Roman event organizers employed people dressed as Charon, the mythical ferryman of the dead, to walk around the Colosseum and smash dying gladiators in the head with heavy mallets to ensure they were actually dead.

A closer look

Roman event organizers employed people dressed as Charon, the mythical ferryman of the dead, to walk around the Colosseum and smash dying gladiators in the head with heavy mallets to ensure they were actually dead. If that wasn't traumatic enough, another guy dressed as the god Mercury would follow right behind and violently poke the bleeding bodies with a red-hot iron wand just to double-check. It was essentially the most extreme, brutal version of customer service quality assurance, guaranteeing the screaming crowd got exactly the amount of death they paid for. You really have to admire the administrative dedication it takes to establish standard operating procedures for theatrical mass murder in front of sixty thousand eating tourists