Colosseum (Amphitheatrum Flavium), c. 70-80 C.E., Rome

Colosseum (Amphitheatrum Flavium), c. 70-80 C.E., Rome

Speakers: Valentina Follo (courtesy of Context Travel), Dr. Beth Harris, Dr. Steven Zucker
Cover photo by Julia Avra Ugoretz

Views of the Colosseum were taken from the Rome Reborn model of ancient Rome with the permission of The Rome Reborn Project (www.romereborn.virginia.edu). The model is copyright 2004 by The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. This video illustrates the latest version of the model (2.1), which was created from January to May, 2010. It is available in higher resolution; for copies, please write to: http://[e-mail]

Speakers: Valentina Follo (courtesy of Context Travel), Dr. Beth Harris, Dr. Steven Zucker
Cover photo by Julia Avra Ugoretz

Views of the Colosseum were taken from the Rome Reborn model of ancient Rome with the permission of The Rome Reborn Project (www.romereborn.virginia.edu). The model is copyright 2004 by The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. This video illustrates the latest version of the model (2.1), which was created from January to May, 2010. It is available in higher resolution; for copies, please write to: http://[e-mail]

[Intro piano music]

Imagine how beautiful it must have been, this square

with all these monumental arches covered in travertine

and all these statues and beautiful fountains spilling out water

reflecting the light on the travertine.

That we might think about this more like the way

we think today about Lincoln Center(exactly) --

with fountains in the middle and gleaming stone.

Should we start off by talking a little bit

about the structure and how it was built?

We have to imagine the Colosseum as a gigantic donut.

You have the inside as the arena.

Arena originally in Latin meant "sand".

On the floor where gladiators were fighting,

they used sand to absorb blood and body fluids.

You know, like a gigantic cat litter if you think about it.

So between different fight[s],

they could simply clean off very easily.

The original name of this building was not Colosseum.

Colosseum is a nickname given later.

Not because it was a colossal monument ,

but because it was located in the proximity of

a colossal statue -- originally of Nero--

that was part of the decoration of his house.

And so with time the nickname was given by this proximity.

The original name was actually Flavian Amphitheater.

And this is something very typical

even if you think about American monuments.

You have the Lincoln Center,

you have the Rockefeller Center.

They are connected with the name of the family that paid for the building.

The Flavian family paid for the building of the Colosseum.

Flavian Amphitheater is just a technical name for the shape.

It simply means in Greek "a double theater".

The original Greek theaters were actually semi-circles

with a flat end by the stage,

and so this is really just fitting those two together.

By using arches and concrete,

Romans were able to build an amphitheater

even a double theater with seats on a flat surface.

The engineering behind it is absolutely astonishing

considering that it was only built in ten years.

The Colosseum could hold between 50,000 and 80,000 people.

And if you look at the actual top part of each of the ground floor arches,

you see a roman number.

They are very dark and dilapidated. (Ah! I see!)

You can see a 23 (XXIII).

Then there is a 24 (XXIIII).

And then there is a 25 (XXV).

They are progressive.

And these numbers would have been written on the tickets given to the people.

It‘s like in a modern stadium --

you would have an assigned seat ...

A gate number. Also the seat.

Because it was extremely important for the Romans.

Even the seats were assigned according to their status.

So you had the most important people close to the arena

and the least important - being the women - on the top floor.

Here we actually see the style of the Colosseum.

So you have three stories of arches,

and then another story - a fourth floor with windows,

so it's closed with small windows inside.

And if you look at these arches,

the arches are framed by columns.

At the bottom part you have what is called Tuscan.

It's similar to Doric

but it's more a local - an Italic style.

It's even simpler than Doric it seems.

Yes, it's also the base.

I mean Doric columns do not have a base

while Tuscan columns do have a base.

And they not are fluted as well, right? No.

Then you go to the Ionic columns on the second story.

And the Ionic columns actually are...

they're considered the most feminine of the columns.

Because their proportions were more slender

and with these volutes on the top.

and the women sat higher as well...exact.

And the top floor you got the Corinthian.

They're based on the Acanthus plant -

it's indigenous in Rome, you can find it in many gardens.

It is very nice with green leaves.

And so it's an imitation of a piece of stone

covered with leaves of grass.

Inside of each of the arches on the second and third floor,

there would be a statue.

And on the top floor there would be

probably bronze shields on top alternating the windows.

Yeah, we imagine the Colosseum as a donut.

The outside circle was done with blocks of travertine.

The inside of the donut was done with a core of concrete.

Ancient Romans had really perfected concrete

and really were the first to use it as this structural material.

And that was critical for their ability to create structures of this size.

Also, something like the Pantheon.

The development of concrete was crucial for two main reasons.

The first one is if you work with cut stone:

marble, travertine, even tufa stone,

you need specialized workers

becuase you need to know how to cut the stone.

If you get it the wrong way,

the stone will crumble into your hand, right?

With concrete it makes it possible for not specialized workers

to produce something that's more sturdy.

At the same time it's less expensive. You know.

To quarry blocks of marble is not the cheapest.

Concrete could be assembled everywhere.

You just need a little mortar and a few pieces of stone to make aggregate and water.

So it's very easy but at the same time it's more elastic.

With concrete you get sort of elasticity and you can mold space.

Because it's something liquid and you can simply mold it the way you want.

And so the idea would be to take a wooden framework

that framed out the space that you wanted

and then to pour concrete into that wooden mold.

Exactly, and then it could be covered with decoration.

It could be bricks, stucco, whatever you want.

So it really allowed for far more monumental structures,

and that would be economically and physically feasible.

And less expensive and quick.

You know ten years to build the Colosseum is quite an accomplishment

because they used mostly concrete.

And also kind of thinking about architecture in a new way

in terms of shaping an interior space.

Particularly interiors.

Because if you look at Greek architecture,

you look at the temples,

the inside of the temples is quite narrow.

If you think the Pantheon, you just are in this amazing sphere.

And that's why they really invented it,

the idea of molding not the outside but the inside

to be able to produce a vault

that could permit to have a space free of standing columns

in the middle to support the roof.

Moving away from post and lintel architecture to an interior space

which really in a sense almost doubled the architecture vocabulary

and created an advancement over a system

that had existed for thousands of years.

Romans they employ concrete on such a scale

that permitted them to build wherever they wanted.

They were not forced by the space.

Greeks could not build a theater wherever they wanted.

They needed a slope.

So what if you were living in a city without slopes?

No theater for you, right?

Romans were able to creat a theater, an amphitheater,

or a circus, or a bath complex wherever they wanted.

It's true that Greeks seemed to use natural features in a more passive way

whereas the Romans seemed to shape the landscape much more aggressively.

You talked about the fact that there had been a lake here.

Let's drain the lake. We are putting a building here.

That is nature becomes in the service of man rather than vice versa.

That's actually a very good point.

The fact is that they wanted to be able to shape their space.

So the idea of urban planning,

you could build a city the way you wanted to

and not just be subject to the landscape that was there.

But I think that there is this really important way

in which the Romans were thinking of themselves --

as powers in the landscape, having that sort of dominance.

It seems to me that the Romans shaped in a way

that speaks of that notion of their own inherent strength.

What was different about the Roman society,

they were not racists in the sense

that they were looking at the color of your skin.

They didn't［could't］care less about that.

It was a multicultural society.

There were Romans from Africa,

Romans from Turkey, Romans from Germany.

What made it different was were you a citizen or not.

If you were not a citizen, you were nobody.

But if you were a citizen, the color of your skin was not important.

But there were fine distinctions even within citizenship.

Of course there were social classes.

One interesting aspect was that you could move along the social scale.

While for Greeks you could not even acquire citizenship.

It was extremely rare to obtain citizenship.

For the Romans even a slave could become first a free man,

and then his children would become full citizens for Rome.

It's like the America. If you think about America,

like the second generation immigrants as the same idea.

They realized that being able to move and

being able to sort of give people a chance in life

could make all the difference in the economy.

[Closing Piano Music]