Among the various shows proposed by the emperors inside Colosseum (Flavian Amphitheatre), such as the fights between animals, the executions and the fights between gladiators, the most grandiose and difficult to organize they were definitely them naumachieGreek term meaning “naval battles“. These shows, attested by both historical and iconographic sources, were to present technical difficulties not recently, first of all theflooding of the arena. This had to be possible through a pipeline system than in the Colosseum it did not survive intactbut that is partially possible rebuild based on comparisons with two other Roman amphitheatres, that of Verona and that of Meridain Spain.
What naumachies were and how they took place in ancient Rome: the spectacle of naval battles
Because of the big one technical and organizational complexity which was the basis of this type of shows, the naumachie they weren’t organized often. Based on what we know today, the first to organize a naumachia was Julius Caesar (100-44 BC) in 46 BCto celebrate a triumph for his military victories. On that occasion Cesare he had a basin dug and flooded with water from the Tiberinside which real warships fought. Forty-four years later, in 2 BCthe nephew of Caesar, the emperor August (63 BC – 14 AD) offered the public another naumachia of this type, involving more ships and fighters. The largest of these shows in the early imperial era, however, was the third, which was held in 52 ADfifty-four years after that of Augustus, which is attributed to the emperor Claudio (10 BC – 54 AD), and which was once held in Lake Fucino one of the largest freshwater bodies in Italy and today no longer existsin the current province ofEagle, in Abruzzo.
Except for the naumachia organized by Claudius, those of Caesar and Augustus must have been of relatively small size. The basins created with the waters of the Tiber must have been rather modest in order to offer the realistic spectacle of a naval battle, and the boats, unable to maneuver in such narrow spaces, they probably served only as scenography for the clash between the gladiators. In Fucino, where Claudio’s show was held, the games they had to be granderwith large space in the lake to allow ships to perform real military maneuvers.
If until the middle of the 1st century AD the naumachies were represented within lake or artificial basins, it is with the period of Nero (37-68 AD), the successor of Claudius, who things began to change. The sources speak of a great naval battle organized by the emperor in 57 AD inside a mobile wooden amphitheatre in the Campus Martius area, but they don’t give us no information about what the arena of this building could be like flooded. When Tito (39-81 AD) inaugurated the Colosseum in 80 AD another naumachia was organized inside the arena. In the second half of the 1st century this type of spectacles became more frequent compared to before precisely because the organization took place within the arenas of the amphitheaters rather than in large basins as before.
Except for shows within large bodies of water, we must not imagine the battles inside the arenas as extraordinary spectacles which represented battles between crews and naval strategies. The small dimensions of the arenas would not have allowed the boats to carry out real military maneuvers, but even in this case the boats would probably have served only as part of the scenography of the show. The water level would have been sufficient only to make float the ships. The fact that the naumachies were organized inside the amphitheatres resulted in large-scale events problems of a technical and organizational nature. Let’s try to understand how these games were organized from a practical point of view.
How the Romans flooded the Colosseum
According to the sources, thelast naumachia organized in the amphitheater was held in85 ADunder the reign of the emperor Domitian (51-96 AD), Before that the underground system (in the late 80s of the 1st century AD). Consequently, on an archaeological level, the Colosseum today presents very few traces how the arena could be flooded.
The unique tests of an archaeological nature of a practical system for flooding the arena of an amphitheater come fromarena of Verona and that of Mérida in Spain. These two amphitheatres, older than the Colosseum of almost a century, present below the arena a tank large enough to contain a good quantity of water, enough to flood the arena and keep the gladiator’s small boats afloat. The cistern of the Verona arena it was connected to the Adige river via pipelines, while that of the Mérida amphitheater with a aqueduct nearby. By storing water through these two sources, it would have been possible pump it then into the arena, to allow a few centimeters or ten centimeters of water to submerge the sands for the show, which is more visual than real.
The ancient Romans were able to lift And pump water by several ingenious methods. One of the most common was the Ctesibius pumpGreek inventor of the 4th century. BC, mentioned by Vitruvius. Two cylinders equipped inside pistons they allowed water to enter once these were raised. Closing the valves of the cylinders the water was then pushed upwards into another pipe right from pressure of the descent of the two pistons. Vitruvius also speaks of Archimedes’ screwwhich when rotated inside a tube allowed the lifting of liquids.
