There are three main literary sources indicating that Titus held a nau-machia when the Colosseum was inaugurated in AD 80 - the accounts left by Martial, Cassius Dio and Suetonius. All of them say something about the aquatic displays that took place but none of them really tells us all that much. Nor do they place the events specifically in the Colosseum. Martial's references merely imply a sea-battle and the appearance of sea monsters and he deals with the whole thing in just four verses.
Opposite Titus, the son of Vespasian, inaugurated the Colosseum in AD 80 following his father's death. Although he Is known to have held naumichiae around this time, there is no direct evidence that any of these took place in the Colosseum.
First of all he talks of the miraculous change from the terrestrial to the aquatic and back again:
If you are here from a distant land, a late spectator for whom this was the first day of the sacred show, let not the naval warfare deceive you with its ships, and the water like to a sea: here but lately was land. You don’t believe it? Watch while the waters weary Mars. But a short time hence you will be saying: ‘Here but lately was sea.’
He then describes the tragic tale of Leander, swimming backwards and forwards across the Hellespont to visit his lover, Hero the priestess, until
One night he is drowned and she flings herself into the sea after him. In the last verse nereids appear in the darkening water. We may assume that as the sun sank low behind the cavea at the end of the sea-battle, casting a shadow across the arena, the victorious marines would have returned to their ships to begin rowing around the arena to receive the applause. Soon the crowd would have become aware of naked girls swimming under the water. They bobbed up alongside the ships and, like the sea nymphs of the myths, accompanied the sailors back to their base.
One suspects that several verses concerning the aquatic events have been lost. MartiaPs Verse 34 seems to return to the theme, claiming that Titus’s sea-battle was far superior to those staged by Augustus and Claudius.
Cassius Dio’s account is the briefest and refers to animals swimming in the water:
For Titus suddenly filled the same theatre with water and brought in horses and bulls and some other domesticated animals which had been trained to behave in the liquid element just as on land. He also brought in people on ships, who engaged in a sea figlit there...
This is difficult to swallow for it is known from other accounts that by this time the Romans were used to full-scale battles involving thousands of men, concluding with the usual carnage. They would surely not have been impressed at the sight of a few animals splashing about in the water, or even hunters in small boats taking pot shots at them. We have to believe that Titus would have wanted to offer the best aquatic show that Rome had ever seen on such an important occasion.
In his Life of the Deified Titus Suetonius does not mention aquatic events taking place in the Colosseum but he does leave an account of a sea-battle at Augustus’s Old Naumachia during the inaugural celebrations:
At the dedication of the amphitheatre and of the baths which were hastily built near it he gave a most magnificent and costly gladiatorial show. He presented a sham sea-fight too in the Old Naumachia...
If Martial’s account of the opening of the Colosseum is to be taken at face value then the naumachia occurred immediately after the arena had been used for gladiatorial contests. Realistically, this must have meant the
Following day to allow enough time for the clearing up, removing the floor boarding and flooding of the arena. This would have entailed a great deal of work. First of all the sand that was spread over the arena to absorb the blood shed by both men and beasts would have been swept up and removed. Then the wooden flooring would have been dismantled and taken away, together with the wooden piles that supported it. It would have been impossible to start flooding the arena before the last of the wooden piles had been removed and carefully stored in sequence. The scenic machinery under the arena, particularly down the centre, where the larger illusions were created, would have to have been dragged up into the tunnels above the long axis drains. The next stage would have been to open or close the sluices as required, allowing the boats to be moved into position. This could not have been done until the wild animals kept in cages in the basement had been moved out of the way into holding pens.
The basement could only be flooded to a depth of 1.2 metres: above this level it would flood the tunnels and service areas. Watertight doors would be required to achieve a greater depth. This was certainly not beyond the capabilities of Roman engineers and one could argue that drawbridges, which could double-up as watertight doors, would be necessary to drag the machinery out of the basement into the tunnels before flooding. The higher the water level the better it would have been for the spectators to see what was happening in the arena. But restricted vision could also be used for effect. For example, from their elevated position above the scene, with only part of the basement visible to the spectators, they might not notice the small rowing boats hoisted up beneath the lifts ready to be lowered into the water at the appropriate moment.
The crowd would then have been thrilled to see the armada of small rowing boats miraculously appearing from every direction. The whole drama would have been accompanied by music, with bugles to herald the arrival of each new element of the show. As the fort rose into position on the island in the middle, the bugles would have blared again. No doubt the four light galleys housed in the subterranean galleries at either end of the long axis were intended to bring the show to a climax. The rowers and marines, approaching the basement through the long-axis tunnels, would have been able to step directly onto the ships, as from a quay, for the galleries were a little over a metre lower than the fan-shaped complex of rooms flanking the tunnels. The crowd must have been verging on delirium as the
The arena basement as it appears today.
Galleys packed with armed slaves and criminals, all in Corinthian costume, rowed out into the pool. Motivation was an essential part of mortal combat and there can be no doubt that the contestants would have been threatened with a hideous death if they failed to perform well.
As the galleys bore down on the little ships, ramming some and capsizing others, missiles of all kinds filled the air and the water turned red as the wounded and dead fell from the ships. If they were lucky to escape being cut down while still in the water, some of the marines would survive by swimming to the island. The fighting would then move to the water’s edge as the Corinthians attempted to land, the final massacre taking place as the fort was captured.
Since it would be impossible to change the scenario from aquatic to terrestrial in less than twelve hours the aquatic show must have continued all day. At midday there would have been an intermission so that tugs could tow away the carcasses floating in the water. The crowd would chatter amongst themselves enthusing over what they had seen while they waited for the next event; no doubt the authorities had devised some excruciating but entertaining executions involving the use of water.
During the night the waters would have to be drained and the floor of the arena relaid. This would require thousands of wooden parts, piles, beams, trapdoors, floorboards and wooden pegs. Sections of the floor containing trapdoors would have been prefabricated, with all parts earmarked for specific locations given a number and divided into sets. It must have been a mad rush to get it all done in time.
After Titus
According to Suetonius, Domitian held at least one aquatic show in the Colosseum. However, it is clear that at some time Domitian decided to abandon the Colosseum naumachia and construct a permanent arena, though it is a decision that has gone unrecorded in any of the ancient sources. Perhaps the operation of aquatic displays in the Amphitheatre was too complicated or, more likely, the wooden floors and the piles supporting them were showing signs of weakening and beginning to rot. There may have been other reasons. Suetonius mentions *a new naumachia y which is confirmed by Cassius Dio. The impetus for Domitian’s change of direction was probably his plans to build the new Flavian Palace on the Palatine Hill. Begun in AD 81 and completed about eleven years later, it involved the diversion of the Claudian aqueduct to supply it with water.
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