"7 Astonishing Roman Coliseum Fights" Topic

"Say what you will about violence in American football, but the Coliseum of ancient Rome may have been the single most barbaric sporting venue in human history. Some of the showdowns witnessed there were so ferocious that historians still talk about them today…"

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Amicalement
Armand

Interesting. I have wondered (and still do) how they flooded the Coliseum since there were several floor below ground-level and the wooden stage was pierced with about 70 or so trap doors. I suppose they would have to line who whole thing with leather or something similar, but this would still probably flood the lower levels to some extent.

Also, when I was at the Coliseum, the tour guide said that gladiators didn't actually kill each other because the owner of the victorious gladiator would have to compensate the owner of the loser. I don't know if this is true or revisionist history casting the world in the form we would like it to be rather than how it really was.

One of the ways Christians differed from Classical moralists was that they called the gladitorial combats murder, a fact which even Seneca was blind to.

Mostly of the killing became to slaves or prisioners of war… not gladiators… also Christians…

Amicalement
Armand

When the naval battles were fought there the coliseum had a different configuration. Once that was changed no more sea actions could be fought.