#The Colosseum’s outer
walls have three levels of arches, articulated by Ionic, Doric and Corinthian
columns-marble statues once filled the niches on the second and third storeys
WHEN IT COMES TO
leisure, Roman tastes haven’t changed much in 2,000 years. Each Sunday, thousands
of the city’s residents make the pilgrimage to a huge stadium, where they chant
and sing, eat, drink and gamble, and hurl outrageous abuse at each other-and at
on unfortunate man at the centre of the arena. Granted, the references in
charge of Roma or Lazio’s home games aren’t ripped apart by kons should they
make a questionable offside call, but there’s more than a hint of similarity
between the ancient Roman games once held in the Colosseum and the football
matches at today’s Olympic Stadium on the other side of the Tiber river.
‘Football is today’s equivalent,’ says Leonardo Guarnieri,
and educational archaeologist at the Colosseum. This huge, half-ruined circular
stadium is Rome’s most iconic structure, and it was once the home to the
ruthless Rome games, in which gladiators and prisoners would battle each other
– not ato mention a menagerie of wild animals –for the entertainment of a
bloodthirsty crowd. ‘In the same way that today, fans of rival teams have
battles outside the stadium before and after the match, you’d get fans of rival
gladiators fighting each other,’ Leonardo says. He points to some fragments of
marble. An ancient drawing of a gladiator has been carved into the rock,
probably with a nail. Below it you can make out the name ‘Vandicomus’ and a
Greek symbol underneath which Leonardo says means ‘must die’. ‘It’s just like a
Roma fan making a drawing on a school desk saying that Lazio are rubbish!’ he
laughs.
The Colosseum – or the Flavian Amphitheatre, as it was
originally known – was built over the course
of eight years in the first century AD. The ring of brick arches was
constructed using the same techniques the Romans had perfected in the building
of aqueducts, and it was completely clad in marble, now long since stripped
away. The brutal games that took place made up the crucial ‘circus’ that’s part
of the famous ‘bread and circuses’-the free grain and entertainment provide by
the Roman emperors to keep the local population placid. At the games’ peak,
some 5,000 lions, tigers and elephants-captured from the African and Asian
reaches of the empire – were killed here each year.
The side of the stadium is now darkened by pollution, and
plans are afoot for a multimillion-euro makeover this year. The noise and dirt
of the cars whizzing past might be a little unbecoming, but the Colosseum is
not a building to be hidden away I a quiet corner. It has been a totemic
presence at the centre of the Roman city for millennia, and while everything
else might change, it’s not going anywhere.
Buy a joint ticket for the Colosseum, Roman Forum and
Palatino from the Roman Forum entrance, rather than the Colosseum-queues are
usually much shorter. Or book your ticket online at pierreci.it
