Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is stuff you
Speaker 2: should know as always.
Speaker 1: Thanks ever, Chuck.
Speaker 2: I think we just broke our record for earliest edit
Speaker 2: and that came quick.
Speaker 1: You cleared your throat, and we for some reason are
Speaker 1: cutting it out because it's not good stuff.
Speaker 2: Well I want to hear that, do they?
Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe weird and you're fifteen. We've established
Speaker 1: our unprofessional qualities.
Speaker 2: True, it is true. Speaking of unprofessional qualities, you know
Speaker 2: who is terrible? Some of these emperors.
Speaker 1: Very nice segue. Have you ever been to the coliseum?
Speaker 1: You have right?
Speaker 2: Yes, it's amazing.
Speaker 1: Did you go into it?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: I didn't go into it. I walked around it. And
Speaker 1: you know, this was my big European jaunt was when
Speaker 1: I was broke and backpacking. So like my friend and
Speaker 1: I did the best we could we but we did
Speaker 1: walk outside of a lot of structures that many other
Speaker 1: people pay to get into.
Speaker 2: You didn't have money for a pottery shard.
Speaker 1: No, we had no do to get in these places.
Speaker 1: But it's just a wonder to walk around, and I mean,
Speaker 1: that's what I love about Rome is just seeing Yeah,
Speaker 1: seeing stuff that old is just really humbling and cool.
Speaker 2: Rome is one of the very few cities that I've
Speaker 2: visited and been like, I could totally live here.
Speaker 1: Oh really.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's a knee town for sure. And part of
Speaker 2: it is because you just be walking along and all
Speaker 2: of a sudden the wall is suddenly three thousand years old.
Speaker 2: You know. It's just like that kind of place, like
Speaker 2: everything's just kind of built up on top of everything else,
Speaker 2: but stuff has been preserved or accidentally exposed. It's just
Speaker 2: a really neat tone. I loved it for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And boy, just how good looking is everybody?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Those Italians they know what they're doing.
Speaker 1: When they were oh man, I was like, ooh, I'm
Speaker 1: in love with her and her and I might be
Speaker 1: gay look at that guy they are.
Speaker 2: They are a good looking bunch for sure.
Speaker 1: All of them are just so attractive, Like the in
Speaker 1: on a Friday night at the Spanish Steps. It's just like,
Speaker 1: how many good looking, dark haired people can you get
Speaker 1: together in one spot?
Speaker 2: Chuck. I think like our our most dedicated listeners know
Speaker 2: that you're just buttering up the Italians because you're going
Speaker 2: to be busting out some Italian accents. You don't want
Speaker 2: them to be mad at you, or I should say,
Speaker 2: all oiling them up.
Speaker 1: Very nice. That's a good one.
Speaker 2: I don't know if that was nice or good, but
Speaker 2: I appreciate the kudos.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but we're talking Colisseum and it's interesting to me
Speaker 1: how like and you might have gotten all this stuff
Speaker 1: from the tour, but I was just kind of knocked
Speaker 1: out in this article Lvia put together of how how
Speaker 1: sort of modern like modern stadium going experience.
Speaker 2: It felt like, yeah, and actually there's there was one
Speaker 2: fact that stood out to me. I was like, well,
Speaker 2: they've got current stadiums beat oh boy, Supposedly the packed
Speaker 2: cheek to jowl you could fit eighty seven thousand people
Speaker 2: in there and the whole place could be emptied or
Speaker 2: filled within fifteen minutes because the circulation was that beautifully engineered.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's a slightly dubious claim.
Speaker 2: But okay, I bet it's seventeen.
Speaker 1: Well, I bet it was quick and like nothing like
Speaker 1: it is today and.
Speaker 2: Eighteen and I'm not going any higher than that.
Speaker 1: Well, and back then, you would you know, you would
Speaker 1: just walk back to your place or take a mule
Speaker 1: or something like, you know, post traffic experiences near American
Speaker 1: stadiums or the stuff of the legend.
Speaker 2: It's awful, yes, for sure.
Speaker 1: But parking decks the worst thing ever invented.
Speaker 2: They're pretty bad. They're awful, Yes, it's true. And do
Speaker 2: you know it's going to get a lot worse. They're
Speaker 2: developing that whole area that like kind of no man's lane.
Speaker 2: It's like old tring tracks and abandoned stuff in between
Speaker 2: State Farm Arena and Mercedes Benz Stadium.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh yeah, the gulch.
Speaker 2: Yes, they're they're they're developing that. So it's just gonna
Speaker 2: get a million times worse down there. They should just
Speaker 2: set up helicopter service and drop people in.
Speaker 1: Well, I think what they're doing is trying to be like, hey,
Speaker 1: don't jump in your car, just go hang out at
Speaker 1: a bar restaurant, like there's gonna be stuff to do there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because there's not right now.
Speaker 1: No, there's not much, not a whole lot.
Speaker 2: There's some cool hotels down there, but they're kind of.
Speaker 1: Time coming around a little bit.
Speaker 2: Yeah for sure. So, but we're not talking about downtown
Speaker 2: Lan and everybody who to your horses. We're talking about
Speaker 2: the coliseum. Like you said, that was just kind of
Speaker 2: one fact, and I'm calling it a back chuck your
Speaker 2: your Yeah, I guess you're poop puing in a little bit,
Speaker 2: which is fine. We can agree to disagree on that,
Speaker 2: and I think you're probably right. But still it is.
Speaker 2: It kind of underscores how everybody in history has looked
Speaker 2: back at the call is just this marvel of engineering
Speaker 2: and a design and architecture. It was built in like
Speaker 2: eight years, astoundingly enough, and it's survived earthquakes and all
Speaker 2: sorts of terrible catastrophes, and it's still standing in a
Speaker 2: lot pretty good shape considering how old it is two
Speaker 2: thousand years. But what I didn't know when I was there,
Speaker 2: I knew, but it didn't really sink in. It is
Speaker 2: one of the most despicable places ever built in the
Speaker 2: history of Western civilization.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean, we're going to get into the
Speaker 1: stuff that went on there. It's you know, it wasn't
Speaker 1: like the history of the Globe Theater or anything like that,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 2: No, it was much bloodier. Because everyone knows well, yes,
Speaker 2: the gladiators fought at the Colisseum I've seen that Russell
Speaker 2: Crowe movie. True, but it was much much worse than
Speaker 2: even that, and that was pretty bad. But like you said,
Speaker 2: we'll get into it. Let's talk about the actual Colosseum
Speaker 2: and where it came from first, how about that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you know, there's a long history of theaters
Speaker 1: period in the world. The Colisseum certainly was not the first,
Speaker 1: but it was one of the first, you know, built
Speaker 1: in stone concrete amphitheaters. And if you're confused, like I was,
Speaker 1: the term amphitheater these days can can just mean a
Speaker 1: you know, a big concert venue. It doesn't necessarily mean
Speaker 1: it is just a round thing, right, because most things
Speaker 1: called an amphitheater day are the kind that were not
Speaker 1: like they wouldn't have used that term back then because
Speaker 1: they weren't fully encircled. It's like it's a theater like
Speaker 1: the Hollywood Bowl or something. You've got a stage and
Speaker 1: then the seats are sort of built in a big
Speaker 1: hill in a semicircle like those are called amphitheaters now,
Speaker 1: but technically amphi means around, and so it was these
Speaker 1: were the first theaters to be built all the way
Speaker 1: around whatever performance was going on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally and like today's amphitheaters are much more like
Speaker 2: the old theaters, which are exactly what you described as.
Speaker 2: Like if you go to amphitheater, you can understand what
Speaker 2: a theater was in Greece and ancient Rome, and back
Speaker 2: in the day, the Roman Senate decided that having these
Speaker 2: venues permanent as permanent structures was decadent, so there was
Speaker 2: a ban on building permanent theaters and amphitheaters. But that
Speaker 2: doesn't mean that the ones that they built that were
Speaker 2: temporary weren't incredibly elaborate. Sure, our good friend Pliny mentions
Speaker 2: one wooden temporary theater in Rome. I believe that had
Speaker 2: three stories of columns, three thousand bronze statues, and they
Speaker 2: gave out free bobbleheads of nero when you came in.
Speaker 1: What's up with planning all over the place the past
Speaker 1: few years?
Speaker 2: Like, if you're a historian took especially of that era,
Speaker 2: you are so happy that that man lived because he
Speaker 2: sat down and said, you know what, I'm gonna write
Speaker 2: all this down for I'm sure people who come later
Speaker 2: are going to want to know what we were doing
Speaker 2: at this time. And sure, no because of planting.
Speaker 1: I guess we've just done more topics. I just feel
Speaker 1: like we went I mean, he's the new fighter flight
Speaker 1: for us.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he really is totally So, like.
Speaker 1: We said, there were stone amphitheaters. The first one ever,
Speaker 1: I believe was in Pompeii, the very awesome and famous
Speaker 1: Pink Floyd Liva Pompei concert was full near so kind
Speaker 1: of nobody, which is a very cool, strange thing to do.
Speaker 1: And then finally get we get Nero as emperor, and
Speaker 1: he was around during the Great Fire of sixty four
Speaker 1: where a lot of the wooden stuff obviously went away,
Speaker 1: including wooden amphitheaters in Rome, and Nero was able to say, like,
Speaker 1: all right, you know, I'm going to rebuild a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff and put my stamp on Rome, but I'm
Speaker 1: not He didn't get around to building an amphitheater before
Speaker 1: he went.
Speaker 2: Away, No he didn't. And it was a big deal
Speaker 2: that the amphitheater in Rome, the temporary one, was burned
Speaker 2: down because already gladiator battles had been firmly established in
Speaker 2: the popular culture. So all of a sudden you had
Speaker 2: like people who couldn't go to like, you know, the
Speaker 2: local blood sport event, and like vent all of their
Speaker 2: frustrations and not you know, stage an uprising against you
Speaker 2: as the emperor. So it's something you would want to have.
Speaker 2: But because of that fire, a lot of people still
Speaker 2: to this day blamed Nero for starting the fire because
Speaker 2: he rebuilt such opulent monuments to himself on the rubble
Speaker 2: of Rome. Anyway, he eventually was toppled by a coup.
Speaker 2: He died by suicide, and that left open a power
Speaker 2: vacuum that was filled within one year. I think Rome
Speaker 2: had something like three different no, four different emperors because
Speaker 2: a little civil war started, and the guy who emerged
Speaker 2: successfully was the first emperor of the Flavian dynasty, Vespasian.
Speaker 1: Vespasian very nice, yeah, he and you know, he took
Speaker 1: a look around. He had a couple of kids, a
Speaker 1: couple of sons, notably Titus and I guess Domaitian I think,
Speaker 1: so okay, and he got them established as successor. So
Speaker 1: he was pretty firmly rooted at this point. And he
Speaker 1: was like, you know, Nero came in and tried to, well,
Speaker 1: not try to very successfully, built a lot of monuments
Speaker 1: to himself, kind of put his own stamp on Rome.
Speaker 1: Like Chuck will mention earlier, in the podcast many years
Speaker 1: from now, and I want to put my stamp on
Speaker 1: this thing, and so I'm going to build my own
Speaker 1: sort of huge colossus theater. He didn't say that because
Speaker 1: we'll talk about where the name came from in a second.
Speaker 1: But his son had been out, you know, active as
Speaker 1: a military leader. I believe it was Titus. Yeah, for
Speaker 1: the siege of Jerusalem. Came back with a lot of
Speaker 1: war spoils, and so basically, you know, I've got all
Speaker 1: this money now besides raising taxes and claiming public land
Speaker 1: and doing you know, basically whatever Vespasian wanted as far
Speaker 1: as building infrastructure and probably monuments to himself. Sure, he said,
Speaker 1: now I've got these war spoils, so I can build
Speaker 1: like a proper concrete, permanent stone amphitheater.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the first one in Rome. And Vespasian was already
Speaker 2: pretty beloved. He was a really popular general, successful general.
Speaker 2: He was popular with the Senate. So when he became emperor,
Speaker 2: everybody was like, okay, this is cool. But he really
Speaker 2: won everybody over because Nero had been taking all of
Speaker 2: Rome's money and spending it on monuments to himself and
Speaker 2: like this enormous multi acre I think like one hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty acre house called the Golden House, and Vespasian
Speaker 2: did the opposite. Yeah, he built some monuments to himself,
Speaker 2: but he also built a lot of public monuments. And
Speaker 2: that's what the Colosseum was. It was a gift to
Speaker 2: the citizens of Rome. Like remember that kreuddy wooden temporary theater.
Speaker 2: Remember how the Senate banned temporary theaters. Here is your
Speaker 2: first state of the art, permanent amphitheater that you are
Speaker 2: going to watch so many people murdered and it's going
Speaker 2: to just knock your socks.
Speaker 1: Off, that's right. Had a very crass joke that I'm
Speaker 1: going to keep to myself, okay, because this is a
Speaker 1: family show, but tell me later. I'll tell you later,
Speaker 1: all right. And he was so sort of take this
Speaker 1: anarro that he built the Colosseum on the site where
Speaker 1: that estate was where Nero lived domus Aria.
Speaker 2: That's the Golden House, that's right.
Speaker 1: That was the land on which the Golden House sat,
Speaker 1: and the lake that was built there. There was this
Speaker 1: artificial pond, so like I'm going to fill that up
Speaker 1: even and really just sort of eraise in Neuro's legacy
Speaker 1: as much as possible and can you tell him where
Speaker 1: the name Colosseum may have come from.
Speaker 2: Apparently there was like a hundred something foot tall nude
Speaker 2: statue of Nero and rather than it was bronze, and
Speaker 2: rather than melted down and reuse it, they put it
Speaker 2: up and they propped it up in front of the Colosseum.
Speaker 2: So that was the Amphitheater that had the colossus of
Speaker 2: Nero or the Colosseum. It's like museum but with coloss.
Speaker 1: Right, But they didn't pronounce it colossium.
Speaker 2: No, they called it like the Amphitheater.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no one said colisseum until later. No one's ever
Speaker 1: said colossum except for me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you have never really threw me off before we
Speaker 2: started recording.
Speaker 1: All right, I say we take a break, okay, and
Speaker 1: then we come back and talk about the building itself.
Speaker 1: All right, we're back. We're talking coliseum, big theater, stadium,
Speaker 1: outdoor arena, whatever you want to call it. Amphitheater in
Speaker 1: ancient Rome. If you're talking about the building itself, it
Speaker 1: is six one hundred and twenty by five hundred and
Speaker 1: thirteen feet one hundred and fifty seven feet tall, which
Speaker 1: about fifteen stories. Obviously, we mentioned it was made of
Speaker 1: mostly concrete, but that's, you know, sort of the structure.
Speaker 1: There was also about three and a half a million
Speaker 1: cubic feet of stuff like wood, of course, travertine, marble, stone.
Speaker 1: And the reason why you mentioned the coliseum is still
Speaker 1: largely standing through earthquakes and such two thousand plus years
Speaker 1: later is because this thing was built on wetlands. So
Speaker 1: they had to go very very deep with this concrete
Speaker 1: with their foundation, and that's what you get two thousand
Speaker 1: years later, it's still going.
Speaker 2: Yeah. There's a historian of ancient Rome named Garrett Ryan
Speaker 2: has got a blog called Told in Stone, and he
Speaker 2: said that they built facing walls ten feet thick on
Speaker 2: each side that supported a ring of concrete foundation that
Speaker 2: they poured one hundred feet wide and forty feet deep.
Speaker 2: That's what the Colisseum is built on them.
Speaker 1: I wonder what the ancient recipe for concrete was.
Speaker 2: Funny enough, I kind of looked that up because Roman
Speaker 2: concrete is very famous because it's still standing in modern
Speaker 2: concrete can crumble in a matter of decades, right, So
Speaker 2: the Romans kind of had us beat. And they figured
Speaker 2: out that it was because they mixed quicklimb in at
Speaker 2: really high temperatures, and it created this chemical reaction that
Speaker 2: was still kind of buzzing after the stuff was poured,
Speaker 2: so that it would cure much more quickly and solidly.
Speaker 2: That's what they think it was.
Speaker 1: So just the heat they heated up that quick crete.
Speaker 2: The heat, my god, the heat.
Speaker 1: If you love columns, you would be delighted with the
Speaker 1: Colisseum because there's a lot of columns and they go
Speaker 1: in order from lowly to I guess the most revered,
Speaker 1: as they start with a Doric style at the bottom,
Speaker 1: move on up to the ionic on the second level,
Speaker 1: and then finally, of course you get to the very
Speaker 1: fancy Corinthian columns on the top. And they even had
Speaker 1: a little, not a little, a pretty sizable retractable awningeah
Speaker 1: that went all the way around it. And if you've
Speaker 1: ever been to the Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta, it
Speaker 1: sort of is like that, where there's a circle in
Speaker 1: the ceiling in Atlanta, of course that opens in huts
Speaker 1: like a camera shutter wood or I guess an old
Speaker 1: film camera shutter wood. So in Atlanta it has a
Speaker 1: circle around above like to where the field could possibly
Speaker 1: get rained on. Of course, they don't open it when
Speaker 1: it's going to rain, sure, but all the humans are covered.
Speaker 1: And that was the same deal as there was a
Speaker 1: circle in the center that always stayed open because you know,
Speaker 1: they didn't have retractable roofs, but they did have a
Speaker 1: retractable partial awning to keep everyone else dry.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then the so the building was huge. The
Speaker 2: actual like floor, the ground that the action took place
Speaker 2: on the arena floor, it was an oval shape of
Speaker 2: two hundred and seventy two by one hundred and fifty seven.
Speaker 1: Feet the sandbox.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was covered insand because they would soak up
Speaker 2: like blood and they needed it because a lot of
Speaker 2: blood was spilled there. And like I said, it took
Speaker 2: eight years to build, and apparently it was finally dedicated
Speaker 2: under Emperor Titus Vespasian son under his watch, and he
Speaker 2: was actually a pretty short lived emperor, although much beloved.
Speaker 2: And his little brother Domitian. Yeah, when he became emperor,
Speaker 2: he excavated that arena floor about ten twenty feet down. Yeah,
Speaker 2: built the hypogium, which means basement or below ground. And
Speaker 2: it was here where suddenly this thing became like this
Speaker 2: magical marvel of special effects and technical wizardry.
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally. This is where like you could really kick
Speaker 1: it up a notch when you could have six hundred
Speaker 1: dudes and a lot of you know, most of these
Speaker 1: were slaves obviously, but they're down there all of a
Speaker 1: sudden with pulleys and ramps and trap doors and fully
Speaker 1: operated elevators, and you could do all kinds of crazy
Speaker 1: magical things down there. At the least, you've got a
Speaker 1: holding area for animals and gladiators and people, and you know,
Speaker 1: it was sort of like you would think of any
Speaker 1: sort of backstage area of like a circus or something,
Speaker 1: except it was underground.
Speaker 2: I think that they portrayed it in Gladiator, if I'm
Speaker 2: not mistaken, but they would have. Like there's a production
Speaker 2: company that build a replica of this for a PBS
Speaker 2: documentary a few years back and actually donated it to Italy,
Speaker 2: so it's on display it in the coliseum. But they
Speaker 2: showed how like you would put an animal in a cage,
Speaker 2: used some police to bring it up, and as it
Speaker 2: was coming up toward the floor of the arena, a
Speaker 2: trap door would open, and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: there's just a lion sitting there that wasn't there before,
Speaker 2: So I mean imagine watching like a man fight a
Speaker 2: lion to begin with. Before it was like here comes
Speaker 2: the lion walk in, and here comes the man walking in. Pohum.
Speaker 2: Now it's like a lion magically appears and starts fighting
Speaker 2: with the guy. This was like the kind of stuff
Speaker 2: that they were throwing at the citizens of Rome at
Speaker 2: the time, and from what I can tell, almost all
Speaker 2: of the citizens of Rome were eating it up. There
Speaker 2: were some people who are like, this is an awful
Speaker 2: barbaric place at the time, but most citizens of Rome
Speaker 2: were super into it.
Speaker 1: You know when I saw bon Jobi in concert, well,
Speaker 1: I saw them a couple of times, both by accident.
Speaker 1: They opened up for thirty eight Special when I was
Speaker 1: like in the eighth grade, when they were a very
Speaker 1: small band.
Speaker 2: Wake up like after having been drugged in like a
Speaker 2: bon Jovi concert.
Speaker 1: No. The second time was my senior year in high school.
Speaker 1: Sort of a long story, but there was somebody at
Speaker 1: our school that couldn't find anyone to go with them,
Speaker 1: so I went with them. But bon Jovi in that
Speaker 1: second one, you know, when they were the headliner at
Speaker 1: the beginning of the show, there's like, you know, the
Speaker 1: band is kind of coming out and they start off
Speaker 1: their song and I'm like, where's John, Where's John? And
Speaker 1: boom smoke. A smoke blast happens on stage and the
Speaker 1: smoke clears and bon Jovi is just standing there.
Speaker 2: So being bon Jovi exactly.
Speaker 1: He had a horizontal trap door that would instead of
Speaker 1: falling through it, it would shoot him up Nate in an instant,
Speaker 1: and I was, even though it's not like I was
Speaker 1: dying to go to that show, I was. I was
Speaker 1: pretty knocked out.
Speaker 2: I gotta say, for sure, buddy, you better stand exactly
Speaker 2: where they tell you to stand on that kind of
Speaker 2: trapdoor play.
Speaker 1: I think, so you don't want to. It went up
Speaker 1: with some I think I saw behind this of it
Speaker 1: one time. Even it went up with some speed.
Speaker 2: I'll thought that was fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So one of the things, oh, we didn't mention that
Speaker 2: the like, there were plenty of people who were in
Speaker 2: that ring, including animals, that would have liked to have
Speaker 2: gotten out of that ring. So they prevented this by
Speaker 2: separating the seating area from the arena floor a rather
Speaker 2: large stone barrier, twelve foot stone barrier with a bronze
Speaker 2: fence on top of that and then on top of
Speaker 2: that they lined it with elephant tusks, so it do it, yeah,
Speaker 2: to get over. But that seating area was like a
Speaker 2: snapshot of social hierarchy in Rome because they had it
Speaker 2: very much divided up socially.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this, Like reading this, I was kind of like,
Speaker 1: it's sort of exactly how it is today. You've got
Speaker 1: your very very special people are sitting courtside. Yeah, down
Speaker 1: there on the hardwood floor, but they can yell at
Speaker 1: Jimmy Butler or Lebron or whoever. Sure, senators families obviously,
Speaker 1: and their guests. They could bring their own folding chairs,
Speaker 1: which is pretty special at the time, I think, sure.
Speaker 1: But they also had their box seats, you know a
Speaker 1: little higher up what would we would call like a
Speaker 1: luxury box today. And this is where you know, usually
Speaker 1: see the emperor and emperor's guests, just just like you
Speaker 1: would today any rich or famous person who has a
Speaker 1: luxury box and their hangers on.
Speaker 2: Right, kit you imagine those senators to just like assert
Speaker 2: their individualism, like bedazzled some of their seats right that
Speaker 2: they brought. Sure, So after that I had not heard
Speaker 2: of this group. There there was a social stratus stratum yeah,
Speaker 2: in Rome called it equestrians. Yeah, the equestriane order were
Speaker 2: people who had originally served in the cavalry and then
Speaker 2: went on to become extraordinarily prosperous and wealthy business people.
Speaker 2: So there were merchants, tradesmen, bureaucrats, sometimes artisans. And the
Speaker 2: reason that they were ticking up the slack for the
Speaker 2: business world in Rome, it is because the Senate was
Speaker 2: forbidden from engaging in business, so didn't want the senators tainted.
Speaker 2: So all of that fell to these equestrians who made
Speaker 2: up that I guess wealthy class, but not senators or
Speaker 2: the emperor.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so they're like in the what you would call
Speaker 1: the one hundred level seats, you move up to the
Speaker 1: two hundred level as far as modern arenas go, and
Speaker 1: then you've got your middle class. But within that middle
Speaker 1: class in the coliseum it was subdivided more than three
Speaker 1: hundred times for very specific areas, for very specific social groups,
Speaker 1: like you know, ambassadors are in this section. If you're
Speaker 1: a soldier on leave, you're over here. If you were
Speaker 1: a member of some sort of guild, in middle class guild,
Speaker 1: then you're sitting over here. And then of course you've
Speaker 1: got your three hundred level those bleeds. It's always been
Speaker 1: that way. It'll alway these be this way. You have
Speaker 1: the cheap seats, and it's I don't think it's confirmed,
Speaker 1: but most of these were standing room only at the coliseum.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're just basing that on the fact that they
Speaker 2: are so steep and the seats so shallow. It's like
Speaker 2: this has to be standing room only. Yeah. And there
Speaker 2: there were times where, especially during events that the emperor
Speaker 2: put on at the coliseum, where you couldn't leave. So
Speaker 2: if you're uncomfortable ts you had to stay there and
Speaker 2: watch because the Emperor was putting this on for your benefit.
Speaker 1: Who did they ban entirely though? I thought's done this interesting?
Speaker 2: Yeah, they banned grave diggers actors and former gladiators. And
Speaker 2: I'm just high or low for you know what that
Speaker 2: what the reason was. And grave diggers is pretty obvious
Speaker 2: that you know, plenty of societies around the world in
Speaker 2: different times have looked upon grave diggers is basically untouchable,
Speaker 2: like societies unwanted but incredibly necessary rights. The way you
Speaker 2: treat incredibly necessary people, that's how grave dig have been treated. Actors.
Speaker 2: I saw a stack exchange explanation that said that they
Speaker 2: were viewed as like lowly and untrustworthy and dangerous even
Speaker 2: maybe and the former gladiators, I saw that they were
Speaker 2: worried that they might attack other people out of revenge
Speaker 2: or something. But the person who gave that answer doubted
Speaker 2: it well after worth with a grain of salt.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the actress in tracks, just because it's been well
Speaker 1: established that acting as a profession was not something that
Speaker 1: was looked kindly upon or to aspire to for most
Speaker 1: of its history.
Speaker 2: Right, but they were considered lowlier than slaves then because
Speaker 2: the slaves were allowed to go sit in the cheap seats,
Speaker 2: the actors couldn't even come in. Yeah, it's strange. And
Speaker 2: I know that Rome had a much different view of
Speaker 2: their slaves than the West African slave trade that started
Speaker 2: by the Portuguese in theeenth seventeenth century. That was I know,
Speaker 2: it's it's still a lot different, but that's still pretty surprising, right,
Speaker 2: of course, I'm with you, So, Chuck, I mentioned that
Speaker 2: you didn't have enough mind to get a pottery shart.
Speaker 2: That wasn't some random weird thing I was saying earlier.
Speaker 2: That's actually what the tickets were. They had a gate,
Speaker 2: a section, and a seat number inscribed on a little
Speaker 2: shard of pottery.
Speaker 1: Can you believe that they're I mean, surely you turn
Speaker 1: these things back in, right, I guess.
Speaker 2: But I didn't see any examples of any that had survived.
Speaker 2: But surely there must be a couple left. As many
Speaker 2: events as were held there.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine they carved, you know, fifty plus thousand
Speaker 1: of these for every single event that they had, But
Speaker 1: you know, maybe so who knows. It was free to
Speaker 1: get in. That's kind of cool. You didn't have to
Speaker 1: pay any money. But they were not just anyone could
Speaker 1: get the tickets. They were very much distributed in this
Speaker 1: sort of the same way the seating was very structured
Speaker 1: in a hierarchical way. The tickets were distributed thusly as well.
Speaker 1: And you know that's how you got in. You got
Speaker 1: in with your little ticket. Your little ticket said what
Speaker 1: gate to go in, just like today, to get you
Speaker 1: in as quickly as possible. And like you said, they've
Speaker 1: got people out of there, it seems like pretty quickly.
Speaker 1: The only reason I said was dubious because anytime they
Speaker 1: say something like very specific like fifteen minutes, and it
Speaker 1: was two thousand years ago. I'm always like, who was
Speaker 1: timing this back then?
Speaker 2: Right, That's why I was going up to eighteen minutes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I bet it was super speedy.
Speaker 2: Though, so one of the other things about it that
Speaker 2: comes into play later. It was equipped with water fountains
Speaker 2: and flushing toilets, so there was running water that could
Speaker 2: reach the coliseum. Yeah, but then your hat for later, okay.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that also means that during the games there
Speaker 1: were drunk dudes at urinals barking out their sports opinions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. Essentially, some thing's never change, something's never changed.
Speaker 2: So I guess it's finally time we talk about what
Speaker 2: exactly went on there, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean when it first opened, Titus, do you
Speaker 1: know if if Dad was still around to see it
Speaker 1: open at least, or was he dead or was he
Speaker 1: just out of power.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't think they really curious, like
Speaker 2: stepped out of power much before they died, those guys,
Speaker 2: the emperors.
Speaker 1: But they said, all right, big grand opening. Let's get
Speaker 1: one hundred straight days of action going every single day
Speaker 1: for one hundred days. We're gonna have a big show
Speaker 1: and a show at the coliseum. Was kind of an
Speaker 1: all day thing. You know. After that first hundred days,
Speaker 1: it looks like they basically had stuff during the winter
Speaker 1: and then like special events like to celebrate the emperor
Speaker 1: or for big you know, the birthdays and not you know,
Speaker 1: just anyan's birthday, but you can rent it out like.
Speaker 2: A Jackie Donald or at the coliseum.
Speaker 1: That's funny. But the very first thing that would happen
Speaker 1: was a procession. It was known as a solemn procession,
Speaker 1: had music, sort of religious themes, and then they started
Speaker 1: killing animals.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I saw that they kind of they kind of
Speaker 2: I guess justified or you know, put some sort of
Speaker 2: veneer of sanctity on this. By this whole thing basically
Speaker 2: having religious themes throughout, good for them. So, yes, you're
Speaker 2: gonna make me talk about the animals.
Speaker 1: Huh, Well, I mean I said they killed animals.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'll go into somewhat greater detail. So what they
Speaker 2: would do is they would go procure animals from all
Speaker 2: corners of the Roman Empire, some Saharan Africa, Asia. They
Speaker 2: would bring in tigers, lions, bear seriously, if they would
Speaker 2: bring in elephants, they brought in alligators Rhinocera just anything
Speaker 2: you can think of, any massive exotic animal that's deadly.
Speaker 2: They went and got a bunch of them and brought
Speaker 2: them back for these events, which we should say took
Speaker 2: months of planning and a lot of people working on
Speaker 2: every single one. They were like, you know, half assed
Speaker 2: one off, you know, to like a band in the
Speaker 2: park kind of thing, like this is a this is
Speaker 2: like a really huge event, right, Yeah, So I'm really.
Speaker 1: Say one hundred days is just like crazy impressive.
Speaker 2: Yes, there really is. So they would take these animals
Speaker 2: and then they would they would convert the arena floor
Speaker 2: into something like a jungle with potted plants or shrubs
Speaker 2: or something like that, and then they would bring in
Speaker 2: either animal handlers or hunters venatois or bistiari who would
Speaker 2: hunt the animals in front of everybody. And it wasn't
Speaker 2: like any kind of equal stuff, but the animals did
Speaker 2: sometimes kill some of the humans, and apparently the the
Speaker 2: spectators just love that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: Sure, yeah, I mean they brought them in from all
Speaker 1: over the world as sort of like a big show
Speaker 1: of hey, look at where we've been, look at how
Speaker 1: vast we are. We're not just bringing in local The
Speaker 1: cats of Rome. You know, there's kinds of feral cats
Speaker 1: in Rome, unsatisfying. Could you imagine someone getting killed by
Speaker 1: one hundred feral cats attacking them though? That'd be pretty fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can I can see it now.
Speaker 1: And then sometimes they would have the animals fight one another.
Speaker 1: They would match up, you know, a cheetah versus a
Speaker 1: tiger or something like that, sure, or an elephant versus
Speaker 1: a rhinoceros.
Speaker 2: I saw a bear versus python. Really yeah, dude, they
Speaker 2: got really weird and disgusting.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't think that would even work. You can't go
Speaker 1: to python into fighting, can you?
Speaker 2: I saw it written down on the internet chuck. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I can't remember where I saw it, but I think
Speaker 2: it was a legit source.
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, I'm not saying it didn't happen. But did
Speaker 1: you see the Yell review of the performance. No, Python
Speaker 1: didn't do much, Bear was disinterested. One star.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I wonder like how many of these animals just
Speaker 2: didn't fight each other.
Speaker 1: Well, and I'm sure they forced them to do whatever,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm sure they prodded and goaded them and
Speaker 1: you know, injured them and did whatever they had to do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but they would also just have animal tricks and stuff
Speaker 1: like that, a little more circus like atmosphere at times
Speaker 1: when they weren't killing them or making them kill each other.
Speaker 1: So after this is done, enslave people come out and
Speaker 1: they clean up hundreds and hundreds of dead animals, and
Speaker 1: I guess rake the sand around to mix the blood
Speaker 1: in and sure the guts and make sure everything was
Speaker 1: nice and tidy. Sometimes they would butcher the animals and
Speaker 1: give out the meat right there, so you could be
Speaker 1: out there for a show in the early afternoon and
Speaker 1: get a lion's thigh to keep there in the arena
Speaker 1: for the rest of the day until you can take
Speaker 1: it home and die of food poisoning.
Speaker 2: Right, I thought about that too. That is not a
Speaker 2: great plan.
Speaker 1: But they sometimes they would feed them real lunch. They
Speaker 1: did have vending places, like what do you call them
Speaker 1: concession stands where you could buy stuff, and it was
Speaker 1: it was like a modern state em in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways.
Speaker 2: Again, Yeah, I mean like it's it's so much so
Speaker 2: that I was like, oh, okay, is football and all
Speaker 2: like professional sports just all descended from the coliseum And.
Speaker 1: How did you sneak in your weed?
Speaker 2: I don't think they had to sneak it in back then.
Speaker 1: Yeah, probably so.
Speaker 2: So after that, after they got all the animals cleaned
Speaker 2: up in the sand raked and all that stuff, it
Speaker 2: was about noon, and noon was the time for public executions,
Speaker 2: because hoy, they would most people think that gladiator battles
Speaker 2: were to the death. That was actually infrequent as far
Speaker 2: as gladiator battles, as we'll see, but they gave them
Speaker 2: plenty of death of humans with these public executions, and
Speaker 2: they would really go to town creating these elaborate deaths
Speaker 2: like this is a person's death, but they would dress
Speaker 2: them up like Icarus and pretend they were flying close
Speaker 2: to the sun and set them on fighter like that
Speaker 2: kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, crucifixions hack you to death with a sword. These
Speaker 1: reenact reenactments are just like I had never heard of
Speaker 1: that before in my life. I mean, it's bad enough
Speaker 1: to have a public execution, but yeah, then to make
Speaker 1: someone reenact some big famous like story from history where
Speaker 1: the hero dies or whatever, it's just like, it's pretty
Speaker 1: unbelievable as far as Christians being fed to the lions go.
Speaker 1: That's something that you've heard over and over throughout history.
Speaker 1: That surely happened but it wasn't like every single time
Speaker 1: the Colosseum had a show they would just throw, you know,
Speaker 1: fifteen Christians out in the middle of a bunch of lions.
Speaker 1: Persecution of Christians in Rome was happened over the course
Speaker 1: of a long time in a lot of places here
Speaker 1: and there. But it wasn't like that was what was
Speaker 1: always happening at the coliseum.
Speaker 2: Right, But yes they were. They were persecuted and executed
Speaker 2: for their for their beliefs, like it did happen. One
Speaker 2: that was documented was saying Ignatious of Antioch, and he
Speaker 2: was martyred in UH one ten and he was mauled
Speaker 2: by animals, like he was torn to pieces by half
Speaker 2: starved wild animals that were released on him. And he
Speaker 2: apparently had asked friends in high places not to intercede
Speaker 2: on his behalf. And he didn't fight back, by all accounts,
Speaker 2: he just stood there and took it and died. And
Speaker 2: that happened a lot like there was a There was
Speaker 2: a lot of Christian and Jewish persecution in Rome because
Speaker 2: they didn't conform to the Roman mythological beliefs, right right,
Speaker 2: They're pantheon of gods and so they and they were
Speaker 2: also in the minority, and people on the margins have
Speaker 2: always been persecuted. Maybe not fed to the lions, but
Speaker 2: persecuted at least, and Rome was no different.
Speaker 1: Yeah. When I worked in New Jersey at the restaurant
Speaker 1: many years ago that I worked at, there was a
Speaker 1: bar tender named Pete. And if a football game was
Speaker 1: on in the bar and you walked by and around, like, hey,
Speaker 1: what's up with the game, he would say, line's ten,
Speaker 1: Christian's nothing. That was like his go to line for
Speaker 1: anybody that asked the score.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, I guess two thousand years later, it's not
Speaker 2: too soon, right Bright.
Speaker 1: He always got to chuckle out of most people, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but probably offended some people. Sure, looking back, I thought
Speaker 1: Pete was so old. It's funny. I was twenty five
Speaker 1: that that Pete was thirty two.
Speaker 2: It is, though, it's so old. When you're in your twenties.
Speaker 2: Everybody's still old.
Speaker 1: Everybody's so old.
Speaker 2: Oh have you seen that that new naporghatsy special.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's talking about being like forty two, and he
Speaker 2: thinks he's still young hanging out with the twenties. Something.
Speaker 2: Some forty five year ol comes over. He's like beat it,
Speaker 2: old man. There's a couple of young guys hanging out
Speaker 2: over here. It is good, very good.
Speaker 1: He's but then the punchline of that, you're not gonna
Speaker 1: do the punchline?
Speaker 2: Remember the punch line. I think I was laughing too
Speaker 2: ardor must not have heard it.
Speaker 1: The punch line. He's like, yeah, you and young guys
Speaker 1: just hanging out over and then he goes something like uh,
Speaker 1: and also maybe let's sit down.
Speaker 2: That's right. That was a good punchline. He's good.
Speaker 1: If you're a Nate Barghetti fan. He was on an
Speaker 1: episode of Movie Crush. We talked about the movie Scream.
Speaker 2: Oh that's a good, good pick, so go check it out.
Speaker 2: You're not a Nate Barghesi fan, goes some of that
Speaker 2: and go watch his specials.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he has blowed up since that Movie Crush appearance.
Speaker 2: That's awesome.
Speaker 1: He's doing arenas now what Yes, dude, he's doing Phillips
Speaker 1: Arena or State Barn Arena.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: On his next show, it's crazy and it's great.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's going to half a new better guy.
Speaker 1: Agreed. Speaking of better guys, maybe we should take a
Speaker 1: break work on ourselves a little bit.
Speaker 2: Work on our segs and then come back better guys.
Speaker 2: All right, Chuck, it's time to talk about gladiators, gladiators, gladiators.
Speaker 1: Let's do it.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of misconceptions, and we talked about this
Speaker 2: in the Spartakuss episode. We talked about chariot racing and
Speaker 2: gladiator gladiators and stuff like that, and that's that's definitely
Speaker 2: worth going to listen to. If this is if you're like, wow,
Speaker 2: ancient Rome is fascinating, you want to learn more about it,
Speaker 2: go listen to our Spartakuss episode. But there's a lot
Speaker 2: of misconceptions still, one of which, like I mentioned, is
Speaker 2: that most gladiator battles were fight fights to the death,
Speaker 2: and that's just not how it was, in part because
Speaker 2: of how gladiators were brought into existence. They were usually criminals,
Speaker 2: prisoners of war, not look not not looked highly upon.
Speaker 2: That's another big misconception too, that they were like today's
Speaker 2: modern mma fighters with all these fans that are like
Speaker 2: crazy for them. Not really accurate. But that's not to
Speaker 2: say that some of them didn't make like household names
Speaker 2: of themselves and probably did have some fans, but it's
Speaker 2: just not a really apt analogy. But as I was saying,
Speaker 2: the the reason why you didn't want to fight to
Speaker 2: the death is because it took a lot of time
Speaker 2: and effort and investment to train a prisoner of war
Speaker 2: or a criminal who had been condemned to fight like
Speaker 2: well and be a gladiator that successful. So those gladiator
Speaker 2: schools were like, we're gonna regular gladiers. Do not let
Speaker 2: them fight to the death, We want them back rewind
Speaker 2: first too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, uh yeah, they're they're trying to put a good
Speaker 1: product out there because they're charging well they weren't charging money,
Speaker 1: I guess, but it was entertainment. And when they're all dying,
Speaker 1: then you're just you know, what's going to happen is
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, it's you know, the B team,
Speaker 1: then the C team is out there, right, And so yeah,
Speaker 1: they had a lot of time invested in these guys.
Speaker 1: Uh and I say guys because it was one men,
Speaker 1: except for when they occasionally had like, hey, let's bring
Speaker 1: some women out here to fight as sort of a
Speaker 1: novelty act kind of thing. But the Colosseum opened in
Speaker 1: ady A, d and they organized this like everything else
Speaker 1: was organized to the team. You know, Colosseum. Wise, these
Speaker 1: these gladiator battles were organized because they also didn't want
Speaker 1: to throw in you know, Russell Crowe with you know,
Speaker 1: with me, because I would get pummeled and die so
Speaker 1: quickly it wouldn't be any fun for anybody. So yeah,
Speaker 1: they organized them by experience level, by their skill, maybe
Speaker 1: by how they fought, Like, you don't want a grappler
Speaker 1: in there with a swordsman, although that could be interesting,
Speaker 1: who knows, but they wanted a swordsman against the swordsman.
Speaker 1: And then they had they had four different groups, right, yeah.
Speaker 2: They had well five. They have Murmillos, which were heavily armored.
Speaker 2: They had a full helmet, they had a big old shield,
Speaker 2: they had the gladiator sword that you think of, and
Speaker 2: then kind of like Murmillo two point zero or Thraxis,
Speaker 2: where they had a smaller shield and a Thracian sword,
Speaker 2: the curved sword, but were very similar to Murmillo's.
Speaker 1: That's right. Then you had the and you were going
Speaker 1: to leave this to me Reddiarius nice I guess they
Speaker 1: had lighter armor. These guys had a net and a trident,
Speaker 1: so there was some sort of a nautical theme going
Speaker 1: on so they could like throw a net over someone
Speaker 1: and tried it in them in the chest. Then you
Speaker 1: had the chariot battlers, the chariot fighters, they were the Esidarius,
Speaker 1: and then finally, what do we have the Hoppolo Maccus.
Speaker 1: Nice job.
Speaker 2: I think these are the ones that you think of
Speaker 2: when you when you think of a gladiator. They had
Speaker 2: a helmet that had a plume on it. They had
Speaker 2: a spear, they had a short sword, they had a
Speaker 2: small round shield. I think they had like the shoulder armor. Okay,
Speaker 2: pretty sure that's what Russell Crow would have been a gladiator.
Speaker 1: I haven't seen I saw that once back then. I
Speaker 1: haven't seen it since then.
Speaker 2: I think I've seen it twice, but it's been a
Speaker 2: while for sure. Yeah. I think it was on TNT
Speaker 2: once when I was watching TNT.
Speaker 1: I think I thought it was pretty good back then.
Speaker 2: But they would so like you said, they would, they
Speaker 2: sometimes they would they'd put a Hoppolo Maccus against a
Speaker 2: Ruddiarius or something like that, just to see what happened
Speaker 2: with one guy with a net and another guy with
Speaker 2: a spear, you know, So they would have them fight
Speaker 2: like that. But like you were saying, they they did
Speaker 2: line them up according to skill level. And one thing
Speaker 2: that bears mentioning so that the events of the coliseum
Speaker 2: were free, but the gladiator school still charged whoever was
Speaker 2: on the event or sponsoring the event for renting the gladiators.
Speaker 1: Yeah, how did the money work if they weren't making
Speaker 1: any money? Did the state just fund it all?
Speaker 2: Yes? Either so, holding an event at the coliseum free
Speaker 2: to everybody who could get a ticket fifty thousand people
Speaker 2: was a really good way of showing everybody how incredibly
Speaker 2: wealthy you.
Speaker 1: Were, right or because he collected so many taxes.
Speaker 2: Pretty much, or if you were the emperor himself. It
Speaker 2: was a way of it was like a gift to
Speaker 2: the citizen. Why it's a way to keep them like
Speaker 2: kind of sedated in line like TV today. It's the
Speaker 2: exact same premise from the emperor's perspective, but it was
Speaker 2: also a way to like generate belovedness and adoration from
Speaker 2: the populace by putting on a really good event at
Speaker 2: the coliseum.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'd be curious about and we probably will never
Speaker 1: know these specifics, but coming from a world of like
Speaker 1: TV and film production, I would love to know how
Speaker 1: it literally worked. As a production, like a big production
Speaker 1: like this, with budgets and production managers essentially whatever they
Speaker 1: called them. Yeah, I mean they had to have people
Speaker 1: doing all that, and I'm sure there were fights over
Speaker 1: you know, what they could afford and what they couldn't. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like how much money did that got to have that elephant?
Speaker 2: Exactly?
Speaker 1: So he tried it out. Alligators three days in a row.
Speaker 1: I can't get another alligator in there.
Speaker 2: We have ninety seven more days to go.
Speaker 1: Wow, amazing.
Speaker 2: So I said that the gladiator battles have been around
Speaker 2: for a while by the time the Colosseum has built,
Speaker 2: been around for at least three hundred years. They started
Speaker 2: out as part of funeral games, and everybody was like, well,
Speaker 2: we like this, so it kind of became like a
Speaker 2: thing that wasn't just part of funerals, right, Yeah, and
Speaker 2: some I said, some gladiators were like well known, And
Speaker 2: there was one who might have been the most well
Speaker 2: known of all time. His name was Flamma the Flame,
Speaker 2: and apparently he was a captured Syrian soldier.
Speaker 1: Did they call him play my jama don't?
Speaker 2: Surely somebody did. Okay, we are from now on. Yeah,
Speaker 2: So he turned down his freedom three different times they
Speaker 2: would offer you your freedom by giving you a rudies,
Speaker 2: a wooden sword that was symbolic of your transition back
Speaker 2: into normal society. Three times he turned it down and
Speaker 2: finally died in a battle at age thirty five. And
Speaker 2: it's blong been considered that he was, you know, just
Speaker 2: in it for the money or the glory or the fame.
Speaker 2: But somebody I read suggested that he was doing it
Speaker 2: because he was trying to stand for his culture, because
Speaker 2: the Romans viewed Syrians very lowly, very cowardly, and Flamma,
Speaker 2: the Syrian soldier, is like the greatest gladiator in all
Speaker 2: of Rome. So they suggested that that might be why
Speaker 2: he kept fighting.
Speaker 1: So flamm and Jamma was like, I'm not taking that wooden.
Speaker 2: Sword exactly, he can, that's right.
Speaker 1: There was also an emperor who got involved a gladiator
Speaker 1: style Kommodis, who was a real piece of doo doo.
Speaker 1: He rained from one eighty to one ninety two, and
Speaker 1: you know it was he didn't really fight people. He
Speaker 1: would go out there, you know, to boost his own ego,
Speaker 1: apparently hundreds and hundreds of times as a quote unquote gladiator.
Speaker 1: But you know, they would submit to him immediately, or
Speaker 1: they would submit to them and he would just murder them.
Speaker 1: He had like people with disabilities out there dressed up
Speaker 1: as monsters with sponges painted like rocks, you know that,
Speaker 1: supposedly throwing at him, and he would hunt them with arrows.
Speaker 1: He would come out in public with their blood smeared
Speaker 1: on him. He would kill animals. He was just a
Speaker 1: real awful human being. There's one story where he supposedly
Speaker 1: shot one hundred bears in one morning. Yeah, and he
Speaker 1: was terrible.
Speaker 2: Yeah. To make it even worse, he would charge the
Speaker 2: Roman treasury twenty five thousand pieces of silver per appearance
Speaker 2: that he said, I'm going to appear, and so give
Speaker 2: me twenty five thousand pieces of silver. And then there's
Speaker 2: one other thing that I want to mention, because the
Speaker 2: Colosseum eventually started to crumble, as we'll talk about in
Speaker 2: a second, but during its heyday and possibly toward the
Speaker 2: beginning of it, the air contemporary accounts of filling the
Speaker 2: Colisseum with water five or six feet deep, putting ships
Speaker 2: in there, and staging mock naval battles. I'm pretty sure
Speaker 2: we talked about that in the Spartacus episode. Or some
Speaker 2: other episode because it's really familiar. Ye may have happened.
Speaker 2: It definitely happened in an artificial lake meat outside of
Speaker 2: the Colisseum. But these some of these contemporary accounts are like, no, no,
Speaker 2: we're talking about the Colisseum itself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know what my bet is is that they
Speaker 1: did it at least once in the Colisseum. And we're like,
Speaker 1: this is what do they call them? Nomachias? Nomachias? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that they would that. They were like, we should build
Speaker 1: our own place to do this, and they built one
Speaker 1: near the Tiber River that was exclusively for these mocker
Speaker 1: naval battles because I think the Colisseum was probably problematic.
Speaker 1: That would be my guess.
Speaker 2: I think you're a historian now, but you can stop
Speaker 2: holding on to that fact that there was running water
Speaker 2: that could make it to the Colosseum. Everybody, that's right,
Speaker 2: So I said, the Colosseum started to crumble.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, I mean quite literally and metaphorically. You know,
Speaker 1: when the rise of the Christian Church in Rome, obviously
Speaker 1: they would come along and say this kind of brutality
Speaker 1: can't stand. The decline of the Roman Empire period and
Speaker 1: you know, people weren't as into this stuff it was.
Speaker 1: It was a moment in time that it was super
Speaker 1: popular and like anything, yeah four hundred, your moment in time.
Speaker 1: But that would wane, and the first earthquake hit in
Speaker 1: four forty three, which damaged it, but it still being
Speaker 1: used like as an amphitheater I think, you know, into
Speaker 1: the sixth century, and then the medieval period comes along
Speaker 1: and for about five hundred years they made it into
Speaker 1: sort of like a like a live work play space.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, with shops, warehouses, the common area, the arena
Speaker 2: floor became a common area and then it got hit
Speaker 2: by an earthquake again in thirteen forty nine and the
Speaker 2: structure collapsed partially and it ended up becoming like a
Speaker 2: stripped for parts. A lot of people scavenge stone from
Speaker 2: it and other kind of works, including our works. But
Speaker 2: also they used it for like building materials too, and
Speaker 2: they used some of this at the direction of the
Speaker 2: various popes over the years because they would take in
Speaker 2: and build Christian churches and cathedrals with this. So because
Speaker 2: so much of the Colisseum have been used to build churches,
Speaker 2: and because so many Christians have been killed there, the
Speaker 2: coliseum itself became kind of a Catholic holy place and
Speaker 2: became an official holy place in seventeen forty nine when
Speaker 2: Pope Benedict the fourteenth blessed it. He said, this is
Speaker 2: now a Christian holy site, and that protected it from
Speaker 2: any more pillaging or destruction and actually led to some
Speaker 2: early restoration projects.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so they started to get to work on it
Speaker 1: to protect it a little more. After the unification of
Speaker 1: Italy in eighteen seventy it became you know, a legit
Speaker 1: national monument. They you know, of course, Mussolini comes along
Speaker 1: and fully uncovers the how'd you pronounce that hypogeum?
Speaker 2: That's where I'm going.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, further rebuilt it, further stabilized it,
Speaker 1: brought out some of the you know, restored some of
Speaker 1: the history for sure, and then you know, I think
Speaker 1: it wasn't until like the late twentieth century that it,
Speaker 1: you know, modern restoration, like really nice techniques came along
Speaker 1: to make sure that it was not only safe for tourists,
Speaker 1: but like a robust place to you know, keep making
Speaker 1: money off of or not keep But I guess, you know,
Speaker 1: for some of the first times making money.
Speaker 2: Off Yes, some people consider it the greatest tourist traction
Speaker 2: of Rome. Apparently it brings in six million visitors a year,
Speaker 2: and I think there were six million people there when you,
Speaker 2: me and I went.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of people.
Speaker 2: It is a lot.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's why I didn't go in.
Speaker 2: It's it's very neat. Though we didn't make it down
Speaker 2: to the Hypogium. I don't know if it was open
Speaker 2: yet for visitors. Yeah, no, twenty twenty one. No, we
Speaker 2: definitely weren't able to. I would like to go back
Speaker 2: and go down there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I got to pay to go in this time.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'll cover your admission. How about that?
Speaker 1: Thank you?
Speaker 2: Well, since Chuck thanked me everybody, that means it's time
Speaker 2: for listener mail.
Speaker 1: This is a good one. This is about skydiving. It's like, hey, guys,
Speaker 1: got a good story. I took my boyfriend now husband
Speaker 1: and skydiving for his thirty second birthday about ten years
Speaker 1: ago in New England and had gone once before, so
Speaker 1: the nerves were gone. But I was just full of
Speaker 1: pure excitement and adrenaline. I was in the middle of
Speaker 1: having my front tooth replaced. Do you see where this
Speaker 1: is going yet? No?
Speaker 2: No, yet?
Speaker 1: And I had a flipper retainer. Do you see where
Speaker 1: this is going yet?
Speaker 2: No? No yet?
Speaker 1: Okay, Chuck, I think you went through this experience. Of course.
Speaker 1: I remember the flipper retainer. I asked the staff if
Speaker 1: I should remove it, but they said, no, it's pretty
Speaker 1: snug in there. You'll be fine. I was feeling vain
Speaker 1: and didn't want my toothless face in the video. And
Speaker 1: guess what happened during the free fall. I was a
Speaker 1: little frustrated by needing to interact and entertain to the camera,
Speaker 1: and I really wanted to just enjoy the moment, so
Speaker 1: half jokingly, I blew a kiss and flipped a bird
Speaker 1: at the cameraman. As instant karma would have it, my
Speaker 1: faith tooth flew out. Had panicked and motioned to the
Speaker 1: gap in my mouth to the cameraman, and he just
Speaker 1: gave the thumbs up. All good, And I remember thinking, no,
Speaker 1: not all good. This just got so much more expensive
Speaker 1: and I have no tooth. And you can even see
Speaker 1: me sort of looking around for it in midfall.
Speaker 2: Which I did not see that coming.
Speaker 1: I hope it would be magically floating next to me
Speaker 1: because I plumbled to the earth. I just say plummeled.
Speaker 1: I think that's pummeled and plummeted at the same time.
Speaker 2: I think that's a great new word. Jesus made.
Speaker 1: Not my smartest moment, but desperation took over. And this
Speaker 1: is from Aaron Bogan, and Aaron sent the video which
Speaker 1: is on YouTube, and it's very funny.
Speaker 2: To watch airs.
Speaker 1: You can't see the tooth fly out, but you see
Speaker 1: immediately Aaron grab her mouth and motion around and sort
Speaker 1: of looking around, and it's just very funny. So let
Speaker 1: me see if I can even find how you would skydive.
Speaker 1: New England presents colon Aaron's skydive from nine years ago
Speaker 1: and it's got five hundred and seventy three views, two
Speaker 1: of which were mine, So maybe we could make Aeron
Speaker 1: a little more famous.
Speaker 2: Take care, thanks a lot, Aaron. That was a indeed
Speaker 2: Chuck like Chuck said a good email. Thank you for that.
Speaker 2: Sorry that happened, but at least you got a great
Speaker 2: story out of it. And if you want to be
Speaker 2: like Aaron and tell us one of your great stories,
Speaker 2: we want to hear it. You can send it to
Speaker 2: us via email at Stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff you should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
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