I'm Patrick Weiman, and this is the Fall of Rome.

Welcome to a special episode of The Fall of Rome.

I wrote a feature article for Vocative last week on the end of gladiatorial games, and

I thought it'd be fun to record an audio version of it free-wall.

I hope you enjoy it.

On a hard stone seat of the Colosseum in the year 106 AD, Rome's late summer sun beats

down on the back of your neck.

A joyous mood hangs over the metropolis of nearly a million people, the political and

cultural center of the hyperpower that dominates the Mediterranean world and beyond from the

deserts by the Euphrates River near modern-day Iraq to Scotland's lonely moors and glens.

The Emperor Trajan has returned to the city from Desia, today's Romania, with celebration

on his mind.

His two-year campaign of conquest beyond the Danube River has proven victorious, with

a new province added to the Roman Empire and hundreds of thousands of exotic barbarian

prisoners in tow.

To mark this accomplishment, Trajan has decreed an unprecedented gift to the people of Rome,

123 days of parties, festivals, and above all, games.

Packed in with more than 50,000 fellow enthusiasts, you watched the beast fights this morning, as

skilled hunters fought against an exotic array of imported animals, including lions, tigers,

bears, elephants, and even giraffes.

The public executions came afterward, as convicted criminals and some of the Desian barbarians

Trajan brought back suffered an array of gut-wrenching fates.

...