SPECTACULA

A model of the Colosseum when new. In reality, there is no evidence left of the presence of statues in the arches.

The historian Dio Cassius wrote, about the dedication of the Colosseum:  "Most of what he [Titus] did was not characterized by anything noteworthy, but in dedicating the hunting-theatre (Amphitheatrum Flavium) and the baths that bear his name, he produced many remarkable spectacles. There was a battle between cranes and also between four elephants; animals both tame and wild were slain to the number of nine thousand; and women (not those of prominence however) took part in dispatching them. As for the men, several fought in single combat and several groups contended together both in infantry and naval battles. For Titus suddenly filled this same theatre with water and brought in horses and bulls and some other domesticated animals that had been taught to behave in the liquid element just as on land. He also brought in people in ships, who engaged in a sea-fight there, impersonating the Corcyreans and Corinthians....

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Sparsio
These were the spectaculars that were offered and they continued for a hundred days; but Titus also furnished some things that were of practical use to the people. He would throw down into the theatre from aloft little wooden balls variously inscribed, one designating some article of food, another clothing, another a silver vessel, or perhaps a gold one, or again horses, pack animals, cattle or slaves. Those who seized them were to carry them to the dispensers of the bounty, from whom they would receive the article named. [Dio Cassius. 65.25].