Colosseum

The Colosseum was a huge amphitheater located in Rome, Italy. The building of the Colosseum started in 60 A.D. when the emperor Vespasian wanted to build a huge amphitheater in Rome. The emperor Titus started taking care of the building of the Colosseum when it had been almost ready. The Colosseum had seats for about 50,000 people and it was used for Gladiator fights,executions and many other events. Vespasian also did not have money, so he melted Nero’s huge statue “Colossus” of gold and used the gold from it to pay for the construction of the Colosseum. This is where the building got its name from.

Those days many materials were very expensive, so Vespasian chose to build the entire thing from concrete. Concrete was a good way though, cheap and worked well but when building some pillars collapsed and some men were even killed. Some decorations were later on made out of limestone to make the building very attractive and the concrete chairs were placed with marble ones.

The Colosseum was not of course liked by everyone, and many robbers came at nights and stole the chairs that they sold later on for a good price. Many guards were guarding the building at night, but it was still pretty easy to sneak into such a big building without been noticed. In the year 217 A.D. A lightning hit the Colosseum making a huge crack on it’s wall.

Now in the modern days the floor of the Colosseum has been taken off so that people can see the storages where the animals and equipment were kept. These days it is open for all tourists and attracts many people into Rome in the summer.

Interesting Facts:

July 7th 2007, the Colosseum was voted as one of the New Seven Wonders.

The Colosseum is carved in the Italian 5 cent coins.

It is the greatest symbol of the power of the Roman Army.

The Colosseum has been used in over 10 famous films.

What’s left of the Colosseum these days is actually half of the real size that it was.

The Colosseum is also in over 90 PC/Console games like Prince Of Persia and Timespliters.