Iñaki Andrade
Mr. Duffield, Mr. Young
Eng B/Lit E/ A.Civ F
May 31, 2013
The Legacy of Ancient Rome
Colosseum
Do you imagine yourself fighting inside that gigantic theater with more than
70,000 people inside it? Don’t think so. All of the people wanting you to suffocate, it
would be horrible. The Colosseum is one of the greatest wonders in the world. It has a
great history and the building is really amazing. The Colosseum is the most famous
monument that has survived from the classical world. It has influence in modern
society in many ways like being the first amphitheater, or the tunnels, games, social
class, seating, animals, elevators, and recreation of naval battles.
Seating
The seating in the Colosseum was divided into classes. The Imperial court sat
in the lower tier, the aristocratic families sat behind them, the commoners in the next
row, and women were seated at the very top tier (although it's important to know that
women very rarely were in attendance for the events held). Above the ground are four
stories, the upper story contained seating for lower classes and women. The lowest
story was preserved for prominent citizens. Normally if there is someone really
important like the queen of England or somebody like that normally they give them
the best seats like in the Roman Colosseum the richest had the best seats and the poor
had the worst seats. It was really unfair for all of the people that pay a lot of money to
get those bad seats just because they were poor and they weren’t important. The
Colosseum seating was really divided.
Made of
The Colosseum was made out of many materials. It was made of travertino,
tuff, tiles and concrete. The magnificent structure was clad in marble and 160
larger-than-life statues graced the arches on the upper floors. The lowest story
was preserved for prominent citizens. Below the ground were rooms with
mechanical devices and cages containing wild animals. The cages could be
hoisted, enabling the animals to appear in the middle of the arena. It was built
with concrete, faced stone, marble and stone, with the help of scaffolding. The
Colosseum was made out of brick and concrete with stone covering the exterior.
The first three stories consist of arches decorated with half columns. The fourth
story was added later and has plainer decoration. Large brackets in the fourthstory walls held poles that supported awnings. This type of materials have
affected modern day because the Romans discovered it and we use it to make
buildings, roads, stadiums etc.
Games
The Colosseum was built nearly 2,000 years ago with the purpose of gladiator
violent and entertaining games. Thousands of men and animals fought for their lives
in the sandy arena. When the gladiators fought they needed to fight till one of them
died. It was horrible but somehow the audience liked it. A few gladiators and
warriors found glory there but not a lot of them. Some even found fame and riches
but many more died an anonymous death, providing entertainment for eager Roman
spectators. The gladiator games where invented by someone anonymous who nobody
knows who he is. The gladiator games where horrible but for them it wasn’t horrible.
This gladiator games influenced modern day fighting because the people of the time
of ancient Rome passed the ways of fighting to younger people and that’s how it
went. They’ve changed a lot but the basic moves of the gladiators and modern day
fighting is a little similar.
Underground
In Rome, the capital city of the Empire, a very complex organization for the
production of the amphitheater underground. It was established since the first century
AD. The Ratio a Muneribus, a kind of Ministry of the Games, had the task of
organizing the hunts and the munera. The pegmeta were the machines that emerged in
the arena from under the floor and were deployed to create an instant scenery. They
were built very near the amphitheater (from Vespasian to Hadrian) in the Summum
Choragium along the Via Sacra. When that location was destined to the magnificent
temple dedicated to Venus and Rome, the Choragium was relocated not far away,
near the Temple of Isis and Serapis, along actual Via Labicana. In Rome the munera
were offered by the emperor or by high officials like the praefectus urbi, so they were
particularly sumptuous and involved a great number of people: bestiarii, gladiators,
attendants, not to speak of the hundreds of animals that were massacred during the
hunts. The preparation of the parades and the assembling of the scenarios took place,
as we would say today, in real time. It is assumed that the scenarios prepared in the
Choragium before its relocation (when it still was in the area of the temple of Venus
and Rome) were transported under the arena by an underground passage and emerged
directly in the arena from the hypogea (the undergrounds) through big trapdoors in the
wooden floor. Actually the hypogea, because of their extreme complication, had
never been studied in deep until 1996, when a group of Italian and German
archaeologists started a thorough survey of the walls and shed light upon the
chronology of the repairs made during the centuries and the working of the
underground equipment. The history of the hypogea was then divided into four time
stages: - a first phase with thin pillars supporting the floor of the arena, - a second
phase in which these structures were strengthened, - a third phase of further
reinforcement and - a fourth one in which the hypogea were finally divided by the
walls we see today. In this last stage were used materials fallen down from the top of
the building. It seems certain, by the dates stamped on the bricks, that the walls
supporting the arena were first built about ten years after the inauguration of the
amphitheater (80 AD); it is generally agreed that before their construction, that dates
back to Domitian times, the arena could be filled with water in order to produce
naumachiae, i.e. mock naval battles. Dio Cassius (Historia Romana 65.25) wrote
about the inauguration: "For Titus suddenly filled this same theatre with water and
brought in horses and bulls and some other domesticated animals that had been taught
to behave in the liquid element just as on land. He also brought in people in ships,
who engaged in a sea-fight there, impersonating the Corcyreans and Corinthians....".
It was therefore assumed that before the walls were built, in a phase called "prearena", the floor must have been supported by a wooden structure placed under it.
This would have allowed filling the arena with water so as to stage the naumachiae.
There were also found some remains that have been interpreted as traces of the
"locks" necessary to make the arena waterproof up to a depth (5 feet) sufficient for the
ships to float. In the underground there are two spaces in particular were it is thought
that the ships were prepared and kept aground before the water filled the arena, and
were then launched at the right moment. These spaces have been called "darsene"
(docks) by the specialists. Lugli (L'Anfiteatro Flavio) argues that the practice of the
naumachiae may have been abandoned because of the complications involved in
keeping the arena waterproof, and also because in the city there were other places
dedicated to these super productions. During the centuries the hypogea were greatly
modified many times, after their almost complete reconstruction after the 217 fire.
That is why it is very difficult to ascertain the different functions of the underground
chambers and spaces. Surely there were areas reserved to dangerous animals, and
there are evident traces of the elevators that raised the animals (and perhaps not only
them) up to trapdoors placed all around the arena. The scenarios were probably first
transported into the underground, and then driven up ramps and deployed in the arena
by means of movable platforms placed in the central area. We can only imagine the
frantic activities that took place on the day of the show down there, in the dark narrow
corridors with the roar of the crowd above and the smell and the din of men and
beasts, just like in a giant circus. All of the technology we see today is thanks to the
Romans who accomplished a lot of things in technology. The underground of the
Colosseum has influenced modern day stadiums because there were aqueducts,
tunnels elevators, secret doors, secret floors etc. Now stadiums need aqueducts
because of the rain and if it didn’t have it, it would flood all the time. The tunnels and
secret doors and floors help in circuses or acts.
People in it
There could be 50,000 to 80,000 adult men inside of the giant amphitheater. It
was the biggest amphitheater in ancient Rome. Constructed in the 70s CE, the ancient
elliptical amphitheater was originally called the Amphitheatrum Flavium, and was the
largest stadium in the Roman Empire. All of those little details are implemented today
in almost all modern stadiums. Football stadiums (either soccer, American football, or
others) have various capacities based on their size, seating, and construction. This can
vary widely, from a few thousand, to tens of thousands, up to the largest stadiums,
which can seat more than 100,000 fans. Modern NFL stadiums seat an average of
70,000 to 80,000 spectators.
Now do you imagine yourself fighting inside a giant amphitheater thinking
you’re already dead with more than 70,000 people surrounding you? It was really
crazy and amazing. All of the technology they had for that time, nobody had imagined
that. This is a great topic to do in any type of homework, project or even just for fun.
Bibliography
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<http://www.aviewoncities.com/rome/colosseo.htm>.
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"The Free Automatic Bibliography and Citation Generator." EasyBib. 30 May 2013
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"M V N E R A." The-Colosseum.net:mvnera. 30 May 2013 <http://www.thecolosseum.net/games/munera.htm>.
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"S V B T E R R A N E A." The-Colosseum.net:Under the Colosseum. 30 May 2013
<http://www.the-colosseum.net/architecture/subterranea_en.htm>.
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