Research Paper On The Colosseum

History 201

Research paper

The colosseum

Death and fights were the most entertaining events in the roman’s time. Such a cruel and violent entertainment required a complex and well-made building to keep the spectators safe. An enormous and deadly arena was completed in 79 A.D. The Colosseum, still today, stands in the middle of the Eternal City as a symbol and Roman domination. The Colosseum is a monument that carries interesting origins and a very prideful drama. After the victory against the Jews, Vespasian (the emperor at that time) decided to reward the population of Rome with a permanent Amphitheatre. In fact the people of Rome were used to watch the gladiator’s fights in temporary arenas. These temporary structures were made in wood

The Colosseum is an ellipse which is about the same shape of what a stadium is today. According to the book The Gladiators written by Fik Meijer, the Colosseum was built by both slaves and citizens. The biggest part of slaves working in the Colosseum was composed of Jews. This people were made prisoners during the war that Vespasian won. The main role of these slaves was to cut and transport heavy stone. Many skilled architects, carpenters, painters and artists must have worked together for the realization of this perfect monument. The building is fifty-two meters high and its surface is three thousand six hundred and nine square meters. The Colosseum had four levels where spectators used to sit to assist the shows. The total capacity of the Colosseum has been estimated between forty to seventy-three thousand people. Beneath the visible structure a complex maze of tunnels, chambers and cells was built. This underground city was needed in order to have gladiators and workers living there. The inside of the building shows a very different complexity from the

Living conditions were not always easy, especially for gladiators that never did make a great name for themselves and always remained marginal fighters. Many gladiators tried to escape, but most likely guards were in alert and many gladiators were punished for their wrong behavior. The fugitive’s feet were clamped to brackets and were permanently guarded. Gladiators, whose performance wasn’t great, used to live a life of constant stress, with a fear of dying in the arena. Sometimes they were so fearful that they chose to end their lives themselves. Instead, a well-known gladiator was permitted relaxing time and massages prior a fight. Some of these well-known gladiators were also transferred in bigger cities and arenas like the Colosseum. “Most gladiators died between the ages of twenty and thirty with between five and thirty-four fights to their name.”{Fik Meijer (63)} These fights did not always consist of duels against other gladiators, but sometimes they were put in arenas with wild beast. Testimony of this is the records that Cassius Dio kept of Commodus fighting with wild