How were the ancient romans able to have naval battles in the Collusieum?
The naumachiae were reproductions of famous naval battles and were staged in a suitable place, that could be flooded. The actors were generally criminals already condemned to death. These shows – which were apparently held only in the city of Rome – were extremely expensive, because the ships had to be complete in all their details and manoeuvred like real ships in battle. The Romans called these shows navalia proelia (naval battles), but they are commonly known by the equivalent Greek term naumachia, which came to indicate at the same time the show and the basin built for it. Academics have long argued that holding sea battles at the Colosseum was impossible due to the underground tunnels used to spirit wild animals, slaves and gladiators to different parts of the arena. Tales of thousands of slaves and convicts drowning in the sea battles with ships built to scale were told by Latin poets such as Martial, but were dismissed as sycophantic works of fantasy written to enhance the reput
