Note 71 — THE FLAVIAN AMPHITHEATRE, COMMONLY CALLED THE COLOSSEUM.
Reading edition
This dedication is referred to by Eutropius thus,—
“Hic [Titus] amphitheatrum Romæ ædificavit, et in dedicatione ejus quinque millia ferarum occidit.” (Eutropius, lib. vii. c. 14. See also Cassiodorus, Variar. l. v. op. 42. Opera omnia, ed. 1679, fol. vol. i. p. 94, c. 2.)
The account by Suetonius, writing some eighty or ninety years previously, is very clear:—
“Amphitheatro dedicato, thermisque juxta celeriter exstructis, munus edidit apparatissimum largissimumque. Dedit et navale prœlium in veteri naumachia: ibidem et gladiatores: atque uno die quinque millia omne genus ferarum.” (Suetonius Titus, c. 7.)
These old naumachia were the same as the stagnum navale, the old place for such amusements on the spot. They have been supposed to be the Naumachia of Augustus in the Trastevere, but without authority; and the mention of the gladiators in connection with them implies that it was at the same place.