In 55 BC, Pompey the Great staged an elephant hunt in the Circus Maximus.
Twenty elephants were released onto the racetrack, pursued by spearmen from North Africa.
The elephants defended themselves, tearing away the hunters’ shields with their trunks.
But as more and more javelins struck home, the huge animals attempted to escape,
hurling themselves against the iron fences that protected the spectators.
The barriers bent and shook, terrifying the audience. Only the swift response of
the hunters, who surrounded the elephants and brought them down, prevented disaster.
The Roman games must have often been unnerving to watch.
Beast hunts routinely featured big cats – lions, leopards, and tigers – that could leap over high
walls, and elephants and rhinos tremendous enough to crash through almost any obstacle.
Beast hunters threw spears and shot arrows in every direction. So did the gladiators. Sometimes,
whole battles involving hundreds of men were staged with real weapons.
Amid all these leaping cats and flying spears, how often were spectators injured or worse
at the Roman games? Let’s focus on the Colosseum, where the grandest Roman spectacles were staged.
By most estimates, the Colosseum had seats for about 50,000 spectators. As I discuss
in my old video on “Finding Good Seats in the Colosseum,” the worst seats were at the top,
where slaves and women stood on rickety benches. Below were the non-elite sections of the
maenianum, the general admission section, where spectators crowded onto narrow stone benches.
The lowest part of the maenianum, separated by a walkway from the rows above,
was reserved for members of the Equestrian order. These benches were made of marble,
and were wider – signs of the high social standing of the men who occupied them.
But the really luxurious seating was in the podium, closest to the arena,
where members of the Senate sat with their wives, children, and attendants. The podium consisted of
several broad marble tiers. There were no benches; the senators brought their own cushioned chairs.
The best seats in the house were on the minor axes of the podium (that is,
at the middle of the Colosseum’s long sides). On one side was the imperial box,
where the emperor and his entourage sat. On the other was probably the pulvinar, where
images and attributes of the gods and deified emperors were displayed on elaborate chairs.
Other special sections were set aside for the Vestal Virgins and visiting dignitaries.
The seats in the podium of the Colosseum had ready access to all the amphitheater’s amenities: the
water fountains and lavatories of the corridors, the perfumed mist that effused from the walls
in hot weather, and – in all likelihood – the vendors of wine and snacks who worked the seats.
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Returning to our topic – the most important people in Rome,
including the emperor and his family, were seated in the first rows of the Colosseum.
How were they protected from stray arrows and leaping tigers?
The arena was ringed by a thirteen-foot travertine wall, which was crowned by a barrier.
Although no trace survives, most scholars assume that it resembled the fence that
protected spectators in the amphitheater of Nero. There, elephant tusks projecting from
the arena wall supported a net of gilded wire. At the net’s base were rows of ivory rollers,
designed to prevent big cats from crawling up the wall.
In the Colosseum, armed guards likely patrolled the walkway between the barrier and the first tier
of the podium. Sharpshooters armed with bows seem to have also been stationed at intervals
along the podium’s base, ready to react if an animal or gladiator tried to scale the barrier.
Despite such precautions, several disasters occurred in Roman amphitheaters.
The most notorious took place during the reign of Tiberius,
when a temporary wooden amphitheater in the city of Fidenae collapsed, killing 20,000 spectators.
In the reign of Nero, during a gladiatorial show,
a brawl that broke out in the stands of Pompeii’s amphitheater escalated from
shouting and stone-throwing to a full-scale battle that left dozens dead. The senate,
wary of future unrest, banned Pompeii from hosting gladiatorial games for the next ten years.
We also hear about the mundane risks of watching the games.
Heatstroke, for example, seems to have been a problem in the lower rows,
which were constantly exposed to the sun. It was probably in response to
some dramatic incident that Caligula allowed senators to wear sun hats during the games.
The animals gathered for beast hunts sometimes escaped before they reached the arena;
we hear, for example, about a rogue leopard attacking an artist, and about a massive Indian
python that was rumored to hunt children in the slums of Rome. As far as we know,
however, no animal managed to make it over the barrier of the Colosseum. Nor, remarkably, are
we aware of any fatalities in the stands caused by the arrows and javelins of the beast hunters.
Gladiators normally posed little danger to spectators – partly because their weapons
were designed for close combat, and more generally because no gladiator who hoped
for freedom was likely to risk his future on a throw wild enough to end up in the stands.
Yet gladiators did cause spectator fatalities, at least outside Rome.
According to Valerius Maximus, writing in the reign of Tiberius, an equestrian named Rufus
dreamed one night that he would be killed by a gladiator. The next day, accompanying
some friends to the theater of Syracuse, Rufus was shocked to recognize the gladiator from his dream.
Persuaded by his friends that he was being ridiculous, Rufus took his seat, and watched
the gladiator beat his opponent to the ground. As the gladiator prepared to deal the final blow,
he raised his sword high – and skewered Rufus, who was seated in the front row, through the heart.
Although we have no way of knowing whether this anecdote has basis in
truth, its setting in the theater of Syracuse lends it some plausibility.
Greek theaters were not designed for gladiatorial combats and beast shows.
Only a low wall, if anything, separated their stages and orchestras from the seats. Unless
temporary barriers or nets were set up, spectators in the first rows were uncomfortably vulnerable.
Although high walls and nets protected spectators in the Colosseum from gladiators,
they were still exposed to the whims of the emperors.
During the reign of Domitian, a spectator sitting near the imperial box complained
that the emperor had rigged the games so that his favorite gladiators always won.
Furious, Domitian sent guards to drag the man from his seat and feed him to wild dogs in the arena.
A century later, it was rumored that Commodus planned to shoot random
spectators at the Colosseum in imitation of Hercules and the Stymphalian Birds.
We don’t know how many spectators were injured or killed over the centuries in the Colosseum.
Our sources are incomplete, and only mention such accidents if they happened to involve
an emperor or famous figure. But to judge from what we do know,
it seems that a day at the Colosseum was never free from danger, even for those in the stands.
For more on the Colosseum, check out the latest video on Toldinstone Footnotes,
which is linked onscreen and in the description. I have a new book: Insane Emperors, Sunken Cities,
and Earthquake Machines: more frequently asked questions about the ancient Greeks and
Romans. It’s a sequel to Naked Statues, Fat Gladiators, and War Elephants;
and it’s available for pre-order now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and through your local bookstore.
If you’re interested in more toldinstone content
(including my podcast), check out my channel Toldinstone Footnotes.
I also have a channel called Scenic Routes to the Past, which is dedicated
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