If you were to visit the Colosseum in ancient
Rome what would your day be like? Where would you get your tickets? Where would you sit? What would you actually see? And most importantly what would you eat? It wouldn't be hot dogs and nachos but rather something like these honey dates stuffed with nuts and pepper. So thank you to Hellofresh for sponsoring this video as we spend a day at the Colosseum this time on Tasting History. "Panem et circenses." Bread and circuses, that's what the poet Juvenal said that the ancient Romans really wanted, and he meant it in a disparaging way but I
got to say food and entertainment that's kind of all I want too, and should you ever find yourself in the ancient Roman Empire the Colosseum could provide you with both of those things. The concession stands of the Colosseum offered chickpeas, nuts, fruits, sausages, little pastries, figs, grapes, peaches, cherries, berries, walnuts, olives and melons. The poet Martial specifically called out a fondness for "Dates such as are sold at the theaters." So I found a recipe for stuffed dates using the ancient Roman cookbook 'Apicius, de re Coquinaria'. "Remove the stones from dates, and stuff with
nuts, pine nuts, or ground pepper Roll in salt, fry in cooked honey and serve." Well that's easy enough. Now he calls these dulcia domestica, or homemade sweets, but in fact most people would have probably bought these already made because in ancient Rome, especially in the city, having a kitchen in your own home was was really quite a luxury so most people got most of their food at the thermopolia which were basically ancient fast food restaurants but since most people today do have kitchens in
their homes we can make these homemade sweets as well as a home cooked meal from today's sponsor Hellofresh. Hellofresh is a convenient way to get cooking at home, making more home-cooked meals partly because they deliver all of the ingredients to your door so you're not even having to go to the grocery store and all the ingredients come pre-portioned so you're not having to do a lot of prep work, the most annoying part about the cooking process. The recipes are well written and they have step-by-step instructions that anyone can follow so in no time you have a home-cooked meal ready to eat. Last night I made the chicken sausage spaghetti bolognese with zucchini, wonderfully flavorful and very filling a perfect meal to eat while sitting on the couch in my sweatpants. And Hellofresh isn't just for dinner because they also have a lineup of breakfasts from egg bites to cinnamon rolls, and right now they are offering a free breakfast in every box for life. Just go to hellofresh.com and use code TASTINGHISTORYFREE for free breakfast for life, that's one breakfast item per box while the subscription is active. That's code TASTINGHISTORYFREE at hellofresh.com
for free breakfast for life. Though if it's ancient Roman snacks that you're looking for well I've got you covered there, and for that what you'll need is 15 to 20 dates and you want a big date like medjool dates because they need to be big enough to get stuffed. Then 1 cup or 125 grams of walnuts, 1/3 cup or
45 grams of pine nuts. And you can use either or nuts, walnuts or pine nuts, but I'm going to use both 'cus why not. And then one teaspoon of black pepper, and I prefer long pepper because that was one of the popular peppers in ancient Rome, and it is easy to get if you go online or an Indian grocery store. It's wonderful, it's a little bit different from most of the peppers that you've tried so try some long pepper. Then 1 cup or 235 milliliters of honey and some fine sea salt for rolling the dates. So start by slicing the dates lengthwise on one side. Don't cut them all the way in half, you want to just cut them so they can hold the filling. Then grind the walnuts and pine nuts in a mortar. Now the recipe doesn't say what the texture is exactly supposed to be. You can make this into a really fine paste like using using a blender or something like that but with a mortar and pestle it kind of is not quite as fine and I like that 'cus it adds to the texture. What you do want well crushed is the long pepper, the finer the better because biting into a big old piece of pepper ain't great. Once the pepper is crushed add in the nuts and mix all together until everything is evenly dispersed, and then take a date, open it up and stuff in as much of that filling as you can. And you kind of want to pack it in there because otherwise it'll all fall out when it goes into the honey for cooking. Once it's filled close up the date around it as best you can and continue this until all the dates are filled. Then take the dates one at a time and roll them in the salt. Again, fine salt is going to work best for this because you want it to stick to the outside. If you use like a a kosher salt or something it just doesn't stick. Once they're all coated heat the honey in a
saucepan and you just want to bring it to a simmer with the foam rising in the middle and you let
it cook for about 10 minutes, and keep an eye on it because if it gets too hot it will foam up and actually out of the pan, and you get a huge sticky mess that's just impossible to clean. I've been there, I've done that, and I do not recommend. So you just want a little bit of foam and let it cook
for 10 minutes and then you can start adding the dates into the honey. Now they're going to open up a little bit so make sure that the filling is on the top otherwise the filling will all come out and instead of rolling them around in the honey kind of spoon the honey or push the honey up on top so it gets into the filling but so that the filling doesn't fall out. Leave them to cook in the honey for about 45 seconds to a minute and then take them out and set them on a plate, or a piece of foil or parchment and then let them cool completely. It'll take about 10 minutes which is enough time for me to tell you about the rather tedious build that is the LEGO Colosseum. The nice thing is that because it's kind of tedious I had plenty of time to let my imagination run wild and wonder what it was like to actually visit the Colosseum in ancient Rome. So you're going to the Colosseum, lucky you! Just a few little things to cover before you head off. First of all don't call it the Colosseum. Back in ancient Rome they called it Amphitheatrum Flavium, or Flavian Amphitheater named after the imperial dynasty that ruled during its construction. The Colosseum likely refers to a statue, the Colossus Neronis which was a massive statue of the emperor
Nero that stood near the amphitheater, though at some point after Nero was no longer popular the Romans reskinned it so it would be Sol the Sun god. But as long as you see a colossal statue next
to an amphitheater you're in the right place. Now the second thing before you head off is that you
need to make sure you got a ticket. Good news is they're free, bad news is you're probably not going to get one. See even though the Colosseum could hold around 50,000 spectators some say it's actually closer to 70,000 the city had a population of nearly a million and so not everyone was going to get a ticket. Now some years there were lots in lots of games so your chances were higher, like in the year 107 to celebrate his victory over the Daicians, the emperor Trajan held games for 123 consecutive days with over 11,000 beasts and 10,000 gladiators entertaining the crowds, but most years they were only holding games on a handful of days throughout the entire year usually around religious festivals like Saturnalia but let's assume that they are holding games how do you get a ticket? Well just like going to the Super Bowl today you need to know someone. See while the tickets were free they handed them out in big blocks to either guilds or very prominent people within the city. So maybe you're good friends with the head of the petorian Guard not that Praetorian Guard, not that Praetorian Guard, but the ones that guarded the emperor and he could give you a ticket or like me you could be a miller, and one of the members of the Guild of Millers. The Guild of Millers uses only the finest grains. True Roman bread for true Romans. If neither of those avenues work, then they do have scalpers so you could buy a ticket it would would just be a lot more expensive than you'd probably
want to pay seeing as they're free in the first place. But let's assume you finally get yourself a ticket, the tickets called tesserae were often lead tokens or shards of pottery with information etched on them. And the information that would be etched on these little pieces of lead or clay would be similar to what you'd find on a ticket today. You've got the entrance gate number that you go through, your level or section number, and then a row number. And knowing exactly what these are where you would be is important to know what you're going to bring with you. Basically if you're not a senator or the emperor you're going to want to bring a seat cushion with you because all the benches are either marble or wood and and that's just not comfortable. Luckily outside the Colosseum there are stalls set up with vendors selling cushions called tomemtum or circus stuffing. This was basically just chopped up reeds that were stuffed in so probably not super comfortable but more comfortable than marble. While you're shopping you could also pick up some chachkies like statues of gladiators or if you could afford it a vial of gladiator blood or sweat, the sweat being a popular addition to cosmetics. And you'd also want to get yourself some snacks, most of the vendors outside sold sausages or pastries, or little sweets like the ones that we're making today and you could get things inside as well but I'm guessing just like today the prices were always inflated inside the theater. So you got your cushion, you got your chachki, and you got your snacks, now you got to find your entrance and there were 80 of them so it might take a while. Two gates were reserved for the imperial family and others of very high rank, and then another two were used by gladiators,
these were the Porta Triumphalis or Door of Victory, and the Porta Libitinaria or Door of Death, but more than likely you would use one of the other 76 entrances. Then once you're in you just have to find your
section which was all delineated by class. The lowest section closest to the action was called
the podium and this is where you would sit if you were a senator or a priest, or a Vestal Virgin. These were like the private boxes at a football game and I'm assuming where Taylor Swiftus would sit. Then at the center of one of the long sides of the Colosseum, like the 50 yard line, sat the emperor along with his family and guests. Now the great thing about this section, the podium, is not only were you closer to the action but also you didn't have to sit on benches. The senatorial class and the imperial family were wealthy enough that they just brought in their own plush cushioned chairs, like carting in a Lazy Boy to the show. Sadly for us we're probably not part of the senatorial class, and so all we've got is our little seat cushion stuffed with reeds. Now if you're not a senator but you are part of the equestrian class well then you would be fortunate enough to sit in
the second tier the maenianum primum. These seats would have been made of marble and there would be a big wall behind you separated seating you from the rabble in the upper levels but let's
face it most of us would be the rabble in the upper levels. There was the maenianum secondum imum and
this is where the plebian males of Rome would sit. Then the manum secundum summum which is where non-citizens, the very poor and the slaves would sit. Both of these sections were probably a lot less
roomy than the lower sections, and they would have less vendors going up and down the aisles selling wine and different snacks. Luckily we brought our own. Now there is one more section at the very,
very top, a 15 story hike up to the pinnacle of the colosseum. This was the maesianum summum in legneis, and this section was reserved for women. Not only did you have to climb 15 stories but then they usually didn't have enough seats so a lot of the women had to stand the entire time, and you couldn't really see or hear what was going on in the arena but on the plus side you were the first person to
get shade. See one of the biggest dangers about seeing something at the Colosseum was not a rogue wild animal, or somebody throwing a javelin into the audience, no it was sunstroke. That is why the velarium was so important this was a huge canopy, or awning that could be stretched out across
the top of the Colosseum giving shade to those below. But as it didn't come all the way to the center many of the people closest to the center didn't get the benefit of the shade during certain parts of the day so the wealthiest people wouldn't actually get the shade. So if you are in the best seats hopefully you brought your umbraculum these were parasols used for a little personal shade. Now while sitting down in those lower sections was great because you could be closer to the emperor sometimes it was not so great because you could be closer to the emperor and depending on the
emperor that might not be a good thing. Best case scenario he might mock you for eating at the games. The Emperor Augustus while watching the games at the Circus Maximus just down the way from the future Colosseum once saw a military man that he knew eating during the games and then quite rudely he said to the man "if I want to dine, I go home." To which the man eating sent a cheeky response saying "yes, but you are not afraid of losing your seat." I guess Augustus was an emperor that you could give
some lip without a lot of repercussions, that was not the case with the Emperor Domitian. Now I did a video on Domitian and his cruelty during a specific banquet the Black Banquet, but it seems that he was even worse at the Colosseum. One day while watching a bout between two Gladiators at the Colosseum a man was overheard saying that "A Thraciann gladiator might be a match for the murmillo, but not for the patron of the games." Basically he was implying that the emperor had kind of set things up to favor the gladiators that he liked, and Domitian never one to overreact "Had the man dragged from his
seat and with a placard around his neck reading 'A Thracian supporter who spoke evil of his Emperor' He was thrown into the arena and torn to pieces by dogs." So if after a few glasses of wine you get a little loose in the lips maybe it's best that you're not sitting down by by the emperor. Though no matter where you sit everybody in the arena gets the same show. The day would open with the Pompa which was a parade around the arena. There were trumpeters, water organists and drummers leading a procession of animals like elephants, horses, and oxen. Then acrobats and dancers, statues of the gods would be carried in on litters. Nobles and soldiers, and chariots and finally the
editor or person in charge of arranging the games along with his entourage, and of course the gladiators who later in the day would fight for the enjoyment of the audience. Following the Pompa was the Venationes or Hunt of the Wild Beasts. Bears, elephants, giraffes, crocodiles, wild dogs, lions,
and other big cats would be let into the arena, some would do tricks or were parts of skits that
had scenery and costumes, and people would come out and interact with the animals, it was a whole big thing. And then often they were part of the hunt and this would be where people went in and hunted the animals sometimes ending in the animals demise and sometimes that of the hunter. After this it was time for the halftime show, the Meridiani. Though instead of today a pop singer coming out and
singing all of their greatest hits it was a time for public executions. Very often this meant the Damnatio ad Bestias or Condemnation to Beasts where criminals, prisoners of war, or other people who
just annoyed the emperor were put to death by wild animal. Sometimes it was not the wild animals doing the killing but other condemned persons forced to fight each other for the enjoyment of the audience. Senaca wrote about this barbaric practice saying that they had to fight each other with weapons
but weren't given helmets or armor of any kind. "The spectators insist that that each on killing his
man shall be thrown against another to be killed in his turn; and the eventual victor is reserved by them for some other form of butchery; the only exit for the contestants is death. Fire and steel keep the slaughter going. And all this happens while the arena is virtually empty." And he says that the arena was virtually empty because most of the audience took this time to go get lunch or use the facilities, or book some time with one of the many, many prostitutes working in the lower levels of the Colosseum. But they all came back following the executions because it was time for the most anticipated portion of the day. In fact many people didn't even come to the show until this portion of the games. It was called the Munera and typically involved several dozen pairs of gladiators fighting sometimes to the death, but especially if they were good and popular with the crowd NOT to the death. So I've done an entire video on gladiators so I won't rehash too much but I will make sure that that is the video that pops up after this but suffice it to say in ancient Rome gladiators were held in high esteem. They were the celebrities and the top athletes of the day. Now as the games were among other things a way for the emperor to curry favor with his people there were always some little surprise gifts during the games. Sometimes it was perfume that was sprayed out
over the entire audience using a system of Sparsiones. It was like modern-day misters but instead of just
water it was perfumed water sometimes with saffron or balsam. And sometimes it would rain not water but prizes. These were called Sparsio missilium and they were little wooden balls shot into the audience t-shirt cannon style. The balls were vouchers inscribed with prizes to be collected from the sponsor of the games. Cassius Dio said that the emperor Titus gave out "Little wooden balls variously inscribed, one designating some article of food, another clothing, another a silver vessel, or perhaps a gold one, or again horses, pack animals, cattle or slaves." In one instance the recipient even got an entire apartment in the city but should you get a hold of one of these balls you wanted to get out of the Colosseum as quick as possible because "Some of these prizes have already been torn to
pieces in the hands of those who try to snatch them... The most sensible man, therefore, runs from the
theater as soon as he sees the little gifts being brought in; for he knows that one pays a high price for small favors." Basically it was safer for you to get out of the Colosseum altogether before the prizes even start getting shot into the audience. Now maybe not as flashy as an entire apartment, another thing that might be shot into the audience raining down was food. "Biscuits and melting pastries, Amerian fruit not overripe, must cakes, and bursting dates from invisible Palms
were showering down... and now everyone be he rich or poor, boasts himself the emperor's dinner guest." Bursting dates raining down from the sky, bursting dates perhaps like the ones I'm about
to eat right now. And here we are honeyed dates stuffed with nuts and pepper. So you've got to let them cool because at first they are just super, super sticky. They're still sticky once they're cooled but not as sticky like- it's actually not that bad especially, if they're raining down on you. What a mess. Were we go. [munch munch] Hmm. That's really good. Hmm! That's really, really good. So the most surprising and pleasant flavors in here are simply the salt and pepper because it's a lot of sweet between the dates and the honey you get a lot of sweet. Also you want the texture of those nuts, don't grind them up into a fine paste. Have a little texture. But to counteract the sweet that pepper and salt- I think it's really, really
important. They're not over peppery. There's a little heat from it. They're not overly salty. It's a perfect, perfect match. They are really, really good. So these are way, way simple to make. They're easy to find all the ingredients so give it a shot. It's definitely worth it and I will see you next time on Tasting History. [CHOMP]
