Bloodlust, gambling, ambition; Rome’s gladiators pioneered modern sport

Modern television, with its vast budgets and global audiences, and modern televisions, with their vast screens and thumping sound systems, are made for sporting spectacle. The history of sport, meanwhile, is rooted in the Roman Empire, where the populus – bored, restless – was kept in check mainly by the distractions of chariot racing and gladiator fights.

No surprise, then, that in an Olympic year Prime Video’s latest 10-part drama, Those About to Die, takes us back to the foundations of big-ticket sport itself: the Colosseum. As the series begins, in 79 AD, Emperor Vespasian (Anthony Hopkins), the founder of the Flavian dynasty, has ruled Rome for a decade, offering its citizens a degree of stability after years of civil unrest.

Vespasian has a sop for the people – the Flavian Amphitheatre, also known as the Colosseum, which he plans as a complement to the Circus Maximus, a vast 300,000 capacity arena but one in which the people are far from the action. The Colosseum, holding just 65,000, will bring them closer to the blood and thunder they crave. But naturally, there’s money, capital and resentment involved – the Circus is owned and run by four factions who stand to lose the goose that has laid the golden egg if Vespasian gets his way. The competition will be fierce in every way: Those About to Die shows how brutal sharp practice and zero-sum games have existed in both sport and commerce for centuries.

Writer Robert Rodat, who scripted Saving Private Ryan and The Patriot, says it’s the parallels with the present day that give Those About to Die its potency.

“Though set firmly in the past, the show is a lens through which we can look at today in terms of entertainment, violence, immigration, gender, poverty, ambition and wealth.”

And gambling: modern sport is shot through with the seamy allure of predicting the result, and Those About to Die has its own king bookmaker in the form of Tenax (Iwan Rheon from Game of Thrones).

“Tenax comes from nothing and lived on the streets of Rome during a turbulent time,” explains Rheon of his wannabe crime boss. “It’s interesting to see how a person who has grown up through that becomes the king of the underworld and runs the gambling for the games. He’s tenacious, intelligent, incredibly ambitious and willing to do anything to achieve his goals.”

Rheon sees a direct link between the gambling and sport in Those About to Die and the modern-day match-ups and showdowns that captivate so many every weekend.