Colosseum

RomeItaly

20 Mar

The Colosseum was once one of the greatest ancient stadiums of the world.

Today, it gets by on looking old and tourists with money to spend. But a pretty and faded façade is not all this destination has to offer, it holds its own secrets and interesting tales to tell.

Colosseum construction

The Colosseum is one of Ancient Rome’s grand masterpieces, and the fact that it’s still standing around today, is a testament to Roman architecture.

For the largest Roman amphitheatre in the world, it’s had to put up with its fair share of mishaps and struggles. Surviving multiple fires, earthquakes, abandonment and mistreatment, we’re lucky to have anything left at all.

The Colosseum was commissioned by Emperor Vespasian around 70-72 AD as a gift to the people of Rome. The years before hadn’t been the best, and once Nero was gone, civil wars started ramping up. In the immediate aftermath of Nero’s rule, there were four emperors in the space of about 12 months, so not too dissimilar to Australia’s rotating Prime Ministers. But the last one would stick, Vespasian, he seemed to be made of the good stuff and ended up staying in power for 10 years.

In fact, the dynasty that Vespasian started and his sons, Titus and Domitian continued, would be known as the Flavian Emperors. And perhaps they were exactly what Rome needed after the extravagant rule of Nero. The Flavian’s looked to reduce the excess of the Roman court and they aimed to restore Senate authority.

So it seemed quite fitting that the place where Vespasian organised for the Colosseum to be built, would be in the centre of Rome, atop the ruins of Nero’s Golden Palace. A palace that Nero built for himself after Rome had been devastated by a fire in 64 AD. Cause that’s what a fire-ruined city needs. A massive palace for one person. I can understand why the citizens of Rome weren’t best pleased with this new construction, and why they were much happier when Vespasian had the thing torn down to build something that everyone could enjoy.

The Colosseum took about a decade to build, which if you stop to think about it, is pretty quick considering they didn’t have the technology that we do now. By 80 AD, Vespasian’s son Titus was in power and opened the Colosseum, then known as the Flavian Amphitheatre, by declaring that 100 days of games would take place, which would naturally include gladiators and animal fights. There’s no definite answer on where the ‘Colosseum’ name came from, but some think that it’s probably from the colossal bronze statue of Nero that used to stand near the building, the statue was supposedly modelled on the Colossus of Rhodes, so I can see how they got ‘Colosseum’ from that.

Even after the place was opened, it wasn’t a hundred percent finished, that would happen in 82 AD, when Titus’ brother, Domitian was Emperor and would see the completion of the fourth storey.

What’s actually most interesting about the Colosseum is that it’s not like other amphitheatres that you can find throughout ancient Rome. A typical amphitheatre is one that is dug into the hillside, this provides support for the tiered seating of the audience. But the Colosseum is a free-standing structure made up of heavy stone and concrete. The Colosseum is pretty massive, and even though it’s an oval shape, it’s overall size, when measured with a straight line, is 189 metres by 156 metres. You can really feel the size of the place when you find out that it takes up about 6 acres of land.

It's estimated that the Colosseum was built with around 100 000 cubic metres of travertine stone, which was found and quarried 32 km away at Tivoli, and then Roman cement, bricks and tuff blocks were used to fill in the gaps. Travertine was used as it’s a pretty hardy limestone, as we know because of how long it’s hung around. The blocks of limestone were initially held together by thousands of iron clamps, it’s actually estimated that 300 tonnes of iron clamps were used. Unfortunately, when things were getting tough for the Colosseum down the track, these iron clamps were scavenged to be melted down and used for other things. The removal of these clamps would leave pretty large pockmarks in the stone that you can see today if you’re wandering around.

Built as a testament to Rome’s might, the Colosseum was the most complex structure built by man up to that point, and one of the largest that you could find.

The decline of the Colosseum

As we know, nothing lasts forever, and the might of the Colosseum is no different. But before the decline started, the place saw some good usage for a good four centuries, so it had a pretty decent life for sure. But the decline of the Western Roman Empire catches up with us all, and when the public taste shifted away from gladiatorial combats and mass killing of animals, the Colosseum just wasn’t quick enough to adapt to the changing times of the 6th century.

What’s interesting is that the Colosseum continued to be used even after it had suffered significant damage from natural disasters like earthquakes and big lightning strikes.

But alas the Colosseum soon became a quarry of its own when Romans started taking stone for other building projects, including the marble seats and decorative elements, and it slowly succumbed to the effects of gravity. Ahh gravity, it gets us all in the end.

As we move forward through the centuries, we see the Colosseum being used for anything but it’s original purpose. The place gets filled with dirt and rubble, vegetable patches are planted, hay is stored, animal dung is dumped. The passages are used by small businesses, sheltering blacksmiths, glue-makers, moneychangers, priests, and then as we move into the 12th century, Frangipane, the powerful family, use the Colosseum as their own fortress, which is an interesting choice.

At some points, the Colosseum would be completely abandoned, and the quarrying of its limestone and materials would continue.

In the 16th century, the Pope, Sixtus V at the time, would attempt to renovate the Colosseum into a wool factory, complete with workshops and living quarters. Unsurprisingly, this would involve a massive cost, and so after he died the project was abandoned.

Because the Colosseum had been left to its own devices an interesting slew of flora was taking over. The Colosseum actually became quite a popular location for botanists to study the large variety of plants that could be found inside. We even have records from 1643 of naturalists’ cataloguing the 337 different species that could be found in the amphitheatre.

As we step into the 19th century, we do see a concerted effort by various Popes trying to conserve the arena, and those conservation efforts took on a new phase with Pius VIII, with a proper restoration project starting in the 1990s.

While we can see that a good two-thirds of the Colosseum has been irretrievably lost to us due to natural disasters, the effects of weathering, neglect and of course the quarrying of materials, with the restoration efforts being fruitful, we are lucky that the Colosseum is now a major tourist attraction for Rome.

Inside the Colosseum

When walking around Rome you really can’t miss the Colosseum, not only the size of this big white circular building, but also the distinctive exterior elements.

The first three stories have 80 arches each surrounding the exterior of the building. Unsurprisingly, on the ground floor it was all about the audience. Much like our stadiums today, each of the arches that you could enter through was numbered, you can still even see these numbers today. This numbering would help those going to see the games to find their seats. Sadly only 31 of the arches themselves remain intact.

Of the 80 arches on the ground floor, 76 would have been for your regular patrons, two were used for the participants of events, so think gladiators, and two would have been reserved for the exclusive use of the Emperor and his party. You might be thinking that 80 entrances are a fair number, but they all proved useful, especially when 50 000 people would pack into the Colosseum for those major events.

Each storey also had columns decorating its façade. But each level had a different style of column. At the ground floor you would see the simple Doric columns, go up a level and you’re looking at Ionic columns, up another level and we’ve got the decorative Corinthian columns.

What’s really interesting is that the fourth storey broke with this convention of exterior decoration. It was thought for a long time that it was actually just flat panels, but recent cleaning of the panels has shown that there was indeed decoration up the top. Intricate carvings have been found with insets of azurite and bronze. So some could say the most decorative of all the levels.

So we know that Travertine was used to build the Colosseum, but it was actually only used for the framework and the façade, that’s why the place looks white. The secondary walls were found to be volcanic tufa, and the inner bowl and vaults were made of concrete. Which just goes to show the extensive knowledge needed to build a structure so large and have it last so long.

And the Colosseum wasn’t all just about looking good on the outside, there’s been evidence found that the Colosseum was built for use by thousands of people, so we’ve got drinking fountains and latrines within the Colosseum. I’m really struggling to find the differences between the Colosseum and our modern stadiums.

The seating found inside the Colosseum had room for 50 000 spectators. We know that they would have been properly packed in and seated according to their social rank. So slaves and women would be up the top, and you would find senators and the good old vestal virgins closer to the arena floor. The imperial box was of course reserved for the emperor, and a special place of honour was also reserved for the editor, or the one who organised and often paid for the games, unsurprisingly the editor and emperor were regularly the same person.

The sun the Romans endured could be just as hot as the sun we have now, so awnings could be unfurled to protect the audience. In order to make this work, supporting masts would be extended from corbels in the top of the Colosseum and hundreds of Roman sailors were employed to use the rigging to extend or extract the awnings. What a great way to keep the sun off those enjoying some public executions.

But the most distinctive feature of the Colosseum was the arena itself. Measuring 83 metres by 48 metres, it wasn’t small. Made from wood panels with a layer of sand on top, you could easily miss the many trap doors used to remove or add combatants to the fight. And the safety of those watching wasn’t forgotten about either. The arena was surrounded by a 10 foot wall that separated the first level of seating from the arena floor. This wall was made up of red and black stone, which I imagine made a pleasing contrast with the white of the rest of the building and the sandy arena floor.

The terraced seating that rose up around the arena was collectively known as the cavea. Divided into three tiers, this is where we see the social seating we spoke about earlier. The seats themselves were made from the same travertine stone as the façade, and each seat was only about 40 cm wide. Good grief, it’s like they designed the seating for children’s bums. If you had a bit of money you might bring along a cushion to make the experience a bit more comfortable, but it would have to be a small cushion.

The shows held at the Colosseum would be an all-day affair. You would have a procession in the morning, featuring performers, fighters, nobles and the classic effigies of the relevant gods.

Then the first phase of the games would begin. Venatio or a wild beast hunt would entertain the spectators in the morning. So the killing starts early. I won’t go into the details, but rest assured it’s pretty graphic and could include anything from elephants, rhinos, hippos, giraffes, bears, ostriches, lions, tigers, wolves, leopards, hyenas, and even the odd crocodile or two.

In between hunts and fights, spectators could buy cakes and pastries and wine from those wandering through the crowd. Sometimes prizes of food or money would be thrown into the crowd for those good at catching. And on hot days you might get a sprinkling of something cool as well as the release of those aforementioned awnings.

Around lunch you get to the ludi meridian or midday games, which involved public executions of criminals, prisoners or those deemed ‘condemned’. They could be put in the arena with a lion or forced to fight each other with swords, some were even executed in a staged play that resembled scenes from mythology. Either way it wasn’t pretty and it wasn’t a great way to go.

Then we find ourselves at the main event, the Gladiators. Part of the infame class, gladiators would come into the profession either by choice or as punishment, they would be stripped of their rights and property, basically living and dying for the entertainment of others. But there were classes within the Gladiators, each with their own fighting style and approved equipment.

A good example is the retiarius, also known as the net man, his weapons would be a heavy net, a trident and a dagger. The retiarius would often face the secutor in the arena, who would wield a sword and be protected by a good helmet, leaving only his eyes exposed.

Naturally, there would be strict rules. We all know the story of the emperor deciding the fate of the gladiator with his thumb. Those who received the thumbs down were expected to take the finishing blow from their opponent with pride and without fear. The winning gladiator would receive cash and a crown, but as to their extent to use their winnings I’m unsure.

And it wasn’t just the gladiators who might be forced into the ring, Suetonius, a Roman historian and biographer wrote that if anything went wrong Emperor Claudius had a habit of sending the guilty party to their fate:

[He] would for trivial and hasty reasons match others, even of the carpenters, the assistants and men of that class, if any automatic device of pageant, or anything else of the kind, had not worked well.

So don’t make a mistake if you work for the Colosseum is what we should be taking away here.

Even though we have the last known records of gladiator battles dated to 435, we do know that the Colosseum was still used for those animal hunts for at least another century.

There are many reasons floating around surrounding the move away from the gladiator flights, but it’s less likely that it was the Roman Empire’s move toward Christianity and more likely the cost of the whole thing was just getting too much. Let’s not forget the Crusades, the Christians are just as bloody as the rest of them. And the cost really does seem like the contributing factor, especially when we consider the declining state of the Roman Empire come the 5th century, the cost of resources, of gladiators and of the transport and keep of wild animals would have been a lot.

Those who came to watch the games saw what happened in the arena as a reflection of Rome itself. Like the killing of wild animals symbolising how Rome had conquered far-away lands and imposed their rule. And they saw the gladiator as the epitome of Roman manliness, they were either winning or taking death with the pride of their nation, displaying stoic dignity. Here’s how Mary Beard, a brilliant classical historian out of Cambridge University, describes the Colosseum:

We know that it was horrible, but at the same time people were watching myth re-enacted in a way that was vivid, in your face and terribly affecting. This was theatre, cinema, illusion and reality, all bound into one.

One of the most fascinating parts of the Colosseum, couldn’t actually be seen by spectators in the arena. The Hypogeum was the elaborate network of underground tunnels that housed the gladiators, animals and prisoners before their time in the area. 80 vertical shafts were used to access the arena from the tunnels, not including the numerous trap doors we’ve already touched on.

Interestingly, the hypogeum wasn’t part of the original design when the Colosseum was being built during the reigns of Vespasian and Titus. It was added a couple years after Domitian officially completed the build and after they had a chance to hold a couple of mock naval battles. There was actually only a couple of these mock naval battles, they would fill the arena with water and then bring in their scaled down warships. But in order to put in the hypogeum, it meant that they could no longer flood the arena, I guess trapdoors are pretty leaky.

The exciting thing about the hypogeum is its role it played in the staged hunts. There are eyewitness accounts of animals appearing suddenly from nowhere. Here’s Heinz-Jürgen Beste from the German Archaeological Institute in Rome, and the leading authority on everything to do with the hypogeum, describing the effect of the trapdoors:

The hypogeum allowed the organisers of the games to create surprises and build suspense. A hunter in the arena wouldn’t know where the next lion would appear, or whether two or three lions might emerge instead of just one.

This certainly created suspense and drama.

Having spent over 14 years exploring the underground tunnels, Beste tells us that it wasn’t really the greatest of places to be, especially if you’re waiting to face your death:

It was as hot as a boiler room in the summer, humid and cold in winter, and filled all year round with strong smells, from the smoke, the sweating workmen packed in the narrow corridors, the reek of the wild animals. The noise was overwhelming – creaking machinery, people shouting and animals growling, the signals made by organs, horns or drums to coordinate the complex series of tasks people had to carry out, and, of course, the din of the fighting going on just overhead, with the roaring crowd.

But during the many years of abandonment, the hypogeum didn’t survive any better than the Colosseum above ground. By the 19th century, the hypogeum had been filled with so much earth, that people actually forgot it existed. Efforts to reach the tunnels in the form of archaeological excavations in 1813, and then again in 1874, were thwarted by flooding groundwater. But once the 1930s came around the filled earth was finally cleared from the hypogeum tunnels.

Beste spends his time reconstructing the machinery that once filled the hypogeum, he uses the reconstructions to demonstrate the creativity and precision of Ancient Rome. But when he first went down into the tunnels he was shocked at how intricate everything was and on such a large scale.

I understood why this site had never been properly analysed before then. Its complexity was downright horrifying.

By reverse engineering the complex structures used, Beste was able to locate where lifts or capstans were placed that would lift animals and men into the arena. Beste knows that every notch and every hole in the floors and walls had a purpose, and by using his reverse engineering found that the hypogeum had 60 capstans and 28 smaller platforms on the edge of the arena.

What’s really interesting is the evidence of runoff canals, that Beste thinks were used to drain the arena after a nearby aqueduct flooded, or the canal was possibly used to drain the arena after the mock naval battles.

It seems that the world beneath the Colosseum was just as complicated as the world above.

Visiting the Colosseum

Even though the Colosseum is far from looking its freshest, the place is still a massively popular tourist destination, and you really can’t miss this iconic landmark in the centre of Rome.

We already know about the restoration projects undertaken in the 19th and 20th centuries by various Popes, and it gives us the protected Colosseum where instead of an arena floor we see the tunnels and chambers of the hypogeum with waist-high weeds growing in the cracks between the stone blocks.

Towards the end of 2010, the hypogeum was finally opened to the public after a $1.4 million renovation project. Then a couple years later between 2013 and 2016, the Colosseum itself underwent a major restoration project, where the façade was cleaned revealing that white travertine stone beneath the grime and soot from Roman traffic and industrialisation, and that’s not even mentioning the toll that vibrations from the metro had on the place.

And yet, despite everything the Colosseum has handled over the thousands of years the amphitheatre has been standing, the place is still a major tourist attraction seeing over four million people come by every year. The Colosseum is in fact the most popular place in Italy and is probably pretty up there in the whole world.

If you’re wandering around the Colosseum yourself in the near future, you’ll probably see an exhibition on the culture of Ancient Rome, and the only way you’ll be able to explore the three storeys and the hypogeum are by guided tour so make sure to book ahead so that you don’t miss out.

Since it’s completion in 80 AD to the modern day, the Colosseum has become one of the oldest and best preserved man-made structures that can be found in the world.