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Ludus Matutinus
Visitors to this Casa
 The Ludus Matutinus (or Morning School) was established by Domitian to train the specialized combatants that appeared in games involving the use of wild animals, known as venationes. The school’s name refers to the traditional scheduling of animal shows in the morning, followed by gladiatorial combats in the afternoon. However, in the later imperial era, the distinction was not always as clear, with some spectacular hunts staged as a show in themselves, or by combining animal combats with gladiatorial bouts. The Ludus Matutinus was located in the neighborhood east of the Amphitheatrum Flavium, just south of the larger Ludus Magnus, the main training ground for gladiators.
 © Agnès Vinas Types of Fighters: The school trained fighters with a range of skills for different types of games. Venatores were trained hunters who participated in the hunts staged in the arenas. Bestiarii were combatants who faced animals directly in matched fights, either singly or in groups. Both venatores and bestiarii were mainly drawn from the ranks of slaves, though there were a small number of free men who sold themselves into service under contract. There was also a distinction between the armed fighters and the condemned criminals sent into the arena without weapons or armor. Although trained in fighting techniques, both bestiarii and venatores were considered inferior to the gladiators, the highest class of fighters. [For information on gladiators, visit Titus Pullo’s Ludus Gladiatorus.]
 Types of Contests:
During the earliest examples of animal kills in the Republican period, the animals were chained. By the time of the increasingly elaborate shows put on in the final decades of the Republic, the animals were loose, and special defenses had to be built for the safety of the audience. Amphitheaters were built with seating raised above the area of the arena floor. In the Flavian Amphitheater [the Colosseum], the wall around the arena was 13 feet high, made of smooth stone, and topped with grates and a balustrade that prevented animals from climbing out. In addition, nets were erected around the arena as a precaution.
 Hunts were held in a wide variety of formats. At times, animals were simply slaughtered by archers as they panicked and ran around the arena floor. At other times, elaborate state sets and plants were used to create a more difficult hunt, conducted either on foot or horseback, often with a pack of hounds assisting the hunters. Bestiarii fights were staged as combats by individual fighters or teams against selected animals, from large cats to bears or even elephants. The fighters used spears, daggers, whips, and other weapons. The used various obstacles in the arena to dodge an animal’s attack, including walls, revolving turnstiles (cockleae), or a basket with protruding spikes (an ericius). A skilled bestiarius would play to the crowd by increasing his personal danger, such as stunning a bear with his fists or confusing a lion by throwing his cape over the animal’s head. Bull fights were also a regular feature of the games. Bulls were goaded by spearmen until they became enraged, then engaged by taurarii who, like the Spanish matadors, fought the bulls on foot, with a pike or a lance. Other bullfights were like those of ancient Crete, in which unarmed men on horseback wore the bull down, then jumped on the bull to bring it down by twisting its neck.
 Another type of fight was staged between the animals, sometimes using exotic combinations. Most of the matches were between two powerful animals, for example, lion versus tiger, elephant versus rhinoceros, or bull versus bear. At other times, matches were unequal and largely for sheer spectacle, such as releasing tigers against deer. There were also bizarre combats using hippos, crocodiles, or seals against various big cats or bears. In some contests, animals were loose; in others, chained.
 There were also shows in which condemned criminals fought animals without weapons or armor. See also damnatio ad bestias below. Animals Used in the Arena: All types of wild and unusual animals – elephants, bears, lions, tigers, and more - were captured and brought to Rome from every part of the empire. They were kept in holding cages at a number of places, including the Vivarium at the eastern edge of the city.
 As they were needed, the animals were brought by venatores from the Vivarium to cages in buildings close to the Colosseum. Animals were taken through a connecting tunnel to pens located under the Colosseum’s arena floor. They were then moved up and released inside the arena, but it is not clear how this was accomplished, especially for the largest animals for which the area appears to be too small. Another building near the Colosseum was the Spoliarum. This building was the morgue in which the bodies of gladiators and animals were kept, before being taken to the Equiline Hill and dumped. Exotic cuts of meat from rare animals were sold from here to the kitchens of Rome’s wealthy gourmands. Visit the Vivarium to learn more about the animals collected by the emperors.
Page background and table background images at this property are from Eos Development.
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