Many popular ideas about the Roman arena were formed in the nineteenth century from popular images and accounts.
The Romans glorified the bravery shown in the arena, but trivialized the events and degraded the participants. Mosaic pictures of executions and combats, graphically violent to our eyes, were displayed in the public rooms and even dining rooms in the homes of wealthy Romans. How can the viewer today possibly understand such images?
Brutalities decrease as the world population become more educated. However, in Spain and a few other places, we can still see the Bull Fight, where the matadors and the gang ruthlessly injure and kill the bulls in a stadium, watched by cheering crowds.
A thousand year from now, people will not understand how we, people in the 21st century still allow such atrocities to animal to happen.
