Visiting the world’s largest amphitheatre-Colosseum:a still standing ancient monument of Roman Empire,once a huge arena for the Gladitorial competitions,executions & the great battles

On 6/9/22(second day of our 3-days tour of Rome),We visited the largest ancient amphitheatre of the Roman Empire still standing & hosting numerous dramas & guided tours to depict the history of Roman Empire!Its one of the ‘seven Wonders of the World”.The venue is very well maintained with great explanation panels & knowledgeable guides facilitated with a convenient audio system to assist the guides.Its a great place to visit if we care for the architectural landmarks.The amazing structure is being used for entertainment,exhibitions & various sports activities.Its where the gladiators ,criminals & lions alike fought for their lives.The Colossium remains a world renowned iconic symbol of Roman Empire .Completed in the 80AD ,the Colessium was opened with great fanfare by Titus ,Vespasians’s son & successor with 100 days games including stunning battle recreations of artificial lakes of water.

COLOSSEUM (Italian: Colosseo) :

The Colosseum in Rome, Italy, is an oval amphitheatre in the centre of the city of Rome, Italy, just east of the Roman Forum. It is the largest ancient amphitheatre ever built, and is still the largest standing amphitheatre in the world today, despite its age. The Colosseum, also named the Flavian Amphitheater, is a large amphitheater in Rome. It was built during the reign of the Flavian emperors as a gift to the Roman people. Construction began under the emperor Vespasian (r. 69–79 AD)and was completed in 80 AD under his successor and heir, Titus (r. 79–81)Further modifications were made during the reign of Domitian (r. 81–96)The three emperors that were patrons of the work are known as the Flavian dynasty, and the amphitheatre was named the Flavian Amphitheatre (Latin: Amphitheatrum Flavium; Italian: Anfiteatro Flavio by later classicists and archaeologists for its association with their family name (Flavius).The amphitheater hosted events like gladiatorial games. The most common and most well known were gladiator battles. The Colosseum also held hunts, executions (some by wild beasts, the famous damnatio ad bestias) and right at the beginning, a few Naumachia — staged naval battles for which the Colosseum was flooded.After the devastating earthquake, the Colosseum continued to be plundered of its bare materials. The stone was stripped from the amphitheatre’s interior and the bronze clamps were hacked off the building’s walls. These harsh hack jobs left severe scars on the Colosseum’s walls, which are still visible today.Severe damage was inflicted on the Colosseum by the great earthquake in 1349, causing the outer south side, lying on a less stable alluvial terrain, to collapse. Much of the tumbled stone was reused to build palaces, churches, hospitals and other buildings elsewhere in Rome.

AMPHITHEATRE :

An amphitheatre is an open-air venue used for entertainment, performances, and sports. The term derives from the ancient Greek ἀμφιθέατρον (amphitheatron),from ἀμφί (amphi), meaning “on both sides” or “around”and θέατρον (théātron), meaning “place for viewing”
Ancient Roman amphitheatres were oval or circular in plan, with seating tiers that surrounded the central performance area, like a modern open-air stadium. In contrast, both ancient Greek and ancient Roman theatres were built in a semicircle, with tiered seating rising on one side of the performance area.
Modern parlance uses “amphitheatre” for any structure with sloping seating, including theatre-style stages with spectator seating on only one side, theatres in the round, and stadia. They can be indoor or outdoor.
Natural Amphitheatres are formations of similar shapes.
Arles Amphitheatre, France: a Roman arena still used for bullfighting, plays and summer concerts. About 230 Roman amphitheatres have been found across the area of the Roman Empire

The Colosseum is built of travertine limestone, tuff (volcanic rock), and brick-faced concrete. It could hold an estimated 50,000 to 80,000 spectators at various points in its history,having an average audience of some 65,000; it was used for gladiatorial contests and public spectacles including animal hunts, executions, re-enactments of famous battles, and dramas based on Roman mythology, and briefly mock sea battles. The building ceased to be used for entertainment in the early medieval era. It was later reused for such purposes as housing, workshops, quarters for a religious order, a fortress, a quarry, and a Christian shrine.
Although substantially ruined by earthquakes and stone robbers taking spolia, the Colosseum is still an iconic symbol of Imperial Rome and was listed as one of the New 7 Wonders of the World.It is one of Rome’s most popular tourist attractions and also has links to the Roman Catholic Church, as each Good Friday the Pope leads a torchlit “Way of the Cross” procession that starts in the area around the Colosseum. The Colosseum is depicted on the Italian version of the five-cent euro coin.

A thanksgiving gesture to the obliging photoshooter at the Colosseum amphitheatre.

Name :
Originally, the building’s Latin name was simply the Latin: amphitheatrum, lit. ’amphitheatre’. Though the modern name Flavian Amphitheatre (Latin: Amphitheatrum Flavium) is often used, there is no evidence it was used in classical antiquity. This name refers to the patronage of the Flavian dynasty, during whose reigns the building was constructed, but the structure is better known as the Colosseum. In antiquity, Romans may have referred to the Colosseum by the unofficial name Amphitheatrum Caesareum (with Caesareum an adjective pertaining to the title Caesar), but this name may have been strictly poetic as it was not exclusive to the Colosseum; Vespasian and Titus, builders of the Colosseum, also constructed a Flavian Amphitheatre in Puteoli (modern Pozzuoli).
The name Colosseum is believed to be derived from a colossal statue of Nero. The Colossus of Nero (Colossus Neronis) was a 30-metre bronze statue that the Emperor Nero (37–68 AD) created in the Vestibule of his Domus Aurea .The giant bronze sculpture of Nero as a solar deity was moved to its position beside the amphitheatre by the emperor Hadrian (r. 117–138).The word colosseum is a neuter Latin noun formed from the adjective colosseus, meaning “gigantic” or “colossean”.

After Nero’s suicide and the civil wars of the Year of the Four Emperors, the Colossus of Nero statue was remodeled by the condemned emperor’s successors into the likeness of Helios (Sol) or Apollo, the sun god, by adding the appropriate solar crown. It was then commonly referred to as the “Colossus solis”. Nero’s head was also replaced several times with the heads of succeeding emperors.Despite its pagan links, the statue remained standing well into the medieval era and was credited with magical powers. The emperor Constantine the Great remodeled the statue’s face as his own.

History: Construction, Inauguration, and Roman Renovations:
The site chosen was a flat area on the floor of a low valley between the Caelian, Esquiline and Palatine Hills, through which a canalised stream ran as well as an artificial lake/marsh. It was devastated by the Great Fire of Rome in 64 AD, following which Nero seized much of the area to add to his personal domain. He built the grandiose Domus Aurea on the site, in front of which he created an artificial lake surrounded by pavilions, gardens and porticoes. The existing Aqua Claudia aqueduct was extended to supply water to the area and the gigantic bronze Colossus of Nero was set up nearby at the entrance to the Domus Aurea.

Having a curious look at the beautiful miniature model of Colossium amphitheatre

Although the Colossus was preserved, much of the Domus Aurea was torn down. The lake was filled in and the land reused as the location for the new Flavian Amphitheatre. Gladiatorial schools and other support buildings were constructed nearby within the former grounds of the Domus Aurea. Vespasian’s decision to build the Colosseum on the site of Nero’s lake can be seen as a populist gesture of returning to the people an area of the city which Nero had appropriated for his own use. In contrast to many other amphitheatres, which were on the outskirts of a city, the Colosseum was constructed in the city centre, in effect, placing it both symbolically and precisely at the heart of Rome.
Construction was funded by the opulent spoils taken from the Jewish Temple after the First Jewish–Roman War in 70 AD led to the Siege of Jerusalem. According to a reconstructed inscription found on the site, “the emperor Vespasian ordered this new amphitheatre to be erected from his general’s share of the booty.” It is often assumed that Jewish prisoners of war were brought back to Rome and contributed to the massive workforce needed for the construction of the amphitheatre, but there is no ancient evidence for that; it would, nonetheless, be commensurate with Roman practice to add humiliation to the defeated population.Along with this free source of unskilled labor, teams of professional Roman builders, engineers, artists, painters and decorators undertook the more specialized tasks necessary for building the Colosseum. The Colosseum was constructed with several different materials: wood, limestone, tuff, tiles, cement, and mortar.

Modern use :
The Colosseum today is a major tourist attraction in Rome with thousands of tourists each year entering to view the interior arena.There is now a museum in the upper floor of the outer wall of the building. Beneath the Colosseum, a network of subterranean passageways once used to transport wild animals & gladiators to the arena opened to the public in summer 2010. The Colosseum is also the site of Roman Catholic ceremonies in the 20th and 21st centuries. For instance, Pope Benedict XVI led the Stations of the Cross called the Scriptural Way of the Cross at the Colosseum on Good Fridays.
Restoration :
In 2011 Diego Della Valle, head of the shoe firm Tod’s, entered into an agreement with local officials to sponsor a €25 million restoration of the Colosseum. Work was planned to begin at the end of 2011, taking up to two and a half years. Due to the controversial nature of using a public–private partnership to fund the restoration, work was delayed and began in 2013. The restoration is the first full cleaning and repair in the Colosseum’s history.The first stage is to clean and restore the Colosseum’s arcaded façade and replace the metal enclosures that block the ground-level arches. After three years, the work was completed on 1 July 2016, when the Italian minister of culture, Dario Franceschini, also announced that the funds have been committed to replace the floors by the end of 2018. These will provide a stage that Franceschini says will be used for “cultural events of the highest level.” The project also includes creating a services center and restoring the galleries and underground spaces inside the Colosseum. Since 1 November 2017, the top two levels have been opened for guided visits. The fourth level held the marketplace, and the top fifth tier is where the poorest citizens, the plebeians, gathered and watched the show, bringing picnics for the day-long event.

Significance in Christianity:
The Colosseum is generally regarded by Christians as a site of the martyrdom of large numbers of believers during the persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire, as evidenced by Church history and tradition. On the other hand, other scholars believe that the majority of martyrdoms may have occurred at other venues within the city of Rome, rather than at the Colosseum, citing a lack of still-intact physical evidence or historical records. These scholars assert that “some Christians were executed as common criminals in the Colosseum—their crime being refusal to reverence the Roman gods”, but most Christian martyrs of the early Church were executed for their faith at the Circus Maximus.

Posing against the backdrop of the great amphitheatre-COLOSSEUM, ROME

My dear readers may kindly point out any incorrect information in my above writeup needing any corrections! I am truly indebted to Wikipedia & for the invaluable information on the subject !Happy Reading !