A Day Off in Ancient Rome: What Could Go Wrong?

A day off in Ancient Rome, AD 27: you finally get your little brother to a real gladiator show, in a brand-new wooden arena. What could go wrong? Emperor Tiberius cut the games, capped the gladiators and banned cake displays. So when a freedman builds an amphitheatre at Fidenae, everyone goes. The "you" in this story, your brother Lucius and your boss Primus are composites built from Roman sources. Tiberius, Augustus, Sejanus and Atilius are real, the holidays and the disaster are real, and every fact is sourced below. 📚 RESEARCH & SOURCES: ▸ The Fidenae collapse: Tacitus, Annals 4.62-63 (Loeb, trans. J. Jackson, LacusCurtius). Atilius, a freedman, skipped solid foundations and secure fastenings; 50,000 crushed or maimed; the Senate's 400,000-sesterce rule; doctors supplied to all comers. https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Tacitus/Annals/4E*.html ▸ Tiberius leaves Rome: Tacitus, Annals 4.57-59 (same edition). The move to Campania, the astrologers, and Sejanus shielding Tiberius when the cave dining room caves in. https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Tacitus/Annals/4E*.html ▸ Tiberius versus fun: Suetonius, Life of Tiberius 34, 37, 40, 47 (Loeb, trans. J. C. Rolfe, LacusCurtius). No pastry on display, the kissing edict, three mullets for 30,000 sesterces, banished actors, more than 20,000 dead at Fidenae, and no public shows at all. https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Suetonius/12Caesars/Tiberius*.html ▸ Augustus's dice weekend: Suetonius, Life of Augustus 71 (Loeb, Lexundria). "My dear Tiberius": a whole Quinquatria at the gaming-board and 20,000 sesterces lost. https://lexundria.com/suet_aug/71/r ▸ Dice at Saturnalia: Martial, Epigrams 14.1 (Bohn's Classical Library). At Saturnalia the dice-player "has no fear of the Aedile." Written about 60 years after the story. https://www.tertullian.org/fathers/martial_epigrams_book14.htm ▸ 159 holidays: "Daily Life in Ancient Rome" by Jerome Carcopino (1940, Yale University Press), excerpted at Facts and Details. Under Claudius, 159 holidays, 93 of them games at public expense. https://europe.factsanddetails.com/article/entry-378.html ──────────────────── PEOPLE, PLACES & EVENTS IN THIS VIDEO: ▸ Tiberius: Roman emperor from AD 14 to 37. He gave no public shows at all, and you feel it. ▸ Augustus: The first emperor, and Tiberius's stepfather. He gambled through a whole festival and wrote Tiberius about it. ▸ Sejanus: Commander of the Praetorian Guard and Tiberius's right-hand man. He took the falling rocks for his boss. ▸ Atilius: The freedman who built the amphitheatre at Fidenae as a money-making venture. Banished. That was the whole punishment. ▸ Claudius: Emperor from AD 41. His calendar listed 159 holidays. ▸ Fidenae: A small town about five miles from Rome. A morning's walk to the show of the year. ▸ Campania and the cave villa: The region south of Rome where Tiberius moved in AD 26, and the seaside villa where the rocks came down. Nobody in Rome expected him back. ▸ Saturnalia and the Kalends of January: Rome's December festival, and New Year's Day. Legal dice, then a ban on kissing. ▸ Quinquatria, Games of Apollo, Roman Games, Plebeian Games: Festivals on the Roman calendar. Every one a stamp on your card. ▸ The aediles: The officials who ran Rome's streets and markets. The ones who came for the cake. ▸ Tacitus and Suetonius: The two Roman historians this story rests on. They disagree on the death toll, and the video says so. ──────────────────── 🔔 Subscribe if your day off is going better than this one. https://www.youtube.com/@StickTory?sub_confirmation=1 Disclaimer: This video is educational entertainment. It dramatizes real historical practices through a second-person character, and some scenes depict historical violence, punishment and hardship for educational context. It is not an endorsement of any of it. Historical sources sometimes disagree, and where they do, we follow the sources listed above. Nothing in this video is professional, legal or medical advice. Chapters 0:00 The Roman Holiday Hustle 1:39 Tiberius and the War on Fun 5:43 Searching for Spectacle 7:01 The Secret Show at Fidenae 10:32 When the Stands Collapsed #AncientRome #Tiberius #Gladiators #StickTory #HistoryAnimated