Our last full day in Rome. We hiked down to the Colosseum and joined our tour. The tour guide wsa much better in English than our previous two Italian guides. It made a big difference.
We first visited Palatine Hill (there are 7 "hills" in Rome). This was where Rome was founded around 953 BC, and was the first city in the world to reach 1 million population around 300 BC. The second city (London) reached 1 million 1500 years later! (The population shockingly fell to 30,000 in the 6th century due to wars, plague, taxes, inflation, and general chaos as the Roman Empire fell apart)
Palatine Hill was home to the rich of the city and then emperors. We saw this arch, called the Arch of Titus, through with Emperor Titus marched Jewish prisoners from the Jewish-Roman War around 71AD to celebrate Rome's victory, and the war spoils helped finance the building of the Colosseum.
Palatine Hill overlooks the Roman Forum, which was a large rectangular plaza surrounded by government buildings and temples at the center of the ancient city. It was the center of Roman life: processions, speeches, trials, etc. It has been called the most celebrated meeting place in the world, and in all history. Here's one end (photos taken from Palentine Hill):
here's the other end:
The Forum included a huge basilica (seen in te background above) made of bricks, held together by Roman concrete. a mixture of lime mortar, aggregate, and volcanic ash, making the walls strong, durable, and more cost-effective
than solid stone
The Tiber River tended to flood the Forum, and the resultant mosquitos spread malaria, as we saw in Ephesus, so the Romans devised a drainage system including this door which successfully drained the Forum, and this system is still in use today.
It was then on to the Colosseum. It was not named as such because it was "colossal", but because a giant 90 foot statue of Emperor Nero stood outside (the stadium, whose official name is the Flavian Amphitheater, was itself 120 feet tall). Completed in 80AD, it is the largest ancient amphitheatre ever built, and is the largest standing amphitheatre in the world. It's built of limestone and Roman concrete.
We went inside, and saw the exposed "basement" that was underneath the main field. In a typical Colosseum performance day, they first brought animals from conquered lands from the basement to the field, followed by public executions of prisoners by lions and tigers, followed by gladiator fights. Now that's entertainment! The basement also housed the gladiators (who were captured prisoners) getting ready to fight, and a hospital for them after the fights. There was a lot invested in the training of the gladiators, so the survival rate from the fights was supposedly over 80% (as opposed to the thumbs up/thumbs down decision of each fight we see in movies). We need to watch Gladiator again!
You can see that the fourth level is missing from a good part of the structure. When the stones were stacked, they were held in place by metal clamps. Over the years, thieves stole these clamps, which led to the partial collapse, and lots of holes in the limestone where the clamps used to be (this is also our guide)
The emperor had his own entrance and box seats on the first level
and the Senators had their own section
It originally had an awning to shade the sun, as envisioned here
and slaves set up the struts that held the fabric in place
There were manually-powered elevators (re-created here) that moved man and beast from the basement to the main level
Our tour ended with rain beginning, making it very treacherous walking on the uneven paving stones and sidewalks. We proceeded to the nearby Circus Maximus, site of the chariot races! The racetrack was about 600 yards long, and while the average Colosseum performance was attended by 50,000, the chariot races drew 250,000 or more (which seems really hard to believe). The Circus Maximus was the largest and most important venue for chariot races in ancient Rome for over a thousand years. We need to watch Ben Hur again!
We walked back to the hotel, rested, went to a street sandwich shop nearby for a pork loin, mozzarella, and dried tomato sandwich on fresh focaccia bread (delicious and huge)
following by gelato (she actually shared it with me)!
Would have been fun to do the hop-on hop-off bus at night to see the historic sites illuminated (example:
but we were too tired...we saved that for next time. We did about 60,000 steps in 3 days!
Flying home tomorrow!
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