Editing Fidenae (section)

===Stadium disaster===
In 27 AD, an apparently cheaply built wooden [[amphitheatre|amphitheater]] constructed by an entrepreneur named [[Atilius (freedman)|Atilius]] collapsed in Fidenae, resulting in what was said to be the worst [[:Category:Stadium disasters|stadium disaster]] in history, with at least 20,000 killed and many more injured out of the total audience of 50,000.<ref>{{cite book|author=Tacitus|author-link=Tacitus|title=Annales|chapter=IV.62|chapter-url=http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Annals_(Tacitus)/Book_4#62}} Tacitus estimated 50,000 dead or wounded, including also those not part of the crowd but nearby the amphitheater at the time of collapse.</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus|author-link=Suetonius|title=The Lives of the Twelve Caesars|chapter=Tiberius.62|chapter-url=http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Lives_of_the_Twelve_Caesars/Tiberius#40}} Suetonius estimated 20,000 dead.</ref>

The emperor [[Tiberius]] had banned gladiatorial games, and when the prohibition was lifted, the public had flocked to the earliest events, so a large crowd was present when the stadium collapsed. At the time of the incident, Tiberius was in [[Capri]], where he had a secure getaway, but he rushed to Fidenae to assist the victims of this incident.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The First Century: Emperors, Gods, and Everyman|last=Klingaman|first=William K.|publisher=Castle Books|year=2007|isbn=978-0-7858-2256-1|location=Edison, NJ|pages=139}}</ref>

The [[Roman Senate]] responded to the tragedy by banning people with a fortune of less than 400,000 [[sesterce]]s from hosting gladiator shows, and also requiring that all amphitheaters  built in the future be erected on a sound foundation, inspected and certified for soundness. The government also "[[Exile#Literature|banished]]" Atilius.<ref>{{cite book|author=Tacitus|author-link=Tacitus|title=Annales|chapter=IV.62|chapter-url=http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Annals_(Tacitus)/Book_4#62}}. Tacitus is unclear about what exactly the banishment of Atilius entailed – he might have been banished from some territory, or merely been banned from erecting new gladiator games, or some other form of banishment.</ref>

A digital reconstruction found the reported casualties to be consistent with a wooden structure similar in size to the still-standing stone structure of [[Verona Arena|the amphitheater in Verona]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Napolitano |first1=Rebecca |last2=Monce |first2=Michael |date=2018 |title=Failure at Fidenae: Understanding the site of the largest structural disaster of the Roman world |url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S221205481630025X |journal=Digital Applications in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage |volume=10 |issue=September 2018 |article-number=e00077 |doi=10.1016/j.daach.2018.e00077}}</ref>