What Happened at the Colosseum’s Inaugural Games?
The Colosseum was inaugurated in AD 80 with 100 days of continuous games hosted by Emperor Titus, featuring gladiatorial combat, exotic animal hunts, public executions, mythological reenactments, and at least one flooded naval battle (naumachia). Contemporary sources report 9,000 animals killed, thousands of gladiators engaged, and vast crowds drawn from across Italy. The games were simultaneously a dynastic celebration, a political consolidation, and a public gift — the largest single spectacle yet staged in the Roman world. They set the template for four centuries of Colosseum programming to follow.
Inaugural Games Quick Facts
- Year: AD 80
- Host: Emperor Titus (reigned AD 79–81)
- Duration: 100 days
- Animals reportedly killed: 9,000
- Key events: gladiatorial combat, venationes, a flooded naumachia, mythological reenactments
- Primary source: Martial’s Liber de Spectaculis (Book of the Spectacles)
- Secondary sources: Suetonius, Cassius Dio, Pliny the Elder
- Legacy: established the template for all subsequent Colosseum programming
Why Did Titus Host 100 Days of Games?
The scale was political. Titus had succeeded his father Vespasian as emperor in June AD 79, inheriting a dynasty still working to establish legitimacy after the civil war that brought the Flavians to power. The Colosseum had been under construction for a decade, and its completion provided a moment to demonstrate both the continuity of the dynasty and the benefits it delivered to the Roman people. A spectacle of unprecedented length was the appropriate register.
The timing also responded to disaster. In August AD 79, two months after Titus’s accession, Mount Vesuvius erupted and destroyed Pompeii, Herculaneum and Stabiae. In AD 80, a major fire damaged Rome itself, and a plague followed. Titus committed substantial imperial funds to relief efforts and used the inaugural games to reassert public morale, presenting the new amphitheatre as a generous distraction from a difficult year.
What Do We Know About the Programme?
The principal surviving source is the poet Martial’s Liber de Spectaculis (Book of the Spectacles), a collection of around 30 short poems written for the inaugural games. Martial describes individual performances — specific gladiator fights, specific animal hunts, specific reenactments of mythological scenes — rather than providing a systematic day-by-day programme. The poems combine praise of the emperor with vivid, sometimes gruesome, descriptive detail.
Other sources add context. Suetonius, writing about 40 years later in his Lives of the Caesars, records the overall scale. Cassius Dio, writing a century later still, mentions specific events including the naumachia. Pliny the Elder’s nephew, Pliny the Younger, references the games in correspondence. None of these sources provide a complete programme, and modern reconstructions are inferred from the combined evidence.
What Was the Naumachia?
A naumachia — from the Greek for “naval battle” — was a mock sea battle staged as public entertainment, typically reenacting a famous historical engagement. The Colosseum’s inaugural games included at least one naumachia on the flooded arena floor, reportedly reenacting the Battle of Salamis (the Greek victory over the Persian navy in 480 BC).
How the arena was flooded is debated. The hypogeum — the underground complex that would later prevent flooding — was not yet built, so the arena floor sat directly on earth. Water supply from Rome’s aqueduct system was capable of filling large basins; drainage after the event would have used the same channels. Estimates of the water depth needed for functional naval reenactment vary; what is clear is that only ships of reduced size could fight on this scale.
The naumachia at the Colosseum was a one-off. Once Domitian built the hypogeum a decade later, flooding the arena became impossible and later naumachiae moved to purpose-built basins elsewhere in Rome. The inaugural event thus marks both a beginning and an ending: the launch of the Colosseum and the end of naval combat on this specific site.
What Animal Hunts Took Place?
The venationes — staged animal hunts — were a major component of the inaugural programme. Suetonius records 9,000 animals killed across the 100 days, a figure that implies an enormous logistical operation to source, transport and hold beasts from across the Empire. Documented species include lions, tigers, leopards, elephants, rhinoceroses, hippopotamuses, crocodiles, ostriches, bears and wild bulls.
Martial’s poems describe specific set pieces. One recounts a rhinoceros goring a bear. Another describes a lion that had been trained to release a rabbit unhurt and then surprisingly turned on its trainer. Others describe exotic species seen for the first time by most Roman audiences, making the event as much a display of imperial reach — the Empire could bring you beasts from Africa, India, the Caucasus — as a hunting spectacle.
Were There Gladiatorial Combats?
Yes, in large numbers, though specific details survive less completely than for the venationes. Martial describes one particularly famous bout, between the gladiators Priscus and Verus, whose combat ended in a rare double grant of freedom: after a prolonged and evenly matched fight, both men were so impressive that Titus awarded both the wooden sword (rudis) symbolising retirement. This event is the only named gladiator bout to survive in detail from the inaugural games.
The overall volume of combat would have involved hundreds of fighters over 100 days, drawn from gladiator schools across Italy and beyond. Training schools including the Ludus Magnus next to the Colosseum — and its sister institutions the Ludus Dacicus, Ludus Gallicus and Ludus Matutinus — were built or expanded to support this demand.
What Role Did Mythology Play?
Roman games frequently staged mythological scenes in which condemned prisoners played the fatal roles. Martial describes several such performances at the inaugural games. In one, a prisoner took the role of Orpheus descending to the underworld — with the twist that he was torn apart by a bear rather than safely returning. In another, a woman played Pasiphae coupling with a bull, the myth performed literally rather than symbolically.
These performances combined entertainment, public execution and religious narrative in a form largely unfamiliar to modern audiences. For Romans, they were a routine part of arena programming — disturbing to modern readers but culturally normalised within the ancient framework. They also illustrate the extent to which Colosseum games operated as theatrical spectacle, not merely combat: the staging, costumes and narrative elements mattered alongside the violence.
Who Attended the Games?
The Colosseum’s 50,000–80,000 capacity was fully used. Attendees were drawn from across the social spectrum: senators and equestrians in their reserved lower rows, ordinary citizens above them, and women, slaves and the very poor in the top gallery. Entry was free — funded by Titus — but allocated by the tessera ticket system that matched each spectator to a specific section.
Travelling spectators came from cities across Italy and, for visitors with means, from provinces including Gaul, Spain and North Africa. The inaugural games were a pan-Italian event in a way that routine games typically were not; the scale and the novelty attracted visitors who would not ordinarily come to Rome for a single spectacle.
How Did the Games End?
The 100 days ran from the Colosseum’s dedication (probably early summer AD 80) through the autumn. The final day included a public distribution of gifts — food, money, clothing — thrown from platforms among the crowd, a standard Roman technique for maintaining popularity. Martial’s final poems in the collection evoke the sense of an era ending and another beginning.
Titus died the following year, in September AD 81, at age 41 — only 14 months after the inaugural games. His brother Domitian succeeded him and was responsible for the further development of the Colosseum, including the construction of the hypogeum that made future naumachiae impossible and transformed the amphitheatre into the mechanical stage it became.
Frequently Asked Questions
When did the Colosseum open?
The Colosseum was inaugurated in AD 80 under Emperor Titus with 100 days of continuous games. Construction had begun under his father Vespasian around AD 70–72, and further additions continued under his brother Domitian until approximately AD 96.
How many animals died at the inaugural games?
Suetonius reports 9,000 animals killed over the 100 days. The figure may be somewhat exaggerated but is consistent with the logistical scale described in multiple sources.
Was there a real sea battle in the Colosseum?
Yes, during the inaugural games. The arena was flooded and a naumachia reenacting the Battle of Salamis was staged. This was only possible before the hypogeum was built; once Domitian constructed the underground service level in the 80s–90s AD, flooding the arena became impossible.
Who was Priscus and Verus?
Priscus and Verus were two gladiators whose inaugural games combat is described in detail by the poet Martial. Their evenly matched fight ended with both men being awarded freedom by Titus — the rare double grant of the rudis (wooden sword of retirement).
Are the inaugural games documented in detail?
Partially. The poet Martial’s Liber de Spectaculis describes specific events, while Suetonius, Cassius Dio and other later sources provide summary figures. No complete day-by-day programme survives, and modern reconstructions rely on combining these partial accounts.
Learn the Full Story on a Guided Tour
Our Colosseum tours include discussion of the inaugural games as the moment the amphitheatre entered Roman public life. Licensed guides draw on Martial, Suetonius and other ancient sources to explain what visitors are standing on the site of — a stage that has hosted some of the most dramatic, ambitious and disturbing spectacles in human history.