Roman Birthday

Today is the 21^st December and today made me happy because I am 12 years old. I am recording this as one of the best days of my life.

First, I met my friends at the Roman baths. We went to the gymnasium to start the day. In the gymnasium, we split up into teams then played ball games. My team lost some of the games, however, we did win most of them. When we had finished playing our games, we were hot so we moved on into the tepidarium (the warm room). We all chatted excitedly about what the fight would be like at the Colosseum and if the Emperor would decide to kill the loser. After a little while we went to the caldarium (the hot room). It made us sweat and helped remove the dirt from our bodies. As we moved on it helped us relax as a slave massaged oil onto our bodies. The oil sticks to the dirt and dries in. The dirt is then scraped away with a metal scraper called a strigil. When all the dirt was scraped off, we felt really clean and went back to the tepidarium, then to the frigidarium (the cold room) to cool back down. As we cooled down, we were refreshed and finished going to the pool for a swim. After all this, we all went for a chat and drink of fruit juice. This had been so fun we could have stayed there all day but we left to go to the Colosseum.

When we arrived at the Colosseum, we raced into the stadium to our seats before the fights started. The Colosseum was round with a cover over the roof to protect the audience from the sun. It roared like thunder when it was windy but luckily, it was not windy on my birthday. The Colosseum can hold over 50,000 people.

This is what a Colosseum looked like.

After about ten minutes, the fight had started and the crowds roared and chanted the name of the fighter they wanted to win. The fight we went to see was the Retiarius against the Secutor. The Retiarius fought with a net and a trident and the Secutor fought with a shield and sword. People made bets with money on who would win. My friends and me did a kind of bet but not with money like other people. I thought the Retiarius would win because he had a net that could trip up his opponent. The noise was amazing as the crowd shouted and screamed. Both of the warriors had good chances and sometimes they were nearly knocked over. The Retiarius got a lucky swing with the net and knocked the Secutor over. The crowed gave a big cheer, suddenly everyone went silent as they turned and looked at the Emperor. The emperor stood with his thumb out then suddenly he put his thumb down. The crowd was so exited as the Retiarius stuck his trident into the loser. The crowd gave a big massive cheer.

My friends went home and so did I. I looked at my presents. I loved them. I got rag dolls and a new ball so I can play the games we played at the gymnasium with my friends. I was so happy. My tea was ready so I put my toys away for after. There was lots of food and it looked delicious. We started with stuffed dormice and eggs. Everybody helped themselves until the first course was finished. Second course we had a choice of roast boar and pork. Then finally for the third course we had fruit and honey cakes. Everything was soon gone as we ate all the tasty food.

I wish it would be like this everyday. I feel so happy. Today is one of the days I will never forget.