One Hundred Days — Titus: A Cloud Like a Pine Tree
AD 80. The fire lasts three days and three nights (Suetonius, Titus 8). Dio lists what burned: the temples of Isis and Serapis, the Saepta, the Pantheon and the Baths of Agrippa, the Theatre of Balbus, the stage building of the Theatre of Pompey, the buildings of Octavia along with the books in them. And the temple of Jupiter on the Capitol, eleven years after the previous fire. People thought it was the work of gods, not men (66.24).
Suetonius records that during the fire Titus said only: “I am ruined.” Then he gives all the decorations from his villas to public buildings and temples. He entrusts the work to several equestrians so that it goes as fast as possible (Titus 8).
On top of this Rome is struck by a plague the like of which, Suetonius writes, had hardly ever been seen. The emperor tries everything: sacrifices to every god and every kind of remedy (Titus 8). Dio links it with the ash of Vesuvius that reached Rome (66.23).
That same year Rome receives something that stands to this day. His father began building a great amphitheater. The son opens it.
No one yet knows the name “Colosseum.” The Romans simply say: the amphitheater. Titus throws wooden balls down into the audience from above. On each is written a gift: food, clothing, a silver or gold vessel, a horse, cattle, even a slave. Whoever catches a ball collects the gift from the officials (Dio 66.25).
The poet Martial records a fight between two gladiators, Priscus and Verus. For a long time neither has the upper hand. The spectators shout that both should be released. The emperor, probably Titus, sticks to the rules but in the end sends them both wooden swords and prizes. A wooden sword means: you no longer have to fight. For the first time, the poet writes, both men in a duel were winners (Book of Spectacles 29).
Dio writes of two naval battles. The first takes place in the flooded arena of the amphitheater: horses and bulls swim in it, and on ships “Corinthians” fight “Corcyraeans.” The second is in Augustus’s old naumachia, an artificial lake across the Tiber, where three thousand men play “Athenians” and “Syracusans” (66.25). Suetonius mentions only the second (Titus 7). Martial marvels at the battle where “a moment ago there was land” (Book of Spectacles 24).
On the last day of the games the emperor weeps so openly that all the people see it (Suetonius, Titus 10; Dio 66.26). No one knows why. Then, at the sacrifice, the animal tears loose from under the knife. And thunder rolls from a clear sky.