On game days in the amphitheater, the spectators that crowded the stands waiting for the shows to begin had plenty of ways to pass the time.

The small objects on display in the museum give us the idea of a raucous and chaotic stadium and invite us to shift our focus from the grand champions of the gladiatorial games to the common folk who came out to watch them.

In addition to entertaining themselves with betting and board games (evidenced by the die and game pieces in bone and glass, in some cases fashioned from the walls of amphorae, used on carved tabulae lusoriae), the public snacked on food that was served on plates and sometimes even prepared or at least heated on the spot, as the ceramic stove shard seems to suggest. As the poet Martial reports (Martialis, Ep., VII, 20), and as the archaeological evidence confirms, the menu was quite varied: mainly meat (mutton, goat, poultry, beef and especially pork), seafood (oysters, wedge clams) and fruit (cherry, peach, plum and date pits; melon seeds; nuts).

At meal’s end, small bone toothpicks (dentiscalpia) would have come in handy, serving the dual purpose of extracting mollusks (especially wedge clams) from their shells. Water was in no short supply, thanks to the abundance of water fountains placed along the walkways up until the 3^rd tier. Martial reminds us once again (Martialis, Ep. II, 37) that wine was also available, but only in moderation: it seems that tokens were distributed entitling spectators to a single ration of wine, in the interests of avoiding drunken disorder.

In the stands, the public also dedicated themselves to writing and music: several bone styluses have been found as well as a small oval-shaped pebble marked with notches, perhaps a plectrum. It was common practice to carve the names and faces of favorite gladiators into the steps and walls of the seating section to immortalize the most exciting moments of the games: numerous marble fragments with hunting and combat scenes have been found.

Female spectators’ pastimes were also quite varied: some spun with spindle and whorl, some sewed with bone needles, some freshened up their makeup with tiny spatulas or fixed their hairdos, which were often so complex that they called for fake hairpieces held in place with hairpins.

Losing these tiny objects, from the simplest needle to the heaviest necklace beads, was so common that, after the day’s games had come to a close, misplaced objects were swept away by the servants and dumped into the sewers that have kept them excellently preserved up to the present day.