The fact that Rome was once a great empire and a centre of learning, trade and commerce is evident today in the ruins of the Colosseum, located in the centre of the Italian capital.

The largest building of the era and the most impressive of the Roman empire, the Colosseum — also known as ‘Coliseum’ and originally called ‘Flavian Amphitheatre’ — is an elliptical (meaning having the shape of an eclipse, oblong with rounded ends) amphitheatre, with four storeys above the ground, reaching a height of more than 48 meter (159 ft).

Its construction was commissioned by Emperor Vespasian, founder of the Flavian Dynasty, in AD72 but was opened in AD80, a year after Vespasian’s death, by his son Emperor Titus. The Colosseum was built basically as an entertainment centre where gladiatorial contests and public spectacles were held, with a capacity of 50,000 spectators. It remained in such use for the next 500 years.

When the Colosseum opened, it is said that 100-day games were held as part of the celebrations by Emperor Titus, and about 9,000 animals are said to have lost their lives in it, but there is no recorded count of the gladiators who lost their lives fighting these beasts.

Traditionally, the games started with comical acts and display of exotic animals, and ended with fights to death between animals and gladiators, or between gladiators (who were usually slaves, prisoners of war or condemn criminals).

The public could watch the games for free because emperors used it as a means to show off their strength and power, as well as to increase their popularity.

The Colosseum was constructed on the site of an artificial lake built by Nero, who ruled Rome before Vespasian, and it was part of a huge park that Nero had built in the centre of Rome, with Domus Aurea, or the Golden House, serving as his grandiose palace overlooking the lake that was surrounded by gardens and porticoes. There was a giant statue of Nero nearby, made of bronze, and the current name Colosseum is derived from it.

In AD 68, after military uprisings against him, Nero committed suicide and Vespasian managed to defeat other contenders to the throne and in a political move, to consolidate his rule, he built the amphitheatre to please the people.

The Colossus, or the giant statue, was left untouched by Vespasian but the palace was torn down, the lake filled in and the Flavian Amphitheatre was built there.

It is not known who the architect of this huge structure was, but it is generally agreed that detailed design of the structure, three-dimensional scale models and some full-size design sketches were first made before the actual construction started. This had to be done because the building was so huge and complex, even by today’s standards.

At first drains were built underneath the proposed structure to take away the streams that flowed from the surrounding valleys and hills. The foundation, roughly in the shape of a doughnut, was made of concrete. The soil dug up from the huge hole of the foundation was used to raise the surrounding ground level so that the new amphitheatre stood up higher in its valley site.

By this time, the Romans had started making arches and vaults out of brick-faced concrete and it was extensively used in the Colosseum that led the architect to construct in it elaborate honeycomb of arches, passages and stairways, which allowed thousand of spectators to get into and watch the bloody games.

The height of the entire structure is around 144 feet, and the size of the arena is 79 x 45 metres. The word ‘arena’ in Latin means sand as arenas at the time comprised sand and some wood, as was the case with the Colosseum. There are four floors, with the first three having wide-arched entrances and the fourth floor had rectangular doorways. The height of each floor is approximately 32 to 42 feet.

The interior of the Colosseum is divided into three parts — the arena, where the performances used to take place, the podiums, the place of honour, and a cavea, where the animals were held in before combats. There were 76 entrances and four additional entrances reserved for the emperor, nobles and the gladiators. Spectators found their way to their seats through arches that were numbered. The four grand entrances were not numbered. The entrances were marked by giant porticoes, each topped by a gilded horse-drawn chariot.

The seating arrangement was according to the ‘social status’ of the spectators. The seats on the first three tiers from the top were usually reserved for the nobles, while the common man used the seats from the fourth tier onwards. The best seats were on or just behind the podium, raised two metres above the arena to be safe from the bloody action that took place. The fighting animals and gladiators were kept out by a further fence just inside the arena.

At the outer rim of the amphitheatre, there were three levels of grand circular promenades, but the the decoration on the upper levels wereless grand. At the first level, the floors were of marble or Travertine (the stone from which the outside walls were made), while the walls were of polished marble slabs and the ceilings of painted stucco.

The exterior of the Colosseum has superimposed arches on three storeys, with engaged, semi-circular columns that are of different orders on each storey. The columns at the bottom have the sturdiest and plainest arches (Doric), then progressed to more slender Ionic ones on the second storey to the richest arches (Corinthian) at the top. The fourth storey has pilasters, decorated with Corinthian capitals. In its prime, the top exterior of the Colosseum was decorated with glistening gilded bronze shields and the arches were filled with painted statues of emperors and gods.

There were chambers containing cages of animals and where the gladiators rested before the performance, with openings into the arena. The Colosseum could be covered with an enormous awning (roof-like structure) that helped protect the spectators from the sun. It was attached to large poles on top of the Colosseum and anchored to the ground by large ropes. A team of some 1,000 men was used to operate the awning.

A fire in AD217 destroyed the upper levels of the interior, and repairs were carried out as and when required, particularly after a major earthquake in AD443. In the early medieval period, it ceased to be used for entertainment and the last gladiatorial fights took place around AD435 while animal hunts continued until at least AD523. Later it was used for various purposes such as housing, workshops, quarters for a religious order, a fortress, a quarry and a Christian shrine.

Real damage to the structure of this magnificent building was caused by the plunder of the place for its stones that were used to build palaces, churches and other buildings in Rome.

Today it lies in a severely ruined state due to plunder and earthquakes and on each Good Friday a ‘Way of the Cross’ procession is led to the amphitheatre by the Pope.