The Colosseum is accessible from the metro B, stop “Colosseo”. It’s the symbol of Rome, the eternal city.
The Colosseum is the largest amphitheater in Rome and nowadays continues the renovation and the reconstruction. The term Colosseum is actually a nickname for the “Amphitheatrum Flavium”, which Vespasian began building in AD 72. It was built to block out the private lake that Nerone had installed. Colosseum takes the name by “Colossus”, the Nerone’s statue, made of bronze.
In AD 80, the new emperor Titus, had the distinct honor of holding the inauguration ball for it. He threw quite a bash: a 100-day fete that saw some 5000 wild beats perish in the bloody arena. Though the actual maximum capacity is debatable, feuding the archaeologists have accepted a number between 40000 and 73000 people.
Because the Colosseum events were for the “public good”, there was a free tickets for everybody. Over the centuries, it wasn’t only gladiator fights that filled the arena, but also exotic animal hunts or sea battles. In AD 438 the Christian dominated empery and senate, suspended the gladiator games and the Colosseum began to show the unpopular non-exotic animal hunts. Through the Middle Ages all the marble stand and seats were quarried by popes for use in “St.Peter’s Basilica” and the “Palazzo Barberini”. The outside of the arena was considered the ideal orchestration of the classical orders, from the most staid to the most ornamental.
