7 ms·

10000 people and 30000 animals in the first 100 days. I would guess that millions of lives were lost there.

peoplefromibiza 5y ago
> How many people died in the Colosseum? It is impossible to know with certainty, but it is believed that as many as 400,000, between gladiators, slaves, convicts, prisoners, and myriad other entertainers, perished in the Colosseum over the 350 or so years during which it was used for human bloodsports and spectacles. it's a myth perpetrated by Hollywood movies that gladiators were slaves sent to die in the Colosseum, in reality they were trained athletes, much like football players in the US today Of course 2,000 years ago society was very different, perhaps it was more violent, but Iraqi war killed at least 500,000 people in a few years. More people died there over the next 15 centuries, when the Colosseum wasn't a battle arena anymore and the knowledge of what it was built for was lost, than during the Roman empires that used it also as a fighting pit.
- ca01an 5y ago
  Many of them were slaves, who were also trained athletes
  - peoplefromibiza 5y ago
    All of them were slaves, if they fought well they could buy back their freedom and become freemen. The important part is that "they were not sent to die" They costed a lot of money to their owners and matches were often just representations of battles, like modern wrestling, not real battles. It wasn't uncommon to fix matches, they had to provide entertainment, not death. But more interestingly, many gladiators trainers rented them to fight in the Colosseum and they had insurance policies on their lives, if the gladiator was injuried or died in the fight, there were penalties to pay. Most of the games were paid for by low level politicians that wanted to make a name for themselves and rented the gladiators from the trainers. Also the thumbs up/thumbs down it's also a myth, it never existed as a gesture, if the organizer decided to send some gladiator to death because the crowd asked for it, they had to pay the aforementioned penalties to the trainer. Not surprisingly the organizer had the last word and often times they spared them. Most of those that died were war slaves already sentenced to death. It was games, like we intend them today, they also had a referee on the ground. It was a very modern take on the matter at the times, to the point that we still use the same setup for sports entertainment.
    - maccard 5y ago
      Have you any resources to read more about this? Your explanation was great, and I'd love to find out more!
      - peoplefromibiza 5y ago
        Thanks! Honestly I don't, not in English, but I'll be back with some if you can wait a couple of days. I am from Rome, live at walking distance from the Colosseum and visited it many times. One of my closest friend is a tourist guide there and he's also an historian specialized in roman history. That's were I gathered most of my knowledge.
        toyg 5y ago
        And you're clearly a Sandy Marton fan...
    - yunohn 5y ago
      > they were not sent to die While I can’t speak for OP, the way I see it is that the athletes were expected to kill each other, so the wording you dispute is just semantics. Sure, trainers wanted their slave to survive, so they could win the prize money and influence with the king. But that still means they fully acknowledged that the majority of them would die.
      - vosper 5y ago
        > At a time when three of every five persons did not survive until their twentieth birthday, the odds of a professional gladiator being killed in any particular bout, at least during the first century AD, were perhaps one in ten. For a full year in Nero's wooden amphitheater in the Campus Martius, no-one died at all, not even criminals (Suetonius, Life of Nero, XII.1).
      - peoplefromibiza 5y ago
        it's not semantic, it wasn't their job to kill each other the job was fight, like boxers or mma fighters fight today of course they are able to kill someone else, but that's not their main goal
- adflux 5y ago
  All arenarii (those who appeared in the arena) were "infames by reputation", a form of social dishonour which excluded them from most of the advantages and rights of citizenship. Payment for such appearances compounded their infamia.[174] The legal and social status of even the most popular and wealthy auctorati was thus marginal at best. They could not vote, plead in court nor leave a will; and unless they were manumitted, their lives and property belonged to their masters.[175] Very low social status, packed together with criminals... Not even close to American athletes who definitely have social status. From https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gladiator https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gladiator
  - peoplefromibiza 5y ago
    I think you're reading too much in what I've written I've said "they were trained athletes" focusing on the trained athletes part, not on their status. As I've said elsewhere they were mostly war prisoners forced into the fighting career. Of course war prisoners don't have the same rights of citizens. But they were trained nonetheless, and could compete with modern american athletes in activities that require strength and resistance. Also, we are discovering more and more evidence that are uncovering secrets or making us reconsider some.of the things we though we knew for certain about gladiators and ancient romans in general. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/bloody-gladiator-fresco-unearthed-pompeii-180973349/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/bloody-gladiator-f...
    - adflux 5y ago
      >But they were trained nonetheless, and could compete with modern american athletes in activities that require strength and resistance. Nutritional/sports science has come so far in the past few decades, check the world records of any sport to see the progress... There's absolutely no chance that a Roman age athlete could compete in speed or strength fields. Look at people like Hafthor Bjornsson, steroid fueled giants. These people could not exist in the Roman age
      - peoplefromibiza 5y ago
zzzpaz 5y ago
Same millions of lives were lost to accomodate the current United States of America. Perhaps we should avoid looking at historical events with the current judgement and ideology. It was a different world then and execution were pretty normal (so was slavery for example, which US have kept till 1863)
- DrSiemer 5y ago
  A huge amount of people being slaughtered in a single location purely for entertainment is not really something you can offset by the amount of lives lost for the "benefit" of half a continent. It's a useless comparison. Besides that, it isn't necessary to drag the USA into every bad situation that has ever occurred.
  - zzzpaz 5y ago
    It's not necessary to drag USA, but it's just an example of how stupid these arguments are. Historical facts needs to be analysed with the lens of what was considered normal at that time not with the lens on what we consider to be normal today. As many slaves were used also to build the pyramids for example or to some extend modern slavery is a thing in some countries (look at how Qatar is handling the construction of the stadiums for the 2022 fifa world cup). Why aren't we offended by what happen today as we've the right sensibility to understand this things? If that was not a great similitude is this a good one instead: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_of_U.S._Marines_urinating_on_Taliban_fighters https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_of_U.S._Marines_urinat... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_priso... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_post-invasion_Iraq https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_post-invasio... This are pretty much modern and new example, instead of paying so much attention to what happened 2000 years ago you should consider to fight in order to avoid this things to happen again. Instead of doing some empty consideration on pretty old facts.
    - DrSiemer 5y ago
      Most of the people here will be aware of all the examples you link to, and are generally appalled by them. But the fact that the world is still not perfect does not somehow prevent us from looking at the past through the lens of today's moral standards. Can you at least admit that we, as a species, have grown, because we no longer employ grand scale death pits? Someone can be offended by both historical atrocities AND the Qatar situation. The first we cannot change, the second we can still have some influence on. I would argue this is something we do more because something like the colosseum exists to remind us, not less.

> How many people died in the Colosseum? It is impossible to know with certainty, but it is believed that as many as 400,000, between gladiators, slaves, convicts, prisoners, and myriad other entertainers, perished in the Colosseum over the 350 or so years during which it was used for human bloodsports and spectacles. it's a myth perpetrated by Hollywood movies that gladiators were slaves sent to die in the Colosseum, in reality they were trained athletes, much like football players in the US today Of course 2,000 years ago society was very different, perhaps it was more violent, but Iraqi war killed at least 500,000 people in a few years. More people died there over the next 15 centuries, when the Colosseum wasn't a battle arena anymore and the knowledge of what it was built for was lost, than during the Roman empires that used it also as a fighting pit.

ca01an 5y ago
Many of them were slaves, who were also trained athletes
- peoplefromibiza 5y ago
  All of them were slaves, if they fought well they could buy back their freedom and become freemen. The important part is that "they were not sent to die" They costed a lot of money to their owners and matches were often just representations of battles, like modern wrestling, not real battles. It wasn't uncommon to fix matches, they had to provide entertainment, not death. But more interestingly, many gladiators trainers rented them to fight in the Colosseum and they had insurance policies on their lives, if the gladiator was injuried or died in the fight, there were penalties to pay. Most of the games were paid for by low level politicians that wanted to make a name for themselves and rented the gladiators from the trainers. Also the thumbs up/thumbs down it's also a myth, it never existed as a gesture, if the organizer decided to send some gladiator to death because the crowd asked for it, they had to pay the aforementioned penalties to the trainer. Not surprisingly the organizer had the last word and often times they spared them. Most of those that died were war slaves already sentenced to death. It was games, like we intend them today, they also had a referee on the ground. It was a very modern take on the matter at the times, to the point that we still use the same setup for sports entertainment.
  - maccard 5y ago
    Have you any resources to read more about this? Your explanation was great, and I'd love to find out more!
    - peoplefromibiza 5y ago
      Thanks! Honestly I don't, not in English, but I'll be back with some if you can wait a couple of days. I am from Rome, live at walking distance from the Colosseum and visited it many times. One of my closest friend is a tourist guide there and he's also an historian specialized in roman history. That's were I gathered most of my knowledge.
      - toyg 5y ago
        And you're clearly a Sandy Marton fan...
  - yunohn 5y ago
    > they were not sent to die While I can’t speak for OP, the way I see it is that the athletes were expected to kill each other, so the wording you dispute is just semantics. Sure, trainers wanted their slave to survive, so they could win the prize money and influence with the king. But that still means they fully acknowledged that the majority of them would die.
    - vosper 5y ago
      > At a time when three of every five persons did not survive until their twentieth birthday, the odds of a professional gladiator being killed in any particular bout, at least during the first century AD, were perhaps one in ten. For a full year in Nero's wooden amphitheater in the Campus Martius, no-one died at all, not even criminals (Suetonius, Life of Nero, XII.1).
    - peoplefromibiza 5y ago
      it's not semantic, it wasn't their job to kill each other the job was fight, like boxers or mma fighters fight today of course they are able to kill someone else, but that's not their main goal
adflux 5y ago
All arenarii (those who appeared in the arena) were "infames by reputation", a form of social dishonour which excluded them from most of the advantages and rights of citizenship. Payment for such appearances compounded their infamia.[174] The legal and social status of even the most popular and wealthy auctorati was thus marginal at best. They could not vote, plead in court nor leave a will; and unless they were manumitted, their lives and property belonged to their masters.[175] Very low social status, packed together with criminals... Not even close to American athletes who definitely have social status. From https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gladiator https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gladiator
- peoplefromibiza 5y ago
  I think you're reading too much in what I've written I've said "they were trained athletes" focusing on the trained athletes part, not on their status. As I've said elsewhere they were mostly war prisoners forced into the fighting career. Of course war prisoners don't have the same rights of citizens. But they were trained nonetheless, and could compete with modern american athletes in activities that require strength and resistance. Also, we are discovering more and more evidence that are uncovering secrets or making us reconsider some.of the things we though we knew for certain about gladiators and ancient romans in general. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/bloody-gladiator-fresco-unearthed-pompeii-180973349/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/bloody-gladiator-f...
  - adflux 5y ago
    >But they were trained nonetheless, and could compete with modern american athletes in activities that require strength and resistance. Nutritional/sports science has come so far in the past few decades, check the world records of any sport to see the progress... There's absolutely no chance that a Roman age athlete could compete in speed or strength fields. Look at people like Hafthor Bjornsson, steroid fueled giants. These people could not exist in the Roman age
    - peoplefromibiza 5y ago

zzzpaz 5y ago

Same millions of lives were lost to accomodate the current United States of America. Perhaps we should avoid looking at historical events with the current judgement and ideology. It was a different world then and execution were pretty normal (so was slavery for example, which US have kept till 1863)

DrSiemer 5y ago
A huge amount of people being slaughtered in a single location purely for entertainment is not really something you can offset by the amount of lives lost for the "benefit" of half a continent. It's a useless comparison. Besides that, it isn't necessary to drag the USA into every bad situation that has ever occurred.
- zzzpaz 5y ago
  It's not necessary to drag USA, but it's just an example of how stupid these arguments are. Historical facts needs to be analysed with the lens of what was considered normal at that time not with the lens on what we consider to be normal today. As many slaves were used also to build the pyramids for example or to some extend modern slavery is a thing in some countries (look at how Qatar is handling the construction of the stadiums for the 2022 fifa world cup). Why aren't we offended by what happen today as we've the right sensibility to understand this things? If that was not a great similitude is this a good one instead: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_of_U.S._Marines_urinating_on_Taliban_fighters https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_of_U.S._Marines_urinat... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_priso... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_post-invasion_Iraq https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_post-invasio... This are pretty much modern and new example, instead of paying so much attention to what happened 2000 years ago you should consider to fight in order to avoid this things to happen again. Instead of doing some empty consideration on pretty old facts.
  - DrSiemer 5y ago
    Most of the people here will be aware of all the examples you link to, and are generally appalled by them. But the fact that the world is still not perfect does not somehow prevent us from looking at the past through the lens of today's moral standards. Can you at least admit that we, as a species, have grown, because we no longer employ grand scale death pits? Someone can be offended by both historical atrocities AND the Qatar situation. The first we cannot change, the second we can still have some influence on. I would argue this is something we do more because something like the colosseum exists to remind us, not less.