Class 20 W 11/19/25: The Colosseum Day 2 & The Arena

One.

So we are taking a look at a further look at the Coliseum, both at the events that occurred in it, as well as the structure itself and how it is impactful to the Roman psyche and culture, as well as how it has impacted Western society.

So when last we met, we were getting.

We talked about the history of the moon era, of the gladiatorial games, or the spectacula, the spectacles, and we got to talking about the most famous amphitheater, which is the Coliseum.

Which is the Coliseum.

So where was the Coliseum located?

I know, in Rome, but where in Rome?

It's important to its.

Impact, Olivia.

It was on Nero's, like, private escape.

Yes.

Yeah.

It's built on top of Nero's private estate.

So if we remember, Nero is the last of the Julio Claudian emperors, the last of the first five emperors.

And in his reign, his reign of terror, there is the big fire of Rome, right, that burns one third of the city, and then Nero is assassinated by his praetorian guard.

But while he was still emperor, after the fire, he uses what was public land, and he builds his huge golden palace.

And it has a lake, it has a golden house.

And the people feel insulted by it, that he's taking public land and using it for personal.

Lavish lifestyle.

Right.

Then he's killed.

Then we have the year of the four emperors.

And then finally, who comes to power?

Who remembers?

Good.

Vespasian.

Then his son Titus and his mission, because Titus is going to die.

And they are what are called the Flavian emperors.

And the original name and the name that the Romans would have known the Colosseum by was the Amphitheatrum Flaviani, the Flavian Amphitheater.

The Colosseum is a name for after, afterwards, where it's his nickname for the massive Colossus statue that was left over from Nero's golden palace that stood outside the location.

So Vespasian chooses this location within the city of Rome.

Right in the heart of the city of Rome, on top of.

He demolishes and builds it on top of Nero's golden palace.

Why is this location a political decision?

Remember, a theme that we've talked about this year is how is art, architecture and literature politically motivated?

Yeah.

So it's in the valley of the three biggest hills of Rome, the Aventine, the Capitoline, and the Palatine.

So prime heart of the city location, right near the Forum.

Everyone can see it.

Yeah.

It's a depiction of wealth and power, strength.

I remember there was something about Nero Being, like, private or something, and then making it into, like, a public good.

Yeah, yeah.

Nero took the public land from the fire and made it private.

His luxury gardens and house.

Vespasian had to fight off three other emperors.

He's a soldier at heart.

Right.

He's from the military, he's from the Praetorian Guard.

He has to reinvent the image of the emperors.

He's the first emperor, the podcast told us that uses the term imperator instead of princeps.

Remember, princeps is what the Julio Claudians, the first citizens.

Vespasian comes in, he calls himself an imperator, which means head general.

It's a political decision.

It's located in the heart of the city, near the Forum.

It's a physical manifestation of strength, but it's also for public use.

He's winning the favor of the Roman people by giving them a venue for their most favorite pastime.

He's taking what was once private and a symbol of greed and luxury and abundance and the downfall of the Julio Claudians with Nero.

And he's reversing it.

He's giving it back to the people, back to the city.

It's not altruistic.

It's a purposeful choice.

In building it there, he wants to connect the goodwill of his reign with the people who built it.

And how is it funded.

Yeah.

So it's after his successful campaign in defeating Judea, the Jewish riot.

And again, the political propaganda spin is that it's paid for entirely from the war booty, the war treasure from Jerusalem.

Not entirely true.

It's also from the heavy taxes that were then imposed on Judea as part of their punishment for rebelling.

So we talked about, like, how are the provinces treated?

Right.

The east and the West.

After a rebellion, the Romans then imposed consequences.

So while the city of Jerusalem is not one of these transient cities or these new cities that were built by the Romans, like the Western Empire, it has an established city.

They're not going to raise it to the ground.

They are going to inflict severe taxation.

So it's paid for by taxes, by the Jewish war and who built it?

Yeah, supposedly 20,000 Jewish slaves taking eight years.

And supposedly no one died little.

Probably myth and aggrandizing here, but you gotta put a good spin on it.

So again, it's not just a feat of engineering, it's not just a public sporting entertainment venue, but it's also going to become a cultural visual symbol of the power and might of Rome.

It's located in the heart of the city.

Everyone's Gonna see it every day.

We're gonna talk about the architectural pieces of it.

In a few minutes, you're gonna know that it was built because the Romans physically conquered the Jewish people, the Judeans.

This revolt, this riot.

It was built by the enslaved people.

It's going to house games that represent the different people we have conquered in the past.

Thracians, Mermelos, Syrians, animals, okay?

Our civilization's might over the other, over nature, over the world.

It's all tied into its existence and its cultural importance to the Romans, as well as it's built by Vespasian on top of this land that was once considered stolen from the Roman people and now given back to them.

Also, in the podcast, it talked about the start of Vespasian's reign.

Starts out very rocky.

What are some big things that happen during Vespasian's reign that are bad omens that the building of this Colosseum is going to support?

Supposedly turn around the opening to give good omens.

Dorothy.

The Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill burned down.

Bad omen.

The Pantheon, the second Pantheon, burned down.

Bad omen.

Mount Vesuvius destroying two towns.

Bad omen.

A plague comes to Rome.

Probably smallpox or something like that.

Bad omen, right?

So people bread in circuses, my friends, right?

We got to keep the people happy.

We got to keep them entertained.

We got to keep them fed.

We've just disposed of a bad emperor.

We've won to establish ourselves.

Now we're having all these bad omens.

We're going to build the great, greatest building there's ever been to show not only Rome's legitimacy, superiority, dynasty, but we're supposed to be ruling Rome, too.

So what's the most famous movie that deals with the Colosseum?

Gladiator.

Yeah, it's the first movie, really.

That CGI really looked good, right?

There were movies with CGI beforehand, but this is the first one that really takes it to a new level, and I love the first.

When Maximus.

How many people have seen Gladiator, okay.

When he comes to Rome and you see the grandness of the Colosseum, we're going to watch that clip in a second, and I want you to think about, like, the impact of it again in the movie, based on what we knew at the time, it shows the Colosseum as white.

Remember, all of the statues around the Colosseum Polychromy, they would have been painted.

They would have been brighter colors, adding to probably even more of an awe.

And in the podcast that I asked you to listen to it talks about how the narrators of the podcast love Gladiator because the proportions in Gladiator are a little off.

They actually make the Colosseum bigger than it should be.

But they said that's perfect because that's what it would have felt like that if we would have in the movies.

Even though the Colosseum is impressive in person, in real life, that to really get what have been like for a Roman or for someone coming to Rome for the first time, or for a slave who has been brought to Rome to fight in this unknown place, we had to make it a little bigger to actually capture the awe.

So I want you to think about what it must have been like coming to Rome and seeing this building, whether as a citizen, as a slave, as a gladiator.

And then we'll take a look at a passage from a Roman epigramist, a Roman poet.

It's.

Good to see you again, old friend.

Bring me fortune.

Have you ever seen anything like that before?

I didn't know man could build such things.

All right, how would it have felt like to see the Coliseum for the first time?

What would it have been like?

Intimidating.

Yeah.

Power.

You would feel it physically and, like, literally and metaphorically.

Right.

Think of being in a football stadium and you can feel when people start clapping and jumping up and down, you can feel the reverberation, the tinsel strength.

It's supposed to do that doesn't make it any less.

Make your stomach drop every now and then.

Right.

You would physically feel it, you would emotionally feel it.

Dramatic.

Yeah.

Again, think I can only imagine the equivalent would be like going someplace like Dubai or something that have these skyscrapers that are shocked shapes and out of this world that, like, I can't even comprehend.

For the first time, many people, especially those being brought to the Coliseum, this is the first time you're seeing a building above two stories.

Right.

The size, the smells.

Okay, let's not.

We have animals.

We've got people dying, We've got people being there.

Food, auspices are being taken, Sacrifices are being made, like it is a full sensory overload.

So a very famous Roman epigramist, so a type of poet by the name of Marshall, he writes.

What does he write?

He writes about the opening of the Colosseum, and he writes his poem called DEI spectaculi, about the spectacles, about the show here, where the glittering solar colossus views the stars more closely, and where in the central road lofty machines grow up.

The hateful hall of the beastly king used to radiate its beams.

At the time when a single house used to occupy the whole city, here were the mass of consumers conspicuous and revered.

Amphitheater rises up.

The pools of Nero once stood here, where we marvel at that swiftly built donation.

The baths, an arrogant field, had deprived the poor of their homes, where the Claudian portico spreads its shade afar.

And the furthest part of the palace came to an end.

Rome is restored to herself.

And under your direction, O Caesar, those delights now belong to the people which once belonged to the Master.

But those around you.

I'd like you to react to Marshall's description.

What is he saying here?

What's the vibe?

What's he trying to get across?

Go for it.

All right, what are some of our reactions, some of our reflections?

He's like, happy that it's for the people.

Yeah.

Really emphasizing it's for the people.

Possibly giving a new look to Rome.

It says Rome is restored to herself.

So, like.

Yeah, that again.

That restore to herself.

Right.

Like we are again on.

We're people that are remembering our values.

We are conquering people, we are victorious people.

We're a people that again, even though we're an empire now, it's still like the key.

Still want to pretend that there's this air of, like, what it means to be Roman.

And we're returning that to herself.

It's a physical manifestation of the health of Rome, the city, the ideology, its people.

And again, giving some.

Again, literature is propaganda.

Literature is giving credit to you, Caesar.

Right.

This is all you're doing.

You've given it back to us.

He's trying to stay in the Emperor's good favor, because the Emperor decides who stays, who goes, who lives, who dies.

All right, so let's take a look at this structure.

So it was built between 72 and 80 CE, so it took eight years.

And it's oval in shape, as are all amphitheaters, theaters, amphi, meaning two.

Two theaters put together.

But it is the largest freestanding theater of its time.

Many of the amphitheaters prior to this were built into hillsides, using nature as its architecture.

The Colosseum is freestanding of stone and concrete and uses a complex system of vaults to measure 620 by 513ft.

It's four stories in height.

It has 80 entrances that are numbered 76 for spectators, two entrances reserved for VIP, the vestal virgins, the emperors, the senators, and two for an entrance and an exit.

A gate of life and a gate of death for the gladiators.

Based on Its size, based on what we know of archaeological evidence, as well as it's physically still there, as well as literary evidence, we know that it could hold seating for 50,000 people, which is a big number even in today's standards.

But again, considering the population size of that time, like it's, it's holding a great portion of the population.

The main structure, framework and facade are travertine marble.

And because of war and time, different parts of one side of the Colosseum, you can still see the marble side, and then the other side you see the two inner circles.

So it's actually like three inner rings built for different structural purposes that are all connected.

So the outside, the main structure is travertine marble.

The secondary walls are volcanic tufa, and then the inner bowl and the arcade were all concrete.

So structurally speaking, all of those arches that we see around the Coliseum made it possible for the immense size of the Coliseum, for the structure's stability.

Aesthetically, it lightens the visual aspect of this massive, bulky building.

But then ideologically, they function as a.

Again, where have we seen arches prior to this?

What were arches predominantly used for prior to the building of the Coliseum?

Yeah, The Victory arches.

We have continuous rings of victory arches.

Right.

We've conquered Judea, we've conquered the world.

Circles have no beginning, have no end.

Right.

It's showing that as long as Rome stands, as long as this building stands, we are the victors of the world.

So using architecture for this psychological, political, nuanced approach, right?

Like they're not standing out there giving tours announcing this, but it's part of the psychology of it.

Each level of the Coliseum has a different style of column, from the most basic to the most ornate.

They're referred to as the order of columns.

So on the bottom level we have the Doric column, the middle layer is the Ionic column, and the top layer is the Corinthian column.

So again, we've conquered all orders, all features of the natural world, the architectural world, the man made world.

Rome is the greatest of all.

I know I keep repeating it, but it can't.

Like that is the selling point.

And think about it, when we think of Rome, that's what we think of.

We think of this building.

Its legacy has stood this test because of all the things that go into what made the Coliseum.

So in addition to the actual structure, there are some important areas that we want to be familiar with.

Okay, what is the Walarium?

What's the Walarium?

So wella means boat sail, boat sale, maybe that might help us.

It's the retractable roof.

It's the retractable roof made of boat sails.

And if you're.

When you were.

When Maximus comes in and he looks up and the birds fly, you see all those wooden spikes hanging out of the Coliseum.

It's because they were the rigging for the sail, for the retractable roof.

So inclement weather, or more likely the heat of the summer, they could enclose it with innocuous.

And it was run by out of work sailors.

Gotta keep the people happy, gotta keep them fed, gotta keep them working.

Okay, so we hire these sailors when it's not time to sail or we're not on campaign and they're in charge of the retractable roof.

The Harena.

A harena.

Where we'll eventually get the word arena.

Yep.

The seating.

Not the seating.

Yep.

Like the.

Where the.

The sand floor.

Very good.

The sand floor.

We talked about the importance of the sand for traction, for strategy, but for cleanup, for all the blood and guts.

The hypogeum.

Hypogm.

Yep.

Yeah.

The complex underground systems of tunnels, holding rooms, cages and elevators.

That is under the Harina.

So it's these trapdoors, it's all the underground, where you could lead in prisoners, you could lead in animals.

You're having this spectacle and then boom, a tiger pops out.

So the Hypogeum is when you go into the Coliseum and you look down, you see this.

It almost looks like mitochondria, kind of the insides, the work.

The cell of the Colosseum.

It's really cool.

It's just recently been restored and it's now open.

You can now buy a ticket and go into the Hypogeum.

It's only been the last two years that you've been able to go in.

So I'm hoping next time I go to Rome that we'll be able to make our way into the underground part.

And then the new Machia, the Pneumochi.

Pneumocia were the naval battles that were put on in the Colosseum because it was built on top of Nero's man made lake, that in the earliest years of the Colosseum they could flood and reflood, or flood and drain the floors and have these fake naval battles inside the Colossians.

And then as the hypogeum became more elaborate, then the Machia went away.

But originally you could have these naval battles there.

So again, all of these aspects to make for a grand spectacle, a grand game to reinforce the will of the emperor.

But also to re.

Reinforce the grandeur of Rome.

So the Coliseum today.

Last time I was in Rome, last February.

And we can see and hear a little bit more about the Coliseum then.

And now we're not watching the whole thing.

Okay.

Enjoyment and entertainment of Nero and give that space to the people.

It's a space that actually is known as today.

The Colosseum Valley was already known in antiquity with very many important Roman monuments and shrines, particularly lining up against the Palatine Hill in this photo.

Than behind me taking the picture and to the right.

So it was a way of giving back a big chunk of the city.

Over 100 acres of the Domus Aurea were appropriated by Nero, giving some of that land back to the people.

Why not the greatest venue from ancient times?

Now there were previous amphitheaters in ancient Roman times.

So we can go back just basically and review.

The first gladiatorial games are documented in Rome in 264 BC in the forum Boari.

But by the 2nd century BC we hear about the gladiatorial games, these spectacles, as they're known.

They're set up temporarily in the piazza of the Roman Forum itself.

We won't have a proper permanent amphitheater in Rome into the time of Augustus.

He doesn't build it.

It's built by one of his friends and supporters, Statilius Taurus, somewhere in the southern campus.

Martius.

So it takes a while to get a stone amphitheater in the city of Rome, in part because the Romans don't like huge entertainment venues to be permanent where people can gather and potentially outshine one another politically.

So there's a reason why in the Republic they build them temporarily.

Most famously, let's have Gaius scribonius curio in 53 BC builds a double theater.

Two theaters coming together to form that circle.

And that's what the word actually means, double theater.

But because it has a well established practice and location in the Roman Forum, then it's in the Roman form that we get that elongated shape which then defines all amphitheaters, over 250 of them throughout the Roman Empire.

That real unique shape, that perfect circle is determined by some of the early games where people were fighting, performing in the long rectangular piazza of the Forum.

And then you had the glucose.

He's surrounding it in a kind of an ellipse or oval like shape that will then determine the shape of all successive amphitheaters when they become permanent.

And the oldest stone amphitheater that's preserved with certainty is the one in Pompeii after it becomes a Roman colony during the social war.

And this becomes a colony established by the General Sulla.

And we date that amphitheater there, known as spectacular place for spectacles, to about the mid-70s BC.

So there is a long life of amphitheaters in Rome, but the first permanent one we can date to about 29 BC, Statilius taurus.

Then we can turn to.

We have notes of a wooden amphitheater being built by Gaius, otherwise known as Caligula, near the septum, the cipher in the circus in the Campus Martius that's abandoned by Claudius.

Then we have an amphitheater of Nero built after the fire of 64.

So the idea is the records show that the stone amphitheater of Statilius Taurus had been destroyed.

Here's a magnificent one.

Some people say not so magnificent of Nero, made of wood, end of Nero.

It's time for something new.

What a big, bold statement.

A new stone permanent amphitheater for the city of Rome.

Here it is not known as the Colosseum until much later.

It's known throughout antiquity as the new amphitheater.

To distinguish it from the previous ones, it's known as the Flaming Amphitheater, named after the family name of Vespasian, who built it.

So we'll take a look today, just briefly, at the Colosseum and some very recent images, literally even taken just a few days ago.

And we can see the facade here.

That brings it up to almost 50 meters in height.

Solid blocked stones of travertine have been cleaned.

And this is part of the phase one of the conservation project that's sponsored by tons of.

You see in the distance, the Arch of Constantine.

The Magnificent Arch of Constantine will be able to address it in the near future.

And the big hole in the front where there's that sign that says Domusaria this way.

And entrance to the Colosseum this way.

That's Metro C. So that work continues today.

So it's a busy hub.

It's the juncture point now for Metro B, which literally runs from the vantage point of where I'm standing taking the photo, and then straight through, underneath the Arch of Constantine on its way to the Circus Maximus, on its way to the Porta Astiense and the Pyramid of Cestius.

So it's known as the Pyramid Stop.

So again, we've had some breathtaking views as Rome loosens up and we're allowed to travel around, we get incredible views and vistas.

And in this case here, we see that section of the Exterior wall of the Colosseum that is beautifully cleaned as well as it can be cleaned.

And I'm going to give you.

So here's the good side.

So everyone always enters in on the Arch of Constantine side, which is great, but that's the side that the marble side has been broken off.

So if you actually walk around to the far side, you can walk up.

There's a set of stairs right here and you can take pictures, the best picture in Rome.

There's also a very nice bar right behind here, right at sunset.

The sunset behind the Colosseum.

You're drinking your aperol spritz, it's worth the extra money to pay for it.

And you get the full awe and amazement of the Colosseum.

So again, the video gives us again a review read of the history of the Colosseum or of the gladiatorial games of the Coliseum itself.

Again, another feature that it was the we didn't have permanent structures of amphitheaters in the city of Rome until after the Republic fell.

Because again, during the Republic, one man having too much power is dangerous.

Too many people congregating in London spot is dangerous.

The empire comes now.

We want a permanent structure because this is an emperor that's going to be everlasting.

So again, it's that psychology shift that goes along with the political times in Rome that gives us the perfect storm to be able to have the Colosseum itself.

So now that we have the structure, we have to look at, at what was it like to go to the games?

Okay, what was it like to go to the games?

So a day in the arena.

So if the Coliseum was open, it was a holiday, a Dies Festus festival day.

The Romans didn't have like a seven day week like we do, or you have five work days and two days off.

They had like a nine day kind of rotating word.

Like this ninth day was a market day.

But you kind of worked until there were festivals or a holiday or things like that.

We know with the opening of the Coliseum apparently was 123 days of games and fighting and 100,000 animals killed and things like that.

But once the Coliseum gets open, there is sort of a schedule to the day.

So shows would have been advertised on billboards via graffiti in the city leading up to the events.

One of the great things about Pompeii is we have a ton of graffiti showing advertising, gladiatorial matches, gladiators themselves, etc.

The event started early in the morning and ended at dusk.

So this idea of tailgating and things like that is not a new concept.

The Romans invented daedric drinking.

Okay.

Admission was free to go to the games as they were put on by the state.

And your seating reflected your social status.

So the higher up you were, the lower in status you had.

Similar to our nosebleed seats.

The standard program was in the morning we would have the animal games, the bestiarium or the venationes.

The hunting games, midday executions and afternoon was the main gladiatorial matches.

So the article I asked you to read was about this first set of games.

The animal shows.

So the bestiarius feast where we get the word beast were animals against animals.

And the venationes were animals versus people.

Hunters.

When a tour is a, is a hunter.

Animals were brought in from all over the world.

They were brought in all over the world.

And what are some ways that animals were used in the Colosseum?

Why were they brought in?

Yep.

Show off lands they conquered.

You got it.

We want tigers because it shows we've gone as far as India.

We want elephants, we want serpents.

We want bears from Germany.

We want camels, we want ostriches.

We want all of these types of animals.

Good.

Why else?

It demonstrates how far Rome can reach.

Yeah, there's this element of like you can still win.

Remember one of our main themes is anyone could be Roman.

That even a lowly slave could win and become Roman one day.

Also it's again mentality Rome, the Romans have conquered the natural world.

Right.

That we, we are saying we are able to catch, to quell, to hunt these animals.

So these are some of the ways that animals were used and to make a game again more exciting.

You want the biggest spectacle possible to keep the people entertained.

Are you not entertained?

Right.

That's the line from Gladiator when I was a freshman living in Plasma Hall.

Every Thursday night ish Friday morning around 2 to 3 in the morning, someone would be coming home, I'm sure from studying in the library, a diligent student and would be yelling are you not entertained for three, four minutes?

And then people would throw things out there window.

Every Thursday night.

So it marked, marked the season.

I don't know who this gentleman was.

I never, I only ever heard his voice bellowing every Thursday.

But you want them to be bigger and better every time again.

Supposedly during the opening days of the Coliseum, 9,000 to 10,000 animals were killed.

Supposedly.

That number again probably aggrandized it just for the Romans is a way of Saying an extreme amount.

Right.

An uncountable amount of animals.

And again, these two political points being made.

The empire has power over nature like it does all other human beings.

And the Emperor is demonstrating how far the empire had reached.

We get all of this in these early morning meetings.

All right, so your article, I'd like for you to take a second into what the people around you.

What did you find most interesting, most surprising?

Anything that struck out at you, made you think, or that this quote that the author says that the Ludi the games attracted enormous numbers of spectators and were important parts of the collective Roman visual culture.

So anything that's it out to you.

Interesting.

Etc.

Ready, set, go.

There was this one paragraph, they were talking about how like they lost control of the elephant and they were all like screaming cuz like the elephants were about to trample everyone.

So I found that really like interesting, not in a good way.

At the end of the like, wow.

Was it just one or was it like multiple?

I think it was more than one.

I could be wrong, but I think it was more than one.

Like it was like most talking about like how terrifying that must have been.

Like hearing the elephant screams and stuff and then the people frantically trying to leave.

That kind of stuck out to me for some reason.

Soda.

Also, I didn't expect it to be that many animals.

Like I thought it was mainly the gladiators, but I didn't know it was.

9,000 is a lot.

Yeah, 9,000 is a lot.

You can only imagine how many places came from.

Right, Interesting.

I wonder what Peter thinks about that.

Right.

What did we find interesting or surprising from the article?

The amount of like people and animals that were like killed during these games.

Yeah, the amount of people, animals.

You could kind of see like the psychology behind it, how it was a perspective that like, like we were talking about, like how like it's a perspective that like it's not seen.

I guess more than like just seeing, I guess the entertainment value.

I think it's the most interesting thing, not just about this, but about the entire course honestly, is how the Romans portray themselves as the best to the people.

And they have so many different examples.

Yeah, it's almost exhausting to be Roman.

Right?

Like this constant barrage of.

And again, we're looking at the evidence that we normally have are the lasting of the upper class.

But we have to think about how this messaging would have been constant to the everyday working Roman.

The person living, breathing, dying in Rome.

And yeah, it's just part of this constant effort of this cultural Narrative of this cultural narrative.

What else does the article stood out to you or found interesting or the thesis of the article?

Yeah, we were kind of talking about how it mentions like the exits and there was like a certain exit for people who like, survived and then people that died.

And I guess that was just like weird to think about.

Yeah, yeah.

That there's this importance, this premium put on these.

Like there's nothing haphazard, there's nothing unintentional, even in the architecture.

Architecture in the movement of people within the arena.

And that there is this psychology to a gate of life and a gate of death.

What other aspect of the psychology does she talk about with watching these animals get killed?

Were the Romans more cruel than us?

Is that they completely de.

Exercise and everything and just focus on killing?

Yeah.

And it's a weird dichotomy because the Romans have like.

If you go to the Vatican, there's two whole hallways of statues that are dedicated just to like, their pets.

Like, there's loads of statues dedicated to Roman animals, to pets.

We know they kept parrots, we know they kept dogs.

We know they loved animals.

But then we have this spec.

Yeah.

There's this disconnect that purposely happens that goes into going to watch these games.

Yeah.

And she tries to pull apart.

What is that disconnect?

What is that thing she talks about?

The bystander effect.

Yeah.

And that just like, although these like, games brought so many people, like nobody ever would react to them like being killed or attacked and that like it said that the less probable it is that an assaulted individual will be helped.

Even though there's thousands of spectators watching them be assaulted.

Yeah.

This bystander effect is very real in the arena and in what makes entertainment valued.

Think of our own forms of entertainment today.

How analogous are they with this bystander effect or the psychology of these.

The animals in the arena.

Close are apart.

What's her argument?

Are we so much more evolved than the Romans?

What do we think?

Take a guess.

There is no real right or wrong answer.

Just.

Yeah, no way.

This is like similar, but I don't think it's like to the extreme of the romance.

Okay.

Like, for example, like entertainment Today.

Like where you put like better known franchise and stuff, which, because it looks like on the same level, but yeah, I feel like it's still not as extreme as the romance.

Okay.

But it could be.

We're gonna come back to this idea the same level.

Like what.

What draws us to A murder documentary.

Yeah.

We also have, like, forms of entertainment.

Like MMA boxing, where we watch people.

Beat each other up.

Yeah.

They don't actually kill each other.

Right.

If two kids are throwing fist outs on my classroom, I'm yelling at them and getting in the middle.

Meanwhile, when the Giants play on Sunday, I'm literally, you would think I'm invested in this game.

And I'm yelling, rip his knees off.

Right.

Like, they're not listening to me.

They're just gonna let the ball go by.

But, right.

You want to feel like you're part.

And this is where it goes back to that idea of, like, why do we watch murder documentaries?

Right.

Women more than anyone are more likely to be murdered, but yet we're the highest percentage that watches murder documentaries.

The Romans love violence.

Well, not love, but it's part of their life.

That's their form of entertainment.

Right.

Because it's just that, that bystander effect, you are just that one step removed.

You can feel the excitement and there's still enough of like, it could happen to me.

Is the lion going to jump out on the field?

You're playing into the psychology of it.

You're one step removed from the danger, but you can still feel the danger.

This is what gambling, right.

That's what draws people into gambling.

That's what draws us into these sports.

That's what draws us into these documentaries that are grotesque or macabre, that it's that bystander effect, that you wouldn't normally behave that way in the natural world.

The Romans had pets.

They're not killing their pets during the day.

Right.

But we're going to watch because there's something about it that makes us feel more alive.

We lived through it even though we weren't down there.

We were part of the game even though we weren't on the field.

Okay.

I think I care more than some of the Giants on the field if they went or lose some weeks.

Okay.

And it's that psychology.

Okay.

The motor medium might have changed to your point.

Maybe not as extreme, but different cultures.

Like, there's still dog fighting, there's still rooster chicken fighting, there's still bull fighting, there's still mma.

I mean, there's still football where we know the dangers of people getting repeatedly hit in the head.

There's still part of the danger aspect to it that we.

That draws us to it.

And this is what she's discussing in this animals in the arena, that there's this psychology again, something that unites us across cultures that we all feed into in a way to make ourselves feel more alive.

Which again, ties back to.

These were originally funerary games to honor the dead, to also celebrate those who are still living.

It's a weird psychological kind of effect.

And again, just like for the Coliseum, modern stadiums today, nothing is left to chance.

Right, when you, when you go into an arena, what's the first thing you see?

What's the first thing normally you see?

Scan your ticket.

And what's normally right by the entrances?

Food.

Got to keep you well fed.

Merch.

Right.

They're giving you an experience, they're curating an experience for you.

You see the banners, all the trophies, the MVPs, the retired numbers.

Right?

You're curating an experience of that team, of that culture, of that experience, the same way the Romans did with the Coliseum.

So we also have again, from Marshall, he's talking about the midday.

Executions.

So again we finish our animal fighting and then we have midday executions where criminals are either crucified or perhaps fed to the animals or just not just killed.

I don't mean it that way, but just like good old fantastic fashion beheading occurring.

And two writers write about it.

The first is Marshall again, who wrote about the opening of the games.

And he says, think of Prometheus tied to a Scythian crab, feeding the tireless bird of prey with his too abundant thorax.

Just so Loyolius, hanging on no mock theatrical cross, gave his naked guts to a Scottish bear.

His mangled limbs live on dripping gore until on his body there was no body left at all.

So what the heinous crime merited such retribution?

Either the guilty man slit his master's throat with a sword, or in his madness robbed a temple of its hidden gold, or else he put a savage torch to you, dear Rome.

The criminal had outdone misdeeds of ancient story, but in his case, what was fiction became a punishment quite real.

So he's telling us of the different crimes.

But he can also perhaps infer from Marshall's tone and language that perhaps these midday executions were bit too far, that they're some of our cruelest punishments have become quite real, even for our worst criminals.

Seneca, who again is writing in the time of Nero, and his letters write, I happen to go to the midday show expecting their son something to be light, witty and relaxing, which would give people's eyes a rest from human blood.

The opposite was true.

All the fighting before was compassionate in comparison.

Now it is pure murder.

What question is Seneca raising here for us 2000 years ago, Able to defend Themselves.

Yes.

Justified is.

Justified is capital.

He's questioning, is the death penalty legitimate?

Right.

We think this is a new issue.

No.

There are Romans even back then, the.

Their most popular sport, saying, these guys can't even defend themselves.

They're not even given a shot.

This is murder, these midday executions, even though they're criminals.

Again, giving us insight into some of the value, some of the questions that real Romans were thinking about talking about.

Even from our small pool, our sample pool of writers and remnants that we have compared to the number of people that lived and died in Rome, we get to see this variety of opinions that maybe the facade wasn't selling everyone.

All right, and then the afternoon gladiator games is a very famous mosaic from the eastern part.

I believe it's from Syria or Lebanon, of gladiators fighting.

Why do you.

What were these.

What stood out to you in the podcast where you're reading about these gladiator fights?

Dorothy, in the podcast, it said, like, I remember it like in the other reading where we talked about it being like, recreation of myths, but like, the podcast framed it as like, the audience is like, yeah.

And I thought that was interesting.

Yeah.

Again, that psychology, that one step removed that voyeurism.

We're the winners, the real winners of this.

Yep, there might be a winner in the arena, but we're controlling everything that happens.

How loud we cheer, how much we go to see it.

Yeah.

I love when he talks about how the.

The viewers are kind of like the gods.

What else?

Remember the afternoon games?

There's a lot of gambling that goes on outside.

Even though it's technically illegal in Rome to gamble except for certain holidays, there's tremendous gambling that goes into the gladiators themselves.

They're specifically matched based on the type of gladiator there are for their strengths to be the weaknesses or their strengths to be weaknesses to someone else, and vice versa.

So those different types of gladiators that we talked about last class and we know from various gladiator remains that have been found some misconceptions that we have about the life and treatment of gladiators.

So what are some conceptions that we might have about a gladiator and their life?

Yes.

Yeah, they're a slave or criminal, probably still true.

But they could work their way out if they win enough fight.

So that's why at the beginning, the lanista, the trainer, he goes up to the.

The statue and says, good to see you, old friend.

Because he's lived through enough that he's freed, and now he's Making his fortune training future gladiators.

Yeah, they can become celebrities, especially local gladiators.

Local gladiators become very popular within their communities.

And graffiti and advertising.

What, what do we know about their diet?

We're gladiators expendable.

I'm pretty sure it said Jimmy all week.

No, they're an investment.

They were given high like barley rich, oat rich, carbohydrate rich diets, one to keep their energy burning.

Great training.

And also we don't want scrawny gladiators like muscular gladiator cell.

But it's also to protect your visceral organs.

You needed to have a little fat on your gladiators.

That way if they are wounded, it's not going.

It's protecting those vital organization organs.

They were given burials.

There are a number, especially in England, number of what we think are gladiator burial sites.

Especially outside of York, which we know had a big gladiatorial arena and school.

How are we able to tell that some of the grave sites are of gladiators?

Would it be written on their headstone?

Possibly.

The ones that in the article you read for last class were just fat.

There's no, there's no tombstones.

But we're able to pretty accurately hypothesize that they probably were gladiators based on location because we know there was a amphitheater nearby.

What else about them?

There was one who had like a bite mark on like their pelvis bone.

Yeah.

By the types of injuries that we see, we also can tell by the dating of their bones how old a person is.

We see these massive graves where no one's making it past 35 or so, even though again, life expectancy.

They're all male, predominantly male.

So you have to have to be somewhat.

And again we're seeing the types of broken bones, setting of bones, teeth marks on bones.

Like that one gladiator which very similar to the jaw strength and size of a bear, which was a favorite animal in the arena, a grizzly bear.

We're able to tell a lot from their bones.

We can tell a lot from their bones about their diet.

Again, high barley, high oat and tap.

And you can see the type.

Sometimes you can tell the type of gladiator there are because they're different size of the muscles and bones on one side of the body versus the other.

Stress fractures in the heels, things like that.

So we're actually able to tell a lot from the forensic evidence in recent years from these different gladiator places.

Any other final thoughts on the Coliseum gladiator games.

Right?

Yeah.

Yep.

So you can tell.

Sorry, I should have explained better.

You can tell from the, from the DNA evidence that they're able to do the type of diet you have.

High protein versus high.

That tells the bone density.

And then they can also, like with DNA and carbon dating, they can tell the type of diet they had based on the bone density.

So we would typically think like, perhaps many people would think like high protein diets, but actually they were given mostly vegetarian barley oat diets because you want that visceral fat to protect your organs and it changes your bone density.

So on Monday, we're going to look at the circus maximus.

The Circus Maximus.

What is the circus maximus known for?

Chariot racing.

So we're going to take a look at chariot racing on Monday.

On Monday, chapter six in your textbook has a section on the circus maximus in chapter six on Roman entertainment.

So for you to read that, it's about 20 pages on the different forms of entertainment.

And we want to focus on the section on the circus maximus.

We'll also play along little game on Monday.

And then we also want to remember your paper is due December 8th.

So when we come back from Thanksgiving, if I'm looking at the calendar correctly, come back from Thanksgiving, we have one week of classes and then it's the final and your paper is due.

Okay, for your final paper, you do not need an abstract.

You just need the.

The paper itself.

But you do need a work cited page.

And remember, you need to have five sources, at least five sources for your paper.

Yep.

Did you say we don't need an abstract?

You don't need an abstract.

If you've written an abstract, you can leave it in.

Don't like, undo your work, but don't panic and write one if you don't have one.

Any other questions?

All right, my friends, I will see you on Monday.

Have a great weekend.