This was the first Roman amphitheatre I ever visited. On a school trip.  Road realignment has since pushed the traffic back from its walls, and areas of pedestrian friendly cobbled piazza have replaced some of the hectares of tarmac. At that time the Colosseum functioned as the fulcrum of a massive bend in a major urban highway and getting in required a dance of death across a 50m pedestrian crossing involving between 6 and 10 lines of fast moving Fiat 500s and Alfasuds.

It’s right at the epicentre of the empire, the biggest and most famous amphitheatre in the world, and I suspect, for a significant proportion of humanity the only one they know to exist. The same people probably think it’s still in use for fights to the death and feeding Christians to lions.

The colosseum is a cultural icon. We name our entertainment venues after it and buy desktop souvenir models of it in the same sort of numbers as the Eiffel Tower or the Empire State Building. It’s mightily impressive from the outside but for me the inside seemed a bit messy. A bit decrepit and skeletal, no seats (the church and palazzo builders nicked the marble first) or arena floor. I’m sure it’s been tidied up a bit in the last 50 years.

The most astonishing thing is how much of it has survived given its location. Nearly two thousand years as a centrally located source of limestone and cut marble probably means it provided materials for many of the churches in the capital (and there are lots) as well as for a marble bathroom or two hundred. There is lots of information on the people, projects and popes who contributed to its plunder and repair over the years. A good starting point is the website Piazza del Colosseo (romeartlover.it)

It’s Only Rock & Roll

Although I can find no evidence of him ever visiting or playing there (Unless you know differently?) Jazz/Prog Rock drummer Jon Hiseman named his band Colosseum and released albums entitled ‘Those Who Are About to Die Salute You’, ‘Bread and Circuses’ and ‘The Ides of March’ so you can tell where he was coming from. He was very good - so good in fact that he took over from Ginger Baker in The Graham Bond Organisation (Wikipedia will explain all this)

I The Colosseum of Rome - The Flavian Amphitheatre.

What3words  - spelling.roofs.hips

Visited April 1973

Status – Top Grade

Capacity - 100,000

Date - 72AD