Coliseum
This is the inside of the Coliseum at Rome. I shelled out some additional bucks for a guided tour, and I'm glad I did, for she gave lots of neat info. See the rows at the bottom? Those were little tunnels, under which men would have animals - lions and tigers no bears, oh my! - and at certain times, the men would pull ropes that would act as pulleys and hoist the animals up to the floor of the stadium (which was covered with sand), where they [animals] would pop through the floor and begin terrorizing the gladiators.
See the door that the walkway leads to? That's where all dead bodies - animal and human alike - were carried out. Can you imagine being one of the last gladiators of a day's fight? The ground would be all bloodied and bone-strewn...the animals would be really pissed off - and the crowds would be cheering for the animals, not for you.
The stadium had marble seats back in the day. The Emperor would sit at the bottom, 'protected' by a tall screen, and the people would fill in the stadium seats. The women would sit on a lower level than the men, so that the men could overlook the women and make sure nothing funny went on.
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