“Gladiator II”: could we really see sharks swimming in the Colosseum in Rome?

A little less than twenty-five years after bringing Russell Crowe into the arena, Ridley Scott delivers a brutal and bloody sequel to one of his biggest hits with “Gladiator II” (new window)in theaters from this Wednesday, November 13 in France. A second part for which the British director decided to bring out the heavy artillery.

This is evidenced by a scene of a naval battle where sharks are recreated in computer-generated images in the middle of a 3D Colosseum supposed to resemble what it was 2000 years ago. Does fiction exceed reality? TF1info deciphers the true from the false with the historian Jean-Paul Thuillier, co-author of the book Sport in Antiquity: Egypt, Greece and Rome (Evergreen editions).

The Coliseum was not Marineland!

Jean-Paul Thuillier

Did the Romans stage naval battles in the Colosseum, as seen in “Gladiator II”?

Aquatic shows did take place under the Roman Empire, particularly during the time of Emperor Augustus. This was called a “naumachia”, in reference to the name that the Romans gave to the pools where spectacles of this type took place, which included naval battles, but also hunts for marine animals. They then used flat-bottomed boats, because there was not much water, only a few tens of centimeters.

All this could not be done for very long within the Colosseum, underground galleries having been built under the building to pass the animals before they entered the arena. It was therefore impossible to fill it with water, as we can see in Ridley Scott's film.

Did these naumachias really feature sharks?

The word sharks exists in Latin. Pliny the Elder mentions it in Natural Historyso we know that the Romans knew the shark. Were they really sharks? It's hard to say. Perhaps he was referring to the flying fox, this small shark that we find today in the Mediterranean. However, it is unlikely that sharks swam in the Colosseum – and even less during a naumachia. In any case, no text refers to it. Besides, spectators would not have been able to see them. The Coliseum was not Marineland!

If sharks had been used in aquatic shows, traces of them would surely have been found in historical texts.

Jean-Paul Thuillier

In an interview, the director said that if the Romans were able to build buildings like the Colosseum, they were probably able to “pull a couple of sharks out of the sea in a net.” What does the historian think?

Indeed, it is not completely unrealistic. We know that an African giraffe was present during games organized by Caesar in the year 46 BCE. We also know that a hippopotamus was exhibited in an arena in the year -58. The Romans brought back elephants and tigers during expeditions to Africa. Texts also refer to seals and even a bear, undoubtedly polar, reported during expeditions to the Baltic Sea. Bringing these animals back from such distant lands is not very easy either. We can therefore imagine that the Romans could have brought a shark up by passing it through the Tiber, but that still seems tricky. And if sharks had been used in aquatic shows, we would surely have found traces of them in historical texts.

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On the other hand, during these “naumachia”, it is possible that the gladiators fought crocodiles?

The Romans did indeed have a fascination with Egypt, particularly for what we call the Nilotic landscapes and fauna. In the year -58, five crocodiles were shown for the first time during public games. The main goal was to show people exotic animals that they had never seen before, a bit like during the world's fairs during the 19th century. Subsequently, it is possible that crocodiles could have been used in fights with gladiators or in hunting marine animals. Throughout the empire, crocodiles were the main attraction, spectators loved them.