Are you not entertained?
There are many ways to visit the iconic Colosseum, but in our opinion there’s nothing more exciting than stepping out onto the arena floor, following in the bloody footsteps of the gladiators who fought in deadly combat here thousands of years ago at the height of the Roman empire. Gazing up at the tiers of seats stretching towards the sky in every direction gives a vivid sense of the awe inspiring scale of this monumental edifice, and the brutal drama that once unfolded here. Find out everything you need to know about the Arena Floor before you visit with out guide!
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Whilst it’s true that many fights in the Colosseum’s arena were battles to the death with no quarter given (combats known as sine missione), this wasn’t always the case. It cost a fortune to train, house and feed gladiators, and neither the lainstae (trainers) nor the editor (the figure responsible both for financing the games and for their organisation) were particularly keen to see such a valuable asset wasted.
If the defeated gladiator was still alive, he could throw himself on the mercy of the crowd and the emperor. If he was popular or had fought courageously, there was every chance that the emperor would spare the gladiator’s life, ready to fight another day. Emperors usually read the mood in the amphitheatre and followed the will of the crowd, with the notable exception of Caligula, who reportedly dispatched even popular defeated gladiators with undisguised glee.
Life was good for the winners of gladiator combats. In addition to a palm of victory, if his performance was exceptionally impressive the victor might receive the great honour of a laurel wreath in recognition of his valor. He then left through the winner’s gate, the Porta Triumphalis, which you can still see on a tour of the Colosseum.
And there were material rewards in store as well: a victorious gladiator could expect a modest cash prize. If a gladiator enjoyed a sustained spell of success in the arena he could even hope to win his freedom – if the emperor so desired he would present the soon-to-be-free gladiator with a wooden sword known as a rudis, symbol of his change in status. Famous veteran gladiators, who participated in the games as free men and were wildly popular with the crowd, could bargain handsome paydays in return for their performances. The author Suetonius notes that when the emperor Tiberius was looking to put on a spectacle for the ages during his reign, he offered a number of these ancient pin-ups a cool 100,000 sesterces for a single fight. Not bad money if you can get it!
As you might imagine, the outlook wasn’t nearly so rosy for the vanquished condemned to death via the emperor’s ‘pollice verso’ – a gesture of the thumb that indicated the gladiator’s fate. In this case the defeated gladiator kneeled before his conqueror and grabbed his leg as the latter drove his sword deep into his neck. To ensure that the loser was definitely dead, two men dressed as the mythological figures Charon and Mercury strode out onto the amphitheatre. Mercury, ancient messenger to the gods, seared the fallen gladiator with a hot metal rod. If the gladiator reacted then Charon, the ferryman who carried souls across the river Styx to the afterlife, stepped in to finish the job, battering the writhing victim’s head in with an enormous mace.
The dead gladiator’s body was dragged off from the stage via the Porta Libitinaria – named in honour of the Roman goddess Libitina, patron of funerals and death customs. Afterwards his body would be stripped of its armour and weapons in the nearby spoliarium, ready to be used by the next combatants – a particularly gruesome ancient example of recycling.
The Colosseum’s arena floor was covered in a layer of sand that provided a firm foothold for the gladiators, and also absorbed all the blood, urine, faeces and vomit that were the inevitable product of the violent spectacle. Arena simply means ‘sand’ in Latin, but the link between the sands of the Colosseum and public displays of athletic prowess lives on in our language today – the English word ‘arena’ denotes a venue surrounded by seats where sports (especially boxing or wrestling bouts) take place.
Have you ever imagined what it must have been like to step out onto the sands of the arena floor, a tiny and insignificant speck looking up at rows upon rows of men, women and children screaming for the spilling of your blood? The baying crowds might be no more, but the unique opportunity to tread the very ground where the gladiators practised their brutal art thousands of years ago is a very special experience indeed. The floor was made from wood covered with a layer of sand, and a portion of it has been recently reconstructed, giving a vivid sense of what the space originally looked like.
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