Opening of the Flavian Amphitheatre (AD 80)

Suetonius writes of five thousand wild animals in a single day, Dio of nine thousand over the whole games. Titus threw wooden balls with gifts written on them to the spectators, and Martial described the fight of Priscus and Verus, both of whom the emperor released.

Dio describes a naval battle in the flooded arena and a second one in Augustus’s old naumachia; scholars disagree about whether the arena could really be flooded. At the end of the games the emperor wept in front of everyone; no one knows why.