the flavian amphitheater.

Hey guys!  

So I had a Roman Art exam today, but while studying for it, I learned a very interesting bit of information about the Roman Colosseum that I thought I'd share with you. 

Do you know why the Roman Colosseum is called the Colosseum?  To understand why... you need a bit of history...

In 54 AD, a Roman emperor by the name of Nero took power.

Different accounts tell different stories about how well liked he was by the Roman people of his time, but for the most part, the average consensus seems to be that he was relatively well liked.  He was emperor during the Great Fire of Rome, in 64 AD, which destroyed a better part of the city.  Nero went to great lengths to help rebuild the city, including funding some of the rebuilding himself.  New homes were built from strong, fire-proof materials like brick or concrete (which the Romans invented, by the way).  He also built a palace on a large plot of burnt land right in the center of the city.  This move on Nero's part was not well liked by the people of Rome, but nonetheless, a great palace was built for Nero called the Domus Aurea, or 'Golden House'.  This was a huge, private palace for Nero that included a lake!  He'd actually tapped into the aqueducts that led into Rome and was able to create his own lake within the Domus Aurea.  

(I went to Spain this past December, and got to see a Roman aqueduct in Segovia!!)

Also included in the layout of the palace was an enormous statue of Nero as the sun god, called the Colossus of Nero.  It stood some 30 meters tall and was made from bronze; it probably looked something like this:

(Notice the building on the left side of this image?)

It's important to note here, just on the side, that Roman emperors could not, and did not, ever call themselves 'gods', as it looked bad to their people.  Instead, a very common thing for them to do was have themselves depicted in the guise of a well known god (or goddess if you were an empress).  This means that they would be shown wearing the same clothing or having the same hairstyle, or something, as a god that they were associating themselves with, as if to say that they share the same 'god-like' qualities of the god without actually being a god themselves.

 The thing about building this palace that made everyone kinda upset was that the land that it was built on was originally public domain; Nero took it from the people to build his own palace, and at a time of instability during Rome's history, I'd have to say that pissing off the people within your ruling domain was probably not a good thing. 

Now...

Nero committed suicide in 68 AD.  

One year and about five, or so, unimportant emperors later, Vespasian comes to power.

Vespasian came to power in 69 AD, and was the first emperor of the Flavian Dynasty (or as my sister would say, the "Flauian, pronounced 'fla-wee-an', Dynasty", since the Romans didn't have v's in their vocabulary.).  Nero had been the last important emperor, for the most part, of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty, which had started way back in 27 BC with Augustus as emperor.  So, the point is to say that Vespasian came at a pretty important shift in Rome's history.  He had a lot of things to clean up after several bad emperors had power before him.  One of the things he did was take down most of Nero's Domus Aurea, and he filled in the lake.  In it's place, Vespasian began building a great amphitheater for the people of Rome, as if to give the land back to them that Nero had taken.  

Begun in 72 AD, this amphitheater, called the Flavian Amphitheater at the time, was built right ontop of the original lake to the Domus Aurea, and consequently was located very near to the Colossus of Nero.  Now, during Vespasians' reign and the construction of this new amphitheater, the face of Nero was removed from the Colossus and was replaced with the face of the sun god that was represented, perhaps because the statue was just too grand, and too big, to tear down.  Because of the Flavian Amphitheater's close proximity to the Colossus of Nero, it earned the nickname 'the Colosseum'.  

(Again, this is just an artist's interpretation of what it may have looked like, but the proximity of the Colosseum to the Colossus of Nero in this reconstruction is accurate.)

The Colosseum's construction was finished after Vespasian died, during emperor Titus's reign in 80 AD.   I'm sure the fact that it could seat 50,000 people was another reason it's 'colossal' nickname stuck so well. 

:)

A few interesting facts about the Colosseum:

1.  It had retractable awnings.

2.  Because it was built on the old site of the lake of Nero's Domus Aurea, it was connected to the aqueducts that came into Rome.  Because of this, some say that the bottom of the amphitheater could be flooded to have mock naval battles for entertainment.

3. While there were other amphitheaters built all throughout the Roman Empire, the Colosseum was the largest ever constructed.

4.  The Colosseum was used for many things including mock naval battles, gladitorial events, wild animal hunts, dramas, and executions.

5.  The Colosseum hosted gladitorial events in its arena.  The term 'arena' is Latin, and means 'sand'.  Sand was used to soak up the blood of the dead in the different events hosted at these types of amphitheaters.  It's how the term 'arena' came to be used. :)

6.  Even though I kind of mentioned this before, the Colosseum was known as the Flavian Amphitheater to the ancient Romans during it's time.  Later peoples and historians gave the structure it's famous nickname.

***

So there ya go, your art history lesson for the day! 

You see... it pays off to study every once in a while.. 

;)  

Allison