Since ancient times, stadiums have been places where the masses are directed and controlled and where they have an experience of themselves. In the city states of Greece in early antiquity, the stadium was the venue of cult activities with weapons, and later the scene of athletic contests, which served patriotic interests and above all as a means of assuring the ruling oligarchy of its superiority. Arenas of this kind could accommodate the entire population of a city. Gladiatorial displays developed from the aristocratic death cult practised in stadiums of the Roman Empire. These mass celebrations were a tool of centralist rule, a means of controlling the people. Only much later, in the age of absolutism, did the idea emerge in France of conserving and reactivating stadiums from antiquity like the Colosseum in Rome.