by Rachel Gargan

Created on: February 13, 2009   Last Updated: February 26, 2009

The Colosseum was a world renowned symbol of the power and savagery of the Roman Empire. It played an important part in the culture and politics of Rome. It was a place where glory and power became a dangerous game. It was used by politicians and gladiators as a way to climb the social ladder. From the emperor's standpoint it was also a powerful medium to promote himself and, at the same time, be accessible to the people.

The Flavian Emperor, Vespasian, began the building of the Colosseum in AD 69. It was constructed on the site of Nero's golden palace as a gift to the people. The Colosseum was a testament to the grandeur and power of the Flavian family, identifying the emperor as one of Rome's greatest imperial builders. It also helped him to establish a legitimate claim to imperial power, for his family was not descended from the aristocracy but of solid middle-class origin.

The building of the Colosseum was completed in the reign of Titus. The resulting structure stood to a height of 50 metres and enclosed an area of 3,357 square metres. It remained the largest and most complex amphitheatre in the ancient world. On completion in AD 80 Titus provided a hundred days of extravagant spectacles for the building's dedication. In his contemporary poem describing the spectacles Martial, a Roman poet, writes, "even nature yielded to the will of the emperor".

As the people had no other public event at which to gain access to the emperor, the games at the Colosseum gained a great deal of significance. The Colosseum therefore became one of the key contexts in which to judge the emperor's quality and worth (Hopkins and Beard 2005). As a result emperors generally spent a small fortune on the games in the Colosseum. Many exotic animals were used and gladiators of all categories were used. Emperors often chose the biggest gladiatorial stars to satisfy the people. Cassius Dio even describes a naval battle being preformed during the spectacular show put on when the Colosseum was opened.

In AD 108-9 Trajan also hosted his own games at the Colosseum. No expense was spared by either emperor. In Titus' games 9,000 animal victims are recorded and a further 11,000 during Trajan's games (Glay etal, 2003). The shows consisted of pairs of animals released into the arena to fight each other, usually one predatory and one prey animal. On some occasions pairs of animals that would not have confronted each other in the wild were often forced to fight in the arena, e.g. bears against bulls. The gladiatorial contests typically appeared after the animal fights. Like the animals the gladiators were also sent into the arena as pairs. The most common gladiatorial pair was the Secutors and the Retiarii (meaning the persuer and the persued).

The Colosseum was also used for public executions of criminals and most famously the martyrdom of Christians. Their refusal to honour Roman gods was regarded as an act of treason by Rome and punishable by death in the arena. The persecution of Christians began during the reign of Domitian. The first Christian martyr to die in the Colosseum was St. Ignatius, third bishop of Antioch under the rule of Trajan.

The spectacles in the Colosseum remained popular through out the Empire's history, until Constantine moved the capital of the Roman Empire to Constantinople. The Colosseum deteriorated as Rome declined in importance. The Colosseum was finally abandoned in 410 when the Goths sacked Rome. By the time the last Western Emperor Romulus Augustulus was deposed in 476 the Colosseum was in ruins. Lead pipes were stripped out and the stone quarried' for other buildings.

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