Flavian Amphitheatre

The Roman Empire was one of the foremost powers in the ancient world, a grand civilization that held dominion over its land for roughly five hundred years until its decline in 476AD. During their reign, many Roman buildings were constructed around their empire, in colonies such as Africa, France, and Syria. Many of these constructions were amphitheatres. An amphitheatre is an open-air arena for the entertainment of the audience, for executions and performances. Named for its shape (that of two theatres facing each other) and ‘theatre’ as ‘place for viewing.’ They were so well built that over two hundred amphitheatres still stand today in the countries and cities that were occupied by the Roman Empire. Three of these many are the Flavian

Facelifts of the stone have revealed that the most common remnants of graffiti would be drawing of faces while there are other recognizable words and pictures, such as a palm frond, symbolizing victory, while the letters ‘VIND’ are taken to be part of the word vindicatio. There are no longer any intact original dedications visible on the Flavian Amphitheatre, although archeologists have translated embedded holes in the stone that previously held a raised text and has been reconstructed and is believed to say ‘The Emperor Titus Caesar Vespasian Augustus ordered this Amphitheatre to be built from his share of the booty.’ Therefore the funding for the Flavian Amphitheatre was from the sack of Jerusalem and the hundred thousand slaves that had been taken also contributed to the massive workforce of slaves that built the amphitheatre. It was also determined that the older inscription was erased and a second inscription carved over it. Archeologists found fragments of a secondary inscription carved on marble blocks that repeats twice around the arena to be visible to the audience regardless of position. This secondary inscription celebrated the repairs made to the amphitheatre by emperors Theodosius II and Valentinian III (reigned from 425 and 450AD) due to earthquake damage in 443AD. Most of the remnants of surviving inscriptions are to commemorate repairs made to the amphitheatre, such as The Lampadius inscription, the inscription honouring Messius Pheobus Severus for his repairs in 470, and the restoration to the arena that patrician Decius Marius Venantius Basillus had personally sponsored. There are also inscriptions numbering the eighty arched entrances to the Amphitheatre. Seventy-six were for the public to enter the Amphitheatre,