The order of events on the opening day of a festival started with parades and processions. After the procession of Vestal Virgins, the most important priests, soldiers, politicians and senators would enter. Then the Emperor would make his grand entrance. Religious ceremonies and sacrifices would take place before the games began.
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The display and hunt of animals would happen at the start of the day with the Emperor often joining in, using a bow and arrow from the safety of his Imperial box. The lightly armed gladiators fought in the middle of the day, that was followed by horse racing and then by andabateas, hapless criminals who provided comic relief. At noon the executions were scheduled and the gladiatorial combats would happen in the late afternoon.
The games started as a diversion but as the years went on the Roman taste became more jaded and lewd, so the acts had to become more sexualized and lewder.
The Roman gladiators were usually slaves, criminals or prisoners of war. Some of the gladiators were allowed to fight for their freedom but many were criminals who were sentenced to death, thrown into the arena unnamed and unarmed to serve their sentence. Some people actually volunteered to be gladiators so they could honor their family name or wanted fame and glory.
Aristocrats who had become bankrupt was often forced to earn a living by the sword. For example, Sempronius, a descendant of the Gracchi clan was forced into the arena. Women were outlawed until 200 CE, when Septimius Severus permitted them to fight in the arena.
Gladiators who later fought at the Colosseum were sent to a special school that trained them to fight. Agents would scout the Empire for potential gladiators, especially when matches became a regular occurrence and they needed to fill the training schools. The school’s conditions were not much better than the prisons but they offered better food and medical attention.
Some gladiatorial battles included animals such as bears, rhinos, tigers, giraffes and elephants. Animals were often unfed so they would be hungrier and more violent towards the gladiators, who were called venationes (wild beast hunts). One a rare occasion the animals were allowed to maul and eat a live human, who was tied to a stake.