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The colosseum

The Colosseum is such an important historical and cultural monument, it would be inconceivable to come to Rome as a tourist and not visit it. You can imagine that it is on almost everyone's itinerary when they come to Rome for the first time. It is the one guaranteed building to be seen in any non-Italian film set in Rome.

It is hard to believe that the land on which it was built was originally a marsh which was fed by a stream that still exists today and can be found under San Clemente. When Nero built his palace, the "Domus Aurea" ("Golden House"), he had the area flooded to provide an artificial lake to add to the beauty of the surroundings of his new palace.

After the fall of Nero the emperor Vespasian, wanting to refocus Roman interests and to help the populus forget about Nero, had the area filled in order to build the largest freestanding structure that the world had ever known at the time. Thus was the construction of the Colosseum commenced by the side of the hill (Colle) that had an Isis temple (Iseum).

The Flavian Amphitheatre (as it was then known) was inaugurated by Vespasian's son, the emperor Titus, in 80 CE. The Colosseum was an elliptical stadium, 188 metres along its longest axis and 40 metres high, that could hold 50,000 people.

People came here to see gladiatorial combat, or to watch criminals being attacked by wild animals. The arena was even flooded at various times in order to stage naval battles!

It was the emperor Honorius who put an end to gladiatorial duels in 404 CE. The animal spectacles were gone by the sixth century. In the late middle ages the Colosseum was turned into a fortress by the Frangipani. During the Renaissance it was quarried for its huge blocks of Roman travertine that were used in numerous buildings around Rome including Palazzo Venezia and Saint Peter's Basilica. This is the reason that the Colosseum today lacks half of its outer ring of stone.

Ian Hutchesson