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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colosseum:_Rome's_Arena_of_Death
Russell Crowe fails to make an appearance in this searing documentary, but it's arresting moviemaking nonetheless as viewers journey through Roman history to a time when gladiators battled each other at the emperor's whim. The story centers around Verus, a gladiator who rose to stardom but still lived his life enslaved, and for whom freedom was the ultimate triumph.
Colosseum: A Gladiator's Story
Colosseum: Rome's Arena of Death From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to: navigation, search Colosseum: Rome's Arena of Death
BBC DVD Cover
Genre Documentary
Written by Tilman Remme
Directed by Tilman Remme
Starring Robert Shannon · Derek Lea
Voices of Ross Kemp · John Benjamin Hickey
Narrated by Michael Pennington · Liev Schreiber
Composer(s) Ilan Eshkeri
Country of origin United Kingdom
Language(s) English
Production
Executive producer(s) Jonathan Stamp · Laurence Rees
Producer(s) Tilman Remme
Editor(s) Malcolm Daniel
Cinematography Peter Greenhalgh
Running time 50.44 minutes
Distributor BBC Worldwide
Broadcast
Original channel BBC One
Original airing October 13, 2003
Chronology
Related shows Pyramid · Pompeii: The Last Day
Colosseum: Rome's Arena of Death aka Colosseum: A Gladiator's Story is a 2003 BBC Television docudrama which tells the true story of Verus a gladiator who fought at the Colosseum in Rome.
Rome and its Empire
Rome's Pivotal Emperors**
Six emperors who profoundly and fundamentally shaped the empire's structure and direction. By Pat Southern.
.•Rome's Greatest Enemies Gallery by Dr Peter Heather
•The Fall of the Roman Republic by Mary Beard
•Empires of Absent Mind: Rome and the USA by Dr Mike Ibeji
•Roman Empire: The Paradox of Power by Professor Andrew Wallace-Hadrill
•Third Century Crisis of the Roman Empire by Pat Southern
•The Fall of Rome by Dr Peter Heather
•Roman Army Gallery by Dr Jon Coulston
•Romanisation: The Process of Becoming Roman by Dr Neil Faulkner
•The Official Truth: Propaganda in the Roman Empire by Dr Neil Faulkner
•The Art of War Gallery by Professor Daniel Moran
Augustus**
•Born 63 BC
•Reigned 31 BC – 14 AD
•Pivotal moment: In accepting his inheritance from Julius Caesar, Augustus turned the republic into the empire.
There was very little in the family origins of Augustus to indicate his future rise to prominence. He was the son of a senator, Gaius Octavius, whose name he shared, and Atia, the niece of Julius Caesar. In a codicil to his will Caesar adopted the young Gaius Octavius and made him his heir. History knows the young man as Octavian, but he never used this name, preferring to portray himself as the new Caesar.
The civil wars that followed Caesar’s assassination were part of Octavian’s inheritance. By 30 BC he had eliminated his last rivals, Mark Antony and Cleopatra, and set about consolidating his power, greatly assisted by the fact that he controlled all the armies and had direct access to the wealth of Egypt, which remained his own personal possession. His other assets were his shrewdness and patience.
Many reforms were necessary, but he rarely imposed his will, and worked by legal means. In order to oversee his initial reforms, he entered on his fourth consulship in 30 BC and held it every year until 23 BC. But the most important source of his power was that of the tribunes, which gave him the right of veto over any proposals.
In 27 BC, he restored control of the republic to the Senate, ostensibly reverting to the old order, with annually elected magistrates, the senators sharing responsibility for government, and no single individual with supreme power. But it was a republic in name only. The reality was that Octavian emerged with the honorary title 'Augustus' and the control, via his legates, of all the provinces with armies. Augustus converted the republican citizen levy into a standing army, established regular pay and terms of service for soldiers, and a pension scheme for veterans.
Gradually by his authority and influence he became the principal fount of law, he controlled state finance, foreign policy and religion, and he shaped Roman society as the republic was transformed into the empire. In brief, he became the first emperor.
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•Born 9 AD
•Reigned 69 - 79 AD
•Pivotal moment: The first emperor not related to the family of Augustus, Vespasian achieved imperial power by the support of the armies and via a special law enacted to confer authority on him.
Titus Flavius Vespasianus owed his early appointments to the emperor Claudius’s imperial freedman Narcissus. But even then his career was undistinguished until he incurred imperial displeasure by nodding off while Nero recited poems and was sent to quell the rebellion in Judaea.
By 68 AD he had almost succeeded, but more pressing matters had erupted in the west. Even sane, moderate Romans had turned against Nero, who committed suicide in that year. The armies now declared three different men as emperor in quick succession, Galba, Otho and Vitellius, who fought each other until only Vitellius was left. Meanwhile Vespasian had engineered his own proclamation as emperor, and arrived in Rome in 70 AD.
Tradition was broken with Vespasian’s accession. Since he was not related to any of Augustus’s Julio-Claudian family, he could not inherit the imperial powers of his predecessors. A law was passed conferring authority on him (lex de imperio Vespasiani), providing important documentary evidence for historians.
His 10-year reign was not pivotal in the sense of momentous turning points in history, but it was remarkable for long lasting peace, stabilisation of the imperial finances and attention to the provinces. Vespasian is one of the less remote emperors. He was down to earth with a sense of humour. 'Dear me,' he said when he was dying, 'I seem to be turning into a god.'
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Hadrian
•Born 76 AD
•Reigned 117 - 138 AD
•Pivotal moment: Hadrian put an end to expansion and enclosed the empire within clearly marked frontiers.
Publius Aelius Hadrianus was related to the emperor Trajan on his father’s side, and was adopted by him. However, this was not announced until the day after Trajan’s death.
Though Hadrian had been groomed for succession - he was associated with Trajan in several campaigns and appointed to a succession of military and civil posts - his accession was not universally approved. Within a short time, four senators were executed - accused of plotting treason.
Trajan’s reign had been one of warfare and territorial expansion, when the empire reached its greatest extent. By contrast, Hadrian’s reign was one of peace and consolidation, except for a serious revolt in Judaea in 132 AD.
A cultured scholar, fond of all things Greek, Hadrian travelled all over the empire. He was attentive to the army and the provincials, and left behind him spectacular buildings such as the Pantheon in Rome and his villa at Tivoli. But his greatest legacy to the empire was his establishment of its frontiers, marking a halt to imperial expansion.
In Africa he built walls to control the transhumance routes, and in Germany he built a palisade with watch towers and small forts to delineate Roman-controlled territory. In Britain, he built the stone wall which bears his name, perhaps the most enduring of his frontier lines.
He was truly a pivotal emperor, in that he divided what was Roman from what was not. Apart from minor adjustments, no succeeding emperor reversed his policies.
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•Born 121 AD
•Reigned 161 - 180 AD
•Pivotal moment: Marcus Aurelius increased social mobility by promoting army officer and civil administrators on merit and ability, rather than on birth and class.
Hadrian determined upon Marcus Aurelius for the succession while he was still a child. Marcus was the nephew of Faustina and her husband Antoninus Pius, who succeeded Hadrian. On the death of Hadrian, Marcus married their daughter.
A few years after his accession in 161 AD Marcus was plunged into warfare on the northern frontiers, where it was essential that the emperor himself led the campaigns. Here he wrote his philosophical meditations. Before he could bring these wars to a satisfactory conclusion, he was forced to go to the east where his general Avidius Cassius had raised rebellion. He was back on the Danube by 178 AD and remained there till his death in 180 AD.
One of the notable features of his reign is his promotion of army officers and civilian administrators on merit, rather than on noble birth. The increasing employment of the middle classes had begun under Hadrian. Marcus refined the process, appointing capable people to posts most suited to their abilities. Usually he elevated them in rank also, so that senatorial feathers were not ruffled. By this means he laid the foundations of social mobility and broadened the recruitment base for the armies, allowing for greater future flexibility.
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•Born 145 AD
•Reigned 193 - 211 AD
•Pivotal moment: Severus fostered the armies of the empire, but distanced himself from the dangers of assassination by making the imperial family sacrosanct, paving the way for the emperors of the later third century.
After the assassination of Commodus in 192 AD, the governor of Upper Pannonia, Lucius Septimius Severus waited for the right opportunity to make his bid for power.
Early in the following year he marched on Rome, on the pretext of vengeance for the short lived emperor Pertinax, who had been elevated then eliminated by the Praetorian guard. On arriving in Rome, Severus disbanded the Praetorians and recruited his own men into a new guard. Next, he set about winning over the Senate and the people, and overcoming his main rivals: Clodius Albinus (declared emperor in Britain) and Pescennius Niger, (proclaimed by the eastern troops).
The civil wars were over by 197 AD, when Severus turned his attention to the army. All emperors knew very well that the true source of their power lay in the support of the troops, because with armed support they could quell all opposition. Without it, they could be very easily removed. Severus was the first to admit openly that the army shored up his imperial power, and he rewarded the soldiers accordingly .
He gave them a pay rise - the first for many decades - and allowed them more privileges. He knew that service in the army must be made more attractive. Another innovation was to distance the imperial house from the populace by making himself and his family sacrosanct, setting a precedent that was carried to extremes by Aurelian and Diocletian at the end of the third century.
Ever the realist, on his death bed in York in 211 AD, Severus told his sons to look after the soldiers and to ignore everyone else.
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•Born sometime between 271 and 273 AD
•Reigned 306 - 337 AD
•Pivotal moment: Constantine brought the endemic civil wars of the later third century to an end and reunified the Empire under his sole authority, promoting the Christian Church and moving the capital from Rome to Constantinople.
Flavius Valerius Constantinus, or Constantine I - also known as Constantine the Great - was the son of Constantius I and Helena. He grew up in a period of near anarchy, brought to an end by Diocletian at the close of the third century AD.
Diocletian established the short lived Tetrarchy, consisting of two senior emperors (Augusti) and two junior emperors (Caesares), who each commanded a quarter of the Roman world. The system was designed to bring cohesion to the fragmenting empire, but instead it created rivalries and further civil wars in which Constantine played a considerable part.
His father Constantius was appointed Caesar and then Augustus, and died on campaign in Britain in 306 AD. His soldiers declared his son, Constantine, emperor. For nearly two decades, Constantine waged war to retain this position. In 312 AD he invaded Italy and defeated one of his rivals, Maxentius, at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge outside Rome. Here, so the legend goes, he saw a cross in the sky, and was told: "In this sign shall you conquer."
When he became sole emperor in 324 AD, he rewrote his own history with the help of Christian authors.He actively promoted the Christian Church, though he was baptised into the faith only on his death bed. Throughout his life he also acknowledged Sol Invictus - the 'Unconquered Sun' - as a god. He may have been a true convert, or he may have used the Church as a strong unifying force - the debate continues.
In the military sphere, he realised that the emperor and his headquarters needed to be near to the Danube and also within reach of the eastern provinces - the two areas from which the most serious threats emanated. Acting upon geographical necessity, he created the new Rome at Byzantium, and renamed it Constantinople.
His reign marked the end of the city of Rome as the capital of the empire.
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•War and Technology Gallery by Matthew Bennett
Belief
Roman Religion Gallery
Enter the fascinating world of Roman beliefs, from emperor worship to the exotic imported cults of the East.
.•Christianity and the Roman Empire by Dr Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe
•The Pagan Shadow of Christ? by Professor Roger Beck
•Lost and Hidden Christianity by Dr Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe
Life in Ancient Rome
Death in Rome
A blood-spattered Roman trader lies dead. You have until dawn to gather the evidence and identify the culprit.
.•Social Pecking Order in the Roman World by Dr Valerie Hope
•The Roman Way to Building a Career by Dr Mike Ibeji
•Discovering Roman Technology by Adam Hart-Davis
•Resisting Slavery in Ancient Rome by Professor Keith Bradley
•Roman Food and Recipes by Sally Grainger
Gladiators
Gladiators: Heroes of the Roman Amphitheatre
By Professor Kathleen Coleman
Last updated 2011-02-17
The ancient Romans are often seen as bringing civilisation to the western world, but they regarded the slaying of gladiators as a normal form of entertainment. Kathleen Coleman describes what went on, and examines the society that accepted such barbarity without question.
Gladiator: Dressed to Kill Game
Prepare a gladiator for battle. Your choice of weapons and armour will be the difference between victory and death.
.•The Colosseum: Building the Arena of Death
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•Gladiators: Heroes of the Roman Amphitheatre by Professor Kathleen Coleman
Conscripts and volunteers
Today, the idea of gladiators fighting to the death, and of an amphitheatre where this could take place watched by an enthusiastic audience, epitomises the depths to which the Roman Empire was capable of sinking. Yet, to the Romans themselves, the institution of the arena was one of the defining features of their civilisation.
Gladiators ... were an expensive investment, not to be despatched lightly.
Hardly any contemporary voices questioned the morality of staging gladiatorial combat. And the gladiators' own epitaphs mention their profession without shame, apology, or resentment. So who were these gladiators, and what was their role in Roman society?
The Romans believed that the first gladiators were slaves who were made to fight to the death at the funeral of a distinguished aristocrat, Junius Brutus Pera, in 264 BC. This spectacle was arranged by the heirs of the deceased to honour his memory.
Gradually gladiatorial spectacle became separated from the funerary context, and was staged by the wealthy as a means of displaying their power and influence within the local community. Advertisements for gladiatorial displays have survived at Pompeii, painted by professional sign-writers on house-fronts, or on the walls of tombs clustered outside the city-gates. The number of gladiators to be displayed was a key attraction: the larger the figure, the more generous the sponsor was perceived to be, and the more glamorous the spectacle.
Most gladiators were slaves. They were subjected to a rigorous training, fed on a high-energy diet, and given expert medical attention. Hence they were an expensive investment, not to be despatched lightly.
For a gladiator who died in combat the trainer (lanista) might charge the sponsor of the fatal spectacle up to a hundred times the cost of a gladiator who survived. Hence it was very much more costly for sponsors to supply the bloodshed that audiences often demanded, although if they did allow a gladiator to be slain it was seen as an indication of their generosity.
Remarkably, some gladiators were not slaves but free-born volunteers. The chief incentive was probably the down-payment that a volunteer received upon taking the gladiatorial oath. This oath meant that the owner of his troupe had ultimate sanction over the gladiator's life, assimilating him to the status of a slave (ie a chattel).
Some maverick emperors with a perverted sense of humour made upper-class Romans (of both sexes) fight in the arena. But, as long as they did not receive a fee for their participation, such persons would be exempt from the stain of infamia, the legal disability that attached to the practitioners of disreputable professions such as those of gladiators, actors and prostitutes.
Rules and regulations
Mosaic of fighting gladiators © Regardless of their status, gladiators might command an extensive following, as shown by graffiti in Pompeii, where walls are marked with comments such as Celadus, suspirium puellarum ('Celadus makes the girls swoon').
Indeed, apart from the tombstones of the gladiators, the informal cartoons with accompanying headings, scratched on plastered walls and giving a tally of individual gladiators' records, are the most detailed sources that modern historians have for the careers of these ancient fighters.
The minutiae of the rules governing gladiatorial combat are lost to modern historians ...
Sometimes these graffiti even form a sequence. One instance records the spectacular start to the career of a certain Marcus Attilius (evidently, from his name, a free-born volunteer). As a mere rookie (tiro) he defeated an old hand, Hilarus, from the troupe owned by the emperor Nero, even though Hilarus had won the special distinction of a wreath no fewer than 13 times.
Attilius then capped this stunning initial engagement (for which he himself won a wreath) by going on to defeat a fellow-volunteer, Lucius Raecius Felix, who had 12 wreaths to his name. Both Hilarus and Raecius must have fought admirably against Attilius, since each of them was granted a reprieve (missio).
It was the prerogative of the sponsor, acting upon the wishes of the spectators, to decide whether to reprieve the defeated gladiator or consign him to the victor to be polished off. Mosaics from around the Roman empire depict the critical moment when the victor is standing over his floored opponent, poised to inflict the fatal blow, his hand stayed (at least temporarily) by the umpire.
The figure of the umpire is frequently depicted in the background of an engagement, sometimes accompanied by an assistant. The minutiae of the rules governing gladiatorial combat are lost to modern historians, but the presence of these arbiters suggests that the regulations were complex, and their enforcement potentially contentious.
Fighting-styles
A Murmillo helmet © The rules were probably specific to different styles of combat. Gladiators were individually armed in various combinations, each combination imposing its own fighting-style. Gladiators who were paired against an opponent in the same style were relatively uncommon.
One such type was that of the equites, literally 'horsemen', so called because they entered the arena on horseback, although for the crucial stage of the combat they dismounted to fight on foot.
The most vulnerable of all gladiators was the net-fighter
Some of the most popular pairings pitted contrasting advantages and disadvantages against one another. Combat between the murmillo ('fish-fighter', so called from the logo on his helmet) and the thraex or hoplomachus was a standard favourite.
The murmillo had a large, oblong shield that covered his body from shoulder to calf; it afforded stout protection, but was very unwieldy. The thraex, on the other hand, carried a small square shield that covered only his torso, and the hoplomachus carried an even smaller round one.
Instead of calf-length greaves, both these types wore leg-protectors that came well above the knee. So the murmillo and his opponent were comparably protected, but the size and weight of their shields would have called for different fighting techniques, contributing to the interest and suspense of the engagement.
The most vulnerable of all gladiators was the net-fighter (retiarius), who had only a shoulder-guard (galerus) on his left arm to protect him. Being relatively unencumbered, however, he could move nimbly to inflict a blow from his trident at relatively long range, cast his net over his opponent, and then close in with his short dagger for the face-off.
He customarily fought the heavily-armed secutor who, although virtually impregnable, lumbered under the weight of his armour. As the retiarius advanced, leading with his left shoulder and wielding the trident in his right hand, his shoulder-guard prevented his opponent from striking the vulnerable area of his neck and face.
Not that all gladiators were right-handed. A disconcerting advantage accrued to the left-handed; they were trained to fight right-handers, but their opponents, unaccustomed to being approached from this angle, could be thrown off-balance by a left-handed attack. Left-handedness is hence a quality advertised in graffiti and epitaphs alike.
Originally the different fighting-styles must have evolved from types of combat that the Romans met among the peoples whom they fought and conquered - thraex literally means an inhabitant of Thrace, the inhospitable land bordered on the north by the Danube and on the east by the notorious Black Sea.
Subsequently, as the fighting-styles became stereotyped and formalised, a gladiator might be trained in an 'ethnic' style quite different from his actual place of origin.
It also became politically incorrect to persist in naming styles after peoples who had by now been comfortably assimilated into the empire, and granted privileged relationships with Rome. Hence by the Augustan period the term murmillo replaced the old term samnis, designating a people south of Rome who had long since been subjugated by the Romans and absorbed into their culture.
Barrack life
The gladiatorial barracks were marked by heterogeneity. Membership was constantly fluctuating, as troupes toured the local circuit. Some members survived to reach retirement; new recruits were enlisted, many of them probably unable to understand Latin.
In the larger barracks, members of the same fighting-style had their own dedicated trainer, and they often bonded together in formal associations. Frequently it was a gladiator's fellows who furnished his tombstone, perhaps through membership of a burial society.
... gladiators must frequently have met their intimate fellows in mortal combat.
Yet gladiators must frequently have met their intimate fellows in mortal combat. Professionalism and the survival instinct would have demanded a merciless display of expertise, inculcated by the gladiator's training. Within a training-school there was a competitive hierarchy of grades (paloi) through which individuals were promoted.
The larger barracks, at least, had their own training arena, with accommodation for spectators, so that combatants became accustomed to practising before an audience of their fellows. The system meant that combat and heroic prowess were brought right into the urban centres of the Roman empire, whereas real warfare was going on unimaginably far away, on the borders of barbarism.
Criticism and popularity
A Roman mosaic showing amphitheater scenes © There were some dissenting voices: the philosopher-emperor Marcus Aurelius found gladiatorial combat 'boring', but he nevertheless sponsored legislation to keep costs at a realistic level so that individuals could still afford to mount the displays that were an obligatory requirement of certain public offices.
Both pagan philosophers and Christian fathers scorned the arena. But they objected most vociferously not to the brutality of the displays, but to the loss of self-control that the hype generated among the spectators.
Gladiatorial displays were red-letter days ...
Gladiatorial displays were red-letter days in communities throughout the empire. The whole spectrum of local society was represented, seated strictly according to status. The combatants paraded beforehand, fully armed. Exotic animals might be displayed and hunted in the early part of the programme, and prisoners might be executed, by exposure to the beasts.
As the combat between each pair of gladiators reached its climax, the band played to a frenzied crescendo. The combatants (as we know from mosaics, and from surviving skeletons) aimed at the major arteries under the arm and behind the knee, and tried to batter their opponent's skull. The thirst for thrills even resulted in a particular rarity, female gladiators.
Above all, gladiatorial combat was a display of nerve and skill. The gladiator, worthless in terms of civic status, was paradoxically capable of heroism. Under the Roman empire, his job was one of the threads that bound together the entire social and economic fabric of the Roman world.
Not even Spartacus, most famous of all gladiators, has left his own account of himself. But shreds of evidence, in words and pictures, remain - to be pieced together as testimony of an institution that characterised an entire civilisation for nearly 700 years.
Find out more
Books
Emperors and Gladiators by Thomas Wiedemann (Routledge, 1992)
Gladiators and Caesars edited by Eckart Köhne and Cornelia Ewigleben (British Museum Press, 2000)
TopAbout the author
Kathleen Coleman is Harvard College Professor, and professor of Latin, at Harvard University. She is the author of an edition, with translation and commentary, of Book 4 of the Silvae, a volume of 'occasional' poems published in AD 95 by the Neapolitan poet Statius. Professor Coleman has also written a number of articles about Roman spectacle, and was a historical consultant on Ridley Scott's film of 2000, 'Gladiator'.
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•The Colosseum: Emblem of Rome by Keith Hopkins
The Colosseum: Emblem of Rome
By Keith Hopkins
Last updated 2011-03-22
The ordered beauty of the Colosseum is in stark contrast to the murderous encounters that took place within it. Find a seat not too close to the action, for an inkling of what Romans got up to, in ancient times.
.On this page
Introduction
Construction planning
Design details
Harmony
Spectator experience
The arena
Overview
Find out more
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Introduction
Even today, in a world of skyscrapers, the Colosseum is hugely impressive. It stands as a glorious but troubling monument to Roman imperial power and cruelty. Inside it, behind those serried ranks of arches and columns, Romans for centuries cold-bloodedly killed literally thousands of people whom they saw as criminals, as well as professional fighters and animals.
... the amphitheatre and its associated shows are the quintessential symbols of Roman culture.
Indeed, it was the amphitheatre's reputation as a sacred spot where Christian martyrs had met their fate that saved the Colosseum from further depredations by Roman popes and aristocrats - anxious to use its once glistening stone for their palaces and churches. The cathedrals of St Peter and St John Lateran, the Palazzo Venezia and the Tiber's river defences, for example, all exploited the Colosseum as a convenient quarry.
As a result of this plunder, and also because of fires and earthquakes, two thirds of the original have been destroyed, so that the present Colosseum is only a shadow of its former self, a noble ruin.
The Colosseum was started in the aftermath of Nero's extravagance and the rebellion by the Jews in Palestine against Roman rule. Nero, after the great fire at Rome in AD 64, had built a huge pleasure palace for himself (the Golden House) right in the centre of the city. In 68, faced with military uprisings, he committed suicide, and the empire was engulfed in civil wars.
The eventual winner Vespasian (emperor 69-79) decided to shore up his shaky regime by building an amphitheatre, or pleasure palace for the people, out of the booty from the Jewish War - on the site of the lake in the gardens of Nero's palace. The Colosseum was a grand political gesture. Suitably for that great city, it was the largest amphitheatre in the Roman world, capable of holding some 50,000 spectators.
Eventually there were well over 250 amphitheatres in the Roman empire - so it is no surprise that the amphitheatre and its associated shows are the quintessential symbols of Roman culture.
Construction planning
Emperor Titus © The Colosseum was opened in AD 80 by Vespasian's son and successor, Titus. Given the scale of the enterprise it was built remarkably quickly. And given the site, in a valley where there was previously a lake, it had to be planned carefully.
For example, drains were built 8m (26ft) underneath the structure, to take away the streams that flow from the surrounding valleys and hills. Then foundations, roughly in the shape of a doughnut, made of concrete: under the outer walls and seating, they are 12-13m (39-42ft) deep, while under the inner ellipse of the arena, they are only 4m (13ft) deep, and designed in strips beneath each of the concentric walls. Even in this grand design, costs were carefully controlled.
... much of the detail was worked out before the building started.
I cite these figures to illustrate the scale of the enterprise and the forethought that went into the design. Over-engineered perhaps, but it has stood the test of time. The spoil from the huge hole dug for the foundations was used to raise the surrounding ground level by almost 7m (23ft), on top of the 4m (13ft) from the debris of Nero's fire, so that the new amphitheatre stood up higher in its valley site. The design advantage of looking up at, rather than down on, the amphitheatre is obvious.
The name of the architect is unknown, but by analogy with what we know from elsewhere in the ancient world, the design process would have involved floor plans drawn to scale, 3-dimensional scale models, perspective drawings, and for the artisans some full-size design sketches.
The basic point being emphasised here is that in this building of huge scale and complexity, much of the detail was worked out before the building started. Indeed the building was created according to a set of architectural principles, or a set of conventions developed in the construction of other amphitheatres.
Design details
Rome's Colosseum interior © The basic design units were multiples of 20 Roman feet (the Roman foot varied, but was around 29.6cm). These conventions were adjusted according to the demands of each site, but the basic pattern is repeated, and much of it is not easily visible to the naked eye.
Our unknown architect apparently began with the idea of building an arena measuring 300 x 180 Roman feet. The ideal ratio of the period was considered to be 5:3. By convention also, the width of the auditorium equalled the width of the arena, and in the Colosseum, it also surprisingly equalled the height of the external facade. These symmetries probably impressed both architect and emperor.
... the perimeter had to be split up among a grand number of equally sized entrance arches ...
So the total length of the Colosseum was originally planned, according to one convincing reconstruction, as 660 Roman feet long (300 + 360) and 540 Roman feet wide The perimeter can be roughly calculated as (L + W) x /2 or 1,885 Roman feet (or more precisely, using trigonometry).
Did the perimeter size matter? Yes, because the perimeter had to be split up among a grand number of equally sized entrance arches (both Capua and the Colosseum had 80 entrance arches, Verona and Puteoli 72 etc).
Entrance arches in grand amphitheatres were 20 Roman feet wide, with 3 Roman feet extra for the columns in between. So the Colosseum received a perimeter of 1,835 Roman feet (80x 23 =1840), and the arena was adjusted to 280 x 168 (still 5:3).
Similar numerical patterns can be seen in the Colosseum's famous façade. For example, the height of the two middle stories is twice the inter-columnar width. Or seen another way, the horizontal gap between the piers (15 Roman feet) equals the vertical height from the pier to the springing of the arch.
Harmony
Arches on the Colosseum © So we are confronted visually with a series of squares within the framing of the arches. These are not accidents, but details of design, which reflect the architect's preoccupation with principles of number, and provide the viewer (however unconscious he or she may be) with a steady and harmonious rhythm in the façade.
The ordered beauty and formal regularity of the Colosseum's exterior is created by three storeys of superimposed arches with engaged (ie semi-circular) columns. These columns are of different orders on each storey (Tuscan at the bottom, then Ionic, with Corinthian columns in the third storey). The fourth higher blind storey is punctuated by pilasters, decorated with Corinthian capitals.
The exterior was decorated at the top with glistening gilded bronze shields ...
In between the pilasters, are small rectangular windows. Above and between the windows there are stone socles (plinths), which once held the masts used to support the awnings, designed to shade about one third of the spectators (the length of the horizontal poles was limited by the length of Mediterranean pines and the weight of the awnings). If you look upwards, you can still see the holes through which these vertical masts slotted.
The exterior was decorated at the top with glistening gilded bronze shields, and the arches were filled with painted statues of emperors and gods. Two grand entrances, one at each end of the minor axis, were used by the emperor, as well as by official presenters of shows and no doubt by other grandees.
The entrances were marked by giant porticoes, each topped by a gilded horse-drawn chariot. The emperor also had a private entrance, which went under the seats, and emerged in the imperial box.
Spectator experience
Detail of a gladiator and leopard from a Roman mosaic © Spectators found their way to their seats through arches numbered I - LXXVI (1-76). The four grand entrances were not numbered. The best seats were on or just behind the podium, raised for safety's sake two metres above the arena; animals and gladiators were kept out by a further fence just inside the arena, which helped to ensure that the action was in everybody's view.
Inside the amphitheatre, but at its outer rim, there were, at the first three levels, grand circular promenades, though as you went upwards the dimensions became smaller and the decoration less grand. At the first level, the floors were of marble or Travertine (the stone from which the outside walls were made), while the walls were of polished marble slabs and the ceilings of painted stucco.
... except for the front rows on the podium, spectators were packed like sardines in a tin.
Their present grim decoration does not do them justice - and the exterior, pockmarked with holes made by medieval robbers looking for iron clamps, gives no real indication, either, of what the building looked like in antiquity.
Inside the auditorium, except for the front rows on the podium, spectators were packed like sardines in a tin. Evidence from other amphitheatres suggests an average of 40cm width per spectator and 70cm legroom, which makes an economy class airline seem generous.
The entrances and staircase were arranged with the help of marble and iron dividers - to keep different classes of clientele separate. Indeed, the very top section of the Colosseum is separated from other spectators by a 5m- (16ft-) high wall.
Modern scholars often say that the hierarchy of seating mirrored the social hierarchies of Roman society. But we should be cautious. The five sections of the auditorium, from bottom to top, would have contained only about 50,000 predominantly adult males out of an adult male population in the city of Rome of close on 300,000.
The lower class population of Rome was seriously and systematically under-represented. And the two lowest (ie most prestigious) sections of the auditorium accommodated, respectively over 2,000 and almost 12,000 spectators, numbers which do not coincide with any known social groups, such as senators (600) or knights (perhaps 5,000).
Those in the top rows had shade, while nobles sweated in the sun; but those at the very top, which would have included women and the poor, were a good 100m from the centre of the arena. The myopic presumably just sat and heard the crowd roar.
The arena
The arena itself was probably covered by a good 15cm of sand (harena), sometimes dyed red to disguise blood. And, as is evident in Ridley Scott's film Gladiator (2000), the arena was dotted with trap-doors designed to let animals leap dramatically into the fray. The arena was also sometimes decorated with elaborate stage scenery, so that the ritual murder could be varied with theatrical tales.
... when the Colosseum opened in AD 80, Titus staged a sea-fight ...
The Colosseum's partial destruction allows us to see into the bowels of the amphitheatre, in a way that no ancient could. But when the Colosseum opened in AD 80, Titus staged a sea-fight there (in about one metre of water), and recent research has shown convincingly that the amphitheatre had no basement at this time.
But the rivalrous brother of Titus, Domitian (emperor 81-96), was quick to have a basement built - with ring-formed walls and narrow passages. In this confined space, animals and their keepers, fighters, slaves and stage-hands toiled in the almost total darkness to bring pleasure to Romans.
A series of winches and the capstans would have allowed teams of slaves to pull in unison and hoist heavy animals from the basement to the main arena, and this machinery has been reconstructed, in part, from ancient drawings - aided by the bronze fittings that still survive in the basement's floor. The rope-burns of the hoists are still visible in the stone of the lift-shafts.
Overview
For all its outside trappings in once glistening local travertine stone, the Colosseum was really a triumph of brick-vaulting and cement. Structurally, the building works by a robust balance of pressures.
The construction is strikingly different from most Greek and Roman public buildings.
The huge downward vertical thrust of the external walls matches the outwards thrust of the barrel vaults in the circular promenades, which was itself also relieved by the series of radial walls, built like the spokes of wheel, from the inner ring of the arena. And the sideways thrust of the high heavy stone wall is dispersed via the superimposed rows of arches and compensated by the circularity of the building.
The construction is strikingly different from most Greek and Roman public buildings. They followed the classic model of Greek temples, with their rectangular rows of columns, topped by beams and relieved by a triangular pediment.
The invention of arches and vaults, made of brick-faced concrete, allowed Roman architects much greater spans - and more visual variety. Hence the Colosseum's elaborate honeycomb of arches, passages and stairways, which allowed thousand of spectators to get into and watch their murderous games in a custom-made amphitheatre. And the Colosseum's imposing exterior was then, as it still is, a marvellous monument to Roman imperial power.
Find out more
Books
The Colosseum by A Gabucci (Los Angeles, 2000)
Roman Builders by R Taylor (Cambridge, 2003)
The Principles of Roman Architecture by Mark Wilson Jones (New Haven, Conn., 2000)
The Story of the Roman Amphitheatre by D L Bomgardner (London, 2000)
TopAbout the author
Keith Hopkins is Emeritus Professor of Ancient History at the University of Cambridge, and Fellow of King'College. His publications include A World Full of Gods, Death and Renewal and Conquerors and Slaves.
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Pompeii
Work and Play in Everyday Pompeii Gallery
The volcanic eruption that buried Pompeii in AD 79 was a terrible tragedy, but it has preserved wonderful insights into ancient Roman life. By Dr Joanne Berry.
.•Pompeii Art and Architecture Gallery by Dr Joanne Berry
•Pompeii: Its Discovery and Preservation by Dr Salvatore Ciro Nappo
•Pompeii: Portents of Disaster by Professor Andrew Wallace-Hadrill
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