard sequence of events was as follows. In the morning is when you had the venationes, the beast combats. At noon, the meridiani. This is when the executions of criminals condemned to death took place ,in ways that were memorable. And in the afternoon is when you had the paired combats, the gladiators, the ones that entertained most of the people.
When we are out there, you are not my friend, you were not my brother. You are my enemy.
There are huge stakes for Priscus and Verus. The pressure must have been incredible. They are the headlining fight. And they will walk into that arena knowing that one of them may not walk out of their alive.
[Narrator] Gladiators enter the arena through the Porta Sanavivaria, the Gate of Life. If victorious, they leave the same way. If defeated, they exit through the Porta Libitinarian, the Gate of Death. The winner will be given rudis, a wooden staff given as a trophy, which symbolises his freedom.
Hail, Caesar!
So the stakes couldn’t be higher, it’s death or freedom.
Imagine having a huge metal pot essentially on your head and you can’t breathe. Your eyesight’s limited. You’re lifting a heavy shield. You’ve got 35 to 40 pounds of armour. The noise of the crowd, the heat, your heart pumping. And remember, you’re fighting for your life on top of that, it’s going to take nerves of steel. But, if you fight bravely enough and the emperor graces you, is the chance of being free, of becoming a citizen and becoming someone normal.
They battled to a brutal draw. Now each was dead on his feet, but Caesar was bound by the letter of his own law. The rules were clear. There had to be a winner and only a raised finger could stop the about.
If a gladiator is wounded, if he’s down on the sands, he can lift his finger and ask for missio, ask for survival.
What Martial says is that they both submitted and the crowd don’t know what to make of it.
One staff, one winner.
The outcome of the games is ultimately decided by the emperor. But, he’s there to please the audience. It’s very rare that the emperor’s going to go against the people because he does not want to be unpopular.
And the crowd, you can imagine, is going wild. Some of them would’ve been cheering for Priscus, some cheering for Verus. What’s the emperor going to do? He might say, “Well, you’ve both submitted, you should both die.”
Ultimately, Titus is going to have to make a decision, but he cannot go against his word.
There is only one staff. And that means there can only be one winner.
Holding the rudis, this symbol of liberty, Titus is literally holding their life and death in his hands.
To you both. Champions of Rome!
And Titus ultimately-
If we can freeze it there. Please.
[Narrator] Doesn’t designate won the winner and one the loser.
Thanks, thanks, Ruth, and hold that there. So this has come down to us from the Poet Martial, as I say. Which is why I think it’s pretty likely that it’s pretty accurate. 'Cause you know, as I said, most gladiators were not written about. In fact, very, very few, over hundreds and hundreds of years were ever even written about. So I think this is valid, that it did happen of these two great champions, I mean a bit like George Foreman, Muhammad Ali, or two great, great champions, heavyweights of the world in our times today, fighting to the death. But what I think it signifies for me is the intelligence of Titus. He’s the emperor. Everything ultimately is to show his power, entertainment, bread and circus, for everybody, identity, the glory, the might, the power, the military prowess of Rome, or the conquest, everything symbolise. And, of course, sport and spectacle. But in the end, come down to two guys. And what does he do? Only one can live. The staff split it so you both can live and be free. And in that moment, he is reinforcing the Romans perception of themselves. Not only as bloodthirsty conquerors and ruthless and persecutors and oppressors and slave owners, et cetera.
But he’s also saying, “We have a notion of bravery. We have a notion of honour, which can involve clemency. You both fight well, you both do your best. You both have tried your hardest, buddies. I will show you because I am the emperor. Only I can show you Roman justice, decency, fair play because you tried so hard and you showed yourself so brave.” It’s part of Roman identity. The reason I wanted to show this today, and I think Martial writes about it in the poem, is because it shows a crucial part of Roman identity. It’s not only this blood curdling scream, shout, gladiators, lions, you know, et cetera, et cetera. It’s also a sense of honour, which I think has still come down to us today. Bravery. What do we understand by the words bravery and honour, clemency, forgiveness, justice? This is way before any religious influences come in from the religions of the Middle East. This is pagan religion coming through Titus. And of course, the political side of it, you know, besides the entertainment is, of course, he is the one to decide, the emperor. Okay, in addition, if we can just hold this image for a little bit, I show it because we must be aware that all these things are I think always complex and these things which I think are still relevant and speak to us today. There was also, there were women gladiators and there were some Roman women who, or daughters of Roman elite who went and said, “Look, I want to become a gladiator.”
And their parents said, “Okay, fine, we’ve got no choice, off to gladiator school.” Women went in, there was some Roman soldiers, there were some Roman citizens, because we have to think of the times, it’s like the height of sport and prowess and spectacle and entertainment, celebrity. one, you know, 20, 30 minute fight could either kill you or make you forever. So the temptation is huge. All of this is part of the thrill, the excitement. And part of what the Colosseum for me stands for, the power, the genius, the brutality and moments perhaps of clemency, symbolising a little bit of Roman honour and Roman understanding of the word bravery. It was also, the Colosseum was also named the Flavian amphitheatre, as I said, built by Vespasian around 80, 70. And with Titus, his son. And he said, Vespasian said it would be a gift to the Roman people. So it’s clever, they’re always trying to include the ordinary people, of course, it’s to show their power and their absolute power of every Roman’s life or death. But it’s couched as a gift. That’s why we see in “Julius Caesar,” Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar,” Mark Antony’s speech, it all turns. The rhetoric is so clever, it turns on, okay, Brutus says, “Caesar was ambitious. He wanted to establish a military dictatorship. He wanted to be an emperor of all of you and get rid of the republic, get rid of the senators,” and so on. But, and he comes at the end of that, the rhetoric of that speech to the will.
“But in his wills, Mark Anthony,” I’m paraphrasing “In his will, Caesar has left you, Roman citizens of Rome, he has left you most of his money, most of his possessions.” And that, of course, turns all the Roman citizens against Brutus and the assassins and Cassius and the others. So, this idea of the connection between the emperor and the ordinary people is crucial in setting it up. And, part of the idea of the Colosseum. You have to follow 50,000 Romans are screaming for blood or not to let them live, let them be free, or kill at the end of a fight. But also, that “This is a gift to the Roman people,” as Vespasian said. And Titus right earlier on, when it’s been there, when it’s been built. It’s a public space. Citizens from all walks of life come, they see Rome’s great cultural superiority. It’s military superiority. And when chosen, the benevolence of the emperor as ruler. All this is an opportunity. And for the Roman citizens to feel that as well. Always a little glimmer of hope can be done. Part of a small, but crucial part of Roman identity. I’ve said it was built by the Jewish slaves. Overseen by, of course, Roman engineers. Treasures and the spoils of the triumph of the Jewish revolt was literally taken, you know, for this monumental embellishment of Roman identity. Interestingly, that Vespasian chose to build it in the centre of Rome in a place which had been a centre of public recreation, which had been erected. And it was erected on land, which was once owned privately by Nero. It was a lake almost in Rome, which Nero owned for his own private use. And in Vespasian taking over is saying, “Okay, Nero, Emperor is no longer just for the private use of this semi crazy or crazy Emperor, Nero. It’s going to be for the public people, the citizens, not the private use of one man.” The largest amphitheatre in the ancient world.
And it had public toilets, rows of seats with holes in them. There were sewers built underneath of constant flowing water underneath as well. So they even thought of toilets, they thought of everything. And actually it was quicker. People have estimated, scholars have estimated quicker to get in and out of the Colosseum than it is to get in and out of most huge sports stadia today. Interesting. The thumbs up is an invention, part of it’s an invention of Hollywood. You know, thumbs up you can live and be free. Thumbs down, you’re dead. At the end of a fight it was really thumbs up that actually signalled the killing of the gladiator. And if the emperor showed a closed fist, you know, with his thumb inside or his thumb around, but usually inside like that, that would be the signal for death. So sorry, that would be the signal for sparing him, thumbs up was to kill him. So, Hollywood inverts it all, of course. It’s believed that over the centuries of the existence of the amphitheatre, there were about 400,000 gladiators, slaves, criminals, prisoners, entertainers of all kind, who perished in the Colosseum. Nearly half a million. It’s over hundreds of years. And of, course the bloodsports. As I said, it only took eight years to build on the back of thousands of Jewish slaves. And we see an impulse of the Olympic games coming from ancient Greece, of honour and clemency and rewarding honour and what they would see as bravery in it as well. The question for me is why are we so fascinated? I think because of all these things which still exist, you know, very powerfully for us today. Okay, I want to show an interesting clip, which is from some scholars who looked at some of the bones they found of gladiators and let’s call it medical insurance, medical aid that were given to gladiators as well. We can show it please, the next clip.
[Narrator] And Retiarius, the fishermen who fought with a net and trident. From the forensic evidence, it’s obvious who won this battle.
It was the first known gladiator cemetery. We had in our hands for the first time remains of real gladiators.
[Narrator] Among many of the gladiator bones, Kanz, find something even more remarkable. Evidence of healing.
[Kanz] What was surprising for us was the high number of well-healed injuries, which indicates there must be excellent healthcare for these gladiators.
[Narrator] Ancient Roman texts offer a clue to one possible treatment, a special potion made from ash.
[Kanz] And this might have been leaving traces in the bones.
[Narrator] To find out if there’s any truth to this gladiator potion, Kanz grinds a bone sample into a powder and processes it into a liquid that he puts into an instrument called an emission spectrometer. Here he sprays the liquid into an argon gas torch where it burns with a distinctive flame.
The colour of the flame changes depending on the elements in the liquid, and therefore we can find out about the mineral composition of the bone.
[Narrator] The flame turns from blue to a bright yellow, indicating that the gladiator bone has a high concentration of strontium. Strontium is a natural element with properties similar to calcium, a crucial mineral for building strong bones.
It was mentioned in the historic texts that a kind of ash drink was substituted to the gladiators to remedy their pain after fighting. And this would perfectly fit to explain this high strontium content of the gladiators.
[Narrator] Kanz believes gladiators were given the Roman equivalent of calcium supplements to strengthen their bones. But why go to this trouble to save gladiators? Although slaves, gladiators were trained in special fight schools, the remains of one, the Ludus Magnus, are right in the shadow of the Colosseum.
[Kanz] The gladiators have been a big investment for the owner of the gladiator school, comparable to modern football or soccer teams. And they wanted to save their investment and therefore they engaged the best available doctors at that time.
[Narrator] It would’ve been extremely expensive if half the gladiators were killed at every event. To protect their investment, the Romans began to provide gladiators with medical care so they could live to fight another battle. And perhaps to compensate the audience for a reduction in the number of deaths, the emperor added entertainment value by ordering more elaborate stagecraft. Now, all the major parts of the lift are in place. The cage, cap stand, and trap door.
Okay, if we can hold it there please, Georgia. So, this documentary is a long one. It goes on to show the remarkable building underneath the floor of the Colosseum so that they could suddenly show lions and tigers and all beasts could all come out at the same time. Construction of scenery, construction of stagecraft from underneath. Where suddenly a ship would come out or suddenly a whole lot of soldiers representing an army or a battle would emerge from underneath. So, surprise the audience, of course, the old technique of theatre. Surprise the audience, whoa, it’s spectacle. And then take them down again, up and down. So you could have all these things going on and different things happening at different times Which is a whole fascinating excavation being done underneath the Colosseum of extraordinary construction of ropes and pulleys and cages for all these things to go up and down at surprising moments, all choreographed, of course, by the impresarios, the agents. What’s interesting about that first part of this clip, and I think it’s right, if you think about it, sure they may have been slaves, this, that, et cetera, but you’ve got to find the slaves. You’ve got to train them to be strong gladiators. There’s no point having a fight which lasts less than a minute 'cause the one guy’s much stronger than the other, and just is going to kill them so quickly.
You’ve got to spread it out as long as possible. So the entertainment value goes up and satisfy the bloodthirsty audience. So the investment is big. You’ve got to get them, you’ve got to train them, not only train them to fit and strong, but train them as gladiators, what they’re going to use, what sword, et cetera, the art of combat, how to stretch it out, make it shorter, longer, as we are having the classic 10 rounds or 15 rounds of a boxing match today and football today, all that. No point if it’s just a few minutes. So the investment is high, the cost is high. So, fascinating recent archaeological discovery about medical insurance for the injured ones. And then, you know, get a few lions to kill a few, whatever, you know, maybe as an alternative, but to try and keep them going. And of course, just interesting, that one thinks. The link between business now and medicine advancement together with the spectacle, the entertainment of the bloodsport. Fascinating discoveries by, there was a great Dr. Galen, who was one of the important medical practitioners in ancient Rome who was sent out to try and help plague, which was happening amongst the legions in Gaul and in Spain and all over and discoveries that he makes. So it’s linking medicine, medical advancements with military here. It’s linking it with medical insurance, with business and entertainment in this as well. So, all of these things are a complex and fascinating part of what emerged out of the games. For the Romans, I mean, also it’s not easy. We have to remember they were building fires hot enough to reduce solid stone. They were cutting down forests in Judea and bringing the wood all the way across. They were bringing, you know, from everywhere in the empire. It’s a huge expense and investment, not only in gladiators. But the Romans, it’s the amphitheatre. And it was imitated, of course, throughout the provinces from North Africa to Judea to what was Assyria at the time, to parts of South Wales today, to parts of Gaul, France, Spain, wherever. All these structures, Colosseum clones built amphitheatres, built endlessly. There’s even one not far from here in Chester. You know, a Roman amphitheatre, smallish one, still exists here in the northwest of England.
So only, it’s fascinating now if we contrast the Greek and the Roman approach because in the Eastern Mediterranean problems arose, but in the other parts where ancient Greece had been, in ancient Greece the cultural value was not bloodsport, the cultural value, which became, as we know, the Olympics, it was physical prowess, you know, whether it was javelin or discus throwing or running or the marathon. It’s physical prowess, which is then crowned with the laurel wreath, you know, et cetera. In addition, what becomes the Olympics? We have ancient Greek theatre happening for two or three weeks over the festival of Dionysis. You know, you have a couple of, you have four or five plays every day, but only day 'cause obviously no electric light for night. They’re all getting drunk and then they vote at the end of the day, which I think is the best comedy, the best tragedy, you know, by the end, they drunk, the Greeks, and et cetera. So you can have over 10,000 Greeks watching and voting. But they combine theatre and what becomes the Olympics. Sports, not bloodsports. And that’s part of the ancient Greek value. There’s no killing, there’s no life or death. There’s no emperor to make that decision. So Greek cultural value is very different and their sense of national identity that’s built into that compared to the Roman adaptation or usage of that in the Roman Colosseum and in the Roman spectacles. And I think that’s such an important distinction between societies, even in our times today or recent-ish times, you know, fight to the death or not, or fight for the winner.
And then the second you have the first, second, and third even who get a medal, who get a little prize. It’s a very different perception of all of these of the notion of spectacle games. It prevailed under Roman rule, but the Romans would really wanted to twist and turn it from the Greeks. So, to make it not only athletes striving for glory or performers and playwrights striving for fame and glory in their plays, but there were contests of another kind, but contests with performance and athletic excellence, not blood. Very important difference. So this is a spectacle here. Men and animals, violence, fighting to the death, all of that. I point this out because it does come from the Greeks, but it shows a very different sense of national value and national identity. They did use the ancient Greek theatres, amphitheatres for their games and their sports, you know, which would be bloodthirsty. And we have evidence that in some Greek theatres, they put up high nets, which were rigged around the amphitheatre of the Greek stage to prevent the big cats, the lions, leopards from leaping into the audience. We can imagine. There are records which is fascinating of Greeks writing in protest, even if it just came from some of the very front row Greeks, who didn’t want to be splashed with blood all over them. They wrote about it and they criticised the Romans and none of them were killed or jailed for this. The Romans let it happen. They didn’t stop it 'cause they knew of the influence from the ancient Greeks. So the question was, comes to us today, what were the Romans trying to really achieve, the Roman enjoyment of spectacular violence. It’s not just in the words of Mary Beard, in her book together with Keith Hopkins. “It’s not just about individual sadism. They wanted to show a deep cultural significance,” in Mary Beard’s words. And I think she’s accurate.
Yes, we’ve taken from the Greeks, but we are not the Greeks. We are greater, in fact, more powerful. But we are culturally different. Our identity is different. The taste for violence obviously is there, there’s some evidence that in the inauguration of the Colosseum, was celebrated by hunting shows with 9,000 exotic animals being killed or slaughtered in one of the early shows. But let’s think about it also for a second. Is this being exaggerated for the glory of the empire and the emperor? 9,000 in one show, animals? Ancient Rome, this is before trains took to transport trucks, et cetera. How really, how feasible is it to capture elephants from Africa, wherever, rhinoceroses, no sedative darts, you know, no things to put them in and no things to capture them in et cetera. Schlep them all the way across the Mediterranean, schlep them into Rome, starve them into ferocity in front of a large crowd. You know, hundreds of thousands, is this exaggerated? As we have today in the media, you know, where celebrities or certain things are exaggerated, as we all know, to grab our attention and to foster a greater image of identity than is actually real. So I think we have to see between the myth and the reality. There’s a bit of a shadow and quite a lot of exaggeration going on like today. You know, pretty laborious to organise a zoological kidnap of even just a single massive rhinoceros or hippopotamus from the upper Nile. And take it all the way, you know, to Rome, schlep it across. 1850. They did an example of it where they kidnapped hippopotamus, took it from the upper Nile to Regent’s Park in England, you know, and saw how much effort and time and investment that involved and then tried to contrast ancient Rome.
So, it’s a logistical challenge to put it lightly and put it mildly, even for those ancient Romans. It’s all to exaggerate and heighten the sense of the superiority, the power of Rome. “Don’t mess with us, don’t challenge us. We are the greatest, the mightiest, the strongest,” and so on. Very, very interesting. And the writers, of course, were exaggerated 'cause they wanted to impress, you know, the aristocrats and the leaders of Rome and the emperor and so on. There was even a Christian witness, Arakin was his name, who wondered if the real tally of Christian martyrs in Rome actually even reached such high figures as were claimed. There’s no firm evidence of how many or what or any of all of this. So was that number exaggerated, wasn’t it? There’s a purpose behind it, there’s an ideological purpose. There’s no question. You know, they’ve got to impress the Roman elite, you know, and get the word out the rest of the empire and barbaric tribes outside the empire, you know, “Don’t mess with us.” So, stripped of myth and fact and legend, the image nevertheless in the Roman mind becomes powerful and remains even greater, of course, in our mind today. But we have to strip it of the myth and recognise the power of the myth as well. The need of the Romans was obviously bread and circus. Coming back to the original idea. For us today, the spectacle, as I said, internet on our phones, TV, live wherever, you know, looms huge in our collective imaginations. It was still a circus, but nobody went for harmless fun.
Nobody went just to see the greatness of the athletes, the Olympics or even boxing matches today. It was much more. It’s also linked to the ancient ideas. Very ancient religious idea came thousands of years back of ritual. And the need for human sacrifice and the need for sacrifice of animals and humans. For me it’s all also built in to this one idea of what the Colosseum comes to represent. Not only the glory, the glory, the myth, the image of power, but also fear that they have to inculcate in the ordinary Romans as much as the so-called barbaric tribes on the outskirts of the Roman empires were constantly threatening to invade or gorilla tactics or whatever. So you have to put fear in as part of the ingredients of the spectacle. So, in the end, the Colosseum, it’s about bloodshed, it’s interactive, it’s entertainment, it’s ferocity, it’s fighting, it’s honour, clemency, you know, all of that stuff. And it’s interesting, even the Roman writers, this is going way back before some of those towards the end of empire or the influence of Christianity, et cetera, and other religions. Some of them they deplored what they called the addictive magnetism of the spectacle sports, of witnessing this kind of death. And in a sense, they even talked about how death could become domesticated. So you had Roman, you had interestingly critics writing and, you know, it wasn’t all this praise and celebrity fawning, if you like, at all. But in the end, we must explain that Colosseum, ultimately the principle sponsor of everything is the emperor. And ultimately the emperor has to rule by fear. It’s a military dictatorship, no question.
And the arena is, in the end, I think it is an emblem of the power of one man who can play God, allocate life or death and constant reminder to the citizens of Rome, to the conquered tribes, to the slaves, to the barbarians threatening to invade and attack all the time. You know, ultimately the power of life and death, the emperor, the hierarchical structure of that empire needs and of the structure of ancient Rome. It reinforces that. And therefore, those under the emperor, the next levels down to, of course, you know, the guy who’s a captain of 30 Roman soldiers in a legion and so on. So, it’s all of that is to glorify the emperor. That’s why later on when the challenge from the church comes according to Gibbon, again, that I spoke about the other time, the great challenge is, whoa, we’ve got another empire, another kind of king, not just the pope, but a God who is, you know? So all of that, we can imagine today the massive clash that went on, which Gibbon tries to capture in his great, great book of 250 years ago. You know, “The Decline of the Roman Empire.” Okay, I want to show this last little bit of a clip, which has helped just to imagine us actually going to these games in Rome. Enjoy please.
[Narrator] Colosseum. Oh, you should see the Colosseum, span in. House of the Romans. Watching every movement of your sword moving you to make that fatal blow. Silence before you strike. Noise outwards. It rises, rises up like the length, like so, as if he were the under guard himself.
[Speaker] The Colosseum is one of the most famous buildings in the world. It is one of the greatest tourist attractions in Rome. It is a building that has captured the attention of painters over the years. And yet, in terms of landmarks, never has there been a landmark that is so associated with blood and squalor as the Colosseum. It was huge. It had room for more than 50,000 spectators. It had 76 numbered entrance doors and it was used for more than 700 years. This building was started by the emperor Vespasian, the first emperor of the Flavian Dynasty. Then he died and his son, Titus, finished the building in the year 80. Here is Nero’s site plan. Something very important about this building is where it was located, which shows us how incredibly shrewd Emperor Vespasian was in earning the acceptance of the people. He decided to destroy Nero’s Domus Aurea despite the fact that it was an architectural wonder, full of ornamentation with revolving ceilings made by these great architects and artists, which would’ve been a great place for him and for his dynasty to live in. But he decided to raze it to the ground for political reasons, to discredit Nero and hope to gain favour with the people. What he did wisely was to give this property back to the Roman people and do something that they would like to have in their city. So he decides to dry up the artificial lake that Nero had built, and right in the middle of that area, he builds the Colosseum and the message is clear, what did the Roman people want more than anything else?
They wanted a huge amphitheatre where 50,000 of them could enter and spectate gladiatorial combats with wild animals. There’s no better way to gain favour with the citizens than to build something like this. And even better to build it on top of the pleasurable artificial lake of Nero, built just for himself. By the way, they were called gladiators because the Latin word for sword is gladius, therefore gladiator, one who carries the sword. The original name of the Colosseum was actually the Flavian amphitheatre, named after the family of emperors, Flavius. But in the Middle Ages, it became to be known colloquially as the Colosseum, not because of its colossal scale, but because of the colossus, the enormous statue of Nero that stood nearby, made by the Greek architect Zenodorus, with a height of more than 30 metres. And the other thing that Vespasian did was erase the features of Nero from the statue to turn it into a statue of Sol, the sun God. His face was fixed to resemble Sol and not Nero. Seeing how Greek types are transformed into Roman architecture, it is a theme that constantly returns to this notion of different technologies, different ideas of urban space, different ideas of interior design.
And to understand the shape of the Colosseum, it is necessary to see what the Greek theatres were like. Here we’re looking at the Greek theatre of Epidaurus and like many Greek sites, it’s all about revealing a landscape, a panorama, sacred mountains in the distance, and a truly clear geometry, which makes you understand that you’re in a specific place. There would’ve been a stage and a wall behind called proscenium, which was low enough so that if you were sitting in the steps, you could see the stage, but you could also see the landscape behind. This is the theatre of Merida in Spain. Typologically, it preserves many of the things that we sign the Greek examples, such as the circle with the steps, but the proscenium completely closes the space. Also, instead of being an object introduced into the landscape where the natural slope of a mountain begins to give geometry to the place, it is an architectural construction. Another one of these mega structures that the Romans have no problems building with their concrete arches. And since it is a freestanding structure, it can be placed right in the middle of the city.
- Okay, if we can hold it there please, Georgia. Thank you. Just to give an idea of the contrast between the Greek amphitheatre, obviously for the Greek plays, Greek theatre, sometimes religious events, and also how it was linked to the idea of what became the Olympic games, sports. Okay, thank you very much. And we can go into some questions.
Q&A and Comments:
Amerna, can’t see the Q&A. Ah, there, it’s visible now. Okay, great. Thanks.
This is iPad it says, “I believe the thumbs down or thumbs up by the emperor to decide whether gladiators lived or died is largely a myth.” Yeah.
“Also, the gladiators were professional fighters didn’t always die at the end.” Exactly. “They’re expensive to buy.” You hit the nail on the head. That’s what we were saying later, to buy, train, and keep healthy. So, it was an interest of their owners, their minders to have them die all the time. Exactly. So, it’s the link of business with spectacle entertainment, and of course, technology and medical science as we saw in that one little clip to make sure that, however they’re injured, that you can heal them and use them again. So absolutely a crucial part of historical truth compared to just legend. And that idea, exactly, thumbs up, thumbs down is invented by Hollywood based on only, I mean, one thumb apparently was used in ancient times. Great. Thanks, Judy.
Q: Nancy, “When did the deadly games stop Constantine approve of the games?”
A: Yes, they all did. All the emperors did. I mean the games, I mean, in a way the Colosseum lasted for nearly 700 years, but as an actual, the height of Roman Empire, it’s about 400 years. Little bit less, but you know, around about 400 years, give or take, that it’s the height of empire of everything I’ve been saying today. And then the deadly games start to dwindle and change later. In Gibbon’s opinion, as the rise of the church and the rise of questioning all these things. And of course, I suppose the dwindling of patriotism in Rome and the national pride and fear because the barbarian tribes are invading. And you have the split between the Eastern empire and the Western part of the empire. You know, what becomes today Turkey, yeah, et cetera. So we have all these internal divisions and split as empire starts to split and fade really and fall away. So the use and the financing of it and the use of it becomes pretty superfluous and stops.
Susan, “Discovery of fast drying cement by the Romans enabled the building.” Absolutely, yeah, thanks for that, Susan.
Clara, “Daphne, if you’re watching on PC,” oh, that’s really help. Oh, thanks Clara.
Denise, “I missed the first 15 minutes. What’s the title?” If you want to email, then I can send you the clips. I’m not sure exactly which ones you mean. So, if you want to email, with pleasure, and I can send you the links to the clips of the gladiatorial, the fight scene, that was the one between the two gladiators, Priscus and Verus, who were really the heavyweight champions of their times. Because as I said before, over hundreds of years, very few gladiators were written about by the Latin or by the Roman writers in terms of their names. And I find that really interesting 'cause they would’ve been massive celebrities. So, that’s what the clip is there.
Q: Monty, “As an eminent English classicist?”
A: Yeah, I’ve been talking about Mary Beard and her fantastic programmes on British TV. And I’ve mentioned her last time when we spoke about the Roman Empire and her book today, which she wrote with Keith Hopkins, “Colosseum.” She, for me, is by far the most interesting and wonderful contemporary Roman classicist, classical, but also ancient Rome in particular. A lot of some of these ideas have come from her ideas, which I’ve mentioned last time and today.
Esther, “I went to the Colosseum in France. I don’t know that it was built by Jewish slaves. It’s very interesting.” The one in Rome certainly, but I’m not sure of this one in France. I’d have to check that. Thanks Esther, very interesting.
“It was a theatrical amphitheatre.” Okay.
Q: “Many Asian and African countries are demanding that stolen treasures be returned. Can Israel ask for compensation from Rome or Italy?”
A: Well, that’s certainly an argument, you know, I mean, you know, it fits the general trend of exactly what you’re saying.
Hindi, “Nowadays the amphitheatres in Caesarea in Israel.” Yeah. “Once were used to entertain and musical concerts. I remember the opening of the concert in Caesarea were given by the late public ASALs were sold out the summer the amphitheatre was open to the public.” Oh, that’s great, yeah. And there’s extraordinary one in Sicily as well, right at the top of the mountain in Sicily, extraordinary amphitheatre. I mean, to see how many they built. And this is built by slave labour and ropes and pulleys and wood and stone ultimately. It shows how important it was that so much money and labour and slaves were invested in this, that it’s more than entertainment, more than bread and circus. It’s about national identity. I really think.
Q: Melaina, “Any comments about the "Quo Vadis?”
A: Yeah, well, I mean there’s all debate. Mary Beard mentions this and Keith Hopkins in their book, you know, as I mentioned earlier, the one Christian writer, early writer, you know, how many Christian martyrs were actually killed or or fed to the lions or the beasts in the Colosseum. And there’s lots of contemporary debate around numbers and how many was real, how many were exaggerated because obviously both had spin doctors, the martyrs, the writers of Christianity would’ve had their spin doctors pushing, upping the figures. And you know, on the other side, they may not have been upping the figures. So, we’ve got to be very aware of who they’re trying to impress these writers as well, to get the difference between fact and fiction of the numbers, I guess.
Q: “Was it gambling?”
A: Oh, I’m sure, gambling absolutely on the outcome of different battles, different conflicts of gladiators, all sorts of things. Chariot races, massive gambling. Plays to be seen, plays to go to and you could put one penny, you could put 1,000 pennies or as I said, ordinary citizens all the way up to the Roman elite, the senators, the aristocracy, and of course the emperor at the top, a place for all of them to get together. Very clever if you think about how you bring everyone together, but it’s absolutely under the hierarchy of emperor, you know, going all the way down the social cultural ladder.
Q: Nancy, “Did other empires at the time have similar bloody games?”
A: It’s really interesting. The ancient Greeks did not have bloody games. As I mentioned in the talk today, they were about theatre and the festival of Dionysis was to celebrate excess. And today we’d say wine, woman, and song and theatre and to vote on the best play, the best comedy, the best tragedy. And the ancient Greeks said you could, in the satires and the comedies, you could write anything about any Greek leader, you’d have much more licence than today, in democracies today. You could insult, you could attack, you could offend any leader in Greece you wanted. Didn’t matter. You had the freedom and the licence. We read some of Aristophanes and some of the other satirists, they’re savagely critical and they mock and they tease and they insult in every way imaginable. Not just their notion of political leadership, but these individuals and these individuals would’ve sat in the front row of the ancient Greek theatre, watching the plays about them. But they laughed and enjoyed, Oscar Wilde said, you know, “Better bad reputation than no reputation.” I’m paraphrasing, but it was part of Greek culture. And they loved it, the leaders.
And then after the two or three weeks of the Festival of Dionysis, that’s it. You know, obviously then you couldn’t say anything so free and satirical afterwards. But in that time it was like a, you know, the valve was unleashed and they really, far more savagely critical than any writer today or in the last however many years. So, it’s fascinating. The other thing in the ancient Greeks is that it was, you watch five or six plays, you know, morning through to the end of the day and you’re drinking all the way 'cause Festival of Dionysis, as I said, you’re drunk and then you vote on the best tragedy, the best comedy, and then at the end of the two or three weeks you vote the best tragedy and comedy of the whole festival. So it was theatre, there was no bloodsport. And then it was the Olympics, which became the Olympics idea, which was athletic prowess, as I said before, where the discus, javelin, sprinting, marathon, whatever, no blood, as I said, huge difference. The Romans took from them, adapted, included bloodsports. Tried to put it all together, you know, for a whole different sense of empire and identity.
Catherine, “If you put aside the entertainment value in the spectacle, colossal scale.” Yes. “Of the building, magnificence, engineering was extraordinary.” I agree with you. The engineering would’ve just been sheer, I think it would’ve been all awe inspiring for people coming from all over the empire and for the citizens of Rome to see what their engineers could create. “Because it was so well constructed it remains today.” Absolutely brilliant.
“Keep the sun off the crowd, huge tarpaulins could be rigged.” Yes, absolutely. You know, or if it was pouring with rain as well. Rita, “Thank you.” Very kind.
Q: Richard, “As life expectancy was short those days as animal sacrifice, ubiquitous prison of animals, more of part of the general visible life in general. So warfare was so much a direct man-to-man killing.” Yes. “Is it so unusual to be glorified with the mass killing sports?”
A: Yeah, I agree, absolutely. You know, but they link the ancient religious rituals of human and animal sacrifice into this idea of the games as opposed to separating it out. And I think that’s what’s interesting with what the Romans do, is again, part of their, their national identity. “The Aztecs and Incas.” Yes, they’re certainly killed, human sacrifice and so on. Absolutely, but not as part of games or entertainment. Well, it’s entertainment in another sense of the word, but not as part of big games for the citizens, you know, well, the Aztecs and the Incas. It was much more, I think part of religious festivals as far as I know. Richard, thanks, is a good point.
Q: Bobby, “How did they know that ash contained a bone building mineral?”
A: I think they must have experimented as they found, you know, when these very contemporary scholars did this research, you know, they had to try and rebuild bone to keep the investment up of these athletes, of these gladiators. It’s so they wouldn’t have known it was calcium, but they would’ve thought something inside it helped the healing.
Q: Julian, “How did the skills of the Roman gladiator and soldier compare?” That’s a fascinating question. “Did the skills and roles of gladiator and soldier ever crossover?”
A: Yeah, that’s a great question. Which a lot of people have argued over, you know, the difference between a Roman soldier and a gladiator. Who would’ve been the better fighter? The difference, I think, is that the soldiers trained under the code of military discipline to be part of a platoon or brigade. So, it’s got at least 30, 40 buddies in a platoon and then larger in a brigade, in a legion. You know, he’s got hundreds and hundreds or thousands with him together and they train to fight together as a unit. And absolutely that togetherness, which we call the Roman discipline or discipline of military, it was so crucial. The gladiator has to be self-disciplined and learn to be a really good fighter. But in the end, he’s an individual, fighting for his own life basically. So, there’s a different intention behind the two. The soldiers got to fit in with the legion, with the platoon, the brigade and centurions who are the leaders of these what we call platoons, brigades today. They would be being the leaders and they’ve got to follow the captains or the sergeants or the majors, et cetera, the colonels in today’s language. So it’s a very different sense of the group versus the individual and a different set of disciplinary skills. But martially, I’m sure they would’ve had fairly similar, you know, the use of the sword. But there are differences when you’re working with 10, how you use your sword or the shield.
Q: “Do the spectators pay?”
A: Not always, great question, Sue. Often they had to, 'cause, of course it’s an investment in the end, but it varies all the time, more or less. Or remember it would go on at least a whole day if not a couple of days. So, if you attend a bit or you attend a lot or all of that would’ve been varied and lots of gambling and I’m sure the black market and tickets and touting and all sorts of things. Definitely, thank you.
Q: Maria, “If not all gladiators died, how did the fight really end?’
A: Well, that’s a great question, then the emperor would’ve had to make the decision, you know, and could have said, "Okay, you’ fought bravely.” I mean that’s one example that I showed here with Titus. “You fought bravely, you fought well, we’ll let you both go off.” Or it was linked up with this idea of what it is to be an honourable, brave fighter as opposed to just giving in in the first, you know, couple of minutes I guess.
Karen, “‘Spartacus’ is on.” Oh, one of my great movies, Kubrick, “In ITV tomorrow evening.” Oh, that’s great, thank you, Karen.
Monty, “If the Colosseum is a memorial to slave labour, maybe the woke generation demand that’d be knocked down.” Oh, Monty, let’s get onto work and wokeism. Oh my, yeah, my feelings about it are fairly strong, Denise, “Thank you.”
Sandy, ‘bloodletting in Greek theatres took place out of view, a measure of civility.“ Yeah, it would’ve been linked perhaps to very specifically a few things 'cause there is evidence, especially in Homer, when you read "The Odysseus,” and “The Iliad and the Odyssey and others, there were sacrifice, but they were linked to the gods and religion very, very specifically, I’m talking about human sacrifice. So, it was very different kind of use of human sacrifice. Nothing really to do with games or mass entertainment and spectacle or entertainment I suppose another way. But, very specifically part of religion and the gods. I mean, Agamemnon, before the Trojan War, going off the Trojan War, we all know the story of the wooden horse. You know, the story is that he was the great king of the Greeks, goes off to Troy to conquer them. Really I think because Troy is the trade centre of the world in those days. But Agamemnon is told by the gods, "You have to kill your daughter because only then will you have the strength to go and be ruthless and do anything to destroy Troy,” which is a very, very powerful city state. Whether that is legend or fact, we don’t know. It is part of the poetry that has come down, but it would link the idea of the gods very specifically as opposed to games. Okay Sandy, that’s great, thanks.
And then Rita, “The omnipresent feral cats, the Colosseum can be trained to ancient Rome, they’re not protecting.” Okay, great.
Well, thank you so much everybody, and hope you have a great rest of the weekend. And Georgia, thanks as always. Take care.