ROMAN COLOSSEUM

WHY IT WAS BUILT

• The decision to build the colosseum was made by Vespasian who was the emperor.
• He did this to get support from the people and assure the popularity of the Flavian family.
• His idea was to demolish the palace of Nero and construct a permanent arena for gladiators and for the amusement of the mob.
• The magnificence of the building was to convey the Glory of Rome.

HOW IT WAS BUILT

• The wall was made out of travertine limestone and iron clamps
• Tuff,or Tufo was used in the making of minor pillars and radial walls
• Cement was used for vaulted arches
• Tiles and brick were used for the floors and used in walls
• Marble was used for seating, statues and ornaments, drinking fountains and a covering for the outside walls

ENTERTAINMENT

• Roman held blood-thirsty games inside the Colosseum.
• This helped them maintaine their popularity.
• Just one series of the games might last for 100 consecutive days.

THE CROWD

• Architects built the Colosseum to be the largest arena in the world. They built it to hold between 50,000-80,000 people.
• The roman architects devised an ingenious system of entrance,corridors,and staircase that allowed the crowds to enter and exit the Colosseum quickly and easily.
• By using so many seperate entrances the architects solved the problem of crowd control- the Colosseum could be cleared in less than 10 minutes.
• Citizens could get into the Colosseum for no expense.

LENGTH OF THE GAMES

• The length of the games and number of sessions varied through history.
• Emperors made the games longer and longer to keep the peoples minds off the empire.
• The number of combatants also tended increased in time.

THE MORNING SESSION

• The morning session would stop about mid day when the sun was at its highest.
• This is when spectators would get their free lunch and wine.
• Music was played on a different number of instruments including a water powered organ.

THE AFTERNOON SESSION

• Was the offering of gladiatorial fights.
• A fanfare of trumpets would announce the first fights.
• The fights where fought with blunt blades or even wooden training swords.
• These fights could also include relatively comical acts including dwarves and women as mock "Amazon".

INTERESTING FACTS

• Over 500,000 people and 1,000,000 wild animals died inside the Colosseum.
• The Colosseums original name was Flavian Amphitheater after the Flavian dynasty.
• Took 9 years to build using over 60,000 Jewish slaves.
• They would sometimes flood the Colosseum and have miniature naval battles inside.

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