How Romans Made Elephants And Trees Appear Out Of Nowhere In The Colosseum
The Hypogeum: the secret behind the controlling power of entertainment then and now
What’s the one thing that separates humanity from animals? Honestly, I think it’s entertainment. While beasts play, mankind devotes untold resources, labor, and hours just to entertain themselves.
According to the International Trade Administration, in 2020 the global media and entertainment industry was worth two trillion dollars. Personally, I think that’s an understatement. Most of the technology of our day is designed so we never experience boredom.
It originally took the form of books, then radio and television, now we have little devices that we carry in our pockets. Eventually, the entertainment will beam into our brain.
You can call it a sign of our times, but our ancestors did the same thing.
Between 70 and 80 BC the Roman Empire drained an artificial lake and built one of the largest free-standing buildings of their time, known as the Colosseum. Its purpose: entertainment.
According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, it covers an area of about three hundred thousand feet, stands three stories high, and could hold fifty thousand people at capacity.
The facility enabled the government to control the masses by keeping them amused with spectacles. And they spared no expense. While gladiators battled, animals appeared out of nowhere, and crowds roared, the true magic of the arena occurred below.
Beneath a wooden floor that covered an area of forty-two thousand feet, a two-story underground labyrinth known as the Hypogeum made the mind-bending visuals occur for awe-struck viewers. A series of eighty vertical shafts catapulted animals, scenery, and people into the arena.
Consider it a Disney-engineering feat of blood, gore, and wonder. What’s more, the emperor demanded it be perfect.
The Political Power Of Spectacle
A special place of prominence was given to the “editor,” or person who paid for a series of games, and in Rome, it was usually the emperor. This became important for Domitian. Upon coming to the throne, he had to separate himself from the previous emperor Vespasian that built the Colosseum.
According to the documentary Inside the Mysterious Labyrinth Under Rome’s Colosseum, Domitian decided to show his worthiness by making the Colosseum beyond a traditional arena. So, the emperor set the engineer Haterius on the project.
He created an underground engineering nerve center beneath the floor of the arena. It was made of countless passages and raiseable platforms. Moreover, Haterius used a blueprint Rome was familiar with: ships.
Heinz-Jürgen Beste of the German Archaeological Institute in Rome spent over fifteen years studying and recreating the Hypogeum.
In his interview with the Smithsonian he describes the Hypogeum like a ship, having “countless ropes, pulleys and other wood and metal mechanisms housed in very limited space, all requiring endless training and drilling to run smoothly during a show. Like a ship, too, everything could be disassembled and stored neatly away when it was not being used.”
Speaking of ships, he also mentions before the Hypogeum was created, the Romans pumped water into the Colosseum to create mock naval battles.
Also, sailors had duties during the games. They oversaw the vela, which was a massive cloth awning that could be pulled over the stadium for shade. This was logical because it functioned like a sail.
Within the Hypogeum, Haterius showed the power of pulleys, ropes, and winches to create the spectacular for mystified onlookers. And like a proper magician, the tech driving the show remained hidden.
The Engineering Behind The Magic
Beste says Romans were incredible engineers. At the period the Colosseum was in use, Rome had cranes that could lift eighteen-foot-tall marble blocks. So, they understood leverage and the benefits of mechanical energy. In particular, they made use of capstans.
This naval technology is a pole (or piece of timber) inserted through a hole in the ground, which has bars stretching outward. A team pushes these bars. In so doing, they generate mechanical force beyond the humans themselves. But, like everything, the Romans did it on a larger scale.
According to Beste, these capstans were two stories high, and each level had a team of four turning the beam. He says there were a total of sixty of them. Forty lifted animal cages, while the rest lifted platforms twelve by fifteen feet which contained scenery.
These devices generated force so great that it brought live creatures and background scenes to the arena’s floor within the blink of an eye. But this wasn’t the only spectacle.
The crowds were also brought food and pastries by attendants. But Beste says, “Snacks also fell from the sky as abundantly as hail.” There were also prizes. Wooden balls fired into the crowds with rewards, some even contained tokens entitling the holder to apartments.
Oddly, this reminds me of a Philadelphia tradition at our stadium. The local mascot for our baseball team, the Philly Phanatic, travels around the stadium with a “hotdog gun,” firing dogs into the stands at three hundred fifty PSI.
But back to the Romans. What did this engineering allow them to do in the arena?
The Nature Of The Games
You could call the Colosseum MMA times a thousand. Best says they started with the venatio or “beast hunt,” in which hunters dispatched exotic animals from the edges of the empire. So, one might see elephants, hippos, lions, rhinos, and giraffes.
Often elevators shot up beasts randomly around the hunter, and other platforms lifted trees and scenery which could make it look like the event was taking place in a jungle. And this was just the morning festivities.
The ludi meridiani, or mid-day games involved condemned criminals and those captured in war being executed. Some of these damnati were torn apart by animals. Others were dispatched in various bloodthirsty entertaining ways.
The day ended with munus iustum atque legitimum, or the legitimate gladiator show. These performers entered the stadium from tunnels in the Hypogeum and were carried back there lifeless if the outing didn’t go well. The emperor also used these passages to keep away from the masses.
Beste notes working in the Hypogeum was harsh. It was sweltering in summer, freezing in winter, and stunk with the odor of wild animals. Not to mention it was loud. Furthermore, if a prop or elevator didn’t work, those responsible could find themselves damnati in the arena.
All this was powered from below by the Hypogeum, and it’s somewhat familiar to a person of today.
Our Present-Day Colosseum
Many of our sports stadiums share a close resemblance to Rome’s Colosseum, in shape and activity. Moreover, we have a similar addiction to entertainment. Streaming devices are attached to our hips.
Personally, waiting in a line for more than twenty seconds can send me diving for my phone to occupy my mind with reading. While my sister-in-law watches videos in the car. So, it’s not hard to see Domitian still at work.
I often think the ultimate way a government could control us would be to shut off streaming services to the damnati. After all, what would we do without reading material, music, and video?
George Orwell said the state would control us with surveillance, while Aldous Huxley claimed it would be with drugs. To me, I think entertainment is the ultimate leash. It might just be what separates us from animals, and we can’t live without it.
Like the Hypogeum, a massive network of undersea cables connects the world to the internet, plus both governments and companies go to massive lengths to keep it functioning. And why wouldn’t they? Like the Colosseum, it keeps us entertained.
-Originally posted on Medium 4/17/23