A Look at the Colosseum of Rome, Italy

Some of the grandest man made creations were made hundreds and thousands of years ago. Eventually they begin to fall apart over time. The Colosseum in Rome, Italy was in use for almost 500 years. That is an incredible amount of time for a structure to be in use. And what is more incredible is that it is still partially standing today! It fits right up there with the Egyptian, Pyramids which are massive structures that were built without machinery.

Facts About the Colosseum

The Colosseum in Rome, Italy is an amphitheater. Amphitheaters are made with sloped seating over multiple levels so that the center ground stage can be scene at any scene. They are made in a circular or oval shape.

The actual name for this Colosseum is Flavian Amphitheater.

It was originally intended to seat 50,000 people.

This structure took about 10 years to make.

It was mainly used to host gladiatorial shows (munera). Gladiatorial shows were shows where professional, criminals, and even animals fought. Sometimes they even fought to the death, just for entertainment purposes.

They also had what was called, venationes. These are hunts. Animals would be captures from all over and brought to the stadium. At first they had these animals all in chains and they would be slaughtered. But after a while they let the animals free in the stadium. There were special precautions made to protect the audience from the animals.

Sometimes it was animal versus another animal such as a lion versus a tiger. A few recorded strange combinations of animals fighting was lion against a crocodile and a bear against a python. Literally thousands of animals were brought in and slaughtered.

Other times they were against actual people called venatores. The venatores were people either under contract or they were slaves and criminals taught to fight for these hunts.

Some venatores even became extremely famous for centuries.

I found a bigger fascination in the aspect of the hunts because I heard about these a lot less than the actual gladiator fights. It seemed like they lived in such a cruel world. If you think TV is violent, think about watching people and animals of large proportions slaughtered before your eyes. Though probably very entertaining for them at the time, I thought that it was very ruthless.

But because of this type of entertainment, we still get to enjoy a grand structure such as the Colosseum today.

There is another stadium in Rome, Italy called Circus Maximus. It was the Colosseums rival, although it was a hippodrome. However this one was made more for chariot races and could hold 250,000 - 300,000 people.

Visiting The Colosseum

Today people can still come to visit the Colosseum. In fact, there are still thousands of people that come every year. You can even pay to get a tour of the inside of this spectacular building.