Under the Colosseum

The Colosseum was the tallest building in ancient Rome, rising like a white stone cliff above the rooftops and treetops of the Esquiline Valley, but the most impressive part of the Colosseum was out of sight beneath the sandy sand. where a labyrinth of corridors, cages and elevators awaited. to release gladiators and exotic beasts into the sun a few months ago the underground levels of the coliseum were completely open to visitors for the first time. I was lucky enough to catch it early with Robert Allen from Eternity Tours, so join me as I explore. the world under the coliseum the underworld of the coliseum known in ancient times as the hypogeum consisted of a series of parallel corridors on two levels each lined with cages storage rooms and elevators from the inside those corridors look like this long corridors with bricks and two for walls with notches for missing floor beams and elevator shafts, after descending into the hypogeum via a reconstructed service staircase, visitors encounter a large drainpipe, not very exciting you might think, but this is one of the few surviving memories of the coliseum's brief period as a venue for blood-soaked naval events.

Battles In the early years after the coliseum was completed, the arena was flooded several times to display a now-machia naval showdown in which teams of convicted criminals fought to the death against miniature tribes. However, these shows soon stopped partly because they were too expensive and partly. because it was much easier to assemble them in artificial lakes near the Tiber, but above all because of the complexity of the coliseum tunnels, which were completed a few years after the rest of the arena, after the end of the naomakiya, the drains were only useful for channel rainwater into the The deep sewers around the building over the centuries slowly became clogged with sediment and rubbish washed from the seats thanks to this debris cleared by modern archaeologists.

We know that spectators in the coliseum ate chicken and pork legs, figs, olives, melons and nuts. We know they played dice and knuckle bones on the seats and gambled with clay chips, the excavators even found a lead curse tablet not far from that surprisingly interesting drain, modern visitors find this reconstructed two-level elevator, in the 16th century III there were 88 of these between the halls of the hypogeum, all designed to lift gladiators, animals or landscapes up to the arena through hidden trapdoors, each lift was operated by teams of men who turned a winch, a type of winch vertical more familiar for hoisting sails and raising anchor on traditional sailing boats.

When the winch rotated, it wound a cable attached to a lifting platform by a pulley system. If the platform carried an animal cage, it stopped just below the level of the descending hatch to form a ramp by which the animal could rise to the surface. During the biggest shows, dozens of elevators could be in operation, once we were told, a hundred lions materialized in the arena simultaneously, with the exception of that reconstructed elevator, most of what you see in the hypogeum are narrow passages Like this one, almost all of them were rebuilt. Several times, like the rest of the coliseum, the hypogeum was destroyed by the terrible fire of 217, which sent hundreds of tons of burning rubble into the tunnels over the following centuries.

The passages and chambers were repaired after the earthquakes, becoming wetter and dirtier as they drained. The system was finally clogged at the end of the 5th century. The hypogeum filled with earth and debris. It remained buried until excavations began in the 19th century. For the modern visitor, baking under the Italian sun, it may be difficult to remember how dark the hypogeum was. The sand trapdoors. They were kept closed and the only light came from oil lamps like these. This video recorded in the well-preserved Putioli amphitheater near Naples gives an idea of ​​what the underworld of the Colosseum must have been like.

Imagine those skylights closed with trap doors. Imagine darkness and puddles of water. orange light around lamps embedded in the walls imagine the humid heat of that closed space the stench of urine and manure the sounds of terrified animals in their cages and imagine a constant flow of people trying to ensure that the games went smoothly the hypogeum The Colosseum is an extremely evocative place if you want to experience it yourself. I recommend checking out Through Eternity Tours, which offers private and group tours of the underground coliseum if you are planning a trip and would like to see the coliseum and other highlights. from ancient rome to eternity use the written in stone discount code to save five percent on the purchase of any private or group tour.

Finally, for more information on the coliseum, the Roman games, and many other aspects of life in the classical world, check out my book Naked. statues of fat gladiators and war elephants thanks for looking