Gradually, as you work, the image of how things were takes shape in your subconscious. Colosseum architects made some changes to allow new methods of stagecraft. Other changes were accidental; a fire sparked by lightning in A. Beste also began to decipher the odd marks and incisions in the masonry, having had a solid grounding in Roman mechanical engineering from excavations in southern Italy, where he learned about catapults and other Roman war machines. He also studied the cranes that the Romans used to move large objects, such as foot-tall marble blocks.
Paired vertical channels that he found in certain walls, for example, seemed likely to be tracks for guiding cages or other compartments between the hypogeum and the arena. Then other archaeological elements fell into place, such as the holes in the floor, some with smooth bronze collars, for the capstan shafts, and the diagonal indentations for ramps.
There were also square mortises that had held horizontal beams, which supported both the capstans and the flooring between the upper and lower stories of the hypogeum.
To test his ideas, Beste built three scale models. At the peak of its operation, he concluded, the hypogeum contained 60 capstans, each two stories tall and turned by four men per level. Forty of these capstans lifted animal cages throughout the arena, while the remaining 20 were used to raise scenery sitting on hinged platforms measuring 12 by 15 feet. Beste also identified 28 smaller platforms roughly 3 by 3 feet around the outer rim of the arena—also used for scenery—that were operated through a system of cables, ramps, hoists and counterweights.
He even discovered traces of runoff canals that he believes were used to drain the Colosseum after it was flooded from a nearby aqueduct, in order to stage naumachiae, or mock sea battles. The Romans re-enacted these naval engagements with scaled-down warships maneuvering in water three to five feet deep. To create this artificial lake, Colosseum stagehands first removed the arena floor and its underlying wood supports—vertical posts and horizontal beams that left imprints still visible in the retaining wall around the arena floor.
The soggy spectacles ended in the late first century A. Beste says the hypogeum itself had a lot in common with a huge sailing ship. Like a ship, too, everything could be disassembled and stored neatly away when it was not being used.
Beyond the thin wooden floor that separated the dark, stifling hypogeum from the airy stadium above, the crowd of 50, Roman citizens sat according to their place in the social hierarchy, ranging from slaves and women in the upper bleachers to senators and vestal virgins—priestesses of Vesta, goddess of the hearth—around the arena floor.
A place of honor was reserved for the editor, the person who organized and paid for the games. Often the editor was the emperor himself, who sat in the imperial box at the center of the long northern curve of the stadium, where his every reaction was scrutinized by the audience. The first major phase of the games was the venatio , or wild beast hunt, which occupied most of the morning: creatures from across the empire appeared in the arena, sometimes as part of a bloodless parade, more often to be slaughtered.
They might be pitted against each other in savage fights or dispatched by venatores highly trained hunters wearing light body armor and carrying long spears. Literary and epigraphic accounts of these spectacles dwell on the exotic menagerie involved, including African herbivores such as elephants, rhinoceroses, hippopotamuses and giraffes, bears and elk from the northern forests, as well as strange creatures like onagers, ostriches and cranes.
Most popular of all were the leopards, lions and tigers—the dentatae toothed ones or bestiae africanae African beasts —whose leaping abilities necessitated that spectators be shielded by barriers, some apparently fitted with ivory rollers to prevent agitated cats from climbing. The number of animals displayed and butchered in an upscale venatio is astonishing: during the series of games held to inaugurate the Colosseum, in A. Julius Caesar was a renowned general, politician and scholar in ancient Rome who conquered the vast region of Gaul and helped initiate the end of the Roman Republic when he became dictator of the Roman Empire.
Despite his brilliant military prowess, his political skills and his Greek philosophy and rhetoric moved fully into Latin for the first time in the speeches, letters and dialogues of Cicero B. A brilliant lawyer and the first of his family to achieve Roman office, Cicero was one of the Known for his philosophical interests, Marcus Aurelius was one of the most respected emperors in Roman history.
He was born into a wealthy and politically prominent family. Growing up, Marcus Aurelius was a dedicated student, learning Latin and Greek. But his greatest Live TV. This Day In History. History Vault. Recommended for you. How the Troubles Began in Northern Ireland. Coroner's Report: Pompeii. Games in the Colosseum. The Visigoths Sack Rome. Julius Caesar Julius Caesar was a renowned general, politician and scholar in ancient Rome who conquered the vast region of Gaul and helped initiate the end of the Roman Republic when he became dictator of the Roman Empire.
Marcus Tullius Cicero Greek philosophy and rhetoric moved fully into Latin for the first time in the speeches, letters and dialogues of Cicero B. He would sit in the centrally located imperial box and monitor the activity and decide whether the loser should live or die. When technical difficulties interrupted a show, Emperor Claudius sent the stage hands to fight and Caligula ordered a group of spectators be thrown into the arena. The Romans held staged hunts and had animals fight humans and each other.
According to History Today , a particularly gruesome battle in B. It looks like something that should have a minotaur in the middle of it. The hypogeum were where the animals and gladiators were kept before entering the arena, basically helping to keep the magic alive for the spectators. It was comprised of a labyrinthine series of arches, tunnels, passageways, and 36 trap doors to make the gladiator matches even more exciting.
Tickets to most of the events held at the Colosseum were free. They were pretty much public relations moves for the Emperors who would entertain the public with gladiator matches and free food that would rain from the sky. Spectators would enter the Colosseum through the numbered arches that can still be seen today. As any summertime visitor to Rome can attest, the sun can be blistering hot in the summer. To protect the some of the spectators from the heat, the Colosseum was outfitted with a velarium —a retractable awning that provided shade.
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