The design advantage of looking up at, rather than down on, the amphitheatre is obvious. The spoil from the huge hole dug for the foundations was used to raise the surrounding ground level by almost 7m (23ft), on top of the 4m (13ft) from the debris of Nero's fire, so that the new amphitheatre stood up higher in its valley site. Over-engineered perhaps, but it has stood the test of time. I cite these figures to illustrate the scale of the enterprise and the forethought that went into the design. Suitably for that great city, it was the largest amphitheatre in the Roman world, capable of holding some 50,000 spectators.Įventually there were well over 250 amphitheatres in the Roman empire - so it is no surprise that the amphitheatre and its associated shows are the quintessential symbols of Roman culture. The Colosseum was a grand political gesture. The eventual winner Vespasian (emperor 69-79) decided to shore up his shaky regime by building an amphitheatre, or pleasure palace for the people, out of the booty from the Jewish War - on the site of the lake in the gardens of Nero's palace.

In 68, faced with military uprisings, he committed suicide, and the empire was engulfed in civil wars. Nero, after the great fire at Rome in AD 64, had built a huge pleasure palace for himself (the Golden House) right in the centre of the city. The Colosseum was started in the aftermath of Nero's extravagance and the rebellion by the Jews in Palestine against Roman rule. The cathedrals of St Peter and St John Lateran, the Palazzo Venezia and the Tiber's river defences, for example, all exploited the Colosseum as a convenient quarry.Īs a result of this plunder, and also because of fires and earthquakes, two thirds of the original have been destroyed, so that the present Colosseum is only a shadow of its former self, a noble ruin. Indeed, it was the amphitheatre's reputation as a sacred spot where Christian martyrs had met their fate that saved the Colosseum from further depredations by Roman popes and aristocrats - anxious to use its once glistening stone for their palaces and churches.

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