When you think of the Colosseum, you might picture gladiators clashing swords, but the arena also hosted a parade of blood‑soaked animal spectacles that were downright cruel unusual. The bestiari—men forced to battle exotic beasts—were only the tip of the iceberg. Below are ten shocking details that history books often skim over.
Cruel Unusual Realities of Roman Beast Hunts
10 The Suicides
Some of the men thrust into the arena were seasoned fighters who chose the role as a career, but most were unarmed criminals or captured soldiers tossed in with barely a weapon to their name. The terror of facing snarling lions, bears or boars drove many to desperate measures. One German prisoner, for instance, choked himself on a lavatory sponge—yes, the very thing used to wipe anuses. Another grim episode involved 29 Saxon prisoners who strangled each other to avoid the beasts, a macabre pact that ended with the last survivor meeting an equally grim fate.
9 The Fighting Killed Off Whole Species
The sheer scale of slaughter at the Colosseum decimated wildlife across the Mediterranean. Roman hunts are blamed for wiping entire populations of lions, jaguars and tigers from the region. After a single series of games that saw 9,000 animals killed, the hippopotamus vanished from the Nile, and the once‑common North African elephant disappeared from the earth entirely.
8 Few Bestiari Ever Survived
Because most bestiari were prisoners, they rarely had the tools or training to dispatch a raging beast. The philosopher Strabo tells of a hapless captive first slated to die by a boar. When the boar accidentally gored its handler, the guards were forced to replace it with a bear—only for the bear to refuse leaving its cage. Finally, a caged leopard was released and promptly tore the prisoner’s throat. Luck, it seems, was a foreign concept in the arena.
7 Commodus And The Ostriches
Emperor Commodus, immortalized by Joaquin Phoenix in Gladiator, delighted in animal carnage. Legend claims he killed over 100 bears in a single day, likely by stabbing them while they were tethered. Yet his true claim to fame was archery: he allegedly decapitated sprinting ostriches with crescent‑shaped arrows, then hurled the severed heads at the crowd—or even his own senate—as a chilling display of madness.
6 Elephants Crushed Deserters
The punishment known as damnatio ad bestias—condemnation by wild beasts—often left victims defenseless. The earliest recorded case in 167 BC saw Aemilius Paullus order a group of army deserters to be crushed beneath a herd of elephants. The gruesome spectacle proved so popular that Romans began watching animal executions every morning before the afternoon’s gladiatorial bouts.
5 Public Hunts
Occasionally the general public got a taste of the hunt. Around 280 AD, Emperor Probus transformed the Circus Maximus into a massive forest, releasing hundreds of ibexes, sheep, ostriches and other beasts. Spectators were then allowed to roam the “forest” and hunt for sport, keeping whatever they captured. The next day, unsatisfied, Probus ordered 400 lions and 300 bears slaughtered.
4 Orpheus Against The Bears
Legend says Orpheus could charm any creature with his lyre. Romans tried to reenact this myth by dressing condemned criminals as Orpheus, handing them lyres, and throwing them into arenas packed with angry bears—often starved or beaten. Some variations even crucified the “Orpheus” before the bear encounter. Unsurprisingly, the outcome was predictably brutal.
3 Carpophorus’s Rape Giraffes
Among the professional hunters, or venatores, Carpophorus stood out. He could kill 20 beasts in a day, some by strangulation. More disturbingly, he allegedly trained giraffes—and other animals—to assault women. By collecting scent samples from females in heat, he allegedly aroused male animals, then forced them onto slaves or homeless women in the arena. These twisted displays aimed to dramatize myths where Zeus assumed animal forms to ravish mortals.
2 Prolific Killer Animals
Romans didn’t always pamper their beasts; many were killed after each show to save on feeding costs. Yet some animals became legends. Cicero recorded a lion that slaughtered 200 men before finally being felled. In another episode, 18 elephants, initially meant to be dispatched by darts, broke through a fence and stormed the crowd, prompting Romans to dig a deep trench to separate arena and spectators thereafter.
1 No Animals Had To Die
Perhaps the most paradoxical cruelty was that many of these animals never needed to die for the crowd’s amusement. Trained elephants performed dances, bows and tricks, delighting spectators who actually booed when the gentle giants were slain. Crocodiles lounging in water, leopards pacing in a straight line, or any exotic creature simply existing proved enough to captivate Romans—as if the arena were an early zoo. Yet the Romans chose to add bloodshed for extra spectacle.