[zzzpaz]

It's just a useless observation. Same as being an alien approaching our planet and saying "oh.... Look at this planet. Over the years billions of people must have died".

Well, while is true that many people died in the colosseum (so in the entire history of our planet) what's the point? If was not to analyze or judge their behavior?

If you look at the OP reply on one of my comments you'd see that his intention indeed was to judge their behavior with our lens. Which is wrong. That's it.

[DrSiemer]

Well, we are talking about many killings in a single location over a relatively short period of time. We are also specifically dealing with a historic artefact that symbolizes these killings. Pointing out how bizarre this is, according to today's standards, is not pointless as far as I'm concerned. It serves to remind us of a more primitive past and of how far we've come.

Agree to disagree then. Seems like a perfectly reasonable observation to me.

[zzzpaz]

The Colosseum was active for 400 years, you consider that a relatively short period of time? In total they estimated that 400.000 people died in there, in 400 years! That's 1.000 people a year. Even if you double or triple that number is nothing compared to the deaths of the slaves trade in the Americas (estimated to 5 millions and more, in the same timespan of 400 years - 1500 to 1900 - just before being capture or during the transit to America) or the number of native Americans that have died during colonization (which is estimated to be to the order of 100 millions with a decline in population of 98%)

If that's not even enough to give you another metric the Iraqi war killed 460.000 civilians in less than 20 years and it's pretty recent.

> It serves to remind us of a more primitive past and of how far we've come.

This is what you fail to understand as well, they were not primitive by any means. Despite this games the society in Rome during the Roman empire was liberal (go read a book about it), we've killed and we continue to kill much more after the Roman empire and nowadays. The examples above should be enough for you to understand

> We are also specifically dealing with a historic artefact that symbolizes these killings.

It does not symbolize these killings only and was not solely built to host gladiator games. The Colosseum had multiple purposes. There were kind of games with wild animals (lions or African animals) vs man (similar to what nowadays people do in Spain during the Bullfighting) and was also used to stage battles, drama, composition, natural environment simulation and so on.

If your historical sources are Hollywood movies and TV series, of course you are missing something out.

It was a place or entertainment, similar to what today is a Cinema or a theater (indeed it's real name is Flavian Amphitheater)