Beast Hunts

Venationes in Latin means beast hunts or animal hunts. This type of entertainment was held for the first time in 252 B.C. This game is used as a form of public execution for condemned criminals to be killed by wild animals called bestias.

Beasts hunt was a popular public ancient Rome sport either between beasts, or between men and beasts in an amphitheater. This game contained different types of animals such as lions, bears, bulls, hippopotamuses, panthers, elephants, and crocodiles. Almost, a single occasion would have 11,000 animals killed. These animals were captured and shipped to Roman society by soldiers and professional animal hunters, or the common people through trapping beasts in a net, a pit, and a wooden cage.

The men participating were either slaves, criminals, or professional hunters who were called bestiaries, and they were armed with a dagger or a spear against one or several animals. To make these hunts more exciting, natural settings that included forests, hills, caves, and streams, were sometimes built in the arena.

This competitions lasted for three days in a temporary stadium built for that purpose, in the region of the Campus Martius. Many strangers would come from different regions to watch the Combats who lived in streets. Accidents happened in the meantime, for instance, one time two senators were crushed to death in the crowd. I was the first one to build a wooden amphitheater to exhibit this type of spectacle in the region of the Campus Martius, which had battles running for five days.

In the late Republic, beast hunts focused around the extremely powerful and wealthy figures like me, Pompey, and Crassus when Romans witnessed for the first time many foreign and exotic animals, especially crocodiles, hippopotami, tigers, lions, leopards, and other large quadrupeds from Africa.