The Colosseo

The Colosseo was built during 8-10 years and was inaugurated year 80 AD by the emperor Vespasianus and his son Titus. During year 80 more than 200 000 animals were sacrificed during the games of the arena and many, many slaves and gladiators died in the bloody fights. The gladiators walked into the arena through the “door of life” (la porta della vita) and left the arena being carried out through “the door of death” (la porta della morte) which is situated just on the opposite side of the arena. Between these two doors of life and death the emperor had his seat, which was the best place to sit and watch on the first row close to the scene, and wanting to do so he could reprieve the gladiator from death and grant him amnesty by waving with his thumb. This rarely happened though since the very point of the bloody games was to fight for life or death. One of the photos shows a huge cross in iron and it marks the place where the emperor used to sit and watch the games. The reason to why it only took about ten years to build this huge arena are the hundreds of slaves that the Romans forced to serve them. However what you see on the photos is only the skeleton of the original arena. The guide told us that originally the building was covered with white marble stone and that in every gate (you see all the openings of the building) there was a big statue in white marble symbolizing gods such as Venus etc. The Colosseo was also decorated with big medals in bronze on the top of the building and lots of paintings inside on the walls. Moreover, the building had another top floor built in wood and a roof of cotton material. The women were considered the lowest rank of society and they were therefore placed on the top-floor (which obviously was the worse seat since it was hard to see the fighting from up there). Every person was assigned a special floor meaning that the women had the worse seats, the men had other seats, the slaves had their seats, the Romans had their seats and the foreigners (people who were not from Rome) had a special seat and floor etc. One of the photos shows the cellars underneath the scene where the slaves and gladiators lived for months before entering the stage. The games were very well organized and it would take months to practise before a performance. Some of the gladiators became big “stars” that men and women admired and looked up to, sometimes they were even set free for having showed much courage in a fight or so, even though they were set free the gladiators sometimes came back to fight on the arena because that they missed the excitement and the fights too much.