Inaugural Games of The Flavian Amphitheatre - Animal Entertainments

Animal Entertainments

Animal entertainments formed a central part of the games and normally took place in the morning. Dio says that over the course of the inaugural games "animals both tame and wild were slain to the number of nine thousand; and women (not those of any prominence, however) took part in dispatching them." Eutropius, who wrote in the later part of the fourth century, records that 5,000 animals were slain during the games.

Dio and Martial record some of the animals that were exhibited. Dio notes a hunt involving cranes and another involving four elephants, and Martial mentions elephants, lions, leopards, at least one tiger, hares, pigs, bulls, bears, wild boar, a rhinoceros, buffalo and bison (most likely the wisent). Other exotic animals may have been used but are not mentioned; ostriches, camels and crocodiles were commonly used in the games. Giraffes are unlikely to have been featured; Julius Caesar had brought a single giraffe to Rome in 46 BC and another is not recorded in Europe until the Medici giraffe in 1486. Though they were first seen in Rome only in 58 BC, and were impressive enough to be detailed in the games of Augustus and Commodus, there is no mention of hippopotami at Titus' games.

Martial reports a contest between an elephant and a bull, and the elephant, having won, knelt before Titus. This may have formed part of its training, but Martial attributed it to a spontaneous recognition of the Emperor's power. He also mentions a bull enraged by the fires in the amphitheatre that tossed items around the arena before being killed by an elephant, but there is nothing to suggest that these two epigrams detail the same fight—matches between different creatures were common, and in the span of a hundred days a match between an elephant and a bull may have occurred many times.

From Martial's account it appears that some of the animals were uncooperative. Although he again casts the event as a demonstration of Titus' power to command the beasts, he mentions that the lions ignored their intended prey:

...Caesar's lions are won over by their prey and the hare plays safely in the massive jaws.

The rhinoceros, too, proved difficult to handle. It was initially paraded around the arena, but became infuriated and attacked a bull, to the apparent delight of the crowd. Later, when it was supposed to fight, it had calmed down. Intended to face a company of men armed with spears and a host of other animals, it had to be goaded by "trembling trainers" until it would engage the other combatants:

...at length the fury we once knew returned. For with his double horn he tossed a heavy bear as a bull tosses dummies from his head to the stars. He lifted two steers with his mobile neck, to him yielded the fierce buffalo and the bison. A panther fleeing before him ran headlong upon the spears.

Carpophorus was a skilled bestiarius, specializing in fighting animals in the arena, and is mentioned again by Martial, who compares him to Hercules and praises his abilities in dispatching a bear, a leopard and a lion of "unprecedented size". A frieze from the Temple of Vespasian and Titus (Templum Divi Vespasiani) in the Roman Forum shows events similar to those described by Martial. Two separate sets of decoration show a rhinoceros confronting a bull and a bestarius, possibly Carpophorus, with a spear, facing a lion and a leopard. Carpophorus was not the only beast slayer worthy of mention: another of Martial's epigrams refers to a woman equalling Hercules's feat of slaying the Nemean Lion.

While the trainers of the rhinoceros may have trembled in fear at the fate that awaited them if their animal failed to perform, and another trainer was savaged by his lion, some were more successful. One trainer was noted for his tigress which, though tame enough to lick his hand, had torn a lion to pieces, "a novelty unknown in any times". It also appears that the crowd was pleased when a bull (perhaps ridden by a bestarius) was hoisted aloft in the arena, but Martial gives little clue as to the nature of this entertainment.