10 facts about the Colosseum
| Rolling Rome
Rome’s most popular monument was built between 72-80 A.D. The Colosseum is still the largest amphitheater in the world, and stands as an iconic symbol of Rome and the great Roman architecture. The Colosseum was constructed as a gift to the Roman Citizens from the Flavian Dynasty to increase their popularity, to stage various forms of entertainment, and to showcase Roman engineering techniques to the world.
- The real name of the colosseum is the “Flavian amphitheater”, named after the Flavian family line of Roman Emperors. It got the name Colosseum because of a statue that was located alongside the amphitheater called ‘the colossus of Nero’. In fact, the Roman Colosseum is always capitalized and spelled differently then the generic Coliseum.
- About 60,000 Jewish slaves built the Colosseum in 9 years! Even today, construction of a stadium that size would be difficult to build in only 9 years. Colosseum is an elliptical building measuring 189 meters long and 156 meters wide with a base area of 24,000 m² with a height of more than 48 meter. More than 100,000 cubic meters of travertine stone were used for the outer wall of Colosseum which was set without mortar held together by 300 tons of iron clamps.
- About 50,000 people could enter it and it would only take about 20 minutes for everybody to find their seat, due to 84 gates. The Romans had the earliest form of a Sky dome. If it rained they stretched a red canvas over the entire Colosseum!
- 400,000 people lost their life and over a million wild animals were slaughtered festival and games could last up to a 100 days. During the inaugural games of the Colosseum in 80 CE held by Titus, some 9,000 wild animals were slaughtered. In 107 CE, Emperor Trajan is said to have celebrated his victories in Dacia with contests involving 11,000 animals and 10,000 gladiators within 123 days. The last gladiatorial fights occurred in 435 CE and the last animal hunts stopped in 523 CE. It was primarily due to the cost of procuring animals and gladiators and maintaining the expensive facility.
