Description
The Colosseum is the largest Roman amphitheater ever built, in the heart of Rome, at the eastern edge of the Forum. Almost two thousand years after it opened, it is still the symbol of the city and one of its greatest attractions.
It is an oval 527 meters around and 48 meters high today. Between 50,000 and 87,000 spectators fit in the stands, for gladiator fights and hunts of wild animals. The shows were free, but everyone had their own seat.
Outside, the travertine facade stacks four levels: three rows of arches with Doric, Ionic and Corinthian half-columns, then a solid attic. Above the ground-floor arches you can still read the Roman numerals that told each spectator which entrance was theirs.
Those numerals were painted red, so they could be seen from far away: the restorations of the facade found out. At the top you can still see the brackets that held the poles of the velarium, the huge canvas awning worked by sailors of the fleet at Misenum.
Inside, in the middle, the underground chambers lie open to the sky today: a central corridor and twelve curved galleries where beasts and machinery were readied. Eighty lifts made them burst into the arena all of a sudden, covered in sand to soak up the blood.
All around rise the remains of the cavea, the seating, divided by social class: senators at the bottom, the people above, and at the very top, standing, the poorest. On the steps of the senators' section are carved the names of 195 senators from the 5th century.
The spot was no accident. Nero had dug the lake of his palace, the Domus Aurea, right here. Vespasian drained it and built an amphitheater for the people; his son Titus opened it in AD 80 with a hundred days of games.
Once the games were over, the Colosseum became Rome's handiest quarry. The earthquake of 1349 brought down the south side, and the blocks ended up in lime kilns or in buildings like Palazzo Barberini. It was Pope Benedict XIV, in the 18th century, who stopped the plundering.
The name Colosseum only came in the Middle Ages: perhaps from "colossal," more likely from the gigantic statue of Nero that stood next to it. And through one of the ground-floor arches you can still walk into a small church, Santa Maria della Pietà.
Don't miss
• The underground chambers.
• The numerals above the arches.
• The brackets of the velarium.
• The senators' names on the steps.
Did you know?
• The many holes in the facade are medieval: people dug them out to get at the metal clamps between the blocks.
• Before the underground chambers, the arena also hosted naval battles, the naumachiae.
• Benvenuto Cellini tells of a night spent in the Colosseum summoning demons with a necromancer.
It is an oval 527 meters around and 48 meters high today. Between 50,000 and 87,000 spectators fit in the stands, for gladiator fights and hunts of wild animals. The shows were free, but everyone had their own seat.
Outside, the travertine facade stacks four levels: three rows of arches with Doric, Ionic and Corinthian half-columns, then a solid attic. Above the ground-floor arches you can still read the Roman numerals that told each spectator which entrance was theirs.
Those numerals were painted red, so they could be seen from far away: the restorations of the facade found out. At the top you can still see the brackets that held the poles of the velarium, the huge canvas awning worked by sailors of the fleet at Misenum.
Inside, in the middle, the underground chambers lie open to the sky today: a central corridor and twelve curved galleries where beasts and machinery were readied. Eighty lifts made them burst into the arena all of a sudden, covered in sand to soak up the blood.
All around rise the remains of the cavea, the seating, divided by social class: senators at the bottom, the people above, and at the very top, standing, the poorest. On the steps of the senators' section are carved the names of 195 senators from the 5th century.
The spot was no accident. Nero had dug the lake of his palace, the Domus Aurea, right here. Vespasian drained it and built an amphitheater for the people; his son Titus opened it in AD 80 with a hundred days of games.
Once the games were over, the Colosseum became Rome's handiest quarry. The earthquake of 1349 brought down the south side, and the blocks ended up in lime kilns or in buildings like Palazzo Barberini. It was Pope Benedict XIV, in the 18th century, who stopped the plundering.
The name Colosseum only came in the Middle Ages: perhaps from "colossal," more likely from the gigantic statue of Nero that stood next to it. And through one of the ground-floor arches you can still walk into a small church, Santa Maria della Pietà.
Don't miss
• The underground chambers.
• The numerals above the arches.
• The brackets of the velarium.
• The senators' names on the steps.
Did you know?
• The many holes in the facade are medieval: people dug them out to get at the metal clamps between the blocks.
• Before the underground chambers, the arena also hosted naval battles, the naumachiae.
• Benvenuto Cellini tells of a night spent in the Colosseum summoning demons with a necromancer.