Flavian Amphitheatre

Il Coloseo

or for you really uncultured readers (...kidding) the Colosseum!

Probably the face of ancient Roman history and the infamous setting (reconstructed in Hollywood studios) of Gladiator, the Colosseum is just a a short metro stop or 40 minute walk from my campus. And site of today's art class.

all this art I may be better off switching majors.

So anyway, man what a sight. I'm almost at a loss for words. Such a monument that everyone in the world can recognize and hardly anyone knows the truth behind it. That's what I'm for!

Built by the Flavian family (hence the name) in the time of Giulio Cesare (Julius Caesar guys, keep up) it was a stadium meant for several different types of entertainment. Of course, as we see demonstrated by Russel Crowe, it was for the gladiator games. People would line up for tickets, just as they do at any of our stadiums, except these tickets were pieces of bone engraved with their seat number.

Sports events are absolutely timeless.

Descendant of the mighty lion that once fought in this arena.

So aside from the spectacle of having wild beasts of the orient devour or be slaughtered by an ill fated gladiator, the amphitheatre could be filled with water and set a stage for naval battle reenactments. Obviously, the more famous of the routes of entertainment involves blood.

All of these forms of entertainment were part of the political movement in Rome: panem et circensis. Basically, if you feed them and entertain them they'll shut up. Works for people of all time.

The ampitheater has lasted over 2,000 years and has been used the entire time. After Emperor Constantine outlawed the Gladiator games in the 4th century AD, the ampitheater became a church, and later, when the empire completely fell, a quarry. What goes unnoticed is the fact that this collosal building (which in fact is not named for itself but for the collosal statue of Nero that once stood outside of it's walls) was once covered in marble. To cover a counter top in marble today costs a year of tuition; now imagine this immense stadium decked out in white stone. It must have been really incredible to watch it become blood splattered.

a reconstruction of the "stage" with a
view of the underlying passages.

How it stands today, it is almost completely void of all marble due to the removal of it after it was abandoned. It looks like it's completely crumbling, but what takes from the scenery, but in all fairness adds to the memorial of it, is that they are reconstructing/ preserving what they can.

Though I would have loved to be under the ground to see where the wild beasts were before they were unleashed, it is off limits.

Roman history is so vastly different from ours that it is actually very comparable. It's not very hard to recognize that we did not create the idea of pillars, but the Romans did. We took their "Senate" and even their "Capitol Hill" name (Rome was founded on 7 hills; the first of them called Capitoline.)

The fact that we still study antiquity shows that we learn from them; from their advancements, such as the arch and toga wearing statues, and from their mistakes, such as empirical leaders and mutiny (Et tu Brute?)

Even without paying the 12 euro and entering the Colosseum, there are literally thousands of opportunities to get a feeling for the Roman history that literally oozes from every square.

For instance, the very square which is the home to the popular study abroad student bar is the very spot where Caesar was killed.

That's something to drink to.