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(here's the excerpt I should have just shut up and posted)

Those About To Die
Chapter XII
by Daniel P. Mannix
There were also man-sized apes called tityrus with round faces, reddish color and whiskers. Pictures of them appear on vases and they were apparently orangutans, imported from Indonesia. As far as I know, the Romans never exhibited gorillas although these biggest of all apes were known to the Phoenicians, who gave them their present name which means "hairy savage."

Whoops, HERE is the excerpt... (and it's still a dead link)

Those About To Die
Chapter III
by Daniel P. Mannix
The greatest naumachia of all time was the naval engagement staged by Claudius. As Augustus' lake was too small, the mad emperor decided to use the Fucine Lake (now called the Lago di Fucino) some sixty miles to the east of Rome. This lake had no natural outlet and in the spring it often flooded many miles of surrounding county. To overcome this trouble, a tunnel three and a half miles long had been cut through solid rock from the lake to the Litis River to carry off the surplus water. This job had taken thirty thousand men eleven years to finish. For the dedication of the opening of this tunnel, Claudius decided to stage a fight between two navies on the lake. The galleys previously used in such engagements had been small craft with only one bank of oars. For this fight, there were to be twenty-four triremes (three banks of oars), all regulation ocean-going warships -- and twenty-six bi-remes (double bank). This armada was divided into two fleets of twenty-five ships each and manned by nineteen hundred criminals under the command of two famous gladiators. One fleet was to represent the Rho-dians and the other the Sicilians and both groups wore the appropriate costumes... A big tent had even been put up to care for the wounded after the battle -- after all, prisoners were scarce and the survivors could always be used again in other spectacles. As matters turned out, the tent served another purpose. Fifteen women in the crowd gave birth during the fight and had to be cared for in the tent. It is an interesting example of the mob's passion for these fights that women in advanced pregnancy traveled sixty miles from Rome so as not to miss the naumachia.