English literature, books by English writers. Eternal Rome

The Flavian Amphitheater only from the 11th century. AD became known as the Colosseum. This name appeared, in all likelihood, because of the nearby Colossus - a gigantic statue of Nero, erected by him in honor of himself.

According to another version, the Colosseum began to be called so because of its huge, colossal size. It is located in a hollow between the Esquiline, Palatine and Caelievsky hills, in the place where there once was a pond that belonged to the Golden House of Nero (Domus Aurea). The construction of the Colosseum began in 75 AD. e. under the emperor Vespasian, who decided to build it after victories in Judea.

It is known that the idea of building the Colosseum belonged to the first emperor of Rome - Octavian Augustus. Vespasian did not live to see the completion of construction, so the emperor Titus opened the amphitheater in 80. It is known from the works of Latin authors that the celebrations for the completion of construction lasted 100 days in a row, and more than 5,000 animals were sacrificed to the gods during this time.

Contrary to popular belief that Christians were executed at the Colosseum, recent research indicates that this was a myth created by catholic church in subsequent years.

In 405 AD Emperor Honorius forbade gladiator fights as being inconsistent with the spirit of Christianity. The last performance at the Colosseum took place under Emperor Theodoric in 523 AD. e. Later, people began to settle in the empty apses, and the building itself began to be gradually dismantled stone by stone, using it as a free building material. In the 12th century he became part of the fortress of Frangipanis. Pope Benedict XIV officially dedicated the building of the Colosseum to the Passion of Christ and designated 14 stops of the Way of the Cross here, putting the beginning of a tradition that exists to this day.

The Colosseum is guarded with even greater attention by the current Italian government, by order of which, under the guidance of scientists, archaeologists, many of the fallen fragments of the structure, where it turned out to be possible, were inserted into their original places, and curious excavations were carried out in the arena, which led to the discovery of basements that once served to push groups of people and animals, trees and other decorations into the arena, or fill with its water and lift up the ships when presented naval battles(naumachia).

Despite all the hardships experienced by the Colosseum over the centuries, its ruins, devoid of their former external and internal decoration, still produce strong impression with its severe majesty and give a fairly clear idea of what its location and architecture were.

Now the Colosseum has become a symbol of Rome and one of the most popular tourist sites. In the 21st century, the Colosseum was among the contenders for the title of one of the seven New Wonders of the World and, according to the voting results, was recognized as such.

Appearance

The amphitheater has the shape of an ellipse with a long axis of 188 m and a short axis of 156 m. internal works tufa and brick were also used.

The outer ring wall in full height was preserved only on the northern side. The first three tiers were surrounded by arcades with 80 arches each. The arches of the first tier were decorated with Tuscan columns, the arches of the second tier - Ionic, and the third - Corinthian. There was a statue in each arch of the second and third tiers. The fourth tier was formed from 80 panels with Corinthian pilasters marked on them, between which windows were made and round bronze shields (clipea) were stuffed.

In the holes of the upper cornice, three brackets were fixed, supporting wooden beams, to which a linen awning was attached - velarium, which protected the spectators in the stands from the sun and rain.

The entrances on the short sides were preceded by a small portico on two columns. From there, a gallery began, where places were reserved for high-ranking officials. Gladiators entered the amphitheater through the entrances on the long sides. The stands of the Colosseum could accommodate 87,000 spectators. Around the amphitheater there was a wide space, paved with tuff and enclosed by a two-tiered gallery.

Interior spaces

Under the arena, covered with boardwalk, there were numerous rooms where the services that ensured the competitions were located. Here were cages with wild animals, lifting mechanisms, with the help of which predators were delivered to the arena. Beneath the entrance corridors was a central corridor leading east to the Gladiators' School.

Although the performances were free for all without exception, seats in the stands were distributed in a fixed order. There were four main gates to enter. The stands were steps lined with marble. They were divided into sectors in accordance with the social status of the audience.

The lower row, or podium (podium), was appointed exclusively for the emperor, his family, senators and vestals, and the emperor had a special, elevated seat. The podium was separated from the arena by a parapet high enough to protect spectators from the attack of animals released on it. The names of the senators were carved either on the seats themselves or on the parapet. The names were gradually erased and replaced by the names of new representatives ruling class(those that have survived belong to the senators of the 5th century AD).

This was followed by places in general for the public, forming three tiers, corresponding to the tiers of the facade of the building. In the first tier, which included 20 rows of benches (now completely destroyed), the city authorities and persons belonging to the estate of horsemen sat; the second tier, consisting of 16 rows of benches, was intended for people with the rights of Roman citizenship. The wall separating the second tier from the third was quite high, while the benches of the third tier were located on a steeper sloping surface; this device was intended to give visitors to the third tier the opportunity to better see the arena and everything that happens in it. The spectators of the third tier belonged to the lower classes. The penultimate tier was occupied by slaves. The last tier was intended exclusively for women.

Under the podium of the tribune there was a wide open corridor, which was used by the attendants. The exit from the stands was very easy, thanks to a perfect system of small stairs evenly distributed among the 80 arches of the upper and lower tiers. In the event of an emergency, all guests could leave the amphitheater in just 5 minutes.

Competitions

During the time of the Republic, games were held in the Roman Forum or the Bull Market, and later in the Champ de Mars. Two types of spectacles were staged in the Colosseum: gladiator fights and battles with wild animals or fights between wild animals. At the beginning, the battle of gladiators was considered a kind of collective ritual, which served as an expression of the power of the noble strata of the population.

In subsequent centuries, this kind of spectacle continued to play important role, and this gift to the people was used for the purposes of political propaganda. Gladiators were recruited from those sentenced to death, prisoners or slaves. The duel continued until the death of one of the rivals, although the loser could appeal to the public for a pardon.

Hunting with the participation of wild animals in the arena became fashionable after the conquest of the Mediterranean and was especially popular because the audience had the opportunity to see duels with unusual and exotic animals. There is evidence that in the 2nd c. BC e. Scipius the Younger introduced the new kind spectacles during which deserters from the battlefield were fed to predators.

The Colosseum, as one of the most majestic buildings, often acts as a symbol of Rome to the same extent that the Eiffel Tower is a symbol of Paris, Big Ben is a symbol of London, the Spasskaya Tower of the Kremlin is a symbol of Moscow, the Leaning Tower of Pisa is a symbol of Pisa, and the Charles Bridge - a symbol of Prague. When schematically depicting a map of Europe, Rome is often marked with a schematic representation of the Colosseum.

Two thousand years have been watching us! These columns remember the Roman emperors: Trajan, the great traveler Hadrian, the philosopher Marcus Aurelius;
they saw the greatness of the Roman Empire and its fall when, in 455 AD. Rome was attacked by vandals and two weeks The eternal City was given to the invaders for looting.
Beautiful majestic Rome was plundered and destroyed! So ceased to exist" marble "capital of the Mediterranean,
and magnificent buildings for many centuries were pulled apart by "pebbles" for the construction of palaces and more than 500 cathedrals and churches of the new Rome, and the forums were overgrown with grass, and pigs grazed there.

01.
Here "... the perfection of forms in any ruin captivates the eye with immortal charm to this day."

02.
The marble capital of the Mediterranean was dazzlingly beautiful! Many emperors decorated the city. It shone in the rays of the southern sun with the whiteness of marble, the gilding of statues, it surprised with its temples, arches, luxurious dwellings of patricians, markets and forums where people gathered.

03.
This is where Julius Caesar stepped foot. Here his funeral pyre blazed and the legionnaires beat their swords into their shields as a sign of mourning for their beloved commander.

"Caesar fell under the cry of the murderers, and, weakening,
To play a worthy finale,
Closing himself with a toga, he silently died ... "( Byron)

04.
Rome was a cosmopolitan city. What kind of adverbs there was to hear, what skin tones and not to see. Rome had one million inhabitants! A huge city by our modern standards.

The city was filled with idlers, whom in the millionth Rome in the first and second centuries AD. (according to historians) there were from 150 to 200 thousand people! Most of the plebs led an idle life, living on handouts and the grace of patrons.
The main consumer of the products arriving in Rome was the plebs. Some historians believe that it was the maintenance of a huge army of the unemployed that became one of the reasons for the fall of Great Rome. Most of the unemployed and the poor were freed slaves.
As free citizens of Rome, they were maintained by the state and also received "unemployment benefits" in accordance with the Roman Law of 73 BC. At first, one and a half kilograms of bread were given out daily and olive oil. This law has never been violated, on the contrary - each emperor increased this "allowance". In the second century they began to give out meat, wine. Almost under every emperor there were cash distributions.

05.
Temple of Saturn (reconstructed 42 BC) and Temple of Vespasian (81 AD)

06.
The acoustics of the Roman theaters in the open air is amazing: the ringing of a coin thrown on a stone stage is heard in last row amphitheater! However, the plebs preferred equestrian competitions, different views and gladiator fights

02.

07.
The temple of Venus the Ancestor, the patroness of the Julius family, was decorated with 8 columns, only three columns and a podium have survived to this day ..

08.
The Temple of Venus the Ancestor was built by Julius Caesar in 46 BC. e. in gratitude to Venus, who was also the goddess hearth and motherhood, for leading Caesar to victory at Pharsalus over Pompey. The temple contained statues of Caesar, Cleopatra and Venus, who was considered the mother of Aeneas and the progenitor of the Julius family. The temple was later rebuilt by Domitian and rebuilt by Trajan in 113.
In front of the Temple of Venus stood an equestrian statue of Julius Caesar.

09.
The temple of the goddesses Venus and Roma (lat. templum Venus et Roma, also called templum urbis Romae, templum urbis) was at one time the largest religious building in Ancient Rome. It occupied the entire territory from the Basilica of Maxentius to the valley of the Colosseum, and was erected on a plinth 145 m long and 100 m wide. The temple was built under the emperor Hadrian in 135 AD. e., on the site where the portico of the Golden House of Nero once stood. In front of the temple was a square with a portico of 150 columns.

10.
The temple occupied the central part of the portico: it was built from two cells, one opposite the other, with a common inner wall. Cella, overlooking the forum, was dedicated to the goddess of the city of Rome - Roma, the other - to the goddess Venus.

After a fire, Maxentius rebuilt the interior in 307 AD: two apses were carved in the back of the cella, where statues of the goddesses were placed, side walls with porphyry columns framed niches for statues. The floor was paved with geometric mosaics of colored marble. The eastern cella is the best preserved to this day, as it for a long time was part of the Church of Santa Francesca Romana.

11.
View of the Roman Forums from the Colosseum.

12.
August Forum. The temple was inaugurated on August 1, 2 BC.

13.
This is what the Basilica of Maxentius looks like now.

14.
Basilica of Maxentius and Constantine large building ever built in the Roman Forum. It was founded in 308 by Emperor Maxentius and completed by his successor, Constantine, in 312. The basilica was erected on the site of warehouses for spices (Latin horrea piperataria). In the Basilica of Constantine not only worshiped the gods, but also appointed business meetings; This is where the City Council met.

15.
Even by ancient Roman standards, the building of the basilica was grandiose - the area of the nave exceeded 4000 square meters. m., the height of the vaults was 39 meters. Inside the walls of the basilica were decorated with marble slabs, the floor was covered with colored marble. The baths of Caracalla and Diocletian served as an architectural example for the construction. A colossal statue of the Roman Emperor Constantine was installed in the western apse of the basilica.

16.
Powerful high city walls surrounded Rome.
This partly restored wall with arches is the entrance to the Borghese Garden from Via Veneto.

17.
Aurelian Wall ( mura aureliane) was built around ancient rome under the emperor Aurelian in 271-275 around the more ancient Servian wall. Inside the wall are the seven hills of Rome, the Campus Martius and the Trastevere area on the left bank of the Tiber. (total area- 13.7 km²).
The walls with a thickness of 3.4 m and a perimeter of 19 km were built of concrete and faced with brick just on the eve of the Great Migration of Nations, which began in the 4th century.
The towers were one hundred feet apart; their total number came up to 383.
The height of the wall under Aurelian did not exceed eight meters; in the 5th century it was built twice as compared to the previous one.
The Gothic king Totila (541-552) managed to dismantle a third of the perimeter of the walls, but even in the Middle Ages, the remaining sections continued to be considered a solid fortification. During the Renaissance, they were updated and restored (in particular, the Pius Gate was designed by Michelangelo himself).

18.
This building, striking in its power - the Castle of the Holy Angel - was originally built as the mausoleum of Hadrian. The construction of the mausoleum began in 123 AD. Here lies the remains imperial families up to the year 217. The dimensions of the structure were colossal, the walls were lined with marble, the mausoleum was decorated with columns and statues.

-------------------
Via Sacra, the Sacred Road, along which honored guests of Rome entered the Roman Forum, triumphal processions and religious festivities took place, triumphal chariots of victorious commanders drove, carts with military booty rode, lines of prisoners walked: Ancient Rome. Robbed, destroyed Rome survived and now it shocks us with its greatness:

"Arches everywhere, the eye sees the arches,
You will say: Rome could not leave the stage,
Until he created the Colosseum - the cathedral
Your triumphs." Byron)

The ancient Romans loved to decorate their cities with sculptures. In Rome alone, by the beginning of the 4th c. AD there were about 4 thousand bronze statues, including 22 large equestrian monuments. There were a lot of marble statues. Sculptures and statues were placed on tombstones, they decorated private houses of Roman citizens, streets, squares and temples of the Eternal City. At the Roman Forum there were statues of emperors, generals, famous orators and other noble citizens. In the Colosseum alone, 160 statues of emperors and Roman gods were installed in its 240 arches!

Two thousand years have been watching us! These columns remember the Roman emperors: Trajan, the great traveler Hadrian, the philosopher Marcus Aurelius;
they saw the greatness of the Roman Empire and its fall when, in 455 AD. Vandals attacked Rome and for two weeks the Eternal City was given to the invaders for plunder.
Beautiful majestic Rome was plundered and destroyed! So ceased to exist" marble "capital of the Mediterranean,
and magnificent buildings for many centuries were pulled apart by "pebbles" for the construction of palaces and more than 500 cathedrals and churches of the new Rome, and the forums were overgrown with grass, and pigs grazed there.

01.
Here "... the perfection of forms in any ruin captivates the eye with immortal charm to this day."

03.
This is where Julius Caesar stepped foot. Here his funeral pyre blazed and the legionnaires beat their swords into their shields as a sign of mourning for their beloved commander.

"Caesar fell under the cry of the murderers, and, weakening,
To play a worthy finale,
Closing himself with a toga, he silently died ... "( Byron)

04.
Rome was a cosmopolitan city. What kind of adverbs there was to hear, what skin tones and not to see. Rome had one million inhabitants! A huge city by our modern standards.

05.
Temple of Saturn (reconstructed 42 BC) and Temple of Vespasian (81 AD)

06.
The acoustics of Roman theaters in the open air is amazing: the ringing of a coin thrown onto a stone stage is heard in the last row of the amphitheater! However, the plebs preferred equestrian competitions, various performances and gladiator fights.

02.

07.
The temple of Venus the Ancestor, the patroness of the Julius family, was decorated with 8 columns, only three columns and a podium have survived to this day ..

08.
The Temple of Venus the Ancestor was built by Julius Caesar in 46 BC. e. in gratitude to Venus, who was also the goddess of the hearth and motherhood, for leading Caesar to victory over Pompey at Pharsalus. The temple contained statues of Caesar, Cleopatra and Venus, who was considered the mother of Aeneas and the progenitor of the Julius family. The temple was later rebuilt by Domitian and rebuilt by Trajan in 113.
In front of the Temple of Venus stood an equestrian statue of Julius Caesar.

After a fire, Maxentius rebuilt the interior in 307 AD: two apses were carved in the back of the cella, where statues of the goddesses were placed, side walls with porphyry columns framed niches for statues. The floor was paved with geometric mosaics of colored marble. The eastern cella is the best preserved to this day, as it was part of the church of Santa Francesca Romana for a long time.

11.
View of the Roman Forums from the Colosseum.

12.
August Forum. The temple was inaugurated on August 1, 2 BC.

13.
This is what the Basilica of Maxentius looks like now.

14.
The Basilica of Maxentius and Constantine is the largest building ever built in the Roman Forum. It was founded in 308 by Emperor Maxentius and completed by his successor, Constantine, in 312. The basilica was erected on the site of warehouses for spices (Latin horrea piperataria). In the Basilica of Constantine, not only worshiped the gods, but also appointed business meetings; This is where the City Council met.

16.
Powerful high city walls surrounded Rome.
This partly restored wall with arches is the entrance to the Borghese Garden from Via Veneto.

17.
Aurelian Wall ( mura aureliane) was built around ancient Rome under the emperor Aurelian in 271-275 around the more ancient Servian wall. Inside the wall are the seven hills of Rome, the Campus Martius and the Trastevere area on the left bank of the Tiber. (total area - 13.7 km²).
The walls with a thickness of 3.4 m and a perimeter of 19 km were built of concrete and faced with brick just on the eve of the Great Migration of Nations, which began in the 4th century.
The towers were one hundred feet apart; their total number reached 383.
The height of the wall under Aurelian did not exceed eight meters; in the 5th century it was built twice as compared to the previous one.
The Gothic king Totila (541-552) managed to dismantle a third of the perimeter of the walls, but even in the Middle Ages, the remaining sections continued to be considered a solid fortification. During the Renaissance, they were updated and restored (in particular, the Pius Gate was designed by Michelangelo himself).

18.
This building, striking in its power - the Castle of the Holy Angel - was originally built as the mausoleum of Hadrian. The construction of the mausoleum began in 123 AD. The remains of the imperial families rested here until 217. The dimensions of the structure were colossal, the walls were lined with marble, the mausoleum was decorated with columns and statues.

"Arches everywhere, the eye sees the arches,
You will say: Rome could not leave the stage,
Until he created the Colosseum - the cathedral
Your triumphs." Byron)

The ancient Romans loved to decorate their cities with sculptures. In Rome alone, by the beginning of the 4th c. AD there were about 4 thousand bronze statues, including 22 large equestrian monuments. There were a lot of marble statues. Sculptures and statues were installed on tombstones, they decorated the private houses of Roman citizens, streets, squares and temples of the Eternal City. At the Roman Forum there were statues of emperors, generals, famous orators and other noble citizens. In the Colosseum alone, 160 statues of emperors and Roman gods were installed in its 240 arches!
Ancient Rome - the art of sculpture.

A unique masterpiece of architecture. The only building of Ancient Rome, which was not completely destroyed by either the Goths or the barbarians, who destroyed the white marble temples of Rome in savage ecstasy: ITALY. Rome. Pantheon.

"Temple of all gods - pagan, Christ's,
Simple and wise, majestically strict. (...)
You are an art piece best days,
Robbed and yet perfect" (Byron)

Great Rome stood for a thousand years! The foundation of the city of Rome is considered 753 BC, and on August 23, 476 AD. The great Roman Empire fell, and it was the sunset of antiquity! After that, in Europe came " dark time"civilization made flip flop back. But the Eternal City withstood the wars, devastation and centuries of oblivion. And now, after two thousand years, we can admire these beautiful and powerful structures and marvel at the art and engineering of the ancients, without which our civilization would not exist.

The Roman Forum is the center of the civil and economic life of Ancient Rome. They gathered here to honor the commanders, on holidays. Here, according to Roman custom, the funeral pyre of Julius Gaius Caesar, who was killed in 44 BC, burned. conspirators.
01.

Via Sacra, Sacred Road, - the main road of the Roman Forum. It connected the Palatine Hill with the Capitol. Road at the end of the 6th century BC was three meters wide, lined with tuff, a wide sewer channel led to the Great cloaca. In the 5th century BC. the foundation of the road was laid to protect against rain and dampness, later fortified and during the reign of Nero (in the 1st century AD) decorated with colonnades, from which columns are now visible. Honored guests of Rome entered the Roman Forum along Via Sacra, triumphal processions and religious festivities took place, triumphal chariots of victorious commanders drove, carts with military booty rode, and lines of prisoners walked. So Emperor Augustus dreamed that the famous Cleopatra would pass in front of the Roman people in a string of prisoners.
02.

A triumphal chariot passed along the Via Sacra Caesar. And let's imagine... One evening in 45 BC. the gloomy sky over the Roman Forum was illuminated by the flame of torches. Thousands of people have gathered here. A procession of forty elephants stretched out along the Sacred Road in two long chains. A passage formed in the middle was illuminated by the bright lamps of their riders. Julius Gaius Caesar, the conqueror of the world, rode in a chariot along this living luminous corridor. He defeated the Gallic tribes, won a number of victories in Egypt, in North Africa and in Asia Minor, he defeated his rival Pompey, who fought with him for supreme power over the Roman state.

Rome celebrated each of these victories separately, and the popular celebrations continued for five days. Triumphal processions crossed the Forum five times. Warriors passed, next to which carts rolled, loaded to the top with gold and silver - military trophies, some of which will be divided among the legionnaires. For the entertainment of the spectators, rafts were launched along the triumphal path, on which images of the most important events victorious campaigns. On one of the rafts was a large inscription - famous words Caesar: "I came, I saw, I conquered" - VENI, VIDI, VICI.
03.

Well preserved richly decorated with sculptures and bas-reliefs Triumphal Arch of Constantine erected on the border of the Forum, on Via Sacra, in memory of the victory over Maxentius at the bridge of Milvio in 312. However, the decorations of the arch were mostly removed from other structures ... Almost all the material for the arch was taken from the arches of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius and other monuments, so the Arch of Constantine was derisively nicknamed "Aesop's Magpie".
04.

The most interesting part of this monument, the best preserved of all ancient monuments, is the inscription: " To the emperor Caesar Flavius Constantine Maximus, noble, victorious and august, the Senate and the people of Rome dedicate this Arch in honor of the triumph because, by the illumination of God and with the help of the greatness of mind, he with his army defended the honor of the State in a just war against the tyrant, as well as against split."At that time, the masters of the city were pagans. They knew that Constantine, if he was not a Christian, then favored the Christians. Out of pride, the masters of the city did not want to mention the name of Christ in the inscription on the monument, but, on the other hand, they, sparing the feelings of the emperor , the pagan deities were not mentioned either.Therefore, a compromise phrase was found that satisfied both sides: " Instinctu divinitatis" ("By the illumination of God").
05.

A circle is visible at the base of the Arch of Constantine. This place was the Meta Sudane fountain, which existed since the time of Nero and reconstructed by Domitian. Gladiators used to come here to bathe.
06.

Even during the life of Emperor Titus, at the imperial forums in memory of his victory in the Jewish War - about the capture of Jerusalem in 70 AD. - A triumphal arch was erected. However, there was no trace left of that arch. Immediately after the death of the emperor in 81, during the reign of Domitian, another arch was built, dedicated to the conquest of Judea. This famous arch is now known as arch of Titus. It has been well preserved for its almost two thousand years. Subsequently, she served as a model for many triumphal arches of the New Age.
07.

Triumphal Arch of Septimius Severus also located on the Sacred Road. It was erected in 205 AD. in honor of the victories of the emperor Septimius Severus and his sons Caracalla and Geta over Parthia in two military campaigns of 195-203. The height of the arch is 20.9 m, the width is 23.3 m, and the depth is 11.2 m. It is built of brick and travertine and lined with marble slabs. The height of the attic is 5.6 m, there are 4 rooms in it, to which a staircase leads. The central span of the arch is 12 m high and 7 m wide, the side spans are 7.8 m high and 3 m wide; in front of them from the side of the Forum are several steps. All three spans are connected by walkways, this technique applied in many triumphal arches New time. In ancient times, there was a quadriga with statues of Septimius Severus, Caracalla and Geta on the arch. It was in this form that she was depicted on Roman coins. The quadriga has not survived to this day.
08.

The ancients said: “While the Colosseum stands, Rome also stands” - the “eternal city” is a symbol of our civilization.

"As long as the Colosseum is unshakable,
Great Rome stands unshakable,
But collapse the Colosseum - and Rome will collapse,
And the world will collapse when there is no Rome"

Byron "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage")

Over 2 thousand years Coliseum amazes with its grandeur, and it is not for nothing that 100 million people of our Planet voted on the Internet on July 7, 2007 to recognize it as the Seventh Wonder of the World! And isn't this a miracle of building skill and engineering genius of the ancient Romans! The Colosseum withstood three earthquakes: 442, 508 and 1349 and did not fall apart. It was built on the site of an artificial lake of the Golden House of Nero and did not fail. For twenty centuries the Colosseum has stood, not crumbling like today's covered markets, the frames of swimming pools or box buildings. The dimensions of the Colosseum are impressive: the length of its circumferential ellipse is 542 m, the major axis is 187.77 m, the minor axis is 155.64 m, the length of the arena is 85.75 m, the width is 53.62 m. The Colosseum could accommodate up to 73 thousand spectators, though then the people on the upper tiers sat closely, like herrings in a barrel.
09.

Marble was used for the magnificent facings of the facade, the seats in the front rows of the sectors, the capitals and the statues. Travertine (calcareous tufa) was used for facing the outer facade and for concentric circles. The building blocks were hewn by hand, they fit tightly together, so that the Colosseum did not fall apart when, over the centuries, the iron staples that held the blocks together were removed from it. The holes still visible in various places in the wall of the Colosseum are nests of curly braces, the production of which took 300 tons of iron. In the Middle Ages, iron was highly valued and therefore all iron brackets were pulled out of their sockets...
10.

Contrary to popular belief, no slave labor was used in the construction. After the sack of Judea, 30,000 captives were sold into slavery. The money raised for this went to the construction of this colossal structure, which employed 15 thousand workers, whose work was clearly organized.
The amphitheater was erected by both ordinary workers and skilled, united in colleges. There was a clear hierarchy and strict discipline in the ancient Roman professional colleges, thanks to which the construction of such a grandiose structure could be carried out successfully: each worker knew his place and the work that he performed. Stones for construction were continuously transported from nearby Tivol (32 km from Rome) on wagons. In the Tivoli quarries, thousands of slaves manually cut down travertine and marble - more than 100 thousand tons. This great amount, given that for centuries, and especially in the Middle Ages, the Colosseum was a source of building material. Marble and travertine of the Colosseum was used, for example, in the construction of St. Peter's Cathedral in Rome, the construction of Roman palaces - Palazzo Venezia, Palazzo Farnese.

The unique work on draining the lake is amazing. Without modern instruments an excellent drainage system was created. In addition, a sewer system was built around the Colosseum, 3 km long, which went to the Cloaca, and from there to the Tiber. Rainwater flowed through the sewer system, which was collected in huge - 8 meters deep - cisterns standing at regular intervals.
11.

The Colosseum is built on a powerful concrete foundation 13 meters thick. During the construction, ancient engineers took into account that such a tall structure - 49 meters high - could not be built solid from concrete - otherwise it would collapse under its own weight. Therefore, the upper tiers were built lighter in weight, which was achieved thanks to arched ceilings and building material made of concrete and red brick. Prior to this, these new Construction Materials were not used in the construction of massive structures. During the construction of the most grandiose ancient amphitheater, concrete and red brick, which was invented by the ancient Romans, were used. Brick production was put on stream - it was produced in workshops throughout Rome during the five years of construction of the amphitheater.
12.

The beauty of the Colosseum is still created today by the remaining arches, in which 160 statues of emperors and Roman gods once stood.
13.

Two thousand years have been watching us! These columns remember the Roman emperors: Trajan, the great traveler Hadrian, the philosopher Marcus Aurelius;
they saw the greatness of the Roman Empire and its fall when, in 455 AD. Vandals attacked Rome and for two weeks the Eternal City was given to the invaders for plunder. Beautiful majestic Rome was plundered and destroyed! So ceased to exist" marble "capital of the Mediterranean,
and magnificent buildings for many centuries were pulled apart by "pebbles" for the construction of palaces and more than 900 churches of the new Rome, and the forums were overgrown with grass, and pigs grazed there.

Here "... the perfection of forms in any ruin captivates the eye with immortal charm to this day."
01.

This is where Julius Caesar stepped foot. Here his funeral pyre blazed and the legionnaires beat their swords into their shields as a sign of mourning for their beloved commander.
03.

Rome was a cosmopolitan city. What kind of adverbs there was to hear, what skin tones and not to see. Rome had one million inhabitants! A huge city by our modern standards.
04.

05.
Temple of Saturn (reconstructed 42 BC) and Temple of Vespasian (81 AD)

The acoustics of Roman theaters in the open air is amazing: the ringing of a coin thrown onto a stone stage is heard in the last row of the amphitheater! However, the plebs preferred equestrian competitions, various performances and gladiator fights.
06.

02.

The temple of Venus the Ancestor, the patroness of the Julius family, was decorated with 8 columns, only three columns and a podium have survived to this day.
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The Temple of Venus the Ancestor was erected by Julius Caesar in 46 BC. in gratitude to Venus, who was also the goddess of the hearth and motherhood, for leading Caesar to victory over Pompey at Pharsalus. The temple contained statues of Caesar, Cleopatra and Venus, who was considered the mother of Aeneas and the progenitor of the Julius family. The temple was later rebuilt by Domitian and rebuilt by Trajan in 113.
In front of the Temple of Venus stood an equestrian statue of Julius Caesar.
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The temple of the goddesses Venus and Roma (lat. templum Venus et Roma, also called templum urbis Romae, templum urbis) was at one time the largest religious building in Ancient Rome. It occupied the entire territory from the Basilica of Maxentius to the valley of the Colosseum, and was erected on a plinth 145 m long and 100 m wide. The temple was built under the emperor Hadrian in 135 AD. e., on the site where the portico of the Golden House of Nero once stood. In front of the temple was a square with a portico of 150 columns.
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The temple occupied the central part of the portico: it was built from two cells, one opposite the other, with a common inner wall. Cella, overlooking the forum, was dedicated to the goddess of the city of Rome - Roma, the other - to the goddess Venus.

After a fire, Maxentius rebuilt the interior in 307 AD: two apses were carved in the back of the cella, where statues of the goddesses were placed, side walls with porphyry columns framed niches for statues. The floor was paved with geometric mosaics of colored marble. The eastern cella is the best preserved to this day, as it was part of the church of Santa Francesca Romana for a long time.
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View of the Roman Forums from the Colosseum.

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August Forum. The temple was inaugurated on August 1, 2 BC.

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This is what the Basilica of Maxentius looks like now.

The Basilica of Maxentius and Constantine is the largest building ever built in the Roman Forum. It was founded in 308 by Emperor Maxentius and completed by his successor, Constantine, in 312. The basilica was erected on the site of warehouses for spices (Latin horrea piperataria). In the Basilica of Constantine, not only worshiped the gods, but also appointed business meetings; This is where the City Council met.
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Powerful high city walls surrounded Rome.
This partly restored wall with arches is the entrance to the Borghese Garden from Via Veneto.

Aurelian Wall ( mura aureliane) was built around ancient Rome under the emperor Aurelian in 271-275 around the more ancient Servian wall. Inside the wall are the seven hills of Rome, the Campus Martius and the Trastevere area on the left bank of the Tiber. (total area - 13.7 km²).
The walls with a thickness of 3.4 m and a perimeter of 19 km were built of concrete and faced with brick just on the eve of the Great Migration of Nations, which began in the 4th century. The towers were one hundred feet apart; their total number reached 383.
The height of the wall under Aurelian did not exceed eight meters; in the 5th century it was built twice as compared to the previous one.
The Gothic king Totila (541-552) managed to dismantle a third of the perimeter of the walls, but even in the Middle Ages, the remaining sections continued to be considered a solid fortification. During the Renaissance, they were updated and restored (in particular, the Pius Gate was designed by Michelangelo himself).
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This building, striking in its power - the Castle of the Holy Angel - was originally built as the mausoleum of Hadrian. The construction of the mausoleum began in 123 AD. The remains of the imperial families rested here until 217. The dimensions of the structure were colossal, the walls were lined with marble, the mausoleum was decorated with columns and statues.
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