This is How the Colosseum Looked in Roman Times

Coliseum. Oh, you should see the Coliseum, Spaniard. You have a thousand problems. Watch. Every movement of your sword. Willing you to make that killer blow. Silence before you strike. Noise outwards. It rises. It rises up like... Like... Like a storm. As if you were the Thunder God himself. The Coliseum is one of the most famous buildings in the world. It is one of the greatest church attractions in Rome. It is a building that has captured the attention of painters over the years. And yet, in terms of landmarks, never has there been a landmark that is so associated with blood and squalor as the Coliseum. It was huge. It had room for more than 50,000 spectators. It had 76 numbered entrance doors, and it was used for more than 700 years. This building was started by the Emperor Vespasian, the first emperor of the Flavian dynasty. Then he died, and his son Titus finished the building in the year 80. Here is Nero's side plan. Something very important about this building is where it was located, which shows us how incredibly shrewd Emperor Vespasian was in earning the acceptance of the people. He decided to destroy Nero's Domus Aurea, despite the fact that it was an architectural wonder, full of ornamentation with revolving ceilings, made by these great architects and artists, which would have been a great place for him and for his dynasty to live in. But he decided to raise it to the ground for political reasons to discredit Nero, and hoped to gain favor with the people. What he did wisely was to give this property back to the Roman people, and do something that they would like to have in their city. So he decides to dry up the artificial lake that Nero had built, and right in the middle of that area, he builds the Coliseum, and the message is clear. What did the Roman people want more than anything else? They wanted a huge amphitheater, where 50,000 of them could enter and spectate gladiatorial combats with wild animals. There's no better way to gain favor with the citizens than to build something like this, and even better to build it on top of the pleasurable artificial lake of Nero built just for himself. By the way, they were called gladiators, because the Latin word for sword is gladius, therefore gladiator, one who carries the sword. The original name of the Coliseum was actually the Flavian Amphitheater, named after the family of emperors, Flavius. But in the Middle Ages, it became to be known colloquially as the Coliseum, not because of its colossal scale, but because of the Colossus, the enormous statue of Nero that stood nearby, made by the Greek architect Xenodorus, with a height of more than 30 meters, and the other thing that Vespasian did was erase the features of Nero from the statue to turn it into a statue of Sol, the sun god. His face was fixed to resemble Sol and not Nero. Seeing how Greek types are transformed into Roman architecture, it is a theme that constantly returns to this notion of different technologies, different ideas of urban space, different ideas of interior design. And to understand the shape of the Colosseum, it is necessary to see what the Greek theaters were like. Here we are looking at the Greek theater of Epidaurus, and like many Greek sites, it's all about revealing a landscape, a panorama, sacred mountains in the distance, and a truly clear geometry, which makes you understand that you're in a specific place. There would have been a stage and a wall behind called proscenium, which was low enough so that if you were sitting in the steps, you could see the stage, but you could also see the landscape behind. This is the theater of Merida in Spain. Typologically, it preserves many of the things that we saw in the Greek examples, such as the circle with the steps. But the proscenium completely closes the space. Also, instead of being an object introduced into the landscape, where the natural slope of a mountain begins to give geometry to the place, it is an architectural construction. Another one of these megastructures that the Romans have no problems building with their concrete arches. And since it is a freestanding structure, it can be placed right in the middle of the city. The Colosseum uses the same scheme as the Marcellus Theater in Rome. Typologically, a Greek theater is open, giving you a view of the stage and the landscape. The Romans are always transforming and playing with typologies, always creating hybrids. This results in the amphitheater type of arena. Essentially, they are two theaters that were put together, but with a very different presence than the Greek theater, gently placed in the landscape. It becomes a giant object in the city of Rome, slammed into other elements that organize themselves. The ancient Roman Forum and the rest of the city are arranged around it. This view gives us an idea of how the building is shaped. It was essentially built with barrel vaults running on ramps and a series of annular vaults that provided lateral circulation and that are buttressed by the thrust of the seating. This is the hallway in the first floor of the Colosseum, which, of course, is made of concrete. These annular vaults rest on large, travertine piers. That is the first floor. On the second floor, however, we see something completely innovative, and it is the introduction of a new vault form never seen before. This is called the groin vault, and you get it when you take two barrel vaults and make them intersect. The angles that you get create this type of vault. They become very popular. Once they begin to be used in the Colosseum, we will see the proliferation of groin vaults from this moment on. Unfortunately, it seems to be quite stripped bare, but it is important to know that it was also highly decorated, like so many other Roman buildings. The entire surface was covered with stucco and later with figurative decoration and painting, both the vaults themselves and the corridors all very elaborately decorated in ancient Roman times. Something very apparent about the interior of the Colosseum is that it was built of concrete faced with red brick. An important part of Nero's architectural revolution was the fact that they began to build the concrete buildings lined with brick. That had to do with brick being more fireproof than stone, and they began to use it. It's an important facet of Nero's architectural revolution that was not lost with his death. The exterior of the building is quite well preserved. The Colosseum had four levels. The structure itself is made of concrete. The facing is travertine, an Italian stone from the Tivoli region. We see these large arcades and these columns that are placed between the arches. This is the building that tells us exactly what the Greek orders meant to the Romans. The Greek orders are a system of measurements and ornaments that has the columns and their architraves. There are three Greek orders, the Doric, which is the simplest, the Ionic, which is the one with the volutes on the capital, and the Corinthian, which is the one with the canthus leaves. The Greeks used the orders according to the type of building. When you build a building based on the arch, you have no structural need for columns. The arches are supported by thick piers. You can see it here where the columns of the Colosseum are only in the facade. On the right side, only the arches with their piers remain. You can see that the act of removing the columns from the front does not make the building collapse. It holds up perfectly. If you remove the columns from the Parthenon or any Greek temple, it will collapse. If you remove the columns from many Roman buildings, they will not collapse. So, why did the Romans continue to use Greek columns if they are constructing buildings whose structural system does not require columns? This is a great contribution that the Romans made to Western architecture, transforming the Greek orders into something purely ornamental. In the worldview of much of modern architecture, that is a terrible thing to say, transforming a structural element into something merely ornamental. But the Romans did not think they were doing something merely ornamental. Rather, they were not only paying homage to the Greeks, but also recognizing that the Greeks had created a language based on these columns. And this language is something that existed apart from the structure of the building, that what spoke was not the structure of the building, but the forms in which the structure was created. In this case, it was the orders. So, the Romans took these columns and their entablatures, the entire order, and put it in front of the building. They take the idea that Vitruvius gives us that there is a certain hierarchy in the orders. The Doric symbolizes strength and heroism. It was associated with the masculine form. The Ionic is more slender, and it was associated with the form of a mature woman. And the Corinthian, it was the most delicate order, representing a maiden. And in the case of the Colosseum, the Romans arranged these columns in this order. Doric, Ionic, Corinthian. Actually, the ones at the bottom are Tuscan columns, a variation of the Doric that the Romans inherited from the Etruscans. The job of the orders in the Colosseum is to mention the relationships of the proportions. Or in the words of Vitruvius, it's all about ratio venustatis, the sense of beauty. You just have to pay attention to the stacking of the orders, because the Colosseum becomes an important precedent for architects as they move to new types of buildings. And so, wherever we see any building with arches and piers, and then the column that is superimposed in front of the pier, we call it the motif of the Colosseum, which was very used in the Renaissance. The Colosseum was not the first building to do this, but it is the most famous and the most obvious to do so. And there is one more thing. In the attic of the Colosseum, we have what we call a plaster, which is a flat representation in relief of a classical column attached to a wall. It is a substitute for a column. It has a base, a shaft, and a capital, and it carries an entire entablature, just like a column would. The Greeks did not use pilasters, but something called ante. Normally, in Greece, there were piers in front of a temple that were actually structural. In this particular temple called Thrasyllus, the pillars are given column capitals, and that can be considered as the birth of the pilaster, which was used by the Romans every now and then, but in the Italian Renaissance, it was employed all the time. At the top of the Colosseum, you can see the detail of the pilasters, and among them, travertine blocks that protrude from the wall. They were used to support wooden poles that supported the awning that was used to protect the spectators from the sun and rain. This awning was called walarium. The interior, on the other hand, is not as well-preserved as the exterior. However, its ruins tell us a lot. Looking down, we can see the elliptical shape of the arena. Here, we can see the substructures all made of concrete. The ones that are below the arena itself were used for the storage of props, but also for the housing of animals that were brought up for animal combat. They had a system of ramps and pulleys, and they took the animals either up the ramps or by pulley from these cages. This is how the amphitheater seats were divided. The entire part where the seats rest is called cavia, and each of these sections designated for the different entrances to the Colosseum is called cuneus. They were divided into different sections where different social classes sat. At the bottom, almost at the level of the arena, the senators and the upper class. In the middle, the ordinary citizens, and at the top were women and slaves. Even more striking is the fact that, although the concrete substructures for the seats on which the cavia rested can be seen, only a single cuneus remains with a small number of marble seats. All the seats were shivered in marble in ancient times. The reason why only one cuneus is preserved is because the Colosseum was used as a marble quarry during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance by the popes. The popes did not hesitate to plunder the Colosseum for the marble they needed for the buildings they were erecting around Rome. The marble of the Colosseum ended up in some extraordinary buildings, so it was not in vain, but at the same time, it obviously changed the face of the interior of the Colosseum forever. This is a restored view on how the interior of the Colosseum would have looked in ancient times when a gladiatorial performance was taking place. They covered the arena with artificial grass, they planted trees and made props that took the shapes of mountains. And then the gladiators and the animals. You can also see the seats, the cavia, the wedge-shaped sections of those seats. The cunei, 50,000 people packed for this special event. And then at the top you see the velarium. These are coins that show the Colosseum in the 3rd century. We see the building with an event inside and with those poles that supported the velarium. We also see the Colossus, the statue of Nero that was clearly still standing. It is also thanks to these coins that we know that under each arch of the 2nd and 3rd levels there were statues. In the Colosseum the substructures are very poorly preserved, but this is another amphitheater in southern Italy, in a place near Naples called Pozzuoli where the substructures are well preserved. And you can get a better idea of what they would have looked like in ancient times. There are annular vaulted corridors down below. They are well preserved as are the cages in which the animals were kept. And here you see the very well preserved arena pavement made of concrete with those openings in it. These are the openings through which the props and the animals were brought up. This is a page from Le Corbusier's book Toward an Architecture. This is Le Corbusier talking about the Colosseum, talking about a triumphal arch and talking about a pyramid all on the same page. How can the Colosseum, a triumphal arch and a pyramid be related? And Le Corbusier is certainly not talking about history. He's talking about something extra-historical. Something about the physical nature of these buildings. They are huge, they are very big and when you put a strong Mediterranean light in them you get a powerful plate of lighting shade. They look like platonic solids. The pyramid is a simple geometric shape. This is an architect escaping from everything unnecessary and doing something powerful and elemental and platonic. And the same is true for the Colosseum. It is a cylinder. We have been admiring the articulation of the wall but in another level it is this basic cylindrical mass bathed in light. When we take a look at the triumphal arch at some fundamental level it is a rectilinear slab casting a shadow and bathed in light. And in fact Le Corbusier has the same much as a cover in his Treatise on Cities. A drawing of Rome that doesn't seem to be interested in expressing perspective of how it is seen from a point of view. Instead, he's calling out all of these objects. A mausoleum, the pyramid of Gaius Questius, the Colosseum, these elemental solids that give character to the city. We all know what happened inside the amphitheaters. It was the propaganda machine to subjugate and delight at the same time the people of Rome. So there would be entertainment. The concept of bread and circus was one way in which the Roman emperors maintained the support of the people. You make sure that they are fed and entertained. So there would be all kinds of activities in the Colosseum like gladiator fights and wild animals. You could flood it and reenact naval battles. There would be a lot of astonishing entertainments. In the year 81 it was the inauguration of the Colosseum that lasted 100 days in which 9,000 animals were killed. In the 400 years in which the Colosseum was the Roman entertainment center 400,000 men and 1,000,000 beasts were killed. The Colosseum remained almost intact until the 6th century and it suffered the greatest damages from earthquakes in 847 and 1231. I hope you enjoyed the video and learned from it. I would very much appreciate if you give me a like and subscribe to my channel. And if you feel like helping me a little more I just started a new Patreon page so any contribution will go to the making of better videos. Don't forget to follow me on Facebook and Instagram. All the links are in the description box below. I'll be posting a lot of new and exciting videos very soon so stay tuned. Thank you again and I'll see you next time. Goodbye.