Elephant Blinds RhinoĮveryone associates the Coliseum with gladiators, but animal-on-animal clashes were also popular spectacles. Prior to the reign of emperor Claudius, a few witnesses recalled a particularly gory battle staged between an elephant and an enraged rhinoceros which the former won after picking up a broken spear-point with its trunk and gouging the eyes out of its horned adversary. Some of the showdowns witnessed there were so ferocious that historians still talk about them today.
Say what you will about violence in American football, but the Coliseum of ancient Rome may have been the single most barbaric sporting venue in human history.
