The earliest gladiatorial games seem to have been held in the Roman Forum, and this practice continued throughout nearly the entire republic. For some of the larger, more elaborate games toward the end of the republic, temporary wooden amphitheaters were constructed.
The basic amphitheater form, as implied by the name, seems to have been inspired by simply attaching two theaters back-to-back. This created a central arena where combat took place that was entirely surrounded by stepped seating for the audience. The sandy, oval area at the center was called the arena, literally meaning "sand," and the seating area was known as the cavea. The oldest known stone amphitheater is located in the city of Pompeii on the Bay of Naples. The first permanent stone amphitheater at Rome was not built until 30 bc, when one was constructed in the Campus Martius by Statilius Taurus.
The largest and most famous amphitheater is, of course, the one today known as the Colosseum, although its proper name is the Flavian Amphitheater after the family of emperors who built it in the late first century AD. The founder of the Flavian Dynasty was the emperor Vespasian, who came to power in ad 69 by emerging as the victor in a civil war. By the mid-70s ad, Vespasian had begun construction on his great amphitheater.
Some of the motivation for the project seems to have been a public relations ploy to win popularity for the new dynasty among the city's inhabitants. Even tbe location chosen for the amphitheater was symbolic since it was built on the grounds of Nero's fantastic palace; it thus symbolized a return of this land to the public rather than its being used exclusively for the emperor's pleasure. Vespasian had the artificial lake of Nero's palace drained, and this site below the Oppian hill became the place upon which the new amphitheater rose.
Figure 9.2 Model of the Flavian Amphitheater (the Colosseum). (Scaia/Art Resource, NY.)
To support the great weight of the structure, a large area was excavated, and concrete foundations an impressive 12 meters deep were poured. The footprint of the building was 188 meters on the long axis by 156 meters wide. The actual space occupied by the arena where the gladiators fought was 86 meters by 54 meters. In its final form, the outside ascended four levels. The bottom level was a continuous ring of 80 arches of the Tuscan order (Doric with square bases). On top of this was another colonnade of Ionic arches. Above this was yet a third level consisting of an arched colonnade of the Corinthian order.
The third level seems to have been as far as the construction had progressed by the time of Vespasian's death, but his son Titus, the next emperor, finished the building by adding a fourth level and inaugurating it in AD 80. The fourth level was a solid layer with Corinthian pilasters. The total height of the four layers of the exterior wall was 48.5 meters.
The whole edifice was composed of a mixture of concrete core with brick facing and tufa and travertine stone. It has been estimated that over
100,000 tons of fine travertine stone were used in the facing of the amphitheater. This covering was attached to the structure with iron clamps, which themselves weighed around a total of 300 tons.
Upon entering one of the 78 ground-level entrances, each of which was marked by a number, spectators found their way to their seats through an extraordinarily complex network of ramps, stairs, and corridors. Those destined for the upper levels made use of different corridors from those whose seating was in the lower cavca. In all, there were four tiers of seats and an additional standing-room-only gallery at the highest level. Altogether, the Flavian Amphitheater could probably have accommodated
Rignre 9,3 Interior of the Flavian Amphitheater. The floor of the arena is missing, revealing the network of rooms, cages, passages, and elevators that lay beneath it.
About 55,000 spectators. Roman spectators appear to have been given tokens similar to modern stadium tickets that listed the number of their gate, the level, the section, and the row where they would sit.
The seating within the cavea was arranged as a microcosm of Roman society, with the spectators placed according to their status. The emperor or the presiding magistrate, along with his coterie, was seated in a special box, and other prime seats at the lowest level were reserved for other important figures, including the Vestal Virgins. The lowest rows of seats were reserved for senators, and those immediately above were similarly set aside for equestrians. The poor women and slaves seem to have been relegated to the highest level in the gallery.
Beneath the floor of the arena were two subterranean levels that contained as least 32 cages for wild animals as well as rooms for gladiators and equipment. This underground maze also included an elaborate system of trapdoors and elevators to raise scenery up into the arena or, perhaps most spectacularly, to disgorge combatants or wild animals, which would appear to spring forth unexpectedly from the ground itself. The exact number and operation of these trapdoors and elevators are a matter of some scholarly debate. There seem to have been at least 32 of them but possibly many more. The much smaller amphitheater at Capua, for example, featured no fewer than 62 trapdoors and elevators of varying sizes.
One of the unpleasant trials of attending an event in the Mediterranean can be the hot sim, but the amphitheater even provided for this contingency.
Attached to the top level was a forest of 240 wooden masts from which was suspended a retractable cloth covering called the velarium. This cover could be deployed or pulled back as needed to provide shade for the spectators in various parts of the cavea. Precisely how this enormous retractable roof was rigged is another hot topic of scholarly contention, but apparently a contingent of sailors was stationed in the city to operate the ropes and pulleys. This feature seems to ha'e been included even on earlier versions of amphitheaters; there is a reference to its abuse by the emperor Caligula, who delighted in locking the exits and pulling back the velarium on an especially hot day, causing audience members to faint from the heat.
Along with the Pantheon, the Flavian Amphitheater is perhaps one of the most influential Roman buildings since the features of nearly all modern sports complexes can be traced back to it.
Just to the east of the Flavian Amphitheater was a complex known as the Ludus Magnus. This was one of four gladiator training schools set up by the emperor Domitian to ensure an adequate supply of gladiators for the amphitheater. It included barracks, training facilities, and a small amphitheater that could hold about 3,000 spectators. The entire complex was directly connected to the substructure of the Flavian Amphitheater by an underground tunnel.
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