THEME: Hunting in antiquity ANIMAL COMBAT IN THE ROMAN ARENA
'Bread and circuses’ are famously cited as the things needed to keep the people of the Roman empire happy – significant effort was put in to ensuring that they had a ready supply of both. Many shows were held in amphitheatres, over two hundred of which have been found across the Roman world, from northern Africa through the middle east and Europe, as far north as Trimontium in Scotland, as well as venues ranging from racing tracks to open spaces like settlement forums. In Rome, people could see the games in the Colosseum, the Circus Maximus, the Forum, and the Saepta Julia in the Campus Martius, to name but a few. From Rome to the further reaches of the empire, no one in the Roman world was ever too far away from a bout of brutal beast fighting which became so popular, particularly from the Late Republican period onwards.
As far as animals in the arena went, the wilder they were, the better. Those humans who fought against animals were collectively known as (singular: ). Some took part in staged beast hunts (a ), which sometimes also featured trained animals performing tricks to entertain the crowd. Others, known as, faced animals in one-to-one combat. Criminals were also sent, often unarmed, to face animals in the arena if they had been condemned to death by wild beast (, literally ‘condemnation to beasts’).
