Colosseum

Timeline

1. AD 72

   Vespasian Begins Work

   Construction opens on the artificial lake of Nero's Domus Aurea, converting the tyrant's private park into a public amphitheatre.

2. AD 80

   Titus Inaugurates

   After ten years of work the four-tier core is dedicated; inaugural games run 100 days with gladiatorial combat and mock naval battles.

3. AD 81-96

   Domitian's Additions

   The upper tier is added and the underground hypogeum completed, reaching the final 50,000-seat form with mechanical stage machinery.

4. AD 217

   Lightning and Fire

   A lightning strike sets off a major fire; restoration extends into the reign of Severus Alexander.

5. AD 404

   Gladiatorial Games Banned

   Emperor Honorius bans gladiatorial games across the empire, effectively ending the building's use as an arena.

6. 1349

   Earthquake Collapse

   An earthquake in central Italy collapses roughly a third of the southern outer wall, a loss compounded by medieval stone quarrying.

7. 1749

   Sanctuary of Martyrs

   Pope Benedict XIV declares the Colosseum a sanctuary of Christian martyrs and bans the long-running quarrying that had stripped its stone.

8. 1933

   Fascist-Era Restoration

   Mussolini's regime undertakes major archaeological works and incorporates the building into the new Via dei Fori Imperiali processional route.

9. December 1980

   World Heritage Inscription

   Inscribed by UNESCO as part of the Historic Centre of Rome, with Vatican City and San Paolo Fuori le Mura.

10. 2007

    New Seven Wonders

    Selected as one of the New Seven Wonders of the World alongside the Great Wall, Petra and Machu Picchu, refreshing the building's tourism profile.

11. 2010-2016

    Tod's Restoration

    A EUR 25 million sponsorship by the Tod's Foundation funds a comprehensive cleaning that returns the outer wall to a near-ancient white.

12. 2018

    Gold Light Tradition

    Gold floodlighting becomes the convention on nights when any nation votes to abolish capital punishment, anchoring a global civic gesture.

Detailed History

The Colosseum's official name is the Flavian Amphitheatre (Amphitheatrum Flavium), opened by Emperor Vespasian in AD 72. The site had been the artificial lake (Stagnum Neronis) inside the gardens of Nero's lavish Domus Aurea, deliberately filled in to convert the tyrant's private playground into a civic stadium for the Roman people. His son Titus inaugurated the building in AD 80 with 100 days of games that killed roughly 9,000 wild animals and many gladiators. Under Domitian (reigned 81-96) the upper tier was added and the underground hypogeum completed, bringing the venue to its final 50,000-seat form — the largest amphitheatre of the ancient world. A massive fire in 217 followed a lightning strike, and restoration ran into the reign of Severus Alexander. Gladiatorial games were banned by Honorius in 404, and by the 6th century the building had ceased to function as an arena. In the medieval period it was used as housing and a fortress; the Frangipane and Annibaldi families fortified it in the 12th-13th centuries, and an earthquake in 1349 collapsed roughly a third of the southern outer wall. From the Renaissance onwards the stone was quarried for new construction, including St Peter's Basilica, the Palazzo Venezia and the Cancelleria, leaving the building half-ruined. In 1749 Pope Benedict XIV proclaimed the Colosseum a sanctuary of Christian martyrs and ended the quarrying, planting a central cross — though the historicity of widespread Christian martyrdom on the site is now considered weak, the tradition has stuck. Systematic archaeology and restoration began in the 19th century, with major Fascist-era works in 1933, and on 5 December 1980 the building was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List as part of the Historic Centre of Rome (with Vatican City and St Paul Outside the Walls). A EUR 25 million sponsorship by the Tod's Foundation funded a comprehensive cleaning campaign in 2010-2016, returning the outer wall to a colour close to its ancient white. Since 2018 the Colosseum has been lit gold on the night any nation votes to abolish capital punishment, an internationally recognised symbolic gesture.

Cultural Significance

The Colosseum stands as the apex of ancient Roman architecture, an elliptical four-tier amphitheatre 48 meters tall with a long axis of 188 meters, a short axis of 156 meters and a circumference of 527 meters. As the emblem of ancient Western architecture it has anchored countless films (Ben-Hur, Gladiator, Roman Holiday, The Fall of the Roman Empire) and works of literature and art. The 1980 UNESCO inscription, as the principal component of the 'Historic Centre of Rome, the Properties of the Holy See in that City Enjoying Extraterritorial Rights and San Paolo Fuori le Mura' nomination, satisfies criteria (i)(ii)(iii)(iv)(vi) — one of the rare sites to do so. Selected one of the New Seven Wonders of the World in 2007, the building draws roughly 7 million visitors a year, Italy's largest tourism asset. The Colosseum has also become a symbolic stage for the global movement to abolish the death penalty, lit gold on nights when any country votes for abolition. On Good Friday before Easter, the Roman Catholic Church holds the Pope-led Stations of the Cross at the Colosseum, sustaining a medieval tradition of remembering Christian martyrs.

Architectural Details

The Colosseum is an elliptical building 188 meters by 156 meters, with a 527-meter perimeter, four tiers and a height of 48 meters. The outer wall stacks the three Greek orders of column on the lower three storeys — Doric on the ground, Ionic on the second, Corinthian on the third — and crowns them with the Roman Composite order on the fourth, an encyclopedic display of ancient column design. Travertine limestone forms the principal masonry, while the interior makes heavy use of tuff, brick and Roman concrete (with Pozzolana volcanic ash) to deliver four storeys without any iron reinforcement — the quintessence of ancient engineering. Seating was tiered by social class across four bands — senatorial, equestrian, free-citizen and women-and-slaves — with eighty arched vomitoria designed to evacuate 50,000 spectators in fewer than 15 minutes. Below the arena floor sat the hypogeum, a 6-meter-deep network of corridors with thirty-two mechanical lifts and eighty cells that raised gladiators, beasts and stage machinery to the arena surface in moments. A vast retractable canvas awning, the velarium, was operated by sailors brought in from Mediterranean fleets — the largest fabric architecture of its day, designed to shade the entire stand.