munch on chickpeas while watching a midday execution

or check out the lions--

no, not those-- and other exotic animals

released through the arena's hidden trap doors

from their cramped seats, or even observe

Roman elites harvesting actual sweat from gladiators

to make themselves sexier.

Events held at the Colosseum were so varied

and elaborate that the audience never knew what to expect.

Today, we're looking at what it was

like to be a spectator at the Roman Colosseum.

Before we get into it, make sure you subscribe,

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us know what history you'd like to experience.

Now we go to the Colosseum.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Admission into the Colosseum was free,

one of the many perks of being a Roman citizen.

But attendees still had assigned seating.

The podium and first few rows made up

the first and best tier, where the emperor, Vestal virgins,

and about 2,000 other Roman athletes

who watched the blood sport.

Merchants, government toadies, and

other well-heeled patricians got to sit in the second tier.

Higher up, the third tier was reserved for ordinary Joes.

That's where most of the real fans would end up.

Going to the games was kind of like going to Disneyland,

you know, if Donald and Goofy fought to the death

for the edification of Emperor Mickey.

On festival days, the Colosseum attracted 50,000 spectators,

a gold mine for vendors.

Outside the Colosseum, traders and street sellers

hawked food and souvenirs to visitors.

They may have even sold programs with stats

on the gladiator, sort of like Topps baseball

cards of the day, that could presumably immediately

spike in value thanks to all the sudden athlete death.

Let's hope that Mickius Mantle Maximus

card is in mint condition.

As for street food, the Romans enjoyed sausages, chickpeas,

and pastries.

Inside the Colosseum, they could grab sweets, wine, and snacks.

Got any nuts?

I haven't got any nuts, sorry.

I've got wren's livers, badger spleens.

No, no, no.

And of course, there was merchandise-- a wooden ball

with a special token inside.

The tokens could be cashed in for special prizes from food

or cash to their own spot on an island, which, exciting as that

sounds, is just what the Romans called

their multistory apartment buildings.

Once visitors made it inside, they

faced the challenge of finding their seats in a stadium

big enough to hold 50,000.

Depending on a status, a man might

settle right into a nice spot at the lowest level,

climb 12 to 15 stories to the top

to sit with the womenfolk and the poor,

who probably have the toughest time climbing

15 freaking stories of stairs.

Both the entrances and the staircases

were kept separate by iron and marble dividers,

and like the seating areas, the passageways

were divided by class.

Covering about six acres of land and rising

12 to 15 modern stories tall, the Colosseum

was and remains the largest amphitheater in the world.

But although the building itself was grand,

the majority of the audience was as cramped as flying coach

on American Airlines.

Everyone not in the ancient Roman version

of the first class got a 15-inch wide seat

with 27.5 inches of leg room.

Now subtract air conditioning, add 15 levels of stairs,

and you'd be ready to watch some bloody gladiators fight, too.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Because of the immense size of the structure,

spectators in the nosebleed section

probably couldn't see or hear much of the action.

The highest part of the 15-story stadium

sat upon a wall, which extended 16 feet

above the other spectators.

The crowds at the top, made up of mostly women

and the impoverished, strained to see the fights below.

And while the roar of the crowd could make it to the top,

the spectators in the highest seats

probably couldn't hear much else from the fighting ring.

This mirrors the living situation in the city.

The islands we talked about earlier were

about six stories tall with rent mostly

determined by the number of decaying stairs

a tenant had to climb to get to his apartment.

We can imagine what it was like to try and convince

your friends to help you move a sofa.

A hideaway bed?

These haven't even been invented yet.

As you'd expect, the emperor got the best seat

in the house, the imperial box.

Gladiators fought before him and appealed to him for mercy,

often successfully.

The emperor could order a gladiator's end at any time

with only his thumb, and spectators waited and watched

for his reactions.

Contrary to the movie cliche, forgiveness was the rule, not

the exception, and the gladiators

were more likely to die from deep wounds

than they were from an inverted royal thumb.

While the Roman elites might sit close to the emperor,

the [INAUDIBLE] ruler was--

you guessed it-- separated from the other spectators.

He even had dedicated doors to enter and exit the Colosseum,

so he never ran into the rabble or slipped on lion droppings

and discarded sausage.

There's more sense than ego to this.

Nothing inflames mob mentality like violence,

and Rome was beginning to decay before the Colosseum was

even built.

The Mediterranean sun can be a real bastard during the summer

months, but the Colosseum provided a place of respite,

thanks to the velarium, which is a fancy word for a really

big curtain.

The velarium was the building system of adjustable awnings,

similar to a ship's mast and sails.

A ship crew stationed near Rome maneuvered the rig.

Using ropes and pulleys, the crew

could pull a large piece of fabric

or smaller separated strips across the top of the structure

and block the sun.

Ironically, that meant that while they couldn't see or hear

much from their seats, the lowest class

could enjoy the shadiest part of the Colosseum,

while the nobles sweated in the sun.

It's basically like going to the movies just

to sit in the air conditioning.

Fights at the Colosseum often had their own soundtrack.

Spectators thrilled to the sounds of trumpets, horns,

and water organs, while gladiators

tilted at exotic animals and, of course, each other.

Music continued even when the emperor

was deciding whether a hapless gladiator had shown enough

grit to fight another day.

The music was more than just entertainment for the audience,

though.

It also served as a cue for the stagehands.

The music might tell them when to release a wild animal

into the arena or when the next fight was

about to start, sort of like how stone Cold Steve Austin knew it

was time to run into the ring.

[APPLAUSE]

[MUSIC PLAYING]

The Colosseum had a wide array of spectacles.

Though many depictions of the arena show

seats surrounding a sandpit, the floor

had a complex layout of walls and chambers

underneath a wooden platform.

Different pieces of scenery could

be elevated through the Colosseum floor,

providing new and distinct scenarios for every show,

like the Pokemon stadium in Smash Brothers.

Among the intricate caverns under the Colosseum,

there were even runoff canals to drain the arena

after a naval performance, called a naumachia,

was performed.

The wooden platform in its supports

were removed from the Colosseum floor.

Water was then diverted from aqueducts into the center,

creating an artificial lake of up to five feet deep.

Scaled down ships were brought into the stadium

to re-enact famous naval battles from history.

A lot of people, especially if they've seen

the movie, Gladiator, assume gladiators

were all slaves or criminals convicted

to die in the arena for Rome's entertainment.

But that wasn't always the case.

Some Romans actually signed up at gladiator schools

to become professionals.

For those who did, the benefits of being a victorious gladiator

outweighed the inherent risks of the work.

Gladiators were treated like celebrities in Rome,

like modern athletes.

Roman children could even buy clay action figures

representing famous fighters.

Victors sometimes had affairs with aristocratic women.

Graffiti from Pompeii even bragged

about their supposed prowess.

Gladiators' sweat was considered an aphrodisiac,

so Romans sometimes mixed it into their face creams.

Given this information, it is our duty

to assume that LeBron James puts some of his sweat

into every bottle of his official Sprite flavor.

One of the many shows held within the Colosseum

was the animal hunt.

The bestiarii, gladiators trained to battle wild animals,

squared off against lions, tigers, bears, oh, my,

along with hippopotamuses, elephants, deer, giraffe,

and allegedly, even whales.

The bestiarii fought a combination of both harmless

and potentially dangerous animals,

but the fighters were rarely at risk.

Of the thousands of animals slain in a single day,

many were taken out from afar with spears or bows.

Presumably, that's how most of the whales

were dealt with, because we can't

imagine Russell Crowe wrestling with a whale and winning.

Mm, actually, maybe we can.

Even though it's been highly propagated as fact,

and though it is possible, there is no evidence

to suggest that Christians were killed and fed

to lions at the Colosseum.

The association between the Colosseum and Christian

suffering was first stated in the fourth century,

but then largely forgotten until the 17th century.

During the fourth century, CE, Christian and Latin scholar

Lactantius and Bishop Caesarea Eusebius

wrote of emperors intentionally slaying Christians.

Such actions were never imperial policy, but scattered events,

which occurred around the empire.

The Colosseum did regularly feature punishments referred

to as the midday games, where law breakers and POWs, called

the damnati, were condemned through a multitude

of different and horrible methods.

Sometimes the damnati were thrown defenseless

into the arena to be torn apart by wild animals,

while others were forced to fight one another to the death.

Roman Colosseum battles were like the original Battle

Royale.

After the disastrous reign of Emperor Nero and three

other rulers, all within a single year,

Emperor Vespasian rose to power and distanced himself

from the distasteful image of personal luxury and opulence

associated with his predecessors.

Through propaganda and great projects around the empire,

Vespasian established his vision as a leader

who worked for the Roman people, not his own desires.

One such project was the Colosseum.

Vespasian personally commissioned it

as an entertainment venue for the people of Rome.

Over the next 10 years, Vespasian

demolished Nero's private lake and, in its place,

built the enormous Colosseum.

At the time, however, no one called it that.

It was instead known as the Flavian Amphitheater,

after the emperor's family.

So why do we call it the Colosseum?

The title itself only dates back as far as the 11th century,

and most historians believe it is named after the Colossus

Neronis, a large bronze statue commissioned

by Nero, which was once located near where the Colosseum was