I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised by how low the entry fee was. As I'm still under 25, and a citizen of the EU my ticket cost only €7.50, and that paid for access to both the Colosseum and the Roman Forum area. My partner had to pay full price, but even €12 was a bargain.
Now then, you'll all know as well (at least I hope you all know!) that I am a big fan of the Assassin's Creed series. Rome is the setting for AC: Brotherhood and the Colosseum plays quite a big part in bits of the storyline. It was kind of cool wandering around this amazing building thinking, "So Ezio jumped right off the top of that into a pile of hay, and there's an imaginary hidden tomb underneath the building". And that is the end of my Assassin's Creed fangirling for this post. Now then, back to the serious stuff.
As we walked through the entrance, both of us just stopped and went, "wow..."
Most of us know what the Colosseum was used for. Or at least I hope we do. And considering as how this is a history blog, I hope you won't mind if I indulge in a little history on this most amazing building.
The Colosseum was begun by Vespasian in AD72 and completed by Titus in around AD80. It was Titus who officially inaugurated the Colosseum with shows that lasted for no less than 100 days at a time. Construction was therefore hugely rapid, taking less that 10 years to complete, however later Emperors made changed to the structure. Domitian made the final changes to the building. As we all (or most of us, I hope) know, that the Colosseum was used for both gladiatorial combat and venationes (hunting wild animals in the arena). One such Emperor, Commodus, apparently took part in gladiatorial combat himself and called himself a gladiator. Though it seems that he was never actually in any real danger! The structure went through many repairs during its lifetime, however in the 4th and 5th centuries material from the Colosseum began to be looted and reused which is what eventually lead to it looking the way it does today. All throughout the middle ages and Renaissance the structure was basically used as a quarry for building materials (I overheard a tour guide at the pantheon saying that a lot of the outer facing stones were looted and used in church building, but I don't know whether that's true or not. Again, not so hot on my Roman history). According to a book I picked up at the Colosseum bookshop (La Regina, 221), even the Pope's plundered some of the stones to help build St Peters!! It was also used as a container for animals! In 1675, by Papal degree, it was made official that the Colosseum would be used to honour the memory of all the Christian Martyrs who had lost their lives there.
The archaeologist in me obviously got very very excited at seeing this building. Although it was only in the Nineteenth century that the first systematic excavations of the building were completed. And during this time major restoration work was begun. These days the Rome Archaeological Service looks after the building, preserves it and conducts further excavations as and when they are needed.
The photo just above, although it just looks like a bunch of stones got me really rather excited. Behind a massive iron grate were all these bits of masonry. And each and every one of them had some of the most beautiful carvings on them. As I said, the archaeologist in me got really excited.
Once we were finished with the interior of the Colosseum we decided to make use of our tickets and head up to the Forum. Once we excited though, we realised that actually we were out of water and the day was getting hotter and hotter. It wasn't even midday and the temperature was already creeping up towards 40 degrees. So we sat in the shade for a bit to try and recharge our batteries before setting off. And in the mean time I took a couple of pictures of the most amazing Arch of Constantine.
The Arch of Constantine is the largest triumphal arch known and dedicated to Emperor Constantine. Aka the bloke who made Christianity legal in Rome and stopped all the persecutions. The arch was dedicated to Constantine in AD 315 by the senate and people of Rome to commemorate his victory at Milvian Bridge. From the Fifteenth Century study and restoration work was carried out on the Arch was continues to this day. I won't go any further into the history of either the Arch or the Colosseum because to be quite honest there is enough information on them both to fill three theses on both subjects separately!
After this we began to make our way towards the entrance to the Archaeological and Forum area, swinging by a quick drinks stand to see how much a bottle of water was. After seeing a tiny bottle, which the stall had put ice cubes in being sold for €2, we decided against it, remembering that there were fountains in the forum area. Said fountains would prove a lifesaver within the next hour or so, I can tell you!
We didn't spend much time in this area because it was just painfully hot and we were struggling. When we eventually found one of the water fountains (by the arch of Titus), we ended up sinking down onto a stone bench underneath the trees and filling our massive two litre bottle up at least three times after draining the thing. Even that wasn't enough!! Because of this we didn't get to see any of the majorly important parts of the area here, but we did see the Via Nova, the Nymphaeum and the Arch of Titus which if I'm honest, in that heat, was more than enough. We agreed as we made our way out of the area that we would visit when the weather was a little bit (aka, a lot cooler!) so we could see more! However, here are a couple of pictures that I did manage to take.
Archaeology hjdshdfshfdks *flails about* - yep actual archaeology going on. No archaeologists about though, probably because you know...heat and stuff.
After we crawled out of the Forum area, barely able to stand and still chugging yet another 2 litres of water, we decided to hop back on the Metro and head back to the Battistini area so I could see the one little place left on my "To See While In Rome" list as well as to find some lunch. When we got there we decided to try and find this Irish bar we had seen advertised (the other half was fed up with Italian food and didn't really like the Italian pizzas all that much ha!). So off we went and spent a pleasant couple of hours in a little pub that reminded us somewhat of home. It's a shame everything was so expensive though...but anyway, we managed to recharge our batteries, have a bit of a moan over the price of our lunch and then set back out to find the Convento Di Cappuchini.
Now then, this fabulous little Convento and Crypt deserves a post all of it's own. Mainly because in such a teeny place there is just so, so much history and it is incredibly moving. So keep your eyes peeled over the next couple of days for that one!
Further reading
La Regina, A (ed), 2011, Archaeological Guide to Rome, Electa: Milan
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