Dan Snow's History Hit - Gladiators: Myths vs Reality

Episode Date: November 13, 2024

Join Dan at Rome's Colosseum as he separates fact from fiction in the world of the gladiators. He traces the origins of gladiatorial fighting from funerary celebrations to elaborate spectacles in the arena, what it would take to make it to the top and what really happens when a gladiator loses the fight. With the help of expert historians, Dan explores the myths perpetuated in Hollywood movies, the role of the games in Roman political life and what you'd actually see if you got a ticket to the greatest show on earth.This is episode 2 in our 4-part mini-series 'Gladiators'Produced by Mariana Des Forges and edited by Dougal PatmoreEnjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Sign up HERE for 50% off for 3 months using code ‘DANSNOW’.We'd love to hear from you - what do you want to hear an episode on? You can email the podcast at [e-mail] can take part in our listener survey here.

The Colosseum thunders. 65,000 Romans bay for the blood of a convict in the arena below. He is forced to play a character in the morbid play of his own murder. He moves around the arena floor, which is decorated like a jungle, in a desperate attempt to flee his executioners. He's only temporarily delaying the inevitable. He'll be caught and killed eventually, in a gruesome manner. The play will be over, the set cleared, and the next act will begin. The set cleared and the next act will begin.

Equally as gruesome, the crowd just as bloodthirsty during the next round. In a box above the arena floor sits the Emperor, the man who chooses if and when those in the arena live or die. He watches over the executions of prisoners, convicts, slaves, and the baiting of exotic animals from across the known world. Bears from Germania, hippos, rhinos, crocodiles from Egypt, lions from Libya, and wolves from Britain. And, of course, the much-anticipated gladiators.

This is his show, a demonstration of the emperor's power and his dominion over the Roman world and its enemies. And there's no greater show on earth than the Colosseum Games. And there's no greater show on Earth than the Colosseum Games. This is Dan Snow's History Hit, and this is my Gladiators series, separating the fact from the fiction in the world of Rome's gladiatorial games. I travel to the Eternal City to discover what a day in the Colosseum would really be like. I follow in the footsteps of the mighty gladiators, from their gruelling training school to the baying crowds in the towering stands.

You've got the crowd going mad, and then the announcer says, and here he comes, all the way from the distant lands of Britannia, the people's champion, three times winner, Britannicus Snow! I get to the bottom of what you'd actually see if you were able to snag a seat in the crowd. It's not like the movies. The reality was just as grisly. In some ways, more so.

It's going to be humid and hot and it's going to stink to high heaven. It would have been like being in hell. So collect your tickets, folks. Don your finest tunic. And join me for a public spectacle like no other. At Rome's mighty Colosseum. So we all think we know what gladiator fights look like because we've seen the Hollywood movies. In fact, if you've seen the trailer of Gladiator 2,

it appears that one of the gladiator rides on the back of an enormous rhino. Let's see if there's any truth in those fever dreams. I'm going to meet up with historian Alexander Mariotti to find out what was really going on in the Colosseum, what was going on in the arena, and what truth, if any, is there in these cinematic representations. Alex, we are sitting here next to the Colosseum, what was going on in the arena and what truth, if any, is there in these cinematic representations? Alex, we are sitting here next to the Colosseum. You grew up in this neighbourhood of Rome, you played football in the Colosseum as a kid. I did. This could not be a more legit

conversation about gladiators. Not even if Russell Crowe was here with us. I mean, he would take away from the veracity of it. So did you really play football in the Colosseum? Well, the interesting thing about the Coliseum is that nobody really bothered with it as much. There was no entrance tickets, there was no gates until the year 2002, which is the year after Gladiator came out. It had such an impact that suddenly they decided

they could make money on it. But as a boy, it was free, open. And my brother and I, my grandfather's born across the street from where we are, and we used to go play football, kick a football about. Unbelievable. Speaking of Hollywood films about gladiators, have they completely corrupted and distorted our understanding of what gladiators really were?

A hundred percent. But then, you know, the point of movies is pretty much a Roman tradition. Because the games weren't really indicative of true life. You know, watching a guy fighting a tiger wasn't really a realistic example of what the wild was like. It was the movie version, the entertainment version. Same with the gladiator fights. They weren't really indicative of what the front was like, what the battles were on the Roman front. Movies are the same. They are an entertainment version of events. So tell me, what was the reality? The reality was that it was a mixture of combat. The Romans had a philosophy called Virtus.

Virtus was physical and mental endurance, and skill, and martial skill especially. The gladiators embodied that. So there's various factors to the games. The first is it's a play on life. You have death at any moment, but you face death with courage. The gladiators are a symbol of that. But you also had the inspiration of a martial society you know war was a very big reality in antiquity violence is a very true part of everyday life so to see it and to see somebody excellent at

it was to be inspiring to a warrior nation but also it was entertainment it was pure spectacle it was shows just you know violence is pretty much the order of the day, let's make violence into sport. Crowds have always enjoyed watching men wrestle, strike each other, fight, I guess so, but is it possible to identify the birth of the gladiator? You know, there's certain elements of gladiatorial combat that I think are sewn into our DNA, they've been with us since the start, but, you know, the inventors the Romans are the innovators so the seedling that becomes gladiatorial combat comes from Greece you know this idea of men of valor fighting over the tomb of a fallen soldier or a great hero such as you find

in the Iliad but what happens is in 105 BC a guy called Rutilius Rufus has an epiphany he sees sees the crowd's reaction and he realizes, I can use this to purpose. Because he realizes that the crowd really reacts to the violence and he starts using it as a political tool. And what happens is that the Republic is born of men with great ambition. And the gladiator became the very tool that won the crowd that fed their power and that then moves on to the emperors so if you're seeking power in the roman republic what you put on gladiator games people think you're impressive rich magnanimous and they they what they vote for

you they propel you into office of course i mean there's a real distinction between the upper class and the lower class what's the middle ground how do you appeal to people who have an entirely different life reality to you the gladiators the linchpin between the rich and the poor class? What's the middle ground? How do you appeal to people who have an entirely different life reality to you? The gladiators, the linchpin between the rich and the poor. It's a bit like, you know, your prime minister going to a football game. Oh, he's just one of us. Look at that. He's just an average guy. He likes the sports like we do. He's human. He's normal. Is there anyone in particular who's responsible for this, well, this extraordinary culture? Of course there is. And I don't think that name will surprise you. It was Julius Caesar. Julius Caesar was a master of marketing. He understood that the people are seduced by power and pleasure, and he gave them both. How powerful to have men fighting for you,

how pleasurable to be able to watch them free because he's such a magnanimous and generous soul. And it's Caesar that sets the bar that then, of of course Augustus, first emperor, has to continue and then every emperor has to outdo the last so that they're the kindest, they're the generous ones, they're the ones that you remember the most. It seems that the first gladiatorial fight, at least the first on record, took place around 264 BCE at the funeral of Senator Junius Brutus Pera, where six warriors fought in pairs in a sort of tribute to honour the dead. Over the decades, the ritual aspect gradually faded, and what started as more a reverent custom grew into a form of popular entertainment. By around 183 BC, it had evolved into the kind of larger public event we'd

recognise. As Rome transformed from republic to empire, gladiatorial combat became formalised, evolving into an organised sport hosted by wealthy patrons and emperors, moving entirely away from its roots as funerary games. And it was during this imperial era that lots of specialised gladiator schools emerged, known as Familia Gladiatoria, a system where fighters trained and lived under strict discipline, with attention paid to their diet and healthcare. After all, these were the Premier League footballers of the day. If you visit Rome today, you can get an idea of what it would be like to go to gladiator school, albeit a modern one, slightly less brutal, which you can leave whenever you want. It's exactly what I'm going to do now, to see what it takes to get into the arena,

because not everyone has what it takes to be a gladiator. to be a gladiator. Okay, Alexander, we've come to, well, it is literally a gladiator school. Only in Rome do you have a gladiator school. Yeah, in Ludus, of course. You know, it's an opportunity to learn what the sources don't tell us. That's the great thing about coming to a place like this, is you can try the weapons, you can try the helmets, and you get a physical knowledge which you're missing.

When you read the sources, you don't get that part. How are gladiators chosen? Are they just slaves captured in combat? No, absolutely not. We know that by 75 BC, half of gladiators are freedmen. But what we also know is that there was a certain requirement of physicality to become a gladiator. You just couldn't get anybody to become a gladiator. You had to have the right stuff. You

had to be physically the specimen, the right kind of specimen. But we also know that they're chosen the same way the Olympic athletes are chosen. So Philostratus tells us that when you get an athlete, you look at him, you study his body, you know what kind of athlete he's going to be. Apply that to gladiators. And why? Because different styles of fighting demand different physics. So, for example, if you're going to be a gladiator that fights with a net and trident, the retiarius, you've got a piece of armor called the galera,

which is just a shoulder pad made of metal. And that's it. That's all the armor you have. So you don't have a helmet, which is wonderful if you're a good-looking guy. In fact, if you have the right attributes also in being handsome, then you're going to be a crowd pleaser.

But if you're going to be a secutor or marmilla, these are the heavy sets, they've got big helmets that encompass the entire head, they've got a big shield, and they had to be physically kind of like heavyweight boxers. They had to be big guys able to sustain the weight of the armor and be able to fight effectively with it. Okay, so cast your expert eye over me, which one would I have been? Oh, definitely Ressiaris. You've got the tall, slender, but you've got the looks as well. Yes! The lady's going to love you. You might become like Kaleidos. Kaleidos is a famous heartthrob of the ladies whose writings on the walls of Pompeii have survived, telling us that

he's the netter of the ladies. He's a crowd favorite. Yeah, I'm sure he was also a 46-year-old guy with a bad back. That makes absolute sense. But then I'm very lightly armored. I feel a bit naked going into that fight. Well, you're lightly armored, but you've got a huge advantage to yourself, which is that you don't have a helmet that is one obscuring your view secondly it's not restricting your breathing because the big helmet and compass the head provides great protection yes but at the same time makes it very hard to breathe and very hard to see so that it's the advantage and the disadvantage imagine we were back in ancient rome how would this gladiator school have operated so you had barracks where people could stay,

so obviously the slaves didn't stay there. If you're a freedman, you might actually live at home and then come and train on certain days and stay at the ludus closer to the match. You had barracks, you had a mess hall where you could eat, you had a medical centre, you actually had an infirmary, so you had a non-situ doctor, and that tells us a lot about gladiators.

So actually, rather than condemn slaves, we think of them more as, well, premiership footballers, I mean, highly trained athletes. They're the first superstar athletes of history, more so than the Olympians. The sense of a modern superstar, of a modern athlete, has a wide reach. You just have to look at footballers.

If a footballer's playing, people will go to that match. Gladiators had the same draw. Olympians did not. They didn have to look at footballers. If a footballer's playing, people will go to that match. Gladio just had the same draw. Olympians did not. They didn't go throughout the whole empire. The thing about gladiatorial combat is that your name was known throughout the empire. If you're a superstar in Rome, you're a superstar for 60 million people.

One third of the world's population likely knows who you are. And what would the training regime have been like in these places? Pretty brutal? Absolutely. I mean, what we know about it is would the training regime have been like in these places? Pretty brutal? Absolutely. I mean, what we know about it is that the training is so intense that they start using the same training for the Roman army. And we're talking in Republican times. So you've got people like Scipio Africanus, he's using the same training they're using for the gladiators to train the soldiers. So military training and gladiatorial training is on a par. And that

tells you just the high degree that these athletes were put through to make them into champions of the arena. Do we have any idea how they trained? Yeah the sources don't specifically mention gladiatorial training but we're very lucky because we have Vegetius, a Roman writer, who tells us about military training and as we know they're symbiotic. So we know the kind of systems they used. He says in fact that no man on the arena or the battlefield can become successful without fighting against the palace. So the palace is a wooden post, like a wooden dummy, and you are taught kind of moves as you would in any martial art. You're taught a series of hooks and jabs, of swipes. You're taught what we call katas in karate.

But what we also know is they're using a system called the tetrad. So it's a four-day split. Already the Greek athletes, they have training programs, yearly training programs. It's kind of like gym culture today. And they have diets that go along with them, so the gladiators would have been given the same thing. So they had a thing called pulse.

It was like a stew almost. You know, I always think about the stew that they give to sumo wrestlers to sort of beef them up and kind of very similar, mostly barley, grains. Okay, so I'm at the Ludo, so I'm training hard. I'm eating well. Yeah. And I've got my net and I've got my trident. Is there a tournament?

Is it like a knockout? How do I advance? Well, you start with a couple of exhibition matches just to get yourself known. Your ultimate goal is you want to fight in the Coliseum. Coliseum is the big time. It's Wembley, it's the Super Bowl. I mean, you've got the largest crowd. You've got more than likely about 85,000 people.

That's a crowd. And how electric. The moment you walk through, they're going to cheer your name. It's intoxicating. So you have to draw as to why you want to do it. So once you've done a couple of exhibition matches, you have to become a crowd pleaser. You've have to draw as to why you want to do it. So once you've done a couple of exhibition matches, you have to become a crowd pleaser. You've got to win the crowd. So you probably learn a couple of techniques that would separate you from your opponents, but also you

make appearances. So there's parades three days before the fight where the gladiators walk through the streets and so people get to see their heroes. Maybe a politician is getting elected, so he's going to hire you out to appear there. And it's just about getting your name out there so that people want to see you. They say, I want Danicus to be in the Coliseum because I'm only going to go to the games if he's there. So close your fist and get yourself, there we go, in a good position and just start swinging almost like a figure eight. Okay, here we go. I'm getting the hang of this.

Right, you've got it, you've got it, keep going, swing open, open. Give me the trident. Nice. No, no, yikes. I can't do it now. I've lost it. Okay, so I've been training really hard here in gladiator school i can use the net and everything i'm set to compete on the biggest of biggest stages the coliseum meanwhile my producer

mariana who'll have heard me talk about on this podcast before she's my biggest fan at natch so as i prepare for the fight of my life she's going to find out what it'd be like to go to the games and watch me compete. So I'm a really big fan of Dan the Gladiator. And I'm going to head to the Colosseum with 65,000 other Romans to see him in the big fight this afternoon. First, I'm meeting the renowned historian, Dr. Simon Elliott, to find out more about what my day at the Coliseum will be like. So Simon, I've settled in for a whole day of entertainment, which is great for the authorities because it means I'm not on the street causing trouble. Can you just give me a rundown of what a day at the Coliseum would be like? So you turn up

about sort of nine o'clock, queuing with your ticket to get in, and then you settle in your seat by 10 o'clock. And around 10 o'clock, through one of the main gateways onto the arena floor, you'd have the procession, the big procession, which would feature a lot of the participants in all of the various activities of the day, touring round and round and round the arena floor.

And then they would all go back getting ready to perform whatever they're going to do uh all part of the theater of the arena and then you would have an hour or two of beast hunts always the same in every roman amphitheater anywhere in the roman world you'd have beasts imported from across the entirety of the roman empire remember this is an empire that spans three continents so you're talking about lions and tigers and bears and panthers and elephants famously ostriches so for example the roman emperor commodus uh his favorite sport when he was the emperor in the arena and he did participate in the arena fighting drugged animals and drugged gladiators but his favorite entertainment for himself in the arena was to fire arrows with a sickle-shaped head to chop the heads off running ostriches and on one famous occasion he chopped the heads off a hundred ostriches and

then famously picked one up and waved it in front of the senators who are watching waves the ostrich hedge up and down and goes if you don't behave then this will happen to you as well and then he laughed and all the senators had to laugh because they had to pretend he was funny because it's the emperor so it's basically hunting beasts for entertainment. It's interesting to consider how the beasts ended up in Rome in actual fact. Because you're talking about, if there's 100 days of games, that's tens of thousands of animals. How did they get to Rome? Well, it was an industrial scale operation across the empire. Let's look at North Africa.

Everywhere you go in Roman North Africa, you can find mosaics which show beasts been hunted in the wild to get put in cages to then be sent to rome to appear in the coliseum so the beast hunts were fed by an industrial scale hunting operation which was empire wide and is it the case that certain factions of the roman army were notorious for capturing different animals? Yeah, it all depends on where you're based. I mean, in this phase of the empire we're talking about with Titus and Domitian, it's the principate phase of empire, so it's the first half of the Roman empire. So in this phase, the military were largely based around the borders of the empire

and the frontiers, either conquering new territory or defending territory. And therefore, where they were based mitigated what kind of beasts that they would hunt. So there's a bit in Gladiator 2 where one of the gladiators comes in on the back of a rhino. Is that something that would have happened or is that just Hollywood? That's pure Hollywood. But it's interesting, actually, rhinos did appear in the arena. So any animal you can think of, actually, on the three continents of the Roman Empire, Europe, Asia, Africa, any animal you can think of, including tigers on the three continents of the Roman Empire, Europe, Asia, Africa,

any animal you can think of, including tigers from India, they would appear in the arena. Famously, the first hyenas which appeared in the arena came from India as well. So in actual fact, they're not just coming from within the boundaries of the Roman Empire, they're coming from outside the Roman Empire as well. And we know from written sources they had rhinos in the arena.

We don't have any evidence that people were riding the rhinos. It's a bit Lord of the Rings for me, or Game of Thrones. But they did had rhinos in the arena we don't have any evidence that people were riding the rhinos it's a bit lord of the rings for me or game of thrones but they did have rhinos and you mentioned commodus battling drugged animals and drugged gladiators absolutely yeah so commodus was the son of marx aurelius never lived up to his dad's expectations when his dad marx aurelius died and he became the emperor his dad actually appointed 40 of the leading senators to be his mentors to make sure that he stayed on the straight and narrow. And by the time Commodus was assassinated in 193, only one of them was still alive because he'd killed all the other 39. So actually, he was the real deal, bad guy, Roman emperor. For me, my least favourite Roman emperor in actual fact. And there is evidence that towards the end of his life, actually, he did start to consider himself to be a re-embodiment of the demigod Hercules so he started dressing in his daily life as Hercules

he had statues of himself created dressed as Hercules and then he appeared in the arena in the Colosseum dressed as Hercules but of course he's the emperor so whoever's running the games on behalf of the emperor is not going to actually allow him to even remotely get into danger. So although he was fighting gladiators or beasts in the arena, they were drugged. So you've had the beast hunts. Then what's the next thing that I can expect to see? Then it's the public execution. So that's basically theatrical executions to entertain the public.

Remember, the Romans were like us but different, as all peoples of the past were. And one of their big differences, certainly in the Western world, is the attitude to casual violence, which is a very normal thing in the Roman world. Remember, the average life expectancy was 35 years because of the huge levels of infant mortality. You find with these ancient civilisations, Greece, Rome, Egypt, that they were obsessed with the afterlife,

and that's because they went to the afterlife probably more quickly than they would choose to, especially if they were obsessed with the afterlife. And that's because they went to the afterlife probably more quickly than they would choose to, especially if they were in the arena. And with those public executions, they were quite elaborate, weren't they? Dramatisations of Greek plays where the slaves are playing the Greek hero and the way that they are killed in the story. So the public executions, the stage would come up and it's dressed to recreate a scene

from mythology. Could involve the Minotaur, could have a guy with a sort of like an imitation bull's head on. They could recreate a battle of the past, the Battle of Zamasu.

You'd have pretend elephants on the stage and the people being executed dressed as Carthaginians. Or it could be a scene from mythology. It could take any story from mythology

where people are dying terrible deaths. That's what's being enacted for public entertainment. This is Dan Snow's History Hit. More after this. I'm Matt Lewis. And I'm Dr. Eleanor Janaga. And in Gone Medieval, we get into the greatest mysteries. The gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research. From the greatest millennium in human history. We're talking Vikings. Normans.

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It seems like it's about more than just the execution, but watching, I guess, the psychological torture of those people, knowing that that's going to happen, being played out for a long time, really, it sounds a bit like a horror movie. It really is like a horror movie, especially to our sensibilities, but from a Rome perspective, you're seeing it time and again and time and again and time and again, so it just becomes the norm. So you just think it's a normal part of life,

seeing people being psychologically and then physically tortured to death. It's terrible, actually. It really sits badly with our sensibilities, certainly with my sensibilities. But, you know, for a Roman, it's normal. And how much influence did spectators have in the fate of those who were thrown in the ring against the lions or against other combatants? Difficult to tell in actual fact, because we're looking at it through the prism of modern portrayals of what the arena's like, sort of movies and Hollywood and things like that. So it's difficult to say, but certainly if it was a public execution, you are going to get executed. There's no way out of it. You're going to get executed for

entertainment. Okay. And another phrase that we're used to hearing is being thrown to the lions, and often that's Christians. Again, was that something that happened? Absolutely. So in various phases of the Principate, phases of the Roman Empire, the first half of the Roman Empire, you could have persecutions of minority religions certainly and in particular christians we see today with emperors like nero or diocletian as an example the persecutions took place because something had bad had happened and the emperor wanted to distract attention from the real reasons why the bad thing had happened so they blamed in this case the christians and then they were persecuted. And part of the persecution was for them being sent to the arena

and executed in public. And is the removal of bodies done in an equally theatrical way, or is there some dignity to it? You're dragged off leaving a trail of blood in the sand, and then the sand's brushed to make the blood disappear, and then you may as well not have existed. For the majority of people in the arena, that's exactly what it is. You've now stopped being useful to them because you can't entertain them.

That might not be the case for the superstars of the arena, the gladiators. So you may well find that if it was a superstar, rock star gladiator being killed in the arena, then they may actually have a much more formal burial after the event, and they may be carried out in the arena with much more dignity. There's lots of killing through the day, so there's obviously a lot of blood. How messy is it? You need a very, very regular water supply to wash everything down all the time

because it's very messy. It's not just blood you're talking about, it's every kind of human and animal effluent you can think of. So the place would stink to high heaven. So you need a regular supply of water just to keep the place clean enough so that people didn't die before they went into the arena. Is there any levity in this day of mass death? Is anything going to make me laugh?

Certainly for us in our world, you would not laugh at any aspect of what is happening in the arena because you've got to remember it's people being murdered for public entertainment so for us no there's nothing that will make us laugh but for the romans who just seeing it hundreds of times in their lives etc if a normal part of their lives they might find something funny etc in a way that would jar with us today so no clowns no jugglers? Clowns and jugglers only if they were being dressed as such for public entertainment and the public executions. And I've heard about

epic water battles. Were they real and did they happen at the Colosseum? Not necessarily at the Colosseum. We do know that the Romans could flood some arenas because they had aqueducts and water supply systems and drainage systems which allowed the arena to be flooded. So they could recreate a naval battle, which might be part of the entertainment and the public executions, or it could be part of the gladiator fights where the gladiators are sailing various kinds of vessels. So they did do it, but to my mind, it's hugely, hideously expensive, so it didn't happen very often.

And when it did happen, is it kind of like a swimming pool, or is it the whole arena? And are there sources that say that there were ships and weapons? It will be the whole arena. There will be probably recreations of Roman galleys, but small because it's fighting, Roman war galleys. They've got to find a way of making that watertight. And if you think about the Colosseum,

it's the largest arena by a long way in the Roman world it's absolutely enormous for 65,000 people so making that watertight would be difficult I think. And so I'm there all day so I might want to take a break and I actually might want to put a bet on Dan since I believe in him so much what would I do about that if I wanted to put a bet on dan to win i think in the roman arena inside and around it everywhere you'd have legal and illegal gambling taking place we're talking about one of history's great get rich quick societies so there's this enormous disparity in wealth between the very rich and the very poor enormous disparity and most people are the very poor moving up towards the middle classes and

the difference in their wealth compared to the very very rich is so big it's almost indescribable so every opportunity you can have to actually make money doing anything you would take because it will literally change your life so a lot of people will gamble big actually to try and make a difference to their lives they'll live it i mean they're in the arena in the first place to be distracted from the mundanity of their normal life anyway. So if you can get rich through a successful gamble, then you would do it. And it's a really long day. Food is synonymous with a good day out.

Sports and baseball and hot dogs go together. What would I eat throughout the day? You'd be snacking all day. So I think the first thing you need to do before you go and see down in the arena is carb up yourself so eat loads of bread and eggs and cheese for your breakfast so you're all nicely carved up. You've got to remember as well you're going to be sitting outdoors for an entire day on a hard seat so the next thing you want to do if you can afford it is take a cushion. As you enter the arena you may buy some snacks to take in with you and then they're being sold all the time as well. So it could be a bag of olives. It could be a

bruschetta, except there's no tomatoes, obviously. So a bit of bread and olive oil instead, with a bit of cheese on top, maybe. But snacking all day, bread, olives, cheese, dried meats, that kind of thing. Great. That sounds like a day for me. And don't forget the wine. In actual fact, you would be encouraged to drink wine because it's safer than drinking the water. Yeah, I suppose because you've got 65,000 people and they're there all day. There are logistics around that.

Where do people go to the bathroom? Off to where they're sitting. 65,000 people. So people just... Some of them would have, yeah. Where they sat. I can see why you say it would smell. That's why it's better to be at the back

if you're a lady sitting at the back because you're sitting nearest to the Vela sails, the awnings, so you've got more chance of being out of the sun and there's nothing cascading down from above you down to the front. So I'm full of bread, I'm drunk,

I'm ready to watch Dan fight. You are. You're basically enjoying the two key things which a Roman emperor wants you to have to make you happy and not cause any problems. You've got your bread and you've got your circus. Or in this case, the arena. The hundred day long opening festival of the Colosseum was nothing short of spectacular in a rather grisly way.

It's believed that up to 9,000 animals were slaughtered, hundreds of humans executed, and so much blood was shed that stadium staff sprayed perfume to try and cover up the smell. I'm assuming without much success. The opening games took place in 80 AD under Emperor Titus, who took on the enormous task of finishing the Colosseum after his father Vespasian died. But Titus' reign was brief, lasting only two years, and when his brother Domitian rose to power, he saw the Colosseum as his chance to carve his name deeper into Rome's history. He wanted to leave his mark on the arena and make it even bigger and grander

than before. But the most crucial change Domitian made was actually hidden from the public eye, but it was one that took Colosseum shows to a whole new level. I'm right next to the arena floor now. I'm at the level the gladiators would have been fighting on, and there would have been a wooden floor covered with a thick layer of sand spread on top. In fact, interestingly, it's from the Latin word sand, arena, that we get our word arena. And all of these rooms and corridors beneath the arena floor were actually not in the original building. They were added on to by Domitian. He ordered this to be excavated out, a huge new subterranean space created. It's called the Hypergeum, which just literally means the underground. by Domitian. He ordered this to be excavated out, a huge new subterranean space created.

It's called the Hypergeum, which just literally means the underground. It's a really complex network of tunnels and passageways and chambers all underneath the arena floor of the Colosseum. This was really the engine room. This was the backstage area, the engine room for what was going on in the arena above. And this was a place of blood and sweat and injuries and nervous young men, condemned criminals and terrified animals. Slaves would be wrestling those beasts into cages. Wounded gladiators were coming past on stretchers, treated by medical staff.

And they'd be the equivalent of today's stage managers, bellowing orders and whipping people into shape, perhaps literally. But this wasn't just a storage area and a holding pen. It was so much more than that. Simon, this is the true magic of the Coliseum, isn't it? Magic is an interesting word, because what you have here is a hole in the ground. The only lighting you have when the stage

is up is going to be from torches and lamps so it's going to be flickering light in the darkness it's going to be humid and hot and it's going to stink to high heaven because you've got animals you've got people everything's been run by slaves with the military making sure everybody does the right thing etc it would have been like being in hell the stage goes up and down and up and down and on the stage when it goes down it gets dressed so let's say the public executions they could be done in a theatrical style so they could be used to recreate a famous battle from history let's say it's going to be the battle of zammer so the slaves are dressed as carthaginians. There'll be some props looking like elephants. The stage would then look as though it's in North Africa.

It would go up and then the Carthaginians, the prisoners, will be executed. They'd lose the battle and then it would go down. Dead bodies removed, blood washed off, so on. And then it's redressed. In this case, you'd then go up and it'd be part of the gladiator fight afterwards. How are these platforms being raised and learned? I'm standing on a stage and surrounding me are hydraulic systems, so wheels and pulleys and levers, hundreds of them,

which are powered by the thing that powers everything in the Roman world, slaves. Okay, so there's beasts down here, there's criminals. Are there gladiators down here as well? So, Dan, if you were a gladiator, you'd be getting up at the crack of dawn. So as soon as the sun rises, basically, you get up and then you get a hearty breakfast. So it's going to give you all the carbs that you're going to need and all the energy you're going to need to perform. But then a lot of your day is spent waiting. So remember that the gladiator fights are the last of the three main events in the arena on a day.

So you're not going to get into the arena until two or three in the afternoon, probably. And then that's the first gladiator. The gladiator fights are various kinds. It could be lots. It could be only a couple. There could be beast throwing and so on and so forth. You could be on at the end of the day. So you could be waiting all the time. And the place you wait is down in the hypergeum in the depths of hell if i'm a gladiator i get a chance to you know warm up go through my paces as a gladiator even though you're a slave

you're the most elite form of entertainment that you would have in the roman world so effectively you're a rock star so you are going to get looked after you are going to be fed and watered make sure that you're hydrated and carved ready for your performance you will be doing training you'll be stretching your muscles you'll be getting a massage to sort of like make sure that you're sort of able to move effectively as soon as you perform but you can't get away from the fact that actually spending most of the day waiting and the really scary thing is you could be spending most of the day waiting to be killed were the gladiators would guests come and see them backstage so as you're waiting dan down in the hyper gym you wouldn't have fans coming down into hyper gym because it is like being in hell down there it's

the professional end of the arena so people wouldn't come and see you there but they would come and see you beforehand in the gladiator barracks and if they're really good fans they could bring you food and drink and entertain you in other ways so if i'm retiaris how am i entering the coliseum because i know i'm going out feet first you would be expected to entertain people all the way from the emperor in the imperial box, all the way down to the people sitting at the back, especially the women sitting at the back. And let's face it, Dan, they're the ones who really want to see you. So you're going to entertain them and you'll be prodded and poked as you went out into the arena

and reminded at every point as you walked out from the dark into the light. And then you blinked as the blinding sun smacked you in the face as you walked out of the dark into the light and then you blinked as the blinding sun smacked you in the face as you walked out of the hell of the hypergeum, you'll be reminded that you're there to entertain people. So you wave your arms in the air, there's your net, there's your trident and you give through your helmet,

making you look like a fish, a mighty roar. You listen to Dan Snow's history at There's More Coming Up. I'm Matt Lewis. And I'm Dr. Alan Orjanaga. And in Gone Medieval, we get into the greatest mysteries. The gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research. From the greatest millennium in human history.

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by subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. This is it. The reason people travelled from across the Empire to the Colosseum. The gladiator fight. So you imagine the music's blaring, because they had a full orchestra that played music to the fights, whether the beast hunts or the Gladiator fights. You've got the crowd going mad, and then the announcer says,

and here he comes, all the way from the distant lands of Britannia, the people's champion, three times winner, Britannicus Snow! And as you come through the trapdoor, 80,000 people cheer your name. thousand people cheer your name i mean who wouldn't want to be a gladiator or alternatively you would come from one of the entrances and that's when you're the champion gladiator that's when you're the heavyweight the title fighter and as you're coming into the arena there's actually someone behind you holding your stats which i always think is fascinating when we watch boxing matches of UFC. It says, you know, wins, losses. You actually had that on a stand to tell the audience your career, your background.

So obviously Britannicus is a total legend. It's the main event. Is he fighting to the death? No, no, no, no. We have a great description that belongs to Alexander Severus, the last of the Severan dynasty, which is, of course, the dynasty that will be very famous because it's the dynasty from Gladiator 2 now. And it says that the emperor gives special dispensation to use sharp weapons. And again, you know, there's no rule of thumb for gladiatorial combat. It's a 700 years span of sport. It was bound to change at different moments. But they probably would have used blunt weapons most of the time. And it isn't a fight to the death.

Of course not. You are a champion gladiator. You are irreplaceable. And the emperor knows that. You know, we forget that the emperor really, apart from a few exceptions, doesn't care about the sport. He cares about the crowd. The sport is just the way to win the crowd. So he wants the crowd to be happy. It's up to the sport. He cares about the crowd. The sport is just the way to win the crowd. So he wants the crowd to be happy. It's up to the people. And your fans, though sometimes

we as fans watch our sports games, we'd like to kill one of our players. We wouldn't really like to kill them, but we think about it when they miss a goal or something. It'd be very rare for an audience to condemn a gladiator to death. So it's not just a bloodbath? No, but there is a bloodbath, but it's not gladiators. You've got Noxai, which are prisoners of war or criminals who are condemned to death. They're fighting to the death most of the time, or they're being executed. And what happens is later Christian writers compound Noxai prisoners, beast hunters, and gladiators into one sort of

figure, which is the one we see in the movies. The poor slave, the bloodbath, all these tropes that we think about gladiators are very distinct, different classes. So you say the crowd condemning gladiators. How do you mean? Well, it's ultimately the crowd who decides. You know, again, the emperor's using the gladiator to win the crowd's favor. And ultimately, that's why gladiatoric combat died in Rome, especially because the Roman mob had no power anymore. Once the capital was moved to Constantinople, the crowd's favor was irrelevant to the emperor. So they didn't spend the money to win them anymore.

And that's why it died out as a sport. That's why the Colosseum stopped being used because the inhabitants of Rome had no political value. So the crowd is the ones that ultimately decide they're the most important part of the whole equation. So there is truth of that sort of trope about there's a fallen gladiator and a victor has to ask permission whether or not to dispatch him. There's an element of truth to that? My thought is that what happened is when a gladiator was injured beyond recovery, I think it's a way of not an execution but putting him out, it's a dignified death. You know they didn't

torture the gladiators even when they talk about death they talk about a strike to the throat or to the back of the neck so it's not torture it's a noble and quick death a painless death if you will so in the arena gladiators got different kinds of weapons as they fight in different ways yeah it's all about the show you're pairing up a gladiator with one strength but one weakness against another one with complementary or contrasting strengths. Exactly. And again, its origins are the battlefield, where once you've defeated a whole bunch of people, as happened with the Samnites, for example, they're defeated and the battlefield is strewn with this very ornate armor, some of which is in the British Museum. There's some wonderful examples. I highly suggest anyone go to the British Museum, second floor,

go look at the Samnite armor because you see the origins of gladiator armor. It's kind of, it's almost fantasy related. There's like big horns and waves and it became so exciting to see these over the top helmets, these weapons, but each weapon, each piece of armor brought with it a specific style. That was the excitement as well. It's a different combination of fighters and different styles. It gives it that sort of thrilling edge as a sport. How do you win and lose? In Hollywood, obviously, you get killed or mortally wounded. How do you win, in your opinion, in reality?

So you've got between three to five rounds or between three to five minutes. So they would have stopped for illegal strikes, but also the rounds means that you stop, give the fighter a rest, and it means that when he comes back, he's going to fight at a more exciting intensity. If your purpose was simply to kill them, you just go, here's two swords, like in the movies. Like we see Russell Crowe, we see Maximus fighting Tigress, here's two swords until somebody wins. That doesn't work. And it would be pretty boring.

The rounds gives you the ability to be more intense, to give these short bursts of excitement. And it also means that the fighter can give his best performance. Points. It's a point system. So maybe to disarmament, I'm sure that there was a complex series of rules that went along with it. I mean, we know that there was rules because there's referees to ensure that the rules are being followed.

So it would have gone to points. And that's why we why we know for example of inscriptions like fiamma the syrian who you know wins 28 he's drawn 11 he's lost five and he retires at the age of 30. so people did lose they did draw in fact various and priscus the gladiators who fight on the opening of the Colosseum, they both win. They drew. So the first fight of the Colosseum was not in death. The most exciting and most important fights and most famous ends in a draw. So do you think they would have known those two on that opening fight at the Colosseum?

They were both going to walk away from this, hopefully. This is not to the death. Yes, but they also were aware of the risks. I mean, the thing is, it depends on the emperor emperor there are emperors who have no care for life caligula you know nero claudius himself had a particularly cruel streak so you had to be careful because you had to know that the emperor did hold sway of your life if the emperor wants you dead you're dead but you take that risk you go into the arena knowing that the emperor might say you didn't fight well and i don't care what the crowd thinks i want you to die and I want you to be executed.

And then you were expected to face death with courage. But you also knew as a gladiator what fight you're going into. So you're going in a fight with sharp weapons, okay, you know that. It's a fight to the first blood, it's a fight to the death. You were aware of it beforehand, the risks were put before you. So if I lose, if I'm disarmed, I'm'm tripped up i'm getting a bit fatigued i'm kneeling on the arena floor either i could at one extreme face death or i could just dust myself off and fight again the next set of games more than likely you're going to dust yourself off and fight again the amount of money that's been invested in you has to be

recouped and so we know that when you rent a gladiator you're actually paying an insurance if the gladiator is injured during the fight at your exhibition, let's say you're a senator, you're putting on some games to impress people, win some votes, and the gladiator injures the other one in the fight, you're going to have to pay for that because that's a loss of earnings for the looters. And if I win, I'm a star. And if you win, you have the acclamation of the people of Rome. The name Britannicus will echo

through the empire all the ladies will love you and most importantly you will gain what everybody wants to gain immortality because let's face it here we are talking about them at the foot of the ruins the bones of the coliseum not even the full coliseum and we're still fascinated by them. And all we want to do is watch gladiators fight, which is why many of us will be in a cinema, watching the screens and watching gladiators fight in the Coliseum 2,000 years later. And now my name has been etched into the annals as a champion fighter, my adoring fans have the opportunity to indulge in their obsession as they leave the arena.

So, Simon, I've had the best day at the Coliseum, even though I've seen some pretty harrowing things. Since Dan is my boss, I have to say that I'm glad to see that he survived another day. Now we're leaving the Coliseum, is there a gift shop? The Coliseum is surrounded by things, shops selling trinkets. Trinkets of any kind. It could be an oil lamp with a gladiator picture on it.

It could be a vase with gladiator pictures on it. It could be a tiny little lorries statue for your household, lorarium, where you worship your household gods on a daily basis, representing one of the gods you favour, Minerva, the goddess of wisdom and military strategy, or Mars, the god of war, or Venus, the goddess of love. So it could be anything and everything. So basically, it's what we would today call merch. And if you're a modern day fan of Dan, I guess you could just follow and subscribe to his podcast. You could. And if you're a modern day fan of Dan, I guess you could just follow and subscribe to his podcast. You could. And if you actually pay a little bit more, he would send you his loincloth. Romans enjoyed over 300 years of Colosseum games before its decline in the 5th century AD.

in the 5th century AD. Gladiatorial fighting was banned in 404, just as the Roman Empire was reeling under existential threats. Rome was facing invasions, economic turmoil, pandemics. Not surprisingly, maintenance of the Colosseum was not their top priority. In the centuries after, it became a burial site, it became a fortress, and a source of building materials for other churches and palaces. Later, in the 18th century, the Catholic Church declared the site sacred, asserting that many Christians had been martyred there, though so far no one's found any real evidence of that ever happening in the arena. Nevertheless, the Colosseum took on a new role as a place of reverence and was left as a ruin. It was as late as the 19th and 20th centuries that efforts to restore and preserve the Colosseum started to be made. And of course, now it's one of the most famous

buildings on earth, one of the wonders of the world, attracting an average of 16,000 visitors every day. Those people enter the Colosseum because, like millions of others around the world, they remain fascinated by that most Roman of institutions, gladiators, where sport, violence and entertainment come together. I hope you've enjoyed this series on the Colosseum. You know you can share this episode with your friends and family on WhatsApp from any podcast player you use. And if you're looking for more gladiator and ancient Rome content, fear not, we have you covered. Our next episode in the series comes out on Friday, where I'll be dispelling more myths with the true story of the rebel gladiator, the man, the myth, the legend.

Of course, it's Spartacus, and the episode will drop into your podcast app automatically. This series was produced by Marianne Desforges and edited by Dougal Patmore. I'm Dan Snow in Rome, now off to find the History Hit team and indulge in some of the world's greatest food. Arrivederci! you