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Why ancient Rome staged epic sea battles


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The people of Rome threw a party in 46 B.C. that would be remembered for many years to come. Julius Caesar had just returned, having crushed the followers of his great rival, Pompey the Great. Writing nearly two centuries later, the Roman historian Dio Cassius describes how in the first few days of his triumph the recently proclaimed dictator “proceeded homeward with practically the entire populace escorting him, while many elephants carried torches.”

In addition to the excitement caused by the exhibition of a giraffe—dubbed a “camleopard” because it resembled a cross between a camel and leopard—Romans witnessed the preparations for another astonishing spectacle that would be the culmination of the festivities: a naval battle on a man-made lake built in the Campus Martius filled with water from the nearby Tiber River.

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/archaeology-and-history/magazine/2017/09-10/roman-mock-naval-sea-battles-naumachia/

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How was this possible if the center of the Colosseum had numerous walls/tunnels in the center of it?

 

Same thing goes with Gladiators, I thought they ran around an open center? While looking at pictures of the center of the Colosseum it shows numerous walls & tunnels. (Only, what looks like a small amount of space was flat enough for gladiators to battle freely)

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12 minutes ago, LucidElement said:

How was this possible if the center of the Colosseum had numerous walls/tunnels in the center of it?

Same thing goes with Gladiators, I thought they ran around an open center? While looking at pictures of the center of the Colosseum it shows numerous walls & tunnels.

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During its first year, it was possible to flood the Colosseum with enough water for ships to sail (the tunnels and storage rooms under the floor, the hypogeum, were built later, during the reign of Domitian). Constructed on the space left by the artificial lake beside the Domus Aurea (the Golden House, formerly Nero’s Palace), the low-lying Colosseum could be flooded and drained with relative ease, using a series of canals and pools.

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/archaeology-and-history/magazine/2017/09-10/roman-mock-naval-sea-battles-naumachia/

 

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Ancient Rome is something of which Hollywood is simply incapable of exaggeration.

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