The Colosseum was built as a gift to the Roman citizens. The city needed an amphitheater because the only one that they had, was too small for them and for the city. So, when the emperor Caligula had started the works for the new amphitheater ,Claudious , who was the Roman Emperor that season, stopped him. But, when Vespasian came to power he gave back to the Romans most of the land that Nero had occupied and the Colosseum was placed in the place where before was an artificial lake. It took about ten years to built the amphitheater. Vespasian started it in 72AD and his son Titus dedicated it at 80AD with magnificent games that lasted one hundred years. However, it is believed that the building was completed by the emperor Domitian. The opening was celebrated with 100days of games, in witch thousands of animals and gladiators were killed. The gladiator's games could last ten to twelve days. In the morning spectators could see battles fought between wild beasts. One might see bears, buffalloes, lions, elephants and rhinoceros, all fighting
against each other. After, wounding each other for a while the spectators would become bored so, archers would shoot the exhausted animals with arrows from the stands. By using these animals in such a way the Romans managed to wipe out thousands of animals and either captured or drove away entire species.
But, the games weren't only with animals. There were people, known as gladiators, who were forced to face in battle other people. Gladiators were made up of prisoners of war, slaves, criminals, and volunteer free men. By the end of 50BC almost half of them made up of free men. We must infer that Roman Empire had many gladiator schools and even Spartacus was trained in one of the most famous gladiator schools in Rome. The schools had barracks and a training ground for the gladiators. But, being a gladiator wasn't so simple. Except from the physical examinations they had to do, they were sweared to give their lives to the underground gods. Also, they had their own manager. The
manager was booking the number of the shows. The gladiators had tattoos on the face or somewhere else on their
bodies to identify their identity. The gladiators knew that they would have to hurt their partner or kill him. They knew that it was a fight to the death. But, if a beaten gladiator has put up a good fight the crowd may take mercy and wave their handkerchiefs to save his life. Men, women and children floked to the Colosseum to watch the bloodthirsty fighter's murder one another. They even cheered them on and screamed for them to kill a warrior lying almost dead on the ground. It is obvious that Roman spectators loved cruel shows. Colosseum was also built as a Christian ground. Christian tombs have been found in three areas of amphitheatre. In middle ages the arena of Colosseum was thought to be a Roman temple to the sun because of the colosseus statue of Nero. In 13th century Colosseum was occupied by families but the area later fell prey to malaria and was abandoned.
Colosseum instead of a great historical monument is also one of the most emblematic shows of the Roman architecture. The Colosseum is roughly elliptical in shape, with its long axis, oriented WSW-ESE, which measures 188 m and the short one 156. The building stands on a base of two steps; above it there are three floors of arcades built in travertine stone and a fourth storey with windows. There were eighty arches on every floor, divided by pillars with a half column. The four arches on the axes of the building were the main entrances, and were probably decorated with a little porch and a statue. The other 76 arches were numbered for an easier access to the seats. The ground floor half columns are doric in style, those of the second floor are ionic and those of the upper floor Corinthian. The attic is divided into panels by Corinthian columns, with a rectangular window every second panel. The arena where the shows took place measures 76 by 44 metres, it had a floor made with wooden planks covered with yellow sand
taken from the hill of Monte Mario. Over 100.000 cubic metres of travertine stone (45.000 only for the external wall), quarried near Tibur (today Tivoli), were used for the building. A road was built from the quarries to Rome for this purpose. A similar quantity of tuff blocks, bricks and opus cementicium (concrete made of small lumps of tuff in mortar) were also used, thus adapting the resistance of the materials to the loads and thrust that had to be supported. The combination of different materials improves the elasticity of the whole: the main pillars are made of travertine, radial walls are of travertine and tuff, the vaults are cast in cementwork, and the walls were plastered and painted white and red (most of the stuccoes have disappeared). The passages corresponding to the main entrances were decorated with paintings and stuccoes, which have barely survived the centuries. All around the top there were the sockets for 240 wooden beams which supported the awning (velarium) that covered the spectators
from the sun and was manoeuvred by a unit of sailors of the imperial fleet, stationed nearby. As it concerns the inside
the cavea was all in travertine, now almost completely lost. It was divided into three parts called, from bottom to top, podium, gradatio and porticus. In major amphitheatres, like the Colosseum, the gradatio was divided horizontally into different levels by praecinctiones (corridors), and vertically into cunei (sectors) by the scalaria, the steps leading to the vomitoria, the entrances. The podium was the terrace immediately around the arena. In the Colosseum it was raised 3.60 m above it. Part of the floor of the arena was made of masonry and part of wood, with removable sections for the entrance/exit of scenarios, beasts and materials. There were marble decorations around the podium, at the entrances (vomitoria) that gave on to the cavea for the passage of the public, and perhaps also on the niches beside the main entrances on the arena.
The corridors and stairs were planned in order to allow the public, calculated between 50.000 and 75.000, swift access and exit and to keep the different classes of spectators separated. The two main entrances on the short axis led directly to the central boxes, while a series of obligatory pathways, symmetrically repeated in each quadrant of the stand, led the other spectators to their assigned places.
Between the arena and the podium there was a service tunnel, with niches. Their function is uncertain; some say they housed archers who protected the spectators from the risk of wild animals reaching the public, some say they were latrines, and some say that there was a water channel meant to give supplementary protection from the beasts. In any case, it seems that these niches could be reached only through some entrances located in the fourth ring of the cavea, accessible only to service personnel.
Another important subject at it's construction was the drain pipe. As they say, the Greeks are famous for their brains and the Romans for their drains.
Rainwater was collected in the cavea by concentric ducts and poured into vertical pipes leading to the ground floor. From there the water flowed partly towards the arena and partly towards the outside, because of a double incline of the floor.At regular intervals along this drain there are wells that reach 8 metres deep, down to a much bigger drain that also surrounds the amphitheatre. This drain was probably connected to the main sewer and reaches to the Tiber river.The internal water from the cavea and the arena was collected by an elliptical drain all along the side of the arena, and from there it flowed into the big conduits placed under the four main entrances. One would think that these four collectors would carry the water to the big elliptical drain placed 8 metres deep around the monument, but recent studies have demonstrated that outgoing water was drained only by the southern main axis collector, since it appears that the other three drains are not connected to the internal elliptical collector.
The Colosseum was also built as a Christian ground. Christian tombs have been found in three areas of the amphitheatre. In Middsituated on The
After the area was completely drained, the excavation started, and it lasted until it reached the clay bed of the lake. In the firm clay bed an elliptical ring was excavated, 31 metres wide, 6 metres deep, with a perimeter of 530 metres. This enormous excavation was filled up with Roman cement, i.e. mortar made with pozzuolana and lime, mixed with coarse crushed stones. Layers and layers of mortar and stones were laid, and the concrete was compacted by hammering. It seems that on the SW side the clay bed wasn't as firm as on other sides, and this could be the reason why that side collapsed first. Then the foundation was raised for a further 6 metres, so that the thickness of this enormous doughnut is over 12 metres. All around the foundations a reinforcement brick wall was built, 3 metres wide and 6 metres deep, and a similar wall was built inside. On the internal side of the brick wall were arranged 32 cells, that are visible all around the underground of the arena. In the foundations and in the external wall - along the axis - there
are the four underground tunnels and - below them - four big drains (1.3 by 3.8 metres). These passages were made during the building of the foundations, by casting the concrete around a wooden boxing. More large underground rooms, necessary for the services and the preparation of the shows, were made along the main axis.
Once completed, the foundation base was covered by a travertine floor, 90 cm thick in average. On this stone floor were marked the reference points for the main pillars, and the base blocks of the pillars were anchored to the floor by a pivot and melted metal. This skeleton of pillars was raised up to the second floor, and the pillars were connected, at the top, by big arches made with 2 feet long bricks, placed so as to allow the construction of many rampant vaults, which all together make up the big cavea, destined to support the marble seats. The system of having a first basic structure built up to the second floor allowed the builders to carry out the rest of the works above and below the cavea at
the same time, leaving only some vaults open for the lifting up of the materials. The space between the pillars was filled by tuff opus quadratum on the ground floor, and by cement aggregate with a brick facing for the second floor. The tuff structures and the bricks ones which constitute - together with the pillars - the radial walls of the amphitheatre are indeed independent from the pillars themselves and from the big vaults, and it is thought that they were built after the pillars. The cleviest point was the system of making first the main arches in travertine, so that the rest of the construction could be carried out at the same time above and below this first structure. The travertine blocks were all connected to each other by iron clamps, which have been extracted in medieval times, and have left the holes that can be seen everywhere. It has been calculated that 300 tons of metal were used only for the clamps. At the upper external wall many of the travertine blocks were recycled from other
buildings (their internal face is in fact irregular and they have been levelled only on the external and contact sides).
Because of fires and earthquakes that were happened all these years, two thirds of the original have been destroyed, so that the present Colosseum is only a shadow of its former self. For years most of the ground floor of the building was almost submerged by earth and in 1870 started the works to rebuilt and excavate parts of Colosseum. Also two years ago they gave another part of the site to the public and that part is the upper section of the monument where you have the opportunity to admire the ancient agora of Rome.
As I said the fact of earthquakes and fires didn't stand in front of its way and in now days is an archaeological site and also a place of great touristic interest. Rome is the most touristic city in Europe and the main reason of that is the ancient Roman empire and Colosseum. At this point it is necessary to mention that on 7th July 2007 the Colosseum
has published as one of the new seven wonders of the world and its fame is going to spread more and more.
