It's the ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Tuzio, host and today's episode. Well, we're

talking about a pretty horrific, infamous part of ancient Roman culture today. We're going

to the amphitheaters, to those great arenas such as the Colosseum, renowned of course for the

bloody gladiatorial spectacles that the ancient Romans are now infamous for. But gladiator shows weren't

the only terrible events that occurred in these arenas all across the Roman Empire. Proceeding

these events, usually in the morning, were another type of gruesome spectacle, which included

wild animals, either locally acquired or brought in from further afield from the far reaches of

the Roman Empire and beyond. And these animals, they were then pitted against either each other,

or against specially trained fighters, beast hunters called finationes, or in a really terrible case,

sometimes these animals would be used as executioners for executing prisoners around midday

during these bloody infamous games. The whole story of the beast hunts, it was an incredibly

popular and important industry in ancient Rome as you're going to hear in this episode, but it is

also brutal. You won't be surprised to hear that there are clear cases of animal cruelty, so I

wanted to give you an advanced warning of that before we really delve into the details of the

beast hunts. Now talking all about this, I interviewed the author Caroline Freeman Quedden,

who has recently written a book all about animals in the Roman world. And naturally, when it comes

to this topic, the stories of these unfortunate animals that were brought to these arenas that

fought in front of thousands of spectators, well that story plays a significant part in the whole

tale of animals in the Roman world. So without further ado, to talk all about these beast hunts,

here's Caroline.

Caroline, it is wonderful to have you on the podcast today.

Thank you, thank you for inviting me. No problem at all. We are back

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