Hi friends, welcome back to my Italy series! After touring the Forum and Palatine Hill, it was time for the main event, the Colosseum tour. The Colosseum’s real name is the Flavian Amphitheater and it was built in AD 80. It reaches 160 feet high, one-third miles around, and only about one-third of the original structure remains. The rest was lost due to earthquakes and scavengers taking materials for other Roman buildings (ancient recycling 😉 ).
In its glory days, the Colosseum was covered in white marble with statues of Greek and Roman gods in each of the arches. Beneath the marble the amphitheater was constructed with concrete bricks and arches, but no mortar was used, just keystones wedged in. There were also wooden beams at the top that held an awning to give the crowd shade.
There are 76 numbered entrances and it’s estimated the crowds of about 50,000 could exit and enter in 15 minutes. If only our modern-day stadiums were as efficient!
I booked a tour that included the underground level where we could walk the hallways the prisoners, animals, and gladiators did. Currently you can only visit the underground with a tour, but you can buy tickets to the arena level for a closer view to the tunnels. When it was our turn, we left the crowds behind and the twelve of us headed down to the underground level.
The Colosseum had 80 elevator shafts that would hoist up props, animals, gladiators, and prisoners to the arena level. This kept the crowd and fighters on their toes, you never knew who, what, or where enemies could come from. I can’t imagine the suspense while waiting to go up and knowing you’d probably not make it out alive.
The underground opened to the public in 2010 and I highly recommend seeing it. It was nice to briefly leave the crowds behind and view this iconic sight from a different perspective.
We then headed back up to see the arena level. The arena was a wooden floor sprinkled with sand so they could clear the blood easier. There is a reconstruction now so you can see what it looked like.
In a typical day at the Colosseum, act one was animals and hunters, act two was criminals or POWs, and act three was the gladiators. When the Colosseum was inaugurated, there was a 100-day festival and over 2,000 men and 9,000 animals died. They also brought in water and had sea battles which would be pretty incredible to see!
The seating inside the Colosseum was dictated by class with the Emperor and Vestal Virgins having the best seats. The next best seats went to nobles, then ordinary men, and the wooden bleachers in the nosebleeds were for foreigners, women, and slaves.
Our tour ended at the arena and we were free to spend as much time in the Colosseum as we desired. Jon and I sat on some benches and took it all in before heading to the second level. The third level is currently closed for renovations.
Outside the Colosseum, the Arch of Constantine marks the victory of Constantine over his rival Maxentius in AD 312. The night before the battle Constantine had a dream of a cross in the sky and when he became Emperor, he legalized Christianity. Gladiator battles were banned in AD 435, and the doors to the Colosseum were officially closed in AD 523.
Jon and I loved our tour of the Colosseum, especially the underground, and it was one of the highlights of our trip!
Posts in this series:
Florence
- Where to Stay & Eat
- Piazza Michelangelo & Ponte Vecchio
- Uffizi Gallery
- Santa Croce, Santa Maria Novella, Accademia
- Climbing the Duomo
- Duomo Museum, Bell Tower, & Baptistry
- Palazzo Vecchio & Tuscon Wine Tour
Rome
- Where to Stay & Eat
- Churches, Churches, & Churches Oh My!
- Borghese Gallery
- Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, & Pantheon
- St. Peter’s Basilica
- Victor Emmanuel Monument & Capitoline Museum
- Forum & Palatine Hill Tour
