Excuse me Lion! do you want some ketchup with that Christian?The Colosseum. Rome. (Colosseum (Rome, Italy))

Member Name: GillMN

Product:	Colosseum (Rome, Italy)
Date:	16/06/09 (225 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Huge, spectacular, easy to get to, lot's of information when you get there.

Disadvantages: Hot, very little shade. Poor access for people with disabilities.

The Colosseum in Rome has to be one of the most easily recognised and impressive structures in the Western world. I am fascinated by it and have visited it several times over the years.

~~~A brief history lesson~~~

In AD 70, about 2,000 years ago, work was begun on the Colosseum, it was built on marshy ground about three miles from the centre of Rome. It took eight years to build but subsequent rulers and Emperors made some design adjustments over the centuries. (Fiddling while Rome was rebuilt?)

The architects had an eye on crowd control and it was built with eighty entrance arches so that the 50,000 spectators it held, could come and go with very little trouble or congestion. (When I heard this I got a picture of a crowd of slightly menacing but snotty young Roman lads saying "Shall we mind your chariot Mister? It'll only cost you a few Denarii!"

It is a massive oval, covering an area of about six acres and built as three layers of arches topped off with a tall layer of windowed brickwork. It was around 158 foot tall. (In modern terms that's 12 to 15 stories high!) The Romans had discovered how to build with small bricks and concrete, using arches and pillars to lessen and sustain the huge weight of the building. This made it possible to build such a large building that was graceful, functional and long lasting.

~~~Some general 'odds and sods' about the Colosseum~~~

It was faced with locally quarried travertine, a honey coloured rock. A lot of the facing still remains today and is what gives it it's glowing colour in the Italian sun. I was suprised at how completely different it looked when the sun went in, going from a glowing gold to a sullen grey.

The Colosseum was built to entertain the masses on high days and holidays. The first spectacular event was a sea battle staged in about six foot of water by Flavius. Shortly after that his nephew decided to add a basement to house the gladiators and animals. The excavation of those put a stop to any more aquatic shows.

Because a lot of the stones from the Colosseum have been pinched over the centuries for more modern building projects, it is possible to see into the basement level. The little crowded rooms and corridors are visible and it was easy to imagine them filled with gladiators, slaves, terrified Christians and hungry wild animals, al waiting their turn to be turned out onto the arena to meet their (usually bloody) fate. It is possible to see rope marks in the stone where winches were used to hoist the larger animals up! Their was an elephant fight here once, although how they got elephants to fight doesn't bear thinking about!

If I remember rightly, over a third of the original materials the Colosseum was built from has been 'reclaimed' for other building projects in the area. Some of the older churches and palaces 'borrowing' a few pillars and stones here or there. This means that a large portion of one side of the walls have gone entirely. Even so, it is still massively impressive!

The floor of the arena was originally dotted with trap doors so that animals and humans could be introduced into the fights at strategic moments. (Probably when the one the Emperor had bet on was losing!)

I was suprised to learn that the word 'Arena' came for the Latin word for sand, 'Harena'. Apparently it covered the arena in a layer of about six inches and was sometimes dyed red to disguise the blood! Ingenious people these Romans were!

~~~Access, etcetera!~~~

Entrance to the Colosseum costs about 15 Euro.
A toga or armour clad guide costs a bit more.
The days I have been there have been small re-enactments of fights by Roman soldiers and Gladiators. They would have been a bit more convincing if one of the 'soldiers' swords hadn't gone all bendy in the intense heat! It took away from the spectacle a bit when one of the fighters had to keep stopping to get his sword straight. It was though, as you can imagine, cause for a lot of risque humour from the spectators!

Personally I would have really liked to see a re-enactment of a fight between some lions and one of our guides because his swaggering and bum pinching really got on my nerves! Unfortunately he didn't think it was such an idea, anyway, he probably would have bored the poor lions to death!

Wheelchair access is fairly limited even in the ground floor areas. Much of the flooring is uneven and there are lots of steps.

Take water with you because the only stuff available on site costs an arm and a leg. (The vendors have taken over from the lions in ripping people off!)

It is easy to get to and hard to miss. Many local buses go by it and taxis are plentiful if you don't feel like walking.

~~~This story might amuse you~~~

I was standing one day, looking down from the ground level into the warren like basements, imagining the long ago activity in those enclosed spaces. A father and son rolled up and the Dad and I exchanged pleasantries. They were from Nashville, Tennessee and on a ten day tour of Europe.
I asked his teenage son what he thought of the Colosseum, as he'd seemed to be carefully scrutinising the floor area. He said " I was just thinking that if you filled in all those old holes down there, it would make a great football pitch!"
His Dad looked at me and rolled his eyes in embarrasment and disbelief! I nobly resisted the temptation to push the boy over the safety rails. He was totally oblivious! Concreting over 'some old holes' so that he could play football seemed eminently reasonable to him. After all, what was 2,000 years of history, architecture and beauty compared to Junior's desire to kick a ball around? I went to get a coffee from one of the many nearby cafes and left Junior to decide whether to erect a McDonalds in the Emperors box!


~~~Over all~~~
Standing in the bowl of the Colosseum is an extraordinary experience. So much of it is left standing that it is possible to imagine the seated crowds, the slaves bringing food and drink, the fear and anguish of those chosen to fight or be sacrificed for the entertainment of the populace, the smell of the animals in their confined quarters.

The Area where the Emperors and governors were seated is still visible. I let myself imagine the pomp and ceremony as they opened the games or decided the fate of the combatants. At some periods of Roman History the Emperors had absolute power, the types of entertainment provided here, for their probably jaded appetites, must have been unbelievable expensive and spectacular and increasingly bloodthirsty.

It is one of my personal 'wonders of the world' and definitely should be experienced first hand. (Just don't leave American teenagers to look after it!)

Summary: Take time to absorb the atmosphere, the scale and grandness of it all so history springs to life!