When the Colosseum in Rome was officially inaugurated in 80 CE under the orders of Emperor Titus, 100 days of games took place in celebration, says Rebecca Franks.
The amphitheatre was filled with brutal spectacles and gladiatorial combats. During the games, thousands of animals – accounts range from between 5,000 to 9,000 – were killed. Romans had bloodthirsty tastes.
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Damnatio ad bestias (condemnation to beasts) was a form of capital punishment, and watching criminals be mauled to death was a popular spectator sport. And the animals themselves might also be sentenced to death during venationes, a type of hunt. Local species like bulls and dogs were used, but there was a great appetite for exotic creatures from places like Africa.
How did Romans get lions to the Colosseum?
Elephants, leopards, rhinoceroses, tigers, buffalos, camels, crocodiles were all thrown into the ring, and, of course, lions. But it wasn’t only the people who faced these animals in the arena who were in mortal danger.
Capturing and transporting wild beasts across continents became a thriving industry, peopled by both military and civilian hunters. In his research, Roger Wilson, a professor of archaeology, discovered a trade network that criss-crossed the empire, bringing tigers from Armenia, bears and boars from northern Europe and elephants, hippos and lions, among other animals, from North Africa.
How did Romans capture lions?
We know of three main methods the Romans used to catch the king of jungle, recorded by the second-century Greek writer Oppian, who noted that a ‘great throng of mighty lions roar in the godly land of thirsty Libya’ in his Cynegetica (by Libya he meant North Africa).
He describes how the hunters, who had tracked the lions to the river when they went to drink, would dig a wide, large round pit, surrounded by a wall of boulders so ‘that the Lion may not see the crafty chasm when he draws near’. In the middle of the pit hung a suckling lamb, to lure in the hungry lion. Once it was trapped, the watchful hunters would lower down a ‘plaited well-compacted cage’, inside which would be roasted meat. Thinking it might escape, so Oppian’s account goes, the lion would leap into the cage and the hunt would be over.
The second method involved a different sort of ambush. Three hunters would man a set of nets fixed on stakes, ready to catch the unsuspecting lions. There would also be men on ‘bright-eyed, great-hearted’ horses, and others carrying shields and blazing torches, who would scare the lions, encouraging them to flee towards the nets.
And lastly, Oppian writes of a method used by the Ethiopians. He writes that, unlikely and dangerous as it seems, they covered themselves in sheep fleeces, wore helmets and carried strong shields covered with ox-hides in protection – and let themselves be attacked by the lion.
As one man became prey, another would appear behind to distract the predator away, and so on until the lion became exhausted, and the hunters could bind the lion. ‘O greatly daring men! What a feat they compass, what a deed they do – they carry off that great monster like a tame sheep!’ wrote Oppian.
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