Where prisoners sentenced to a grisly death in ancient Rome’s most barbaric playground once quaked in their sandals, today tourists can explore the cage that carried their killers thanks to a reconstruction in the ancient arena.
The seven-meter high (23-foot) wooden machine, powered by slaves deep in the stadium’s belly, could lift a load weighing 300 kilograms and brought wolves, boars and even antelopes to do battle with the empire’s fiercest gladiators.
“This unique project began with a meeting with the (American) director Gary Glassman” in 2013, the site’s director Rossella Rea said.
Glassman wanted to recreate one of the arena’s 28 lifts for a documentary entitled “Colosseum, Roman Death Trap,” and Rea persuaded him to use original materials and methods to reconstruct one which would remain there for tourists.
Now visitors to the passageways under the 2,000-year-old monument can see where eight slaves straining to rotate a vast windlass would, through a system of lead weights and pulleys, slowly winch the cage to the surface and open the trapdoor.
Up to 80,000 spectators at a time would throng to the Colosseum to see greats such as Carpophores — who reportedly defeated a bear, lion, leopard and rhinoceros in one battle — or cheer on sea battles held in the flooded arena.
- ‘Roman Genius’ -
Rome’s rulers “had to enthral them, for the good of the empire,” said Francesco Prosperetti, superintendent for Rome’s Archaeological Heritage, adding that some 120 days of festivities were put on a year to keep the plebeians happy.
The idea was keep the baying audience on its toes: sometimes the trapdoor in the sand would creak open to reveal a surprise, from bare-breasted female gladiators to elephants, or sometimes even common garden chickens.
Building the cage, which measures 180 by 140 centimeters (71 by 55 inches), took 15 months and cost the production company some 200,000 euros ($223,000).
Read more at Discovery News
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