A Journey Through Time: The Roman Empire

Sport
Bring your family along to the Coliseum and support the hometown slaves attempting to butcher the dirty villains. The survivors will then take on an entire menagerie of wild animals – all your favourite fighters and beasts are here but you better be quick before they all get slaughtered.

Nothing could be more fun than watching a good old fight to the death on a Saturday afternoon.

Wear an old toga as it can get awfully messy in the front row. An all round great atmosphere.

Food available – there’s plenty of scraps lying around the place. The crowd gets really involved shouting out "mitte’ (let him go), "Iugula" (kill him) or "Gomanu" (up the Gunners). The Emperor has the final say, signalling death by swiftly pointing his thumb in an downward movement at the prisoner– while the disgruntled prisoner replies by swiftly pointing his index finger in an upward movement back at the emperor.

Scoreboard from last night (Score represents surviving team members)

Slaves 1 v Elephants 2

The Elephants had a noticeable weight advantage. The one surviving slave had to be taken off quite badly trampled and was later put down - publicly of course, accompanied by good natured jeering and clapping from the big crowd. Unfortunately the elephants were not there to witness it having retired to the spa for their after match function. There reportedly was a lot of trumpeting and squirting coming from the changing rooms.

Surviving Elephants 1 v Ostriches 3

A real surprise here. The Elephants must have been resting on their laurels and enjoyed the celebrations just a little too much. The Elephants allowed themselves to relax- not just a little but a lot and things got very sloppy in midfield. The ostriches took advantage of the conditions that could best be described as ‘wet under foot.’

Surviving Elephants 0 v Russell ‘Maximus’ Crowe 1

Russell made good use of his weight advantage and was as always, extremely confident. Predictably, his winning speech needed to be censored for public airing

Russell ‘Maximus’ Crowe v Tiger
Not the one in the movie but a really nasty one – which didn’t survive the trip from Asia. Russell was pleased to be awarded a bye.

Relaxation of the time
Going to the Baths involving lots of lounging about in warm water, doing weights, receiving massages; drinking wine from big goblets

Language of the time
Latin (compulsory)

Other pastimes
Toga parties, playing knucklebones, blind man buff, throwing blown up pig’s bladders around the place (Trigon), bloody circuses in which all the animals die, bloody theatre in which many of the actors die

Employment vacancies
Lots of vacancies for gladiators, slaves, circus animals or actors

Fashion of the time
(Unisex) Big sheet like togas, armour, sandals, cloaks, spears (pilium).
Women – chalk for face makeup, also reddish earth called ochre as lipstick and blusher.

Celebrities of the time
Julius Caesar (61-44 BC) Rome had been a republic and Caesar became so powerful that the people feared that he might declare himself King. Build massive stone buildings with towering great pillars all over the Roman Empire and is quoted as saying " Veni, vidi, vici" (I came, I saw, I concreted). Brutus and the rest of the senate saw how powerful he was becoming and did what was the custom in those days; they murdered him.

Caligua (37-41 AD) or ‘Little boot’ - the bloodiest and maddest of them all. Got on well with a horse named Incitatus and so made him a member of the Roman Consul. Oats were included on the menu for state banquets.