Getting such a huge number of animals out of their cages and into the arena must have been a fantastic job.
We have a pretty good idea how the Romans did it from studying the honeycomb of passages under the arena. The Romans used at least four systems. The cages could be dragged up to the arena on a series of ramps and then put into niches under the podium wall. At a given signal, all the doors were opened simultaneously and at the same time slaves dropped burning straw into the backs of the cages through slots in the top specially provided for this purpose. If there was an inner wall, the animals must have reached it by runways as lions enter the big cage in a modern circus. Or perhaps the cages were only kept in the podium niches so they'd be ready when the time came. As soon as the previous act—chariot racing, gladiators or whatever—was finished, the cages were quickly pulled from their niches in the podium wall, dragged to openings in the inner barrier, and opened there.
Another method, probably used with less dangerous animals than the big cats, was to turn them loose in a passageway leading to the arena and then force them on with a movable wooden barrier that just fitted across the passage. There were catches on the sides of the barrier that fitted into holes on the walls so the barrier couldn't be pushed back. These holes can still be seen.
Still another method was to put the animals into an elevator and take them directly up to the floor of the arena. There were a number of these elevators placed at various spots in the arena like trapdoors on a modern stage. The elevator went down into a deep well, the animals were driven onto it, and then the platform was hoisted to arena level by pulleys. In some cases "breakaway" cages were used that would fall to pieces when certain pins were released. These cages were carried out into the arena, the pins jerked clear, and the animals left exposed as the sides of the cages fell to the ground. The Romans also had cages that operated on the same principle as the chutes used in rodeos; that is, the two sides were hinged so that they could be swung back parallel with the rear, leaving the animal completely exposed. All these devices were necessary as it is almost impossible to induce a frightened animal to leave its cage under normal conditions.
In addition to the problems of handling the animals, the arena might in the course of a day's show be flooded for a sea fight and then planted to represent a forest. This might be followed by the erection of an artificial mountain complete with streams, bushes and growing flowers, which then had to be cleared for chariot races and immediately afterwards a gigantic fight might be staged representing Hannibal's attack on Rome—including elephants and catapults plus a mock city defended by condemned legionnaires. Thousands of slaves must have been employed in these great spectacles and every last one of them trained to split-second timing. The sailors from the fleet were used to raise and lower the great awning as these were the only men with sufficient training to handle vast spreads of cloth. The places where the awning lines chafed the stone walls still show.
CHAPTER FIVE
By the time the Colosseum was built, wild animal shows were an important part of the games. Wild beasts had always appeared in the shows from the earliest days, either in the form of trained animal acts or for hunts in which deer, wild goats and antelopes were turned loose in the arena and killed by experienced hunters. Later, dangerous animals such as lions, leopards, wild boars and tigers were introduced and gladiators sent out to kill them. Augustus had a bandit named Selurus dropped into a cage of wild beasts, and this sight made such a hit that the execution of condemned prisoners by wild animals became a regular part of the shows. So many elaborate and ingenious uses were made of wild animals (which were particularly popular with the mob, while the upper-classes preferred the gladiatorial contests) that a special class of men called bestiarii were created to handle the animal turns. These men had their own school as did the gladiators, and had their own traditions, professional slang and uniform.
One of the bestiarii was named Carpophorus. We know of him because the poet Martial wrote enthusiastically, "Carpophorus could have handled the hydra, the chimaera and the fire-eating bulls at the same time." That's all we know about Carpophorus. Let's describe a top bestiarii during the reign of the Emperor Domitain, shortly after the building of the Colosseum. We'll call our hero Carpophorus for convenience's sake.
Carpophorus, we'll suppose was a freeman. He was the son of freed slaves who had died, leaving the boy destitute. As his parents had been freed, the boy was also free but as the son of former slaves, he was regarded with contempt by the Roman mob. Because of this prejudice, finding a job was even harder for him than for most people of his time, and at an early age the boy took to hanging around the Circus Maximus, the Circus Flarninius, the Circus Neronis, and all the other big and little circuses in Rome of the period, including travelling shows that set up wherever they could find an open spot and featured a few worn-out gladiators and some moth-eaten lions. Little Carpophorus carried water for the elephants, cleaned the cages, polished the gladiators' armour and ran errands for a few copper pieces and his meals.
At night he slept under the arches of the Circus Maximus. There were hundreds of these arches supporting the tiers of seats above and they formed a maze of interlocking passages, holes, runways, and narrow slits where only a boy could crawl. Carpophorus learned to know the whole tangle blindfolded. This "under the stands" was a world of its own inhabited by fortune-tellers, astrologers, fruit and souvenir sellers, sausage and hamburger vendors, and prostitutes. All these people formed a close-knit fraternity of their own and made their living out of the crowds going to see the shows. People in the stands who got bored with the games would leave their seats and stroll down to this underground world where they could buy special dishes at the various stands, get a skin of wine, watch Syrian and Moorish women do obscene dances to the music of drums, cymbals and castanets, or engage the services of the plump, highly painted little boys who went around with their smocks hitched up above buttocks.
In this world, Carpophorus grew up. although he had dreamed at one time of being a famous gladiator and at another of being a great charioteer, his real talent was always with animals. He picked up a couple of stray dogs in die street and taught them to dance on their hind legs, walk a tightrope, howl dismally when asked, "What do you think of the Red, White, and Blue teams?" and bark enthusiastically when asked, "What do you think of the Greens?" This, of course, if the onlooker was wearing a green flower or scarf. As the dogs obeyed secret hand signals rather than the words, they could be made to bark or whine on whatever colour Carpophorus wished.
The boy grew up with few illusions about his job, the Roman mob, or the emperor himself. On one occasion, he carried wine and bread for the arena carpenters while they worked on a magnificent galley so cleverly contrived that by pulling a single dowel the entire ship would fall to pieces. It was supposed that this galley was for one of the shows—in fact, such a galley had been employed in a spectacle only a few weeks before and the Emperor Nero had been deeply interested in it—but on completion the galley was taken to the port of Baiae. A month later it was learned that the queen mother, Agrippina, had been given a splendid new galley by her devoted son, the emperor, which had unaccountably come to pieces in the middle of the bay. Some of the stage carpenters who gossiped ended in the arena. Carpophorus kept his mouth shut, but this incident confirmed the boy's belief that the entire world was like the arena—a place without justice or mercy, where only the smart and ruthless could survive.
Later, Carpophorus got a job as helper to some of the bestiarii in the circus and learned their techniques of handling dangerous wild animals. Once when a bestiarius was trying to drive a bear from the arena, using a sort of cat-o'-nine tails with lead balls on the ends of the lashes, the bear had turned on him and grabbed the man by the shoulder. Young Carpophorus ran into the arena with a twist of blazing straw snatched from the hand of an arena slave and drove the bear off. Rumours of this feat reached one of the instructors at the School of Bestiarii and he had a talk with the boy. He agreed to sent Carpophorus through the school if the boy would agree to serve him as a slave for the next ten years. Carpophorus accepted this offer and so became an auctorati (bound over). He spent two years at the school, learning how to handle animals ranging in size from foxes to elephants.
Although everyone at the school admired the tough young man's uncanny ability with animals, Carpophorus was extremely unpopular, and not even the most farsighted of his instructors imagined that the quiet, rather sullen youth would some day be the top bestiarius in Rome. The boy was short, dark, heavy set, and if not actually clumsy, at least not graceful. A good bestiarius was supposed to be slender and agile like a modern matador. The boy was not a good mixer. His early life had made him suspicious of people—one of the reason why he had turned to animals with such a passionate intensity—and he had cultivated a chip-on-the-shoulder attitude which his fellow students resented. Carpophorus, on the other hand, regarded them as a lot of amateurs. Most of them had never been in an arena with a wild animal before they came to the school while Carpophorus had been handling wild stock since he was a kid. He didn't think much of his instructors, either. They put too much emphasis on book-learning, always quoting Aristotle and Pliny. Neither of these two learned gentlemen, as far as Carpophorus was concerned, knew beans about animals. They thought a mare could conceive if a south wind blew under her tail. Carpophorus knew better than that.
The boy went through the usual course at the school and learned many things which his rough-and-ready, rule-of-thumb education as cageboy in the arena had not taught him. As with gladiators, there were many types of bestiarii: men who specialized in keeping ahead of the beasts by rurming, men who learned how to dodge them, bull-fighters, lion-tamers, pole-vaulters, and so on. Carpophorus, because of his great strength and brutal technique, was made a venator— a hunter. He learned how to fight wild animals barehanded, strangling them or breaking their necks. He learned how to blind a lioness by throwing a cape over her head and then cracking her back by striking the loins with the edge of his hand. (At least, the Roman writers claim that bestiarii could do this—it must have been quite a trick.) He also fought bears with a veil in one hand to distract the animal and a sword in the other.
To learn how to dodge, the young man was sent out against a leopard tied to a bull by a long rope. As the bull could move as well as the leopard, this was a far tougher job than if the cat were simply tied to a stake but much easier than if the leopard were free. Another bestiarius with a spear stood behind the animals, goading them on. Carpophorus was also exposed to two wild animals at the same time, such as a lion and a leopard, and had to learn to avoid both. He was sometimes forced to lie on the ground while a wild boar or bull was set on him. Carpophorus had to learn how to leap to his feet at the last instant to escape the rush. He had to learn how to irritate wild animals by allowing them almost to catch him and then vaulting over a low fence or behind a wooden shield (as in modern bull-fights). The purpose of this manoeuvre was to make the animals so furious that they would willingly attack the condemned criminals afterwards thrown to them.
Naturally, Carpophorus was soon covered with scars, but like all bestiarii he was as proud of his scars as a soldier is of his medals, considering them a hallmark of his profession. You could point to any scar and Carpophorus could tell you when and how he had received it.
The young bestiarius had two serious vices: he was a heavy drinker and had a berserk temper. Wine was forbidden the students, except during meals, and then mixed with water, but Carpophorus knew his way around and managed to get his own supply. One of his jobs in the school was to train a leopard to be a man-eater. This was a complicated process as none of the big cats willingly attacks humans. The first part of the training consisted in overcoming the leopard's instinctive dread of human beings. For this purpose, a leopard born in captivity who had never learned to fear people was far preferable to a wild caught animal. A particularly mean, half-grown cub was selected and a bestiarius, heavily padded, approached the animal deliberately pretending to be nervous. As soon as the leopard made a swipe at him, the bestiarius fell on the cage floor, rolling in apparent agony. The sight of a prostrate victim will generally encourage any aggressive animal to attack and also the man had bits of meat tied to his padding. In this way, the leopard was taught to be a killer. The animal always won in these combats and the trainer was careful never to strike or discipline him in any manner whatever.
The leopard was always fed human meat—there was plenty of that around the arena—and later encouraged to attack slaves. These men had their arms broken and teeth knocked out so they could not injure the animal. A desperate man can kill a leopard with his bare hands (Carl Akeley, the African explorer, accomplished this feat) but even if women or children were used the animal had to be convinced that he could always win without trouble. Finally, when the animal was completely confident of his powers, he was given uncrippled slaves to kill. If the slave put up too much of a struggle, the watching bestiarius helped the leopard out by a quick spear thrust.
Carpophorus' man-eater was a perfectly trained animal. He had developed such a perfect "habit pattern" that he never thought of attacking Carpophorus or anyone except a person exposed on the sand of the training arena. He was used to eating only under these specific conditions and would have starved to death in a butcher shop because he wouldn't have recognized the meat as edible. (This may seem incredible but it's true. A confirmed man-eating lion or tiger will charge through a herd of sheep to get at the shepherd and will not touch a freshly killed cow because he has lost his taste for anything but human flesh. This was true of the famous man-eaters of Tsavo in Kenya, East Africa, who held up the construction of a railroad for three weeks. These two lions ignored goats, cattle and even zebra—the lions' favourite food —left out for them. They finally had to be lured into a double-compartmented trap with two men in one of the compartments. Even with a fusillade of bullets whining about them, they continued to try to reach the men.)
Carpophorus' leopard had become so fixed in this "habit pattern" that the young bestiarius could take him for walks past the antelope herds in the big stockyards where animals intended for the arena were kept. The leopard paid no attention to the antelopes. However, for safety's sake Carpophorus always took him on a leash until one evening when Carpophorus had a little too much wine and he didn't bother to leash the leopard while taking the animal down to drink. By bad luck, something panicked the antelopes and they rushed past the leopard. The sight of the fleeing animals so close to him awoke the big cat's hunting instinct and he sprang on an oryx. Carpophorus tried to drag him off but the leopard clung to the terrified antelope, hanging to the oryx's flank with his long dewclaws. In a blind fury, Carpophorus brought his flail with the lead balls down on the leopard's head and killed him with a single blow.
The young man had killed an animal far more valuable than himself and the raging instructor of the school, to whom Carpophorus had pledged himself as a slave, ordered him thrown to the wild beasts at the next show. Carpophores accepted his fate in grim silence. But the beasts used to be as executioners were all animals from the stockyards and Carpophorus knew them well. When he was driven into the arena by the circus slaves, Carpophorus strode up to the mixed group of lions, tigers, leopards and bears shouting, "You, Cheops! You, Lesbia! Down, Herod! Good girl, Cypros!" The puzzled animals slunk away and started fighting among themselves. This exhibition so impressed the crowd that they demanded Carpophorus' release and he was sent back to the school. After that, he never again touched wine when working with an animal and made a serious attempt to control his temper.
When Carpophorus graduated from the school, he became a working bestiarius in the arena. Unlike most of his fellows, Carpophorus never lost sight of the fact that his basic job was to please the crowd, not perform some remarkable feat that could only be appreciated by other bestiarii or a few of the connoisseurs on the podium. Having grown up "under the stands" he knew that it was the mob who ran the circus, not the highbrows in the front seats and far less was it the old-time bestiarii who used to meet in the evenings at Chilo's wine shop off the Via Appia and talk of their past triumphs while the respectful younger men sat around and listened. For example, these old-timers considered it a great feat to train stags to pull a chariot. Stags are very nervous animals and only a few bestiarii had ever managed to accomplish this stunt; in Egypt, the animal trainers of Ptolemy had trained stags to pull their royal master, and in Greece, a priestess had appeared in a coach drawn by these dramatic beasts. It was every bestiarius' ambition to duplicate this feat—everyone except Carpophorus. He knew that the public cared nothing about such a stunt, difficult though it might be. They'd just as soon see a chariot drawn by zebras or ostriches which was comparatively easy to do. As a matter of fact, they weren't particularly interested in seeing a chariot drawn by any sort of freak animal. They wanted stronger fare. Carpophorus determined to give it to them.
Sexual relations between a woman and an animal were often exhibited "under the stands" as they are today in the Place Pigalle in Paris. Such exhibitions were occasionally staged in the arena but the trouble was in finding an animal that would perform on schedule. A jackass or even a large dog that would voluntary mount a woman before a screaming mob was a rare animal and, of course, the woman had to co-operate. The fact that the woman was willing destroyed most of the crowd's fun. Bestiarii had worked hard trying to train animals to rape women, usually covering the woman with the hide of an animal or even building wooden mockups of a cow or a lioness and putting the woman inside. In a play called "The Minotaur," Nero had had an actor playing the part of Pasiphae put in a wooden cow while another actor, dressed as a bull, mounted him. These devices had nearly always failed with real animals and so the whole project had been abandoned.
Carpophorus, with his early training "under the stands" and his practical knowledge of wild animals, understood clearly enough what was the matter. Animals are controlled almost altogether by odour, not by sight. The young bestiarius kept careful watch on all the female animals in the stockyard and when they came into season, collected their blood on soft cloths. These cloths he numbered and put away. Then he got a woman from "under the stands" to help him. Working with extremely tame male animals who didn't mind noise and confusion, he wrapped the woman in the cloths and induced the animal to mount her. As with the man-eaters, he established a habit pattern with these animals, never allowing them to come into contact with a female of their own kind. As the animals grew more confident, they also grew more aggressive. If the woman, following Carpophorus' orders, struggled, a cheetah would sink his dewclaws into her shoulders and grabbing her by the neck with his jaws, shake her into submission. Carpophorus used up several women before he got the animals properly trained—with a bull or a giraffe the woman usually didn't survive the ordeal—but he was always able to get more broken-down old bags from the provinces who didn't fully realize what their job involved until too late.
Carpophorus produced a sensation with his new technique. No one had ever dreamed of having lions, leopards, wild boars and zebra rape women. The Romans were especially fond of acting out mythological scenes in the shows and as Zeus, the king of the gods, often raped young girls in the form of various animals, these scenes could be re-enacted in the arena. Under Carpophorus' direction, a bull raped a young girl representing Europa to great applause.
Apuleius had left us an animated account of one of these scenes. A woman who had poisoned five people in order to get their property was sentenced to be thrown to the wild beasts in the arena but first, as an additional punishment and disgrace, she was to be raped by a jackass. A bed was set up in the middle of the arena, inlaid with tortoise shell and provided with a feather mattress and an embroidered Chinese bedspread. The woman was tied spread-eagle on the bed. The jackass had been trained to kneel on the bed, otherwise the business could not have been concluded successfully. When the show was over, wild beasts were turned loose in the arena and quickly put an end to the wretched woman's suffering.
Carpophorus kept his method for training the animals a profound secret, pretending it was all due to a special amulet which he invariable hung around the animal's neck before letting it go into the arena. Although he was offered fabulous prices for the amulet, he refused to sell it. At last, he gave it to his master at the school in return for cancelling his remaining years as a slave. Somehow, the amulet never worked for his master.
The old-time bestiarii were very contemptuous of Carpophorus. They claimed that he had degraded his noble profession by putting on filthy exhibitions. They forgot that in their day they had been criticized by the still earlier bestiarii for training man-eaters to devour helpless men and women. Actually both groups were right. The shows were growing progressively more and more corrupt. What once had been real exhibitions of courage and skill, even though brutal, were gradually becoming merely excuses for cruelty and perverted sexual exhibitions.
Although Carpophorus boasted that he didn't give a hoot for what the old-timers said, their contempt bothered him. So he continued to fight in the arena as a venator, once killing twenty wild beats in one day, presumably with his bare hands. What the beasts were, the accounts don't say. At this savage and dangerous work, Carpophorus was un-equaled. As a result, he was the only bestiarius whose name has come down to us.
CHAPTER SIX
Borrowing heavily from Martial, Suetonius and other Roman writers, let's picture a day at the Colosseum at the time of the Emperor Domitian during the heyday of the games when Carpophorus was top bestiarius.
For weeks before the show, tickets have been distributed by wardheelers, thrown to the crowds by the editor giving the games, and sold by speculators. People not fortunate enough to get a ticket have started to line up before the various entrances to the great building days in advance hoping to find standing room. They have brought their food with them and are amused by tumblers, musicians and dancers who hope that the crowd will toss them a few copper coins. The ticket holders are shown to their seats by ushers called locarii: that is, men who show you the right location. Then the soldiers guarding the entrances step aside and there is a frenzied dash for seats in the aisles and standing room in the top tier. It's every man for himself. Women are knocked aside, children trampled, and fights break out in the tangle of passageways and ramps leading to the packed tiers. In one such rush, forty people were killed. At last the gigantic building is filled, people crowding so close around the masts holding the awning that the sailors have hard work to handle the rigging.
The whole amphitheatre is diffused by a red glow from the light shining through the awning covering the stadium. With this awning for protection, the signs advertising the games need no longer read: "Weather permitting55or "Will go on rain or shine" as they formerly did.
Perfumed fountains shoot coloured water into the air, cooling the vast circus and sweetening the atmosphere. Marble statues of various gods and goddesses clasp urns, dolphins and so on from which, scented water gushes. The statues could also apparently be made to "sweat" perfumes by some mechanism. The atmosphere takes some sweetening as already it stinks of sweat, leather, garlic and the odour of beasts in the pens below the arena. Later, it will smell a great deal worse.
The moat is filled with water constantly circulating and cooled with snows brought down from the mountains, for by noon the stadium will be like a roasting oven. Summers in Rome are hot and this is one of the summer shows. Without the awning to protect the crowd from the sun, it would be torture to sit in the stadium. Caligula, to punish the mob for criticizing one of his shows, had the awning removed and kept the people in the stadium under the direct rays of the sun for several hours. Many people died of sunstroke. Most of the crowd have brought fans and are wearing their lightest togas or simply sleeveless tunics.
Hawkers selling programmes, cool drinks, sweetmeats and cushions to cover the hard marble seats, force their way through the packed aisles as best they can. From the cages below the arena come the roars of lions, the howling of wolves and the trumpeting of elephants. People are busy making bets with each other or with the bookies who crawl from one seat level to another, shouting the current odds on the gladiators. The sound of the crowd is like the noise of "surf in a storm," wrote a Roman poet.
As the awning flaps in the wind, the colours in the stadium change constantly. The awning is made of wool—canvas proves too heavy for the great span—and although it was dyed red over most of its length, there were apparently other colours too, for the Latin poets describe how the waves of light from the swaying awning would tint the white marble of the statues now red, now yellow and now cerulean.
The amphitheatre is so high that it makes your head swim to look down from the upper tiers. The wooden planks of the arena are covered with freshly laid, pure white sand especially imported from Egypt for the purpose, and sparkles in the subdued light, for semi-precious stones have been sprinkled on it. Nero actually had the arena floor covered with gold dust. This however, was simply an extravagant gesture. Sand is the best material as it absorbs blood easily— in fact, the word arena means "sand" Around a marble altar in the middle of the arena, priests are conducting a sacrifice. The altar is to Jupiter Latista to whom in the old days human sacrifices were offered. The priests are dressed in white robes with red scarves. They lead out a white bull and two rams wearing gold headdresses. A fire is already burning on the altar and other priests are sprinkling wine and incense on it. After the animals have been sacrificed with much ceremony, the priests examine their entrails to see if the gods wish the games to proceed. With the stadium packed to the bursting point, the gods had better wish it and the pattern of entrails shows that they do. The priests file out, swinging incense burners and chanting hymns, while slaves remove the altar and the carcasses of the animals.
There is a distinguished audience in the podium and the first thirty-six rows of seats reserved for the upper classes. The emperor has not yet arrived, but visiting rulers with their courts are already seated. Blond, bearded Gauls sit staring at the wonders around them. There are Sygambrians with their long tresses tied in knots and Ethiopians with their woolly hair. There are Persians in red, blue and cloth-of-gold gowns, Britons in sleeved coats and loose trousers, Scythians from the Russian steppes, and Greeks in white robes. All these peoples are subject to Rome and the crowd knows it. They make rude comments about the barbarians and even ruder about the lords and ladies in the lower tiers. Many of the patricians have led scandalous private lives which are well known to the mob. They shout, "Hey, Italicus, are you still your mother's bed-companion?" "Ah, there, Antonia, if the gladiators survive this fight, they'll have a harder time satisfying you." "Greetings, Gaius, have you managed to make your boy friend in the Praetorian Guard a tribune as yet?" The patricians pay no attention to the cries although the taunts sting them. It is beneath their dignity to retort.
From outside the stadium comes the sound of music and a cheer goes up. The procession is coming. Led by slaves in golden armour blowing long trumpets, it files through the Gate of Life. The editor giving the games is riding in a chariot drawn by zebras (the Romans call them "tiger horses") in magnificent harness. He is a sickly young man with a weak face, the son of an influential old patrician woman who is determined to have the inane youngster elected to public office. He looks exhausted already from the long ride through the streets while standing erect in the chariot. The weight of the heavy golden wreath studded with precious stones in his head makes him reel, and a slave has to ride in the chariot with him to hold the wreath in place. The young man is wearing a purple toga covered with gold braid and trying to manage the reins of his chariot and hold up his ivory sceptre with its golden eagle at the same time. Luckily for him the reins are simply for show; the zebras are being led by experienced trainers. The crowd gives him an ironic cheer. If the games come up to expectations, they'll give him a real cheer and elect him to office.
A group of musicians march before the chariot playing for all they're worth on horns, fifes and flutes. There is also the usual group of clients surrounding the chariot in their white robes as well as slaves holding up placards saying for what office the young noble is running. After the chariot comes a long series of floats drawn by horses, mules and elephants. On each float is a statue of a god or goddess with priests burning incense on an altar before the image, or a group of young men and girls posing to represent some mythological tableau. This procession circles the arena to cheers, catcalls, and cries of: "Get down from that chariot and let your mother ride!" and "Oh, I think you're cute, sugar plum. Meet me under the stands and you'll get my vote." These long, formal parades were regarded as a waste of time by the mob and there was even a proverbial expression: "Tiresome as a circensian procession" But, like TV commercials, they were necessary; the editor giving the show wanted people to remember for whom to vote.
The insipid young man descends from the chariot, staggering with weariness, and is half led by his slaves to his place in the podium where his mother is already seated. He collapses with a sigh. Slaves remove his gold wreath, and he tries to wipe the sweat off his face with the sleeve of his gown. His mother stops him with an angry gesture.
A trumpet sounds, announcing the entrance of the Emperor Domitian. He enters his box from the rear. The royal box was raised above the podium on a dais. Four columns, each surmounted by a statue of victory, supported a canopy over it, Domitian was a great enthusiast for the games as long as they were cruel enough. (When there were no games, he used to amuse himself sticking pins in flies.) He is a potbellied man with large, watery eyes and completely bald. His private life was such that he was popularly referred to as "the old goat" During the games, he always kept a little boy with an extremely small head by his side and discussed the various events with him, apparently thinking that the deformed child possessed some supernatural ability to pick the winning chariot or best gladiator. Domitian maintained his own school of gladiators and was finally murdered by one of them, hired for that purpose by a group of ambitious politicians.
Domitian doesn't get much of a hand. He isn't giving the games and is unpopular anyway, being regarded as something of a tightwad.. The Vestal Virgins enter in their white robes and seat themselves in their box next to the emperor's. Then to another trumpet blast comes the parade of the combatants; the charioteers in their chariots, the gladiators marching in rank after rank, elephants carrying howdahs full of armed men, Nubians on horseback, cavalry from the royal household troop, trained lions led on chains by bestiarii, ostriches drawing light chariots, snake charmers with pythons wrapped around them, male and female bullfighters naked except for loincloths, men in elaborate costumes riding giraffes, stags, antelopes and even a tame rhinoceros, cages drawn by horses containing some of the rarer animals recently brought to Rome, and a group of pygmies from the Ituri Forest in Central Africa.
There are also Parthian bowmen, Syrian slingers, redheaded Irishmen carrying shillelaghs, Assyrians with flails, Egyptians with boomerang hatchets, African stone-throwers, Essedarii who use lassos from chariots, Germans with javelins, Sikhs from India with sharp throwing rings, Laplanders with spears and spear-throwers, and inhabitants of the Andaman Islands with harpoons. Little boys dressed as cupids with toy bows and arrows run about shooting light shafts into the crowd, each with a lottery ticket attached to the head. Groups of pretty young girls, nude except for garlands of flowers around their waists, scatter rose petals under the feet of the procession, and dwarfs dressed in extravagant costumes, many with huge, brightly coloured phalli strapped to their loins, run about, tumbling, doing handstands, and performing simple acrobatic tricks. A detachment of the Praetoria Guard, their gold armour gleaming in the subdued light, brings up the rear of the procession.
After circling the arena to wild applause, the procession formed before the royal podium and saluted Domitian. They then saluted the young editor who was caught off guard and had to be angrily prompted by his mother before he remembered to rise and make the proper response. Most of the performers left the arena, but the gladiators lingered, swaggering around before the crowd and shouting to pretty girls, "Here's your chance, sweetheart, embrace me before death does." Some of the gladiators who were proud of their figures were completely naked except for garlands of flowers on their heads; their bodies shining with olive oil. Instead of weapons, they carried palm branches. These men flexed their muscles hooking the fingers of one hand under the fingers of the other and straining to make their biceps stand out or, raising both arms at their sides, threw back their shoulders. The crowd shouted and screamed with delight, most of the v/omen looking down coyly but managing to steal a glance out of the corners of their eyes at the magnificent figures before them. Shouts of: "My money's on you, Primus!" "Give 'em the cold steel, Pamphilus!" went up, and there was a desperate last-minute checking of names, odds, and weapons on the programmes.
When the arena was cleared, there came a moment's hush. Then the trumpet sounded and immediately hundreds of wild animals began to pour into the arena. This was the usual opening for the games—a venation or wild beast hunt.
The numbers and variety of animals in one of these hunts were astonishing. Martial says that there were nine thousand animals killed in these six-day games. There were deer, wild boars, bears, bulls, antelopes, ibex, jackals, ostriches, cranes, wild horses, hyenas, leopards and a herd of domestic cattle put in for "padding." The whole arena seemed covered with a patchwork quilt of various coloured skins. Fights were constantly breaking out but the arena was so crowded and the animals so terrified that by mere weight of numbers the contestants were jostled apart and swept away from each other as the frantic creatures tried to find some way to escape.