ROMAN NAUMACHIA

STAGED NAVAL BATTLES AS ENTERTAINMENT

Domitians Naumachia or Naval Amphitheatre

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Julius Caesar held the first known naumachia in Rome in 46 BC as a victory celebration.

Apparently 2000 combatants and 4000 rowers -- all prisioners of war, of course! -- faught on a flooded basin near the Tiber. Wow.

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Then Augustus and Claudius picked up the naumachia. Because, at least for Claudius' entertainment-battles, the prisoners had all been condemned to death already, the naumachia were bloody entertainment. Their performers had nothing left to lose.

"In his autobiographical Res Gestae (22.4), Augustus states: I furnished for the people a representation of a naval battle, across the Tiber, where there is now the Grove of the Caesars. This consisted of an artificial lake 1800 feet long and 1200 broad, the grand performance being part of the dedication of the Temple of Mars Ultor in 2 B.C. (source: R.H. Rodgers' translation of 'De Aquaeductu Urbis Romae" of Frontinus (2003) at http://www.romanaqueducts.info/picturedictionary/pd_onderwerpen/naumachia.htm. 

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The word naumachia, a phonetic transcription of the Greek word for a naval battle (ναυμαχία / naumakhía), refers to the battles and to the structures created for them.

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Read about naumachia construction here: http://www.quondam.com/28/2816.htm

Pages by Mrs. D

"One of the most admirable things about history is, that almost as a rule, we get as much information out of what it does not say as we get out of what it does say. . . . History is a frog; half of it is submerged, but he knows it is there, and he knows the shape of it."

"The Secret History of Eddypus", Mark Twain