The Colosseum

GENERAL AND INTRODUCTORY

The most comprehensive recent introduction to all aspects of the Colosseum is A. Gabucci (ed.), The Colosseum (Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 2001), though be warned that the English translation of the original Italian edition (Milan, 2000) is sometimes inaccurate and occasionally misleading. Also useful are P. Connolly, Colosseum: Rome’s Arena of Death (London, 2003) – especially good for its careful reconstruction drawings and its explanations of the basement areas; L. Abbondanza, The Valley of the Colosseum (Rome, 1997), the site-guide produced by the Italian archaeological service, but widely available; and P. Quennell, The Colosseum (New York, 1971), which is excellent on the medieval and later history of the building (though sadly out of print). Other important studies, available only in Italian, include M. L. Conforto et al., Anfiteatro Flavio: immagine, testimonianze, spettacoli (Rome, 1988), and R. Rea, Rota Colisei (Milan, 2002).

Amphitheatres in general are the subject of D. L-Bomgardner, The Story of the Roman Amphitheatre (London, 2000), and of an important book by K. Welch, The Roman Amphitheatre from its Origins to the Colosseum (Cambridge, 2005). The main work of reference on amphitheatres is the two-volume study by J.-C. Golvin, L’Amphithéâtre Romain: essai sur la théorisation de sa forme et de ses fonctions (Paris, 1988), but note that a printing error on Golvin’s definitive plan of the Colosseum reversed the points of the compass, marking south as north. This error has crept into later books (including Bomgardner’s), causing considerable confusion.

There has been an enormous amount of recent writing on gladiators and other forms of Roman spectacle (some, but not all, prompted by the movie Gladiator). Particularly influential have been K. Hopkins’ chapter ‘Murderous Games’, in his Death and Renewal (Cambridge, 1983), and C. Barton, Sorrows of the Ancient Romans: the gladiator and the monster (Princeton, 1993). Good general surveys of the phenomenon include R. Auguet, Cruelty and Civilization: the Roman games (London, 1972); D. Kyle, Spectacles and Death in Ancient Rome (London, 1998); F. Meijer, The Gladiators: history’s most deadly sport (London, 2007); and T. Wiedemann, Emperors and Gladiators (London & New York, 1992). G. Ville, La Gladiature en occident des origines à la mort de Domitien (Rome, 1981) is a rigorously detailed account. Two exhibition catalogues provide useful illustration of the material evidence (including surviving gladiatorial armour): E. Köhne and C. Ewigleben (eds.), Gladiators and Caesars (London, 2000) and – a magnificently illustrated book, though only available in Italian – A. La Regina (ed.), Sangue e arena (Milan, 2001). M. M. Winkler (ed.), Gladiator: film and history (Malden, MA, & Oxford, 2004) is a lively collection of essays on modern popular representation of gladiators and the ancient context.

The Cambridge Illustrated History of the Roman World, edited by G. Woolf (Cambridge, 2003), is an excellent, up-to-the-minute introduction to the historical and cultural background of the Colosseum. The best on-site guide to the ancient monuments of the city of Rome is A. Claridge, Rome: an Oxford archaeological guide (2nd ed., Oxford, 2010).

ANCIENT TEXTS

The main ancient texts which underpin our account of gladiatorial shows and the world of the Colosseum are:

Cassius Dio, Roman History (a narrative – now surviving only in parts – written in Greek in the third century AD, covering Rome’s history from its foundation to the writer’s own lifetime)

Martial, The Book of the Shows (or On Spectacles, as it is often called, a collection of poetry written to celebrate the opening of the Colosseum in AD 80)

Pliny (the Elder), Natural History (a vast encyclopaedia of the natural world, written in the mid first century AD)

‘Scriptores Historiae Augustae’ (a mysterious – and often unbelievably lurid – collection of lives of emperors and usurpers from Hadrian to the end of the third century AD, probably written at the end of the fourth; usually abbreviated as SHA)

Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars (a series of twelve biographies of Roman dictators and emperors from Julius Caesar to Domitian, written in the early second century AD)

Tacitus, Annals (an account of Roman history from the death of the first emperor Augustus probably – though the end does not survive – to the death of Nero, written in the early second century AD)

Translations of all these – and most other classical writers we have referred to – are available in the Loeb Classical Library. Reliable English versions of Suetonius and Tacitus (and of portions of Dio, Pliny and SHA) are also to be found in the Penguin Classics series. A selection of Martial’s verses from The Book of the Shows is included in the Penguin Classics volume Martial in English (eds. J. P. Sullivan and A. J. Boyle).

CHAPTER 1

Nineteenth-century tourism to Rome, as well as literary and artistic responses, are acutely discussed in C. Edwards (ed.), Roman Presences: receptions of Rome in European culture, 1789–1945 (Cambridge, 1999); the chapters by C. Chard and J. Lyon are especially relevant. The appeal of the mid-nineteenth-century Colosseum is captured by C. Woodward, In Ruins (London, 2001), Chapter 1, ‘Who Killed Daisy Miller?’, and (with an American focus) W. L. Vance, America’s Rome (New Haven & London, 1989), Volume 1, Chapter 2 (‘The Colosseum: ambiguities of empire’). Amongst an enormous bibliography which explores more generally the northern European engagement with Italy and the Mediterranean, note J. Pemble, The Mediterranean Passion: Victorians and Edwardians in the South (Oxford, 1987); M. Liversidge and C. Edwards, Imagining Rome: British artists and Rome in the nineteenth century (London, 1996); and C. Hornsby (ed.), The Impact of Italy: the Grand Tour and beyond (London, British School at Rome, 2000).

In addition to the literary references sourced in the text, Charles Dickens’ effusion on the Colosseum is from his Pictures from Italy (London, 1846) and Byron’s famous lines in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage are from Canto IV.

CHAPTER 2

The Colosseum’s ancient literary fame depends heavily on Martial’s poems in The Book of the Shows, discussed by W. Fitzgerald in Martial: the wonder of the epigram (Chicago, 2007) and the subject of a definitive commentary by K. Coleman, Martial: Liber Spectaculorum (Oxford, 2006). The reactions of the emperor Constantius to the city can be found in Book 16 of Ammianus’ multi-volume history of Rome (translated in the Loeb Classical Library and Penguin Classics). The archaeological impact of the building is straightforwardly reviewed in Bomgardner’s Story of the Roman Amphitheatre. The description of El Jem as a ‘shrunken Colosseum’ is from an architectural study by M. Wilson-Jones, ‘Designing amphitheatres’, in Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archaelogischen Instituts (Römische Abteilung), 100 (1993). Amphitheatres in Britain include a newly discovered example in London, which is explored in N. Bateman, Gladiators at the Guildhall: the story of London’s Roman amphitheatre and medieval Guildhall (London, 2002).

The story of the Golden House and the end of Nero’s reign are covered in two good biographies of Nero: M. Griffin, Nero: the end of a dynasty (London, 1984), and E. Champlin, Nero (Cambridge, MA, & London, 2003). The main Roman account of the rise of Vespasian is in Tacitus’ Histories (covering a later period than his Annals); the Talmudic story of the flea is in Masechet Gittin (56b–57a). The triumphal procession of Vespasian and Titus is described in Book 7 of Josephus’ Jewish War and is the subject of M. Beard, ‘The Triumph of Flavius Josephus’, in A. J. Boyle and W. J. Dominik (eds.), Flavian Rome: culture, image, text (Leiden & Boston, 2003). The Colossus is discussed in S. Carey, Pliny’s Catalogue of Culture: art and empire in the Natural History (Oxford, 2003). The squib about Veii is reported in Suetonius’ Life of Nero. The full technical study of the dedicatory inscription is in German by G. Alföldy, in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, 109 (1995). The ‘Bede’ quotation is from a miscellany known as the Collectanea, edited and translated by M. Bayless, M. Lapidge et al. (Dublin, 1988); attributed to him in the sixteenth century, it is almost certainly nothing to do with Bede at all – though it is nevertheless probably of early medieval date.

The pre-Colosseum history of the amphitheatre is now expertly explored by K. Welch in The Roman Amphitheatre. Caligula’s disdain for the monument of the aristocrat (one Statilius Taurus) is reported in Book 59 of Dio’s History. The amazed rustics are a creation of the poet Calpurnius Siculus, whose Eclogues are translated in Minor Latin Poets (Loeb Classical Library); Eclogue 7 spotlights the amphitheatre. The political analysis presented in this chapter draws on the discussion in Hopkins, Death and Renewal (Chapters 2 and 3). Other, differently nuanced, accounts of the political shifts in Rome over this period include J. R. Patterson, Political Life in the City of Rome (London, 2000), a very useful review, primarily intended for students, and T. P. Wiseman, Roman Political Life 90 BC–AD 69 (Exeter, 1985). Those shifts are also the theme of R. Syme’s classic, The Roman Revolution (Oxford, 1939), written in the shadow of the European dictatorships of the 1930s. Ancient Chinese reactions to Rome are collected in F. Hirth, China and the Roman Orient: researches into their ancient and medieval relations as represented in old Chinese records (Leipzig, 1885).

CHAPTERS 3 AND 4

The varied displays in the arena (including several of the acts lauded by Martial) are the subject of influential essays by K. Coleman, ‘Fatal Charades: Roman executions staged as mythological enactments’, Journal of Roman Studies, 80 (1990) and ‘Launching into History: aquatic displays in the early empire’, Journal of Roman Studies, 83 (1993). The translation we have used of the Laureolus/Prometheus verse is by F. Ahl, from another collection of translations of Martial, Epigrams of Martial, Englished by divers hands (Berkeley & London, 1987) (eds. J. P. Sullivan and P. Whigham). Tertullian’s main attack on such displays is to be found in his De Spectaculis (On the Shows).

Most discussions of ‘what happened’ at gladiatorial shows rely on a few key texts in addition to Martial: notably, Seneca’s Letter 7, describing the lunchtime executions; the Passion of SS Perpetua and Felicity (not available in either Loeb or Penguin translations, but there are several English versions – for example in H. Musurillo (ed.), The Acts of the Christian Martyrs: introduction, texts and translations (Oxford, 1972), and R. Valantasis (ed.), Religions of Late Antiquity in Practice (Princeton, 2000)); and Dio’s descriptions of the emperor Commodus’ antics in the arena in Book 73 of his History (on which, see Chapter 4 of O. Hekster, Commodus: an emperor at the crossroads (Amsterdam, 2002)). Less often used is the rhetorical exercise on the gladiatorial theme – one of the Declamations once (wrongly) believed to have been written by the Roman oratorical theorist Quintilian, now translated in L. A. Sussman (ed.), The Major Declamations Ascribed to Quintilian: a translation (Frankfurt etc., 1987). But much of the ancient evidence for the activities in the arena is scattered, fragmentary, untranslated and hard to track down outside a major research library. Other literary texts we have referred to are: the Letters of Symmachus, esp. nos. 2, 46 and 10, 8 & 9 (translated into French in the Budé series); Olympiodorus (41.2, on Symmachus’ expenditure), translated in R. C. Blockley (ed.), Fragmentary Classicizing Historians of the later Roman Empire, Volume 2 (Liverpool, 1983); Seneca, Letter 70 (on the suicide of the Germans); Plutarch’s essay A Pleasant Life is Impossible following the precepts of Epicurus (for his aside, Chapter 17, on the gladiators’ last meal); and, on the same subject, an aside in another tract of Tertullian, the Apologeticus (Chapter 42). The late-Roman figures for seating capacity are taken from the so-called Regionary Catalogues (Notitia Urbis Romae – for which there is no easily available English translation). Galen’s career with gladiators is discussed by J. Scarborough, ‘Galen and the Gladiators’, in Episteme, 5 (1971).

Our calculations of gladiatorial numbers and death rates, as well as our reconstruction of other aspects of the world of the arena, depend heavily on the evidence of inscriptions. Text and translation of the decree regulating expenditure under Marcus Aurelius can be found in J. H. Oliver and R. E. A. Palmer, ‘Minutes of an Act of the Roman Senate’, Hesperia, 24 (1955) with further discussion by M. Carter in Phoenix, 57 (2003). Gladiatorial graffiti from Pompeii is conveniently collected in L. Jacobelli, Gladiators at Pompeii (Rome, 2003). The calendar of Trajan’s celebrations is published (untranslated) in A. Degrassi, Inscriptiones Italiae 13, 1 (Rome, 1947); Glauco can be found in the vast multi-volume collection of Roman inscriptions, the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, Volume 5, 3466; and the Thracian in Volume 6, 10194. The best text of the seating arrangements of the Arvals in the arena is in J. Scheid, Commentarii Fratrum Arvalium quae supersunt (Rome, 1998), Document 48 (with French translation). The death of eleven gladiators out of eleven pairs is recorded in the Corpus, volume 10, 6012.

The idea of the gladiatorial spectacles as ‘political theatre’ is a major theme of Hopkins’ ‘Murderous Games’, in Death and Renewal. The simplicity of that model is effectively challenged by J. Edmondson, ‘Dynamic Arenas’, in W. J. Slater (ed.), Roman Theater and Society: E. Togo Salmon papers 1 (Ann Arbor, 1996) – a notably acute study whose approach we have generally followed here. The ‘infamia’ of gladiators is explored by C. Edwards in ‘Unspeakable Professions’, in J. P. Hallett and M. B. Skinner (eds.), Roman Sexualities (Princeton, 1997). On Spartacus, see, B. Strauss, The Spartacus War, (London, 2009), T. Urbainczyk, Spartacus, (London, 2004); and more lyrically, P. Stothard, On the Spartacus Road, (London, 2010). The insult ‘gladiator’ is used more than once by Cicero of his enemy Mark Antony in his remarkable series of political invectives known as the Philippics; the ghastly possibility that a dead son might have ended up as a gladiator is raised by Seneca in his Letter 99; prohibitions on the elite becoming gladiators are discussed by B. Levick in ‘The Senatus Consultum from Larinum’, Journal of Roman Studies, 73 (1983). The bizarre custom involving the bride’s hair is mentioned in the Roman dictionary of Festus, De Significatione Verborum (ed. W. Lindsay), 55.

The sexuality and glamour of the gladiator is discussed (with emphasis on the power of ‘visuality’) by E. Gunderson in ‘The Ideology of the Arena’, Classical Antiquity, 15 (1996), as well as in Edwards’ ‘Unspeakable Professions’ (whence the phrase ‘all sword’) and in Barton’s Sorrows of the Ancient Romans (the source of our quotation about the tintinnabulum from Herculaneum). One famous nineteenth-century version of the arena’s high charge is expertly dissected by E. Prettejohn in ‘“The Monstrous Diversion of a Show of Gladiators”: Simeon Solomon’s Habet!’ in Edwards (ed.), Roman Presences. The classic passage of Juvenal is from his sixth Satire (here translated by Peter Green); the lurid story of Faustina and the gladiator is told in the SHA biography of Marcus Antoninus (i.e. Aurelius); the pick-up of Sulla is described in Plutarch’s Life of Sulla. Appropriate cold water is poured on the story of the rich lady in the gladiators’ barracks by P. G. Guzzo (ed.), Stories from an Eruption: Pompeii, Herculaneum and Oplontis (Milan, 2003).

All aspects of procuring animals for the Colosseum will be discussed by R. Wilson in Animals for the Arena: the Roman wild beast trade (Cambridge, forthcoming), the role of the military is discussed by C. Epplett, ‘The Capture of Animals by the Roman military’ in Greece and Rome, 48 (2001). The idea of the star rhinoceros is floated in Ville, La gladiature, p. 149. Pompey’s unfortunate experience with his elephants is recounted in Book 7 of Pliny’s Natural History. The story of the London hippo Obaysch is told by N. J. Root, ‘Victorian England’s Hippomania’, Natural History, 102 (1993). The letter of Ignatius to the Romans is translated in Volume 1 of the Loeb translation of The Apostolic Fathers. The phenomenon of martyrdom and ‘Martyr Acts’ has been widely discussed recently: for different approaches, see G. W. Bowersock, Martyrdom and Rome (Cambridge, 1995); D. Boyarin, ‘Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity and Judaism’, Journal of Early Christian Studies, 6 (1998); and K. Hopkins, A World Full of Gods (London, 1999), Chapter 3.

The Greek historian speculating on the Etruscan origin of gladiators is Nicolaus of Damascus, who is quoted in Athenaeus’ extraordinary compendium Deipnosophistae (Philosophers at Dinner), Book 4, 153f–154a.

CHAPTER 5

The effects of the fire in 217 are discussed by L. Lancaster, ‘Reconstructing the Colosseum’s Restorations after the Fire of 217’, Journal of Roman Archaeology, 11 (1998), with some salutary remarks on the general difficulties of dating individual parts of the structure. The drawings of the stucco are fully illustrated in N. Dacos, ‘Les stucs du Colisée’, Latomus, 21 (1962); the graffito that is supposed to show the balustrading around the arena is in Connolly, Colosseum, p. 195. The classic study of the safety arrangements is A. Scobie, ‘Spectator Security and Comfort at Gladiatorial Games’, Nikephoros, 1 (1988).

The nineteenth-century debates about the substructures of the Colosseum and the question of naval battles are clearly explained by R. T. Ridley, The Eagle and the Spade: archaeology in Rome during the Napoleonic era (Cambridge, 1992), a full study of Roman archaeology during that period. There has been an enormous amount of recent work on the underground areas of the building, the drainage, foundations and the arrangements for the arena floor. The work of the German archaeologist H.-J. Beste has been crucial, though little of this is available in English. A flavour of his work can be found in his ‘The Construction and Phases of Development of the Wooden Arena Flooring of the Colosseum’, Journal of Roman Archaeology, 13 (2000); the same volume includes a review by R. Rea of recent archaeological work in and around the Colosseum (‘Studying the Valley of the Colosseum (1970–2000): achievements and prospects’). Other detailed studies include D. Mertens et al., ‘Il Colosseo. Lo studio degli “ipogei”’, and H.-J. Beste, ‘Neue Forschungsergebnisse zu einem Aufzugssystem im Untergeschoss des Kolosseums’, Mitteilungen des deutschen archaelogischen Instituts (Römische Abteilung), 105 (1998) and 106 (1999).

The methods of amphitheatre design are analysed in minute detail by Wilson-Jones in ‘Designing Amphitheatres’ (and, more generally, in his Principles of Roman Architecture (New Haven & London, 2000)); building processes are discussed by R. Taylor in Roman Builders: a study in architectural process (Cambridge, 2003) – chapter 4 is specifically concerned with the Colosseum. Other reflections are offered by L. Haselberger in ‘Architectural Likenesses: models and plans of architecture in classical antiquity’, Journal of Roman Archaeology, 10 (1997). The story of Hadrian and Apollodorus is told in Book 69 of Dio’s History.

CHAPTER 6

A dazzling variety of post-antique uses of, and responses to, the Colosseum are collected in M. di Macco, Il Colosseo: funzione simbolica, storica, urbana (Rome, 1971). The Wonders of Rome is translated by F. M. Nichols (second edn, New York, 1986) and Master Gregory’s Wonders by J. L. Osborne (Toronto, 1987).

The best specialist studies of the Colosseum in late antiquity are not in English: see, for example, G. Ville, ‘Les Jeux de gladiateurs dans l’empire chrétien’, Mélanges de l’Ecole Française de Rome, 72 (1960); T. Wiedemann, ‘Das Ende der römischen Gladiatorenspiele’, Nikephoros, 8 (1995); and S. Orlandi, ‘Il Colosseo nel V secolo’, in W. V. Harris (ed.), The Transformations of urbs Roma in late antiquity (Journal of Roman Archaeology, Supplement, 33 (1999)). The inscription from Spello is found (untranslated) in the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, Volume 11, 5265. For the late antique city of Rome more generally, see P. Llewellyn, Rome in the Dark Ages (London, 1971); B. Ward-Perkins, From Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages: urban public building in northern and central Italy AD 300–850 (Oxford, 1984); and, taking the story up to the fourteenth century (with lavish illustrations), R. Krautheimer, Rome: profile of a city 312–1308 (Princeton, 1980).

The Renaissance architectural fascination with the Colosseum is briefly discussed, in the context of a clear discussion of the architectural orders, by J. Summerson, The Classical Language of Architecture (revised edition, London, 1980). Note also the detailed Italian study by F. Scoppola, ‘Il Colosseo come modello…’, in Frondose Arcate: il Colosseo prima dell’archeologia (Exhibition Catalogue, Palazzo Altemps, Rome, 2000). Good basic introductions to the architecture of the Renaissance can be found in the Pelican History of Art series: L. H. Heydenreich and P. Davies, Architecture in Italy, 1400–1500 (New Haven & London, 1996), and W. Lotz and D. Howard, Architecture in Italy, 1500–1600 (New Haven & London, 1995). The ‘borrowings’ from the Roman amphitheatre in the London Coliseum are described in F. Barker, The House that Stoll Built: the story of the Coliseum Theatre (London, 1957). Poggio’s lament is from his De Varietate Fortunae (1448; a modern text and edition by O. Merisalo was published in Helsinki, 1993); it was famously quoted in Chapter 71 of Edward Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire which includes a withering account of the Colosseum’s post-antique history, including such events as the fourteenth-century bullfight.

After more than a century, the definitively sceptical analysis of the evidence for martyrdom in the Colosseum (and one written from within the Catholic church) is still H. Delehaye, ‘L’Amphithéâtre flavien et ses environs dans les textes hagiographiques’, Analecta Bollandiana, 16 (1897). William Beckford’s barbs on the lazy abbots are originally from Letter 22 of his Dreams, Waking Thoughts and Incident, originally published in 1783, suppressed, republished as part of his Italy: with sketches of Spain and Portugal (London, 1834) and now available in an edition by R. J. Gemmett (Rutherford, NJ, 1972). The silver gilt image of St Peter is illustrated in Di Macco, Il Colosseo.

Lanciani’s reports are conveniently reprinted in A. L. Cubberley (ed.), Notes from Rome by Rodolfo Lanciani (London, 1988); the general archaeological atmosphere of Rome in the 1870s and 80s is captured by R. Lanciani, Ancient Rome in the Light of Recent Discoveries (Rome, 1888) – discussed by M. Beard, ‘Archaeology and Collecting in Late Nineteenth-Century Rome’, in Ancient Art to Post Impressionism: masterpieces from the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen (Exhibition Catalogue, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2004). Hitler’s enthusiasm for the Colosseum and the designs for buildings based on it are documented in A. Scobie, Hitler’s State Architecture: the impact of classical antiquity (University Park, PA, & London, 1990). The history of Mussolini’s Via del Impero (now, dei Fori Imperiali) is vividly illustrated and documented in L. Barroero et al., Via dei Fori Imperiali. La zona archeologica di Roma: urbanistica, beni artistici e politica culturale (Venice, 1983).

The history of the Colosseum’s role in botany is exhaustively discussed (in Italian) in G. Caneva (ed.), Amphi – theatrum Naturae. Il Colosseo: storia e ambiente letti attraverso la sua flora (Milan, 2004).

The Colosseum is cut down to size by M. Saiz in his A Colossal Blog, (London, 2010). It tells an engaging story of staying in Rome for almost a year without seeing the Colosseum.