Rachel Kafka
The Roman Coliseum
What is the Roman Coliseum made of, and what is its history?
I think Lord Byron said it best in "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" "While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand; When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall; And when Rome falls -- the world." The Coliseum did fall, and some emperors didn’t even use it. The fall of Rome came but the fall of the world, well not yet. The Coliseum was opened in A.D. 80, when games were held for one hundred days; hundreds of animals and two thousand gladiators were killed in those glorious first days of the Roman Coliseum.
The Coliseum is made of bearing masonry and cut stone. The sand-covered floor was, where the fighting took place, built of wood it was also rumored that they would flood the coliseum and have huge battles that took place on boats. Some evidence was found of water resistant concrete in the bottom corridors and walls of the battlefields, though according to the discovery channel "the concrete was not as good as what the Roman’s usually made for water proof concrete. Which means either they didn’t want it water proofed or the contractor for the concrete cheated them." (Discovery Channel)
The coliseum was begun by emperor Vespasian and was continued by by his son Titus in 80 A.D. and completed by Domitian, Titus’s brother. The coliseum is located in Rome, Italy. It was made to honor emperors; they also held games at funerals of emperors. In 264 BCE, the first recorded gladiatorial games took place in Rome, when Marcus Iunius Brutus Pera died; the games were to honor his memory ("The Flavian Amphitheater").
The gladiatorial fights were originally used to commemorate people and for religious beliefs, but over time political and entertainment aspects gained the upper hand. The emperors would use the bloody massacres to gain popularity with the subjects. The fights expanded into comedy, animal shows, executions and gladiatorial contests.
The gladiatorial games were outlawed in A.D. 404 by Emperor Honorius, but the animal fights continued for another century. The gladiatorial fights were told to be bloody and gruesome, the gladiator who lost was either killed or spared depending on if the crowd thought he fought with courage. In 65 BCE, there was a huge event with 320 pair of gladiators. Julius Caesar held the event in honor of the twentieth anniversary of his father’s death ("The Flavian Amphitheater").
The dimensions of the coliseum externally are 615 ft x 510 ft, and the base of the building covers about six acres. The inside of the coliseum is measures 280 ft long and 175 ft wide. The coliseum also had eighty entrances, so the hoards of people could leave easily. (England)
The coliseum is known by many names, some even have different spellings. Coliseum can also be spelled colosseum. Also, the antiquity Romans referred to it as Amphitheatrum Caesareum. Finally, one other name for the coliseum is Flavian Amphitheater.
The coliseum could hold 50,000 spectators; they would come from miles around to watch the carnage. "Although in the past custom permitted upper-class women to view gladiatorial combat while sitting scattered throughout the amphitheater, Augustus allowed them to do so only from the higher part of the auditorium" (Suet). Men were generally permitted to watch the spectacle, as said by Suet. By use of animals in such a way the Romans managed to destroy thousands of animals and either captured or drove away entire species.
Also, the coliseum had different kinds of arches with each level. The lowest level has Doric arches. The second level has Ionic arches. Finally, the third level of arches is Corinthians. The arches are equal to a 12-15-story building. In Roman times, statues filled the spaces of the arches, and metal shields were attached to the spaces between the large windows. (Encarta)
People from all walks of life built the coliseum. Slaves did most of the heavy labor, and skilled craftsmen were also used for most of the project. The platform the coliseum was built of was forty-two feet thick of concrete. ("The Roman colosseum")
The building type of the coliseum is amphitheater. Also the climate is Mediterranean, the context is urban and The Coliseum had a canvas roof. The style of the coliseum is Ancient Roman. Caesar Augustus said "I found Rome in brick, and left it in marble."
Some more facts on the coliseum are, the coliseum was made of many type of rock including, travertime, tufa, tiles, cement and mortar. Also, the Romans put Christians in with the beasts to kill them because the emperors believed they were cannibals and committed other such crimes. Finally, the gladiators were usually prisoners of war, slaves, or criminals condemned to death. During the staged fights as many as 10,000 people were killed. (England)
The Roman government decided to restore the coliseum; the collapse of the western portion of the shell to the earthquake of September 1349 was also in need of repair. A major renovation of the collapsing coliseum began in 1995. The restoration was scheduled for completion in 2003 or 2004.
The Roman coliseum is an immaculate and beautiful place. It has earned its place among some of the most amazing buildings in the world and is still a puzzling architectural dream, yet to be unraveled. The coliseum of Ancient Rome gave the idea of a stadium for modern times . The coliseum is one of the places that is still full of history and ancestry, it still rates as one of the finest examples of Roman architecture and engineering.
Also the coliseum is now a habitation for a lot of stray cats. (Pinkerton) Although, no more gladiatorial fights or animal fights, except for the occasional catfight over a mouse, there is no more blood shed in the immaculate structure called The Roman Coliseum.