Thank you for sharing. I just finished reading The Roman Emperors by Michael Grant so this video found a receptive audience.
"Panem et circenses", this is the well-known formula summarizing what the Roman people expected from Caesar, the emperor. And indeed propaganda through imperial coinage emphasized the bread, much less the "circenses". On Roman imperial coins, reverse types such as Abundantia, Annona, Ceres, baskets filled with corn-ears, merchant ships, etc. are relatively common in the 1st and 2nd c. It was already the case on denarii of the late Republic with allusions to leges frumentariae symbolized by corn-ears. But what about the munera, the gladiators? Texts tell us that these shows were extremely popular in imperial Rome; millions of sestertii were spent by the emperor's treasury for producing them. But coin-reverses alluding to these munera are exceptional. Not a single one, as far as I know, ever represented a gladiator, either on imperial or provincial coinage. The colosseum itself is shown on extremely rare sestertii of Titus (for its inauguration, probably) and aurei of Septimius Severus. That's all. There are sometimes coins showing wild animals : it could be an allusion to venationes (a rhino under Diocletian, for example, an elephant under Antoninus Pius with the legend Munificentia Aug., an hippo under Philip the Arab, for ex.) but these animals are never depicted fighting a venator... They are more probably allusions to the imperial menagerie in which they could be seen, or to parades in the streets of Rome. The munera, gladiatorial fights in the Colosseum, were one of the most important acts of imperial generosity towards the people, but mentioning them on coinage seems to have been unconvenient.
Love history and learning new things. While not a scholar by any means, I never knew they had the ability to flood the Colosseum and actually have naval battles. Amazing.
The Colosseum, Circus Maximus, Baths of Caracalla, Park of the Aqueducts, Pantheon, and Trajan's Forum are all magnificent ancient wonders. The ingenuity and intelligence of Roman Engineering never ceases to amaze. PS: The coins are cool too!!!
It seems that Regulus didn't mind mentioning the folks in the arena: https://www.vcoins.com/en/stores/pr...ones_beast_fighters_rare/2187999/Default.aspx The youtube channel Classical Numismatics has one or two videos devoted to how much one would have to spend to have a decent day at the Colosseum.
