5 Roman Colosseum Facts That Need Some Fact-Checking

You’ve probably read plenty of Roman Colosseum facts. After all, the Roman Colosseum, also known as the Flavian Amphitheatre, is one of the most famous ancient monuments in the world, and a symbol of Rome. It attracts roughly 6 million visitors every year.

Despite its popularity, many misconceptions still surround it. While researching for the book Discovering the Colosseum, Mauro Poma dug deep into many of the Roman Colosseum facts.

He found that, in some cases, hundreds of years of popular myth, hearsay, rumors, and of course Hollywood movies, had hidden the actual truth.

It’s time for some fact-checking, let’s discover the 5 biggest misconceptions, and the truths behind them, of popular Roman Colosseum facts people all around the globe believe as absolutely true.

The Roman Colosseum’s many centuries of history make you wonder what is true and what isn’t. Photo credit: Peyman Shojaei

The emperor’s “thumbs down” signal to deny mercy

We’ve learn a lot of wrong Roman Colosseum facts in Hollywood movies. The decisive moment after an epic fight in the historic building leads to a gesture by the emperor. Thumbs up, or thumbs down? But this myth comes from even before the invention of cinema.

The gesture was immortalized in Jean-León Gérome’s 19th century painting Pollice Verso, which is what the ancient Roman’s called the gesture, literally “with a thumb turned.”

The problem is that it’s never been clear how turned the thumb was. In reality, Romans probably indicated the denial of mercy by placing their thumbs horizontally to symbolize a sword cutting the throat of the defeated gladiator. At the same time they shouted “Iugula! Iugula!” meaning “Throat! Throat!”

In this case, the gladiator bowed and waited for the blow to the nape, or throat. Normally, those who had to die did not remove their helmets, so that the opponent was not forced to see their last look.

This habit was a consequence of the fact that many gladiators trained together and some of them were certainly friends. Imagine if, one fine day, you had to fight a friend or, even worse, kill him.

This famous painting of the “turned thumb,” by Jean-Léon Gérôme is beautiful, but probably not historically accurate.

The emperor ordering death after gladiator matches

Contrary to this common belief about the Colosseum, the probability of exiting from the arena alive—at least in the Republican era and in the first imperial age—was not low.

There were more risks of dying from deep wounds, or cowardice (which could enrage the audience, who would consequently ask for the gladiator to be killed), than by being denied mercy.

In late Imperial times, forgiveness actually became commonplace. Roman Colosseum facts often tell us that once gladiators entered the arena, there was no way to leave alive, but this is not true.

Gladiators could, in many occasions, leave the arena alive. Photo credit: Hans Splinter

The massacre of Christians in the Colosseum

Some Roman Colosseum facts, like this one, can be tricky, because it’s true that Christians were killed in the Colosseum, but not for the reason you might think.

Believe it or not, we still have no clear evidence that Christians were executed inside Rome’s Colosseum for being Christian.

Undoubtedly, some Christians were killed in the Colosseum. But, as far as we can tell right now, their religion was incidental, and they were simply part of the normal spectacles.

Roman history has the annoying habit of changing as new discoveries are made. For right now, the evidence just does not support the sort of mass Christian martyrs that popular culture has made commonplace in people’s imaginations.

We do, however, know that Christians were killed in other places like the private circus of Nero, situated not far from the present-day Basilica of St. Peter.

We also know what Christians thought of the blood sports: interestingly, they did not feel compassion for the gladiators killing each other.

Instead, they thought that it was the public who suffered the most moral and spiritual damage from attending such violent spectacle. A belief surprisingly close to that of the pagan writers. Only later did Christians begin to feel compassion for those actually fighting in the arena.

Jean-Léon Gérôme’s “The Christian Martyr’s Last Prayer” is another dramatic work that is, unfortunately, based on zero historical evidence.

Gladiator duels as the only activity in the Colosseum

Certain Roman Colosseum facts, like this one, are completely false, and there is plenty of evidence to prove it. The program of the games in the Colosseum was pretty multi-faceted, as far as blood sports go. It included a series of shows and performances that lasted several hours.

They began with a presentation of all the stars of the day. The morning program then continued with fights between animals, followed by circus performances, and ended with hunting games.

Around noon, during the lunch break, death sentences or public executions of criminals were staged. Public executions had a dual purpose: to warn the people of the consequences of breaking strict Roman law, and to fill the lunch break by exploiting these men as human merchandise to be sacrificed, for the pleasure of the spectators.

The afternoon would continue with the long-awaited confrontations between gladiators.

There was an extensive list of events happening all day long in the Roman Colosseum, not only gladiator fights.

The hunting games hosted in the Colosseum had only felines

In the movies you only see lions and tigers, but the truth is that, on top of the big cats, ancient Romans killed entire menageries of animals.

From the historical records, we know that there were also rhinos, hippos, crocodiles, giraffes, elephants, gazelles, antelopes, jackals, ostriches, hyenas, cheetahs, panthers, bears, and leopards, as well as donkeys, camels, horses, rabbits, deer, boars, and wolves, to name a few.

Where did the Romans find all of these animals? Crocodiles, rhinos, hippos, and giraffes came from southern Egypt. Gazelles, antelopes, jackals, ostriches, hyenas, lions, cheetahs, panthers, and elephants came from North Africa.

The bears were mostly from the Atlas Mountains in Morocco. Italy, and other European countries, provided all the herbivores, such as hares, roe deer, deer, wild pigs, and donkeys, as well as bears, bison, bulls, wolves, and moose.

Plenty of animals were killed in this arena, and not only lions and tigers.

One of the exciting, but also difficult parts of writing about the Colosseum is that we are always learning new things about it. When you visit, don’t forget that every single stone can tell you so many stories. And if even one of them could talk, you would be overwhelmed by everything it could tell you.

This post is courtesy of Mauro Poma. If you want to read more, you can buy a copy of Discovering the Colosseum in paper or kindle. If you’re planning to visit Italy soon, don’t forget to check out our walking tours in Rome.

Update Notice: This post was updated on August 30, 2024.

We like to think that the guides we work with know Rome better than anyone else in the business so when we heard that teacher, author, and Walks Colosseum guide, Mauro Poma had written a new book on the history and lore behind the Colosseum we had get him in to write a guest post.

His new book,  Discovering the Colosseum is required reading for anyone who wants to know more about one of the most iconic buildings of the ancient world: the shows, the gladiators, the animals used, the curiosities, and more.

If you like what you read here, you can pick up a copy of Discovering the Colosseum over at Amazon.com. We’ve just finished our advanced copy and it’s the perfect read for anyone who plans to see the Colosseum with us on their next trip to Rome.