What would it have been like to be a spectator at the games in a Roman coliseum?

by TheManFromFarAway

Asking again without the title error.

We have pretty good ideas of what the games would have been like in Roman coliseums, but what would it have been like to be a fan in the stands? How different would it have been from modern arena sports? I imagine there would have been plenty of food and drink, but were there streakers running across the sand pit behind the gladiators? Were there ever fights in the crowds? Did they do the wave? What would life in the stands have been like for the average game-goer in the Roman era?

vastenculer

I can certainly comment on the availability of food a drink, and the attendance in Israel.

Typically local salesmen would be allowed to enter the stands to sell produce. Though this was unregulated, typically they avoided local cuisine and instead sold Roman delicacies, such as larks' tongues, wrens' livers, chaffinch brains, jaguars' earlobes and wolf nipple chips. Animals were even imported from Italia itself, such as Tuscan bats, which were typically fried.

You might think that with such highbrow food that the behaviour of the crowd would match it, but you'd be wrong. Local politics and the tense atmosphere would often create tension between segments of the crowd - particularly notably the Judean's people front and their rivals (splitters!!!!), around the first century, leading to severe civil unrest and vandalism. However, poor attendance meant the impact of this was generally limited. It may also be suggested that this indirectly led to a better understanding of Latin among the population, especially with regards to verb conjugation and agreement.

Source: Jones, Cleese et al, 1979