Staff at the Colosseum demonstrate the moveable cage, rebuilt as it would have been in ancient times when it was used to take wild animals from underground to be released into the arena. Photo / AP
Staff at the Colosseum demonstrate the moveable cage, rebuilt as it would have been in ancient times when it was used to take wild animals from underground to be released into the arena. Photo / AP
They hoisted up tens of thousands of terrified wild animals to the blood-soaked sands of the Colosseum.
Now, more than 1500 years after the last fights between lions, leopards and bears, one of the ingenious wooden machines that carried the beasts to certain death has been reconstructed in the middle of the ancient Roman arena.
Unveiled at the weekend, the massive timber structure has been built amid the warren of tunnels and passageways that lay beneath the arena of the Colosseum, a fetid, torch-lit underworld of frightened animals, sweating slaves and gladiators waiting to do battle.
It consists of a wooden cage which can be winched up to the arena floor with the help of a sophisticated system of ropes, pulleys and lead weights.
Staff at the Colosseum demonstrate the moveable cage, rebuilt as it would have been in ancient times when it was used to take wild animals from underground to be released into the arena. Photo / AP
Wild animals such as wolves and big cats would have been forced into the cage and hoisted upwards, emerging via trap doors in the centre of the arena to the delight of the emperor and 50,000 baying spectators.
It took a year and a half to build the 7m-high timber lift, using only materials that would have been available to the ancient Romans.
A documentary was made of the project, during which a full-grown male wolf was put in the cage and released into the middle of the amphitheatre. But instead of being put to death with a gladiator's sword or the horns of a bull, it was rewarded with a biscuit.
"It was the first time that a wild animal had been released into the Colosseum in 1500 years," said Gary Glassman, the American director who made the documentary.
"One of the reasons we are attracted to the Colosseum is because of the incredible violence that went on here. The question it poses is, how could such an advanced culture have staged such bloody spectacles?"
Eight slaves would have been required to power the lift by turning the enormous wooden shaft at its centre.
It is able to comfortably lift a load weighing up to 300kg.
It would have carried not just wild animals but props and pieces of scenery used to render more realistic the wild animal hunts that the Colosseum hosted along with gladiatorial battles.
Animals such as deer, antelope, wild boar and ostriches were dispatched by trained hunters known in Latin as "venatores".
Staff at the Colosseum demonstrate the moveable cage, rebuilt as it would have been in ancient times when it was used to take wild animals from underground to be released into the arena. Photo / AP
The beasts, which included elephants and rhinoceroses captured in Africa, were prodded into action by handlers known as "bestiarii".
The lift will now remain as a permanent feature within the amphitheatre.
"It will help people understand exactly what the Colosseum was like," said Francesco Prosperetti, a senior Rome cultural heritage official.
The Romans built 28 such lifts in the bowels of the amphitheatre.
The modern-day machine was based on remaining clues in the tunnel network, including bronze fittings, holes carved for timber posts and rope marks that can still be seen in the stone.
The amphitheatre was officially opened under Emperor Titus in AD80 in "an extravaganza of fighting, beast hunts and bloodshed that is said to have lasted a hundred days," the historian Mary Beard writes in her book The Colosseum.
Pompey, a general who was later defeated by Julius Caesar, laid on a spectacle in the first century BC in which 20 elephants, 600 lions and 410 leopards are said to have been killed.
The emperor Commodus, who sometimes fought in the arena, killed five hippos, two elephants, a rhino and a giraffe, according to contemporary accounts from the second century AD.
The Romans also unleashed wild animals on prisoners and criminals, in a grisly ritual known as "damnatio ad bestias" where the victims, some tied to stakes, were mauled and eaten by the animals.
