Arena: Blood, Sweat, and Cheers; Part 2 of 2

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Rome was over extended with deficit spending and an imbalance of payments. Do you see a similar situation for the United States with its "Pax Americana"?

Apparently, the Roman people were trapped. Rome had over-extended herself by becoming, as much by accident as by design, the dominant nation of the world.

The cost of maintaining the Pax Romana ("Peace of Rome") over most of the known world was proving too great even for the enormous resources of the mighty empire.

Rome did not dare to abandon her allies or pull back her legions who were holding the barbarian tribes in a line extending from the Rhine River in Germany to the Persian Gulf.

Every time a frontier post was relinquished, the wild hordes would sweep in, overrun the area and move just that much closer to the nerve centers of Roman trade.

The Roman government was constantly threatened by bankruptcy and no government agency or politician could find a way out of the difficulty.

The cost of its gigantic military program was only one of Rome’s headaches. To encourage industry in her various satellite nations, Rome attempted a policy of unrestricted trade, but the Roman workingman was unable to compete with the cheap foreign labor and demanded high tariffs.

When the tariffs were passed, the satellite nations were unable to sell their goods to the only nation that had any money.

To break the deadlock, the government was finally forced to subsidize the Roman working class to make up the difference between their "real wages" (the actual value of what they were producing) and the wages required to keep up their relatively high standard of living.

As a result, thousands of workmen lived on this subsidy and had no inclination to work, thereby sacrificing their standard of living for a life of ease.

The wealthy class of Rome, living in palaces and eating banquets composed of such delicacies as thrushes’ tongues in wild honey and sow’s udders stuffed with fried baby mice, owed their riches to great factories where slave laborers produced enormous masses of goods by what we now call assembly-line methods.

The dispossessed farmers and unemployed workmen had one great cry: "Make the rich pay!" The government responded by increasing taxes year after year on the plutocrats, but there was a point beyond which they dared not go.

After all, it was the taxes paid by these rich men that kept the whole system going and the government did not dare to ruin their source of funds.

Attempts were made to abolish slave labor in the factories, but the free workmen's demands for short hours and high wages had grown so great that only slaves could be used economically.

Also, the big factory owners were politically powerful and fought every effort to break up their holdings by bribing senators, hiring lobbyists, and securing the support of unscrupulous labor leaders.

A Roman factory owner found it far more profitable to spend thousands of sesterces in such practices rather than lose his slaves. The Roman freemen would far rather have their doles (unemployment payments) and games than work for a living.

Since there was no television, no books, nor movies in Roman times; the major distractions for the Roman people had to be the circus productions.

To the Roman mobs, caught in an economic tangle they could not comprehend and were unable to break, the circus was the only substitute for their troubles.

The great amphitheaters became the ordinary man's temple, home, place of assembly, and ideal. As the games were ostensibly pious ceremonies given in honor of the gods, they gratified any possible religious sensitivities.

At least for a few hours, by being in the Circus Maximus, they were able to inhabit an edifice even more magnificent than the Golden Palace of Nero instead of having to stay in their miserable, overcrowded tenements.

When they were at the circus, Romans were able to meet with other freemen, feel a sense of unity as they sat with their factions cheering a certain chariot team, and imposing their wishes on the emperor himself because, as the Romans themselves said, "In the circus alone are the people rulers."

The Romans worshiped courage and all Romans liked to picture themselves as rough, tough fighters. In Rome, the "little guys" could identify themselves with a successful gladiator as modern fight fans identify themselves with a famous prize fighter or sports people are fiercely loyal to various sports' personalities or teams today.

The destructive forces of the circuses in the arenas kept growing and growing in attempts to satisfy the discontent of the Roman masses.

The first century of the Christian era probably marked the high point of the games. The spectacles had grown to such an extent that it seemed incredible that they could ever be surpassed.

The dictator Sulla (93 B.C.) presented one hundred lions in the arena. Julius Caesar had four hundred. Pompey had six hundred lions, twenty elephants and four hundred ten leopards fighting Gaetulians armed with darts.

Augustus in 10 A.D. exhibited the first tiger ever to be seen in Rome and had 3,500 elephants. He boasted that he had ten thousand men killed in eight shows.

After Trajan’s victory over the Dacians, he had eleven thousand animals killed in the arena.

Some say that Julius Caesar could be called the father of the games because under his regime they ceased to be an occasional exhibition of fairly modest proportions and became a national institution.

By the time of Augustus, the people regarded the games not as a luxury but as their right. Under the old Republic, the games lasted for sixteen days: fourteen chariot races, two trials for horses, and forty-eight theatricals.

By the time of Claudius (50 A.D.), there were ninety-three a year. This number was gradually increased to 123 days under Trajan and to 230 under Marcus Aurelius.

Augustus and several of the other emperors tried to limit the number of games, but it always produced mob uprisings.

Marcus Aurelius disliked the games, but in his official position he had to attend. He used to sit in the royal box and dictate letters to his secretaries while the games were going on.

The Roman crowds resented his negative behavior; and although he was one of the best emperors Rome ever had, as a result of his contempt for the games, he was also one of the most unpopular.

Both Caligula and Nero, probably the two worst rulers in Roman history, were greatly mourned by the crowds when they died because they always put on such extravagant games.

The Colosseum is considered to be one of the best-known amphitheaters or arenas from the Roman days of slaughtering humans and animals.

The buildings designed to hold the bloody shows are said to have never been surpassed either for size or for perfections of functional design.

The oldest and largest of these vast structures was the Circus Maximus. Eventually after several modifications, it measured 2,000 feet long by 650 feet wide and could provide places for 385,000 people.

The Colosseum, started by the emperor Vespasian in 70 A.D. and completed by his son, Titus, ten years later, is considered to be the best equipped amphitheater that the Romans or anyone else ever built.

Since Vespasian and Titus were members of the Flavian family, it was known to the Romans as the “Flavian amphitheater” and it was not until the Middle Ages that it was called the Colosseum because of its size.

The building had eighty entrances; seventy-six were used by the general public while one was reserved for the emperor and one for the Vestal Virgins, a group of chief priestesses whose duty was to guard a sacred flame that was kept burning continuously.

The other two doors opened directly into the arena. One was called the "Door of Life" and through it the opening procession marched before the show.

The other was called the "Door of Death" and through it the dead bodies of men and beasts were dragged to clear the arena for the next event.

An elaborate series of sewers carried off the blood and refuse from the arena and the animal cages below it.

A system of small sewers led from all parts of the building to one great circular drain that surrounded the Colosseum. The drain, in turn, was connected to the Cloaca Maxima, the main sewerage system of the city.

Where did the Romans get all of the animals they used in their entertainment of violence, sex, and bloody gore?

Emperor Trojan gave one set of games that lasted 122 days during which 11,000 people and 10,000 animals were killed.

Emperor Titus had 5,000 wild animals and 4,000 domestic animals killed during the one hundred-day show to celebrate the opening of the Colosseum.

In 249 A.D., Philip celebrated the one thousandth anniversary of the founding of Rome by giving games in which the following were killed: one thousand pairs of gladiators, thirty-two elephants, ten tigers, sixty lions, thirty leopards, ten hyenas, ten giraffes, twenty wild asses, forty wild horses, ten zebras, six hippos and one rhino.

Whole territories under Roman rule (Europe, Middle East, Africa, etc.) were denuded of wild animals to supply the arenas.

The early Christian fathers could only find one good thing to say about the blood spectacles: the demand for animals cleared entire districts of dangerous predators making it possible for those areas to be opened for farming.

Several species of animals were either exterminated or so reduced in numbers that they later became extinct: the European lion, the aurochs, the Libyan elephant, and possibly the African bear.

There are no bears in Africa today and most scientist apparently believe that there never were any, but a Roman reference claims that they did get a "bear" from East Africa and Nubia.

If it was not a bear than what was it? There is no other explanation available.

A Final Statement

"Hail Caesar, we who are about to die, salute you!" Die the gladiators did. In a vast marble Colosseum, the people of Rome, patrician and commoner, flocked to see gladiators mangled beneath the hoofs and wheels of horses and chariots, slaughtered by half-starved wild beasts, and butchered by well-armed and armored professionals.

With the Empire in decline, death and torture became the only spectacles that satisfied the decadent Romans' desires.

The Emperor Trajan gave one set of games that lasted 122 days; at its end, 11,000 people and 10,000 animals had been killed. The people of Rome loved it—and they wanted more.

Roman Events: The FULL version of Those about to Die, Index.