THE FALL OF THE COLOSSEUM

'From the great multitude of wondrous things,

I would select the Colosseum as the object that affected me the most. It is stupendous, yet beautiful in its destruction.... To walk beneath its crumbling walls, to climb its shattered steps, to wander through its long, arched passages, to tread in the footsteps of Rome's ancient kings, to muse upon its broken height, is to lapse into sad. though not unpleasing, meditation.... It was once the crater of human passions; there their terrible fires blazed forth with desolating power....

But now all is still desolation.'

Opposite

The Colosseum in Rome (detail) by the English artist J. M. W. Turner (1775-1851).

Thomas Cole. American landscape painter, Notes at Naples (1832)

The popularity of the games continued for as long as Rome retained its empire. Trajan, returning from the conquest of Dacia (modern Romania), early in the second century AD, brought back 10,000 prisoners and 11,000 wild beasts to fight in the arena. His successor, Hadrian, sponsored six consecutive days of gladiatorial bouts and, according to the Historia Augusta (a somewhat unreliable source), took part in some of the fights himself. Antoninus Pius, who succeeded Hadrian, is said to have introduced the first hyena into the arena.

There was a serious fire during Antoninus Piuses reign (AD 138-161) that caused considerable damage to the Colosseum. The building was particularly vulnerable to fire because of the amount of wood used for the flooring and the uppermost seating area; a lot of the machinery, scenery and other props situated beneath the arena would have been made of wood, too. Because of its shape the cavea would have acted as a funnel, drawing the flames upwards to consume the wooden seals at the highest level. And although the marble and travertine would have survived the flames, the intense heat would have calcined it, causing it to split.

The philosopher emperor Marcus Aurelius was no lover of the Colosseum but he paid lip service to tradition by putting on shows and turning up in person from time to time. If by doing this he was seeking to avoid public discontent, he only partly succeeded, for he often offended the crowd by reading, writing letters and entertaining his friends in the royal box instead of paying attention to the fights.

The third century AD was a disastrous time for Rome. Successive military dictatorships created instability and to many it seemed that the empire would disintegrate. The Colosseum itself almost seemed to echo the groans of the empire. On 23 August AD 217 it went up in flames again, this time after a lightning strike. Cassius Dio reported the event:

The hunting theatre was struck by thunderbolts on the very day of the Vuicanalia, and such a blaze followed that its entire upper circuit and everything in the arena was consumed, and thereupon the rest of the structure was ravaged by the flames and reduced to ruins. Neither human aid could avail against the conflagration although practically every aqueduct was emptied - nor could the downpour from the sky which was most heavy and violent, accomplish anything - to such an extent was the water from both sources consumed by the power of the thunderbolts.

In the early third century AD. 60 lift shafts were installed in the passage* ways on either side of the central corridor of the arena basement. The housings for the pulleys, made of re-used travertine, are still clearly visible.

The rebuilding of the Colosseum took more than two decades, though the work was sufficiently advanced for a rededication ceremony to be held in AD 222. Until then the games were transferred to the Circus Maximus.

The archaeologist Lynne Lancaster surveyed the site in the 1990s and identified the different building techniques used for the repairs, showing that the whole of the northwest sector of the building had suffered massive damage during the fire. The outer part of the cavea from entrances 40 to 47 had to be totally rebuilt from the ground up. The damage was more serious in the upper levels and more than a quaner of the total circuit needed to be reconstructed, including the area above the magistrates’ entrance. In the area of the ceremonial entrance of the gladiators at the west end, the fire damage extended right down into the basement. This section had to be almost totally rebuilt.

The area beneath the arena had also suffered badly and the walls had collapsed in many places. In order to strengthen the brick supponing arches constructed in the time of Trajan, secondary arches were built inside them. Tlte lower part of some of the tufa walls were encased in brick, and low brick arches were built across some of the corridors to support the walls. At some time within the next half century the function of the central corridor was modified. The massive trapdoors originally used to raise the expanding scenery were either reduced in width or abandoned altogether. Sixty new lift shafts, operated by a counterweight system, were inserted into the passageways on either side of the central corridor. The housings for the pulleys were made of reused travertine. These lift shafts, measuring approximately 0.9 x 1.7 metres, are somewhat smaller than those installed in the time of Domitian and could hardly have transported anything larger than a medium-sized cat. A further 36 even smaller lifts were established in the two D-shaped areas.

The archways of the Colosseum and other similar entertainment venues became a favourite haunt for prostitutes. The emperor Alexander Severus (AD 222-235) fittingly earmarked taxes paid by prostitutes for the rebuilding of the Amphitheatre. It is worth noting that the word fornication is derived from the Latin word fomices meaning ‘arches’.

Gordian I, during his one-year reign in AD 238, modified the entertainment calendar to provide one show every month. The rather unreliable sources for this period claim that he supplied between 150 and 500 gladiators for each show. He also exhibited a hundred lions on one day and a thousand bears on another.

The great earthquake of 262 must have taken its toll, but the Colosseum was in use again when Aurelian held his great games in 274. Salvation for Rome came ten years later when Diocletian was declared emperor by his troops. His accession at last brought stable government back to the empire. Diocletian was just the strong man Rome needed at the time. His rule is universally admired by historians, but in the latter part of his reign his love for the old Roman traditions led to the last great persecution of the Christians who had lived in reasonable security since the rescript of Gallienus in 260 granting an amnesty to Christians after the few years of repression initiated by his father. The Colosseum was struck by lightning again in 320 but this time there was little damage.

The accession of Constantine the Great in 307 and the acceptance of Christianity as the official religion of Rome brought about some reform but not perhaps as much as might have been expected. The Church’s continuing opposition to gladiatorial shows is well documented. Tertullian, who was particularly outspoken on the subject, called the Colosseum ‘a temple consecrated to demons’. Bowing eventually to pressure from the Christians, Constantine stopped the courts from sending criminals to the gladiator schools - he allowed them to be sentenced to hard labour in the mines instead. His position on this matter was anomalous for, although he had cut off one of the prime sources of recruitment to the schools, gladiatorial contests were not forbidden. An inscription found in 1733 near the amphitheatre at Spello records Constantine giving permission for the Umbrians to hold gladiatorial contests in the 330s.

Constantine’s decision in AD 330 to move the capital of the Roman Empire to Constantinople marked the beginning of the decline of Rome, and the importance of the Colosseum declined with it. Constantius II, visiting Rome in 357, inspected the cavea, which, according to the Ammianus Marcellinus, was still in excellent condition. The games continued throughout the fourth century AD despite the occasional ban. Valentinian I’s edict of 365 expressly forbade sentencing Christians to the arena. But gladiatorial shows continued, as is shown by the legislation of the late fourth-century emperors Arcadius and Hono-rius, both of whom prohibited senators from using gladiators as private bodyguards. This legislation threatened offending gladiators with exile and it is the last surviving legislative act relating to them. It is known from a letter that the orator Quintus Aurelius Sym-machus wrote that he donated large sums of money to help his son put on gladiatorial games at Constantinople in 393. This letter is panicularly interesting as the orator

Emperor Constantine's decision to move the capital of the Roman Empire to Constantinople in AD 330 marked the beginning of the end for the Colosseum.

Had prevailed upon Emperor Honorius to give him 29 Saxon prisoners to kill in the arena, but the men committed suicide rather than take part in the spectacle. The letter also confirms that there were still free men willing to serve as gladiators and Symmachus praises their dedication to the sport.

Opposite A view of the southern side of the Colosseum from which materials were systematically quarried for centuries. The outer circuit corridors have now completely disappeared from this section. The Arch of Constantine can be seen at the bottom left of this picture.

The long-drawn-out death pangs of Rome began when the city was besieged by the Goths under Alaric in 408 and finally sacked in 410. During the two-year siege the dead had to be buried within the city walls and cemeteries dating from this time were discovered on the northeast side of the Colosseum piazza in 1895. After the retreat of the Goths these burial grounds were reclaimed and the graves covered with 2 metres of earth.

The Colosseum was damaged during the siege and was deserted for several years afterwards. The traumatic effect of the sacking of the Eternal City caused as much as half the population to abandon the city. Valen-tinian III attempted to repopulate it a generation or so later but further invasions just caused more people to migrate. The Colosseum was restored between 417 and 423 but it was damaged again by two more earthquakes, one in 429 and another in 443. The highest level of seating collapsed and the debris crashed through the arena floor into the basement. At some stage the drains were also damaged on the south side of the building and the basement was flooded. Once again the building was repaired in places but not restored entirely. By the time the last Western Roman emperor, Romulus Augustulus, was deposed in 476 the population of Rome was estimated to have been as low as 100,000.

By this time the despoliation of the Colosseum had already begun. Archaeological investigation has shown that even before the end of the fourth century the building was being robbed. Lead pipes were stripped out and some of the latrines and fountains ceased to function. By the middle of the fifth century the stonework was at risk. An inscription found in the Colosseum records that the senator Gerontius was given permission to ‘quarry’ by Theodosius, indicating that the vandalism was officially sanctioned.

Gladiatorial shows had been officially abolished by Valentinian III in 438, although small-scale animal hunts and public executions continued. The emperors Leo and Antemius passed legislation in 469 forbidding theatrical shows, chariot races and the hunting of wild animals on feast days.

A particularly violent earthquake at the end of the fifth century caused further damage to the colonnade at the top of the third level of the Colosseum and this collapsed, sending debris crashing into the basement. No attempt was made to restore the upper seating area and what remained of the colonnade was shovelled into the basement and the area filled up with earth. This really marked the final degradation of the Colosseum, though the Romans continued to find a use for the building for a few more decades. The last recorded show in the Colosseum was an animal hunt in 523.

Rome was besieged by the Goths twice more, in 536 and 545, during which time the population suffered famine and plague. When Totila captured the city in 545 he is said to have found no more than 500 people still living there. Such a tiny population had no use for monumental buildings when sheer survival was all that mattered. The revival of the city in the later sixth century resulted in full-scale robbing of the Colosseum for building materials. People removed the travertine blocks, especially from the seating areas, to reuse elsewhere or to make lime mortar. Marble and lead piping were similarly recycled.

The shell of the cavea of the Colosseum, especially along the north side, found itself a host to squatters, some of whom converted the vaults into living accommodation and used the radial passages to house their animals and store provisions. Some of the internal stairways were knocked down to create more space. Modem excavations have revealed that a major roadway had been cut through the cavea along the line of the main axis to allow wheeled traffic to reach the arena, which had become a goods yard. In addition, 15 minor routes had been created and in some cases walls had been demolished in the process. People also began to colonize the area outside the Amphitheatre, building wooden houses around the perimeter walls.

Pillaging continued on an even larger scale during the second half of the eighth century, when what amounted to systematic quarrying of the site occurred, particularly on the south side, with tunnels being mined for up to 8 metres below the ground so that the masonry of the foundations could be hauled away. Archaeologists have discovered places underground where some of the huge travertine blocks of the foundations have clearly been prised out.

In time, even the iron clamps holding the travertine blocks together were gouged out. At first this occurred mainly at the lower levels where the iron could be easily reached, but later the foragers climbed as far as the third level to get at the iron inside the arches and along the parapet.

By the eighth century the city was at last showing signs of recovery and the authorities started to protect their ancient monuments against such large-scale desecration. The shanty town of wooden houses outside the perimeter walls was demolished and replaced with concrete buildings. These were discovered during the excavations of 1895. Official deeds going back to 7 March 982 show that the land where the arena had once been was transferred to the nearby Church of Santa Maria Nova, who had allowed permanent dwellings to be built there. These houses, as described in the deeds, were typically two storeys high, each with a small garden. They were mostly occupied by artisans, such as bricklayers and stonemasons (the very people who had no doubt been involved in pulverizing the Colosseum’s travertine blocks for mortar) as well as cobblers, blacksmiths and coppersmiths. There were also some people of higher status living there, such as money-changers, clergymen and lawyers.

Rome was sacked again in 1084, this time by the Normans. This led to the occupation and fortification of many of the ancient monuments by Rome’s noble families. The Colosseum, the Theatre of Marcellus and the Mausoleum of Augustus were all taken over in this way. The Frangipane family fortified the Colosseum and occupied two levels of arches at the eastern end. There is a record of them entertaining Pope Innocent II there. The Annibaldi family took over part of the Frangipane palace in the first half of the thirteenth century and acquired the rest a little later. They were compelled to hand over the building to the Capitoline Senate in 1312 but continued to occupy the premises for another 57 years.

Most of the archaeological evidence for the medieval inhabitation of the Colosseum was removed without being recorded by the early archaeologists, but traces of this occupation still come to light. A detailed examination of three adjoining segments, 44, 45 and 46 (the numbers relate to the entrance numbers inscribed above the outer archways), was recently carried out. The investigators started at the fa<;ade and worked in as far as the fourth ring corridor. They examined the spaces below the stairs as well as the radial passages. Their study showed that the area had been used for animal stalls. Traces of three structures, dating from the second half of the twelfth to the beginning of the thirteenth century, were discovered beneath the stairs in sector 46. Recycled materials had been used, including fragments of marble decorations. Two of these fragments were covered with plaster and used as mangers until at least the seventeenth century.

The Colosseum by Angelo Maria Costa (1670-1721). showing the state of the Amphitheatre before the excavations began.

A lead seal belonging to Pope Urban IV (1261-1265) was discovered in the landfill beneath the stairs in segment 45. This relates to the period when the building was occupied by the Frangipane or Annibaldi families.

In 1332 Ludwig of Bavaria visited Rome and the authorities staged a bullfight at the Colosseum in his honour. It was the first time in more than eight hundred years that such an event had been witnessed, so naturally the public turned out to watch in great numbers, though no one, not even the organizers, seems to have realized that this had been one of the Colosseum's original functions. It was to be many years before anyone expressed an interest in the history of Rome's finest ancient monument.

The final catastrophe for the Colosseum occurred in 1349 when Rome was struck by yet another earthquake. Parts of the south and west sides of the cavea collapsed, having been considerably weakened by the removal of the stones and the iron clamps that had held them together. Sadly, this disaster seemed to be the cue for yet more desecration and prompted further wholesale quarrying for building materials. In a letter that the Bishop of Orvieto wrote to Pope Urban V in 1362 he complains about the poor response to the sale of travenine blocks from the Colosseum that he organized. There were plans to restore it as a shrine to the Christian martyrs but these were never carried out and the pillaging continued. The most noticeable effect of this was the total disappearance of the two outer arcades on the southeastern and southwestern sides.

In 1382 the civil government of Rome, the Capitoline Senate, eventually realized that something had to be done and gave the responsibility for maintaining the building to three different authorities: the Church, the Capitoline Senate and the Order of Santissimo Salvatore ad Sancta Sanctorum. Unfortunately, while this move did finally introduce a degree of control, in that it stopped the indiscriminate looting, it did not prevent the removal of the Colosseum’s marble and travertine stonework altogether. For the three bodies did not form a joint committee to preserve the building’s fabric but allowed materials to be taken away and split the spoils between them. (Inscriptions marking this division can still be seen on the facade.) So now anyone who wanted to obtain their building materials from this source could still do so - they just had to pay the authorities for it.

In the middle of the fifteenth century Pope Eugene IV publicly declared chat ‘dismantling Rome’s ancient monuments meant destroying

The Colosseum seen from the Capitol In a photograph taken in the late nineteenth century, before the columns of the Temple of Venus and Roma were reconstructed. The Arch of Titus is in the foreground and the brick stump to the right of this picture, in front of the Colosseum, is the remains of the Meta Sudans fountain, destroyed to make way for the Via dei Fori Imperiali in 1932.

The very best in the city and the whole world’ but he nevertheless allowed its travertine stonework to be used for restoring the nearby Basilica of St John Lateran. His successor, Nicholas V, became the most notorious destroyer of the Colosseum when he robbed it of vast quantities of its stone to make lime mortar for the rebuilding of the Basilica of St Peter in the Vatican, despite the protests of antiquaries such as Poggio Bracciolini, who complained in 1448 that most of the Colosseum had been reduced to lime. The church solved this conflict of interests by placing a preservation order on the north fa(;ade and allowing the rest to be quarried.

This ambiguous, if not to say hypocritical, attitude towards the Colosseum was illustrated in the middle of the fifteenth century when Leon Battista Alberti published two books on the ancient buildings of Rome. These created such interest that Pope Nicholas V employed Alberti to submit designs for new buildings. Alberti drew inspiration from the Colosseum, adopting the style of superimposed arcades that became a prototype of Renaissance architecture. But neither Alberti’s papal patronage nor his respectful homage to the building was enough to prevent its further destruction.

Successive popes continued their rape of the Colosseum, carrying away more and more of its travertine blocks and marble fittings. Pius II actually had a specially reinforced wagon built for transporting the material. It must be said that it was not just the Colosseum that was being destroyed. All of Rome’s ancient monuments suffered the same fate.

In 1585 Pope Sixtus V drew up plans to convert the Colosseum into a spinning mill but the project proved exceedingly expensive and when he died in 1590 the scheme died with him. But maybe the notion of using the building for commerce survived, for four years later a small glue-making cooperative set up in business on the first floor.

Even though the building was now occupied and the land was titled, no attempt was made to maintain it and materials continued to be moved off the site. A document from 1606 refers to the sale of travertine blocks that had fallen from the upper levels of the cavea, and when three arches collapsed in 1644 Pope Urban VIII used the fallen masonry in the building of the Barberini Palace.

Pope Clement X planned to put a church dedicated to the Christian martyrs in the arena but it was never built. The project was resurrected by Clement XI at the beginning of the eighteenth century when the Chapel

Buttresses at either end of the surviving section of the outer circuit were constructed in the early nineteenth century. The one at the east side (left) was built by Raffaele Stern between 1805 and 1807; the one at the west (far left) by Giuseppe Valadier in 1827. Adrawingofthe time (below) shows the latter under construction.

Of Santa Maria della Pieta at the northeastern end of the arena was demolished. It is possible that the area was excavated to lay the foundations of the new church, which could account for the destruction of the walls supporting the arena at that end. The idea of building a substantial church in the area was again abandoned, the arches of the north fagade were blocked and outer arcades were converted into a manure dump for the production of saltpetre.

Clement XI (1700-21) was the last pope to use the building as a travertine quarry; by the end of his reign official attitudes had at last begun to change although the dumping of manure continued for 70 years, causing devastating corrosion to the travertine pillars, many of which were totally worn away. Tlie plan to convert the arena into a Christian shrine was never totally abandoned and towards the end of his reign Clement XI set up stations of the cross around the arena. The change of attitude was mainly the work of the Capitoline Senate, which had often opposed the church’s destructive attitude towards the ancient building.

In 1743 the Senate began restoration work and the following year the governor of Rome passed a law forbidding the desecration of the building. The edict was given teeth by the threat to whip anyone caught damaging the building or even leaving the gates open. The church had agreed to these measures and had even repaired the gates. Finally, in 1749, Pope Benedict XIV dedicated the Colosseum to the Passion of Jesus and pronounced it sanctified by the blood of the martyrs. The era of destruction was over.

It was impossible to repair the damage that had been done to the Colosseum over the centuries but all parties now combined to preserve what was left. Extensive repairs were carried out in the 1760s but very substantial reinforcement was needed at both the east and west ends to stop the outer corridors collapsing. Enclosure walls were built at the first two levels between the arcades and the barrel vaults in 1795 but this was only a stopgap measure. Another earthquake in 1803 forced the authorities to complete the work. Pope Pius VII gave orders for a triangular buttressing wall to be erected at the cast end. It took fourteen years to build and was not completed until 1820. The consolidation of the west end was completed a few years later. Restorations continued throughout the nineteenth century but they were now accompanied by extensive excavations both inside and outside. L Canina consolidated the second ring on the south side, restored part of the north side and rebuilt some of the highest seating level, planning to reconstruct a section of the colonnade, but this was never accomplished.

In 1870 the reunification of Italy, which had been fragmented since the fall of the Roman Empire in the west, created renewed interest in the history of the city. The Office of the Superintendent of the Excavation and Preservation of the Monuments was created to promote excavations in the whole area from the Roman Forum to the Colosseum. The remaining

Benito Mussolini on horseback (centre) at the opening of the Via del Fori Imperiali in 1932. Several ancient ruins were destroyed to make way for the road.

Buildings encroaching on the Colosseum were demolished and the whole area developed, leading to numerous archaeological discoveries.

Opposite By the 1960s the Colosseum had become a huge traffic Island.

The earlier part of the twentieth century was marred by the politicization of everything. Although extensive excavations took place they were aimed at glorifying Mussolini’s fascist state. The Colosseum became a venue for political demonstrations, causing considerable damage to the building. Stairs were constructed joining the first and second levels, and new asphalt floors were laid to enable the crowds to move more easily. These modifications were destructive and bore no relation to the ancient structures. Botched reconstructions were made during this period, which ignored the evidence. The most destructive development of the fascist era, though it only affected the Colosseum indirectly, was the construction of the Via dei Fori Imperiali which involved cutting through the Velian Hill at the back of the Basilica of Constantine, destroying the ancient remains in the area. The top of the Meta Sudans fountain was removed and the pedestal of Nero’s colossal statue was partly destroyed. The building of the Metro also caused considerable damage to the area surrounding the Colosseum as it cut through the ancient drainage system at the west end, causing flooding in the basement. Later, towards the end of the Second World War, the Colosseum was commandeered as a weapons store for German paratroopers.

Sanity returned with the fall of Mussolini but a lot of damage had been done by then. Mussolini’s highway delivered ever-increasing traffic into the piazza around the Colosseum and the travertine pavement of the piazza was covered with asphalt. By the 1960s the Colosseum had become marooned on a monumental traffic island and visitors risked their lives trying to negotiate a path across lanes carrying thousands of cars at speed round the site. ‘Don’t hesitate, walk at a constant pace and the drivers will avoid you,’ the locals living in the area advised the sightseers. ‘Hesitate and you’re dead.’

In the 1980s the City Council agreed to reroute the traffic around the Colosseum, bestowing a modicum of peace and stability to the monument. Visitors can at least now get there without being run over. And the work continues: in 2000 part of the arena floor was restored, giving some protection to the most damaged area of the basement.