Original subtitles

The Colosseum... the Roman Empire summed up in stone

Never has such a civilized culture

poured so much of its wealth

into engineering spectacles of death

for the entertainment of its people

In the morning you had wild beast shows

At around the lunchtime, crucifixions

In the afternoon, the pièce de la résistance,

two men, fighting to the death

Ancient Roman accounts document the Colosseum's repertoire

in chilling detail

They depict an orgy of outrageous spectacles...

Costumed gladiators cast in battles to the death,

exotic animals unleashed on unsuspecting victims,

even sea battles with thousands of people killed

Were the Romans as bloodthirsty in their theatrics

as ancient authors report?

To investigate, a subterranean archaeologist explores

tunnels beneath the Colosseum

to discover how it could be flooded for naval battles

A forensic scientist gives voice to gladiators

whose battle-bruised bones bear witness to their own deaths

We had in our hands for the first time

remains of real gladiators

And an architect pieces together clues of an elaborate system

of ancient special effects machines

Then, with a team of engineers and builders,

they reconstruct it,

and for the first time in 1,500 years release an animal

into the Colosseum

Now, can scientists and scholars unlock the secrets

of how and why the Romans engineered

such bloody spectacles?

Right now on NOVA, "The Colosseum: Roman Death Trap"

If one building best symbolizes the gore, glory

and genius of the Romans, it is the Colosseum

It is a spectacle of design and engineering,

the biggest building they ever constructed

It spans nearly 2,000 feet around,

soars over 160 feet high,

and soon after it opened in the year 80, it was decorated

in gleaming bronze shields

and 16-foot statues of gods and heroes

To this day, the Colosseum stands as a powerful landmark

on the skyline of Rome

When the Colosseum was built, it had an enormous effect

because of its size, status and presence in Rome

The echo of its 50,000 spectators

cheering bloody theatrics continues to haunt imaginations

Gladiators fighting to the death, mass crucifixions,

elaborate animal hunts

Over four centuries, the Colosseum was witness

to an estimated million human deaths

And with up to 11,000 animals killed in a season,

some species, like the Balkan lion

and a North African elephant, were driven to extinction

Yet the Colosseum was much more

than a spectacular slaughterhouse

It was a carefully engineered entertainment complex

designed to reinforce Roman world order

Watching fighting

on a regular basis for entertainment

gave the Romans a sense of who they were and infused them

with a kind of military ethos

that was instrumental

in creating and maintaining the empire

Ancient Roman authors,

such as Martial in his Book of Spectacles,

describe how that world order played out on the arena's stage

They cast the emperor as master illusionist

On his command a menagerie of ostriches, crocodiles, rhinos,

bears and tigers magically appear

to be dispatched by hunters

A condemned criminal is dressed in wings

and catapulted across the arena to play out a Greek myth

And fantastical sea battles take place

where thousands of prisoners of war are either slaughtered

or drowned

Can these astonishing accounts of elaborate executions be true?

Or has the boundary between history and myth

been blurred over time?

Most recently the Colosseum was brought back to life

in the film Gladiator, where tigers spring

from out of nowhere to maul Russell Crowe

But that's Hollywood effects

The Romans were doing it for real

Parts of the movie Gladiator are based on events portrayed

in ancient texts and mosaics

They depict gladiators locked in combat

and wild beasts mauling people

But none of these accounts describe

how the Romans made these animals magically appear

Some scholars suspect the secret may be hidden

in the Colosseum's basement

The hypogeum, the Greek word for "underground,"

is a maze of corridors and collapsed walls

Architect Heinz Beste thinks that here,

hidden from the spectators above,

is where the Romans engineered their murderous magic

We have to imagine this being covered

by the wooden arena floor above

It was dark down here, lit only by torches and small lamps

Today, the arena floor has been partially rebuilt for tourists

The original was made of wood and covered in sand

to absorb blood

The floor and all its wooden supports are long gone,

but etched into the walls of the hypogeum

Beste finds deep cuts and grooves

To decipher these fossil-like remains,

he drew every stone on every wall

After more than two years, he began to make sense

of the mysterious markings

Through these drawings it was possible

to connect these clues and turn the whole puzzle

into a system that can be explained

Here he finds impressions made by wooden beams

And evenly spaced along the floor are a series

of round holes in concrete

Here is another piece of the puzzle

This is a base for a capstan

A capstan is a large round pole that could be turned by workers

to lift something

Ah, interesting

Up here we see an indentation for a ramp

Another mark reveals where a ramp might have led

to the arena

In Beste's mind, the pieces come together

Support framing from the floor of the hypogeum

to the floor of the arena

Halfway up, a horizontal beam for workers to stand on

A capstan with poles for workers to turn

A channel where a cage could fit

And finally, a trap door that could lower to become a ramp

leading to the arena floor

Together they form what could be a device

to lift and release animals

I believe, given the evidence,

there must have been an ancient lift system here

Throughout the hypogeum, Beste finds evidence

of ancient backstage machinery, a total of 28 lifts

Has Heinz Beste discovered the secret

to how the Romans made wild animals magically appear

in the arena?

To find out, he wants to construct

a lift and trap door system...

Install it right here in the Colosseum

and raise an animal into the most famous amphitheater

on earth

But why did the Romans build the Colosseum

to stage these bloody spectacles?

Part of the answer is hiding in plain sight

For years, a cast aside stone was used as a place

for visitors to rest, its importance completely unnoticed

In the 1800s, an inscription was discovered on its surface

It ended up here in the Colosseum museum,

where it became, once again, largely unnoticed

But hidden beneath these 5th century letters may be another,

much earlier inscription

Rosella Rea is director of the Colosseum

and one of the leading experts on the building

Mixed within the engraved letters

she sees a series of strange holes

You can see with the naked eye that the holes are arranged

in a regular pattern

By studying their layout,

it was found that the holes form a series of letters

The holes are where bronze letters had once been fastened

to the stone

This was the hole for the first letter

The letter "I" for "imperator"

Or "emperor"

Connecting all the dots reveals the original inscription

The Emperor Vespasian ordered this new amphitheater

to be constructed from the booty

Vespasian Flavius becomes emperor in the year 69

The following year he orders construction of the Colosseum

to begin

The stone is the plaque from its dedication

And the letters spell out how the Colosseum was paid for,

with booty

But booty from where?

Vespasian's son left a clue on the nearby Arch of Titus

On it, Katherine Welch finds depictions

of Romans sacking the Temple in Jerusalem

One of the panels depicts the menorah, the Torah,

and the sacred table,

carried by elite young Roman men

This is quintessential war booty,

the things that meant the most

to the people from whom they were seized

Following his son's conquest of Judea in the year 70,

Vespasian is rich with gold and slaves

He can build anything he wants

So why the Colosseum?

Vespasian needs a building that makes a bold statement...

That he, Vespasian Flavius,

is nothing like the emperor before him, the infamous Nero

Emperor Nero's rule is marked by extravagance

and much of Rome burning

He confiscates land and builds a pleasure palace

with gardens and a manmade lake

Nero is driven from the throne, commits suicide,

and Rome is engulfed in civil war

After a ghastly year of civil war and the suicide of Nero,

Vespasian did everything in his living power

to ingratiate himself with the Senate

and consolidate his personal power

After fighting his way to the throne, Vespasian casts himself

as the anti-Nero

He buries Nero's palace, fills in his lake

and on top builds the opposite of a pleasure garden...

A public building for blood sports

In building the largest, most expensive building in Rome,

a building for popular entertainment,

it celebrated military power and put it into a frightening,

exciting, chastening context

The Colosseum is the perfect symbol for how Vespasian

and Rome came to power

And to enhance the blood sports, Vespasian builds in

some deadly surprises, releasing wild animals into the arena

But reconstructing the lift that could have done this

is an audacious plan

If Heinz Beste is to succeed, he'll need to find

an ally on the inside

Umberto Baruffaldi is an engineer, inventor

and GoPro enthusiast

He too is captivated by how the Romans released wild animals

into the arena

Umberto also happens to be

director of health and safety for the Colosseum

Beste shares his drawings with Umberto

The drawing is beautiful,

but how are we going to make it work?

Beste's drawings provide a skeleton of the system,

but it's not clear how the lift actually works

Umberto brings in structural engineer Giovanni Squillacioti

and material engineer Flavia Campanelli

We have to create a system of pulleys and counterweights

that works perfectly and synchronizes

Giovanni translates Beste's two-dimensional drawing

into a three-dimensional computer model

The trap door is one of the big challenges

On one hand it has to open

to release the animal into the arena

But when it's closed, it has to support the weight

of gladiators, charioteers

and heavy animals trampling on it above

Giovanni puts the pieces together and connects them

in his computer model with pulleys, ropes and hinges

Perfecto.

Then, based on Giovanni's 3D wizardry,

Heinz and Umberto build a scale model

At the heart of the system is the capstan,

a large central pole

As this is turned, it wraps a rope around it

The animal is placed in this cage

It's connected to the capstan through a series of pulleys,

so as the capstan is turned, the cage rises

Two large hinged arms support the trap door when it's closed,

and then swing down to open it

As the cage rises, the door automatically opens,

releasing the animal onto the ramp

The model is essential to experimental work of any kind,

because it is the model that allows you to understand

all the mechanics

And building the lift and trap door system

will provide a window into a uniquely Roman pastime,

in a uniquely Roman building, the amphitheater

Mark Wilson Jones is an architect with an expertise

in Greek and Roman buildings

He's here in Arles in southern France,

at an amphitheater constructed about 20 years

after the Colosseum

In general, the Romans took their building forms

from the Greeks

But this is not the case for the amphitheater

The amphitheater was a definite Roman invention

And they created it for the special circumstances

of gladiatorial fights

Amphi means "double" in Greek,

and amphitheater translates as "double theater"

But if a Greek theater were just doubled, it would be round

The Roman amphitheater is actually a stretched circle,

or an oval

Wilson Jones believes the Romans' innovation

of the oval shape may be a direct result

of the building's function... A place for gladiator combat

Most buildings are rectangular

And that's a bad thing

because you can get action stuck in the corner

If a gladiator gets stuck in a corner, he gets killed quickly

The oval shape helps prolong the action

for maximum entertainment value

So this shape has a dynamic quality, no corners

Everything's smooth

So the action can move around

And I think that really helps it maintain its excitement

An amphitheater for gladiator combat is uniquely Roman

in form and function...

Exactly the symbol Emperor Vespasian needs

to project his power and inspire Roman pride

There's this strong connection between the unique shape

of the amphitheater and gladiatorial performances,

the link with the military, the conquest of empire

The great crowds of 50,000 that came together in the Colosseum

were celebrating all of that

It's really a sort of great day out to feel a Roman citizen

and feel at the center of the world

In a forest northeast of Rome,

Umberto is in search of the perfect tree

for making the lift

The tree will be used for one of the key parts of the lift,

the capstan

To fell the tree, the team uses the same tools

as the ancient Romans: the ax, the two-man saw and a wedge

Carmelo Malacrino, an expert on ancient Roman building,

knows what tools to use from images on the Trajan Column,

erected just 30 years after the opening of the Colosseum

This column shows a fantastic series of tree cutting

It depicts the deforestation process

for constructing new roads and the creation of campsites

as part of a military campaign

After an hour of chopping and sawing,

the tree comes crashing down

Now, the tree begins its transformation into the capstan

But Umberto leaves a little bark

as a reminder of where it came from

The team uses their scale model as a guide

for building the lift

The move from the model to the real thing

was a little traumatic

Working in a dimension four times bigger

really amplifies the problems

The cage itself will weigh over 800 pounds

It needs to be strong to keep wild animals inside

We have to pay attention to the sturdiness of the cage

since it's supposed to hold lions and tigers

Seeing the lift at full scale, Umberto starts to have

some concerns

The most difficult part will be getting the lift in

without touching the Colosseum

Because if we damage the Colosseum,

I'll be chased out of the Colosseum

Today, the Colosseum is a majestic ruin

Over the centuries,

everything of value was stripped from its walls

But coins minted for its opening

and carvings on tombs

show how the Colosseum was likely decorated

In its arches stood 160 bronze statues 16 feet tall,

representing gods and heroes the Romans borrow

from the Greek pantheon

At its top layer were gleaming bronze discs

symbolizing captured shields

Finally, framing the arches

were columns of various architectural orders:

Greek capitals on the upper three layers,

but on the street level are Roman capitals

Vespasian is giving the people, the plebs Romana,

exactly what they want... Greek orders, Greek statues,

but all with a Roman twist

and pressed into the service of the conquering Roman state

The Colosseum's decorations amplify the message

of the building's monumental scale:

We Romans love Greek art and culture,

but we have surpassed them

Rome is the new superpower

As a final touch,

there was a bronze chariot above the entry arch

on the north side,

where the emperor could make his grand entrance

But Vespasian will never walk beneath it

He dies just months before the Colosseum is completed

He does leave a lasting legacy though:

the largest building in Rome and an imperial dynasty

For the first time in Roman history,

an emperor is directly succeeded by his natural son

In the year 80, Titus holds the inaugural games

in honor of his father

Roman author Martial in his "Liber Spectaculorum"...

The Book of Spectacles... Describes the inaugural games

A hundred days of crucifixions, wild beast shows,

gladiator combat and, for the first time,

the acting out of Greek myths

with elaborate scenery and actual death

What happened with the inauguration of the Colosseum

is that these Greek mythological executions

entered the arena repertoire

Except in the theater they were bloodless,

they were just actors

In the amphitheater they were condemned criminals

who were forced to dress up as Greek mythological characters

and killed in the Colosseum

The Romans would reenact well-known Greek myths,

such as Icarus flying too close to the sun and falling to earth

But in the Colosseum, there was a gruesome twist

The criminal playing Icarus would be catapulted

across the arena to his death

This is not a myth

It's real

Martial goes on to describe a mass execution

so cruelly choreographed it surpasses even Roman standards

Naumachiae... mock sea battles where ships are sunk

with hundreds of prisoners on board

What astonishes Martial is not the mass murder by drowning,

but rather how it was pulled off

How could the Colosseum be flooded for sea battles

in the morning, then drained quickly enough

for gladiator combat in the afternoon?

The Romans were masters of moving water

A network of 11 aqueducts carried clean water to Rome

from mountain springs, some over 50 miles away

The aqueducts provide the means to get water into the Colosseum

And new discoveries are revealing a system

to get water out

Adriano Morabito, director of Subterranean Rome,

has spent ten years mapping the city's underground water system

One day while surveying for a new metro line,

he took an unexpected turn

We were mapping all the sewage system and suddenly we went

into an older drainage system and we saw light at the end

To his great surprise, the light at the end of the tunnel

was the Colosseum

Morabito had stumbled into an ancient drain or "collector"

This is the only collector still working today

In ancient times we had all four collectors getting rid

of the water out of the monument

Beneath the arena, Morabito finds evidence of four drains

that emptied water from the Colosseum

And climbing to the top of the hypogeum,

Morabito finds 40 channels that may have fed water in

Some archaeologists speculate

that this could have been used to flood the arena

Morabito believes the 40 input channels

and four drains provide the plumbing

to stage naval battles

To put his theory to the test,

he investigates how much water the Romans would need

to flood the arena

He finds four passageways leading into the hypogeum,

wide enough to launch flat-bottomed boats

into the arena

When the arena was flooded

the water was coming in here

and then the boats were starting floating up to this level,

because otherwise the water would have gone

into other rooms

Morabito reasons the water could have been no higher

than about five feet or it would spill over

into other areas of the Colosseum

Multiplying that depth by the area of the arena,

he calculates, with the floor removed it can hold

a million and a quarter gallons of water,

equal to about two Olympic swimming pools

But can the drains empty that much water fast enough

to stage sea battles and gladiator fights

all in one day, as author Martial describes?

One night a thunderstorm puts Morabito's theory

and the surviving drain to the test

The storm dumps 800,000 gallons of water into the Colosseum,

filling the hypogeum halfway

That rainwater, with just one drain,

empties in under two hours

Morabito calculates that with all four drains working,

the Colosseum could be emptied in less than an hour

It was therefore technically possible

for the emperor's engineers to flood the arena

for its opening games

Morabito believes the Romans had the plumbing and enough water

to stage mock sea battles in the Colosseum,

just as the ancient texts claim

But could they really lift animals into the arena?

After months of constructing the lift and trap door system

in the workshop outside of Rome, today the pieces finally arrive

The 440-pound trap door,

the 2,000-pound frame and nearly 1,000-pound cage

And the capstan, weighing in at 500 pounds

Originally the pieces were built

right into the walls of the hypogeum

But today those fragile walls

are a part of a protected World Heritage site

that can't be altered

So their idea is to pre-assemble the lift outside the Colosseum

and then drop it into place as one self-contained unit

Assembling the lift is a tricky process,

almost as tricky as the design

It's big and bulky

And then lowering into the Colosseum

is the most difficult part

Umberto has hired a 200-foot crane

for this delicate operation

Giovanni Cirillo is behind the controls

The only issue today is the wind

And the later it gets in the afternoon the windier it gets

That might shake the structure and make my job less exact

After hours of assembling, the team is finally ready

to raise the lift

The crane hauls the machine to a standing position, and then

stops

There's a problem

The crane has a built-in scale,

and Cirillo discovers the lift is too heavy

The load is 600 kilos overweight

Over this distance that's a problem

The crane has the power to raise the lift,

but when its arm extends out over the Colosseum,

too much weight could cause the crane to tip over

We don't know if we can get the lift inside

The main issue is the crane might topple over

The team does some quick math to try to save the project

According to our calculations,

the cage weighs around 450 kilos

Once we take that away, the load will be lighter for the crane

They remove the cage, but they're still 150 kilos...

Or about 300 pounds... over

Umberto confers with Cirillo and takes a calculated risk

He green-lights the raising of the lift

The crane hauls the lift up,

nearly 200 feet and over the walls of the Colosseum

Umberto holds his breath as the crane's arm stretches out

over the hypogeum

This shifts the crane's center of gravity

If the lift is still too heavy, the crane could topple over,

crashing into the Colosseum

and smashing the lift into the hypogeum

To make it even more challenging,

Cirillo has to maneuver the lift

without even being able to see it,

guided only by radio contact

Rosella Rea, director of the Colosseum

and perhaps the person with the most riding on the success

or failure of the lift project, arrives at the critical moment,

as the team steers the lift

between the narrow, fragile walls of the hypogeum

with almost no wiggle room

To everyone's immense relief, the lift slides in perfectly

After flying the three-ton lift into place,

the half-ton cage is a breeze

Well, when you look at it as a drawing, when you imagine it

in your mind's eye, or when you write about it,

that's one thing

But then to see it full scale,

and to really be able to touch it, that's a whole other thing

It's really amazing, and for me it's especially fantastic

With the lift in place, the team pops the Prosecco

But they may be celebrating too soon

They still have to turn all these parts

into a working machine

But why did the ancient Romans go to such lengths

to make death theatrical?

Some answers are coming from the victims themselves,

or at least their bones

In 1993, Austrian archaeologists uncovered a cemetery

in a Roman city in what is today Turkey

Fabian Kanz of the Medical University of Vienna

was brought in to analyze the human remains

It was a mass grave

We found the remains from 68 people

And 66 have been young males, aged between 20 and 30

Unusual injuries offer a clue to who was buried here

The distance is about five centimeters

These holes in the head, surely the cause of death,

were almost certainly the result of a trident...

A weapon unique to gladiator combat

The Roman author Suetonius

describes seven gladiator characters,

each with different costumes and weapons

One of the most famous pairings is a Secutor,

equipped with a short sword, shield and helmet;

and a Retiarius, "the fisherman,"

who fought with a net and trident

From the forensic evidence, it's obvious who won this battle

It was the first known gladiator cemetery

We had in our hands for the first time

remains of real gladiators

Among many of the gladiator bones, Kanz finds something

even more remarkable... Evidence of healing

What was quite surprising for us

was the high number of well-healed injuries,

which indicates there must be excellent health care

for these gladiators

Ancient Roman texts offer a clue to one possible treatment,

a special potion made from ash

And this might have been leaving traces in the bones

To find out if there's any truth to this gladiator potion,

Kanz grinds a bone sample into a powder

and processes it into a liquid

that he puts into an instrument called an emission spectrometer

Here he sprays the liquid into an argon gas torch,

where it burns with a distinctive flame

The color of the flame changes,

depending on the elements in the liquid

And therefore, we can find out about the mineral composition

of the bone

The flame turns from blue to a bright yellow,

indicating that the gladiator bone has a high concentration

of strontium

Strontium is a natural element

with properties similar to calcium,

a crucial mineral for building strong bones

It was mentioned in the historic texts

that a kind of ash drink was substituted to the gladiators

to remedy their pain after fighting

And this would perfectly fit

to explain this high strontium content of the gladiators

Kanz believes gladiators were given the Roman equivalent

of calcium supplements to strengthen their bones

But why go to this trouble to save gladiators?

Although slaves, gladiators were trained

in special fight schools

The remains of one, the Ludis Magnus,

are right in the shadow of the Colosseum

The gladiators have been a big investment

for the owner of the gladiator school,

comparable to modern football or soccer teams

And they wanted to save their investment

And therefore, they engaged the best available doctors

at the time

It would have been extremely expensive

if half the gladiators were killed at every event

To protect their investment,

the Romans began to provide gladiators with medical care,

so they could live to fight another battle

And perhaps to compensate the audience for a reduction

in the number of deaths,

the emperor added entertainment value

by ordering more elaborate stagecraft

Now, all the major parts of the lift are in place:

the cage, capstan and trap door

Now that it's in place, we have to make it work

The first task is installing all the missing pieces

They place wheels on the cage

handles on the capstan

and above the capstan, Umberto and Tullio install

a spool for rope

We attach this rope here and as it turns,

the rope wraps around it and pulls the cage up

The team connects the capstan to the cage with enough rope

to stretch the length of two football fields

Their earlier model is starting to feel very small indeed

We only tested the model

That was just 50 kilograms

The real thing is 3,200 kilograms

So that's why things are a bit tense here

With everything strung up,

Umberto gives the lift a trial run

He tries to turn the capstan without success

The cage goes nowhere

Three of us tried to lift it, but it didn't budge

Not a bit

It looked like an elephant

Impossible to move

Umberto calls in reinforcements

Even with six people, they can't turn the capstan

to lift the cage or move the trap door

It's all too heavy

The ramp is very heavy

and the lever system we initially designed

does not work

How did the ancient Romans manage to lift so much weight?

We are facing the same challenges that the Romans had

when they were originally making it

The size is the same, the mechanisms are the same,

and the problem is just as big

Umberto searches for a solution in an unexpected place:

Roman ships

Could the same mechanics that hoisted the heavy sails

be used to lift the cage?

Umberto's hard drives are filled with images he's collected

of surviving pieces of Roman ships

Among them he finds what may be the key to heavy lifting,

a simple device that dates far back in antiquity... the pulley

The cage weighs 800 pounds

Adding a pulley splits the weight evenly

between the two sides of the rope

Another pulley changes the direction of the force

It's easier to pull down than up

With one pulley attached to the cage, it feels half the weight,

only 400 pounds

Attaching two pulleys on the cage makes it feel

like only 200 pounds

The more pulleys you add,

the more the weight is distributed between them

and the less force you need to lift the cage

The more I worked on this, the more I realized

how great the Romans were, and how small we are in comparison

Building the lift, I realized I was learning from them

Learning directly from the ancient Romans

The team adds pulleys to redistribute the weight

of the cage and trap door

Umberto gathers eight men

As they push the capstan,

the rope glides through a network of 12 pulleys

And the cage lifts up off the ground

The fascinating part is seeing this mechanism,

which at first was essentially a static,

seemingly simple structure,

turn into something dynamic, a machine,

simply by using these ropes, pulleys and human strength

But can this machine perform

the Colosseum's signature magic trick?

To find out, the team wants to release an animal

into the world's most famous amphitheater

for the first time in 1,500 years

But which animal?

According to legend, Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome,

were suckled by a wolf

So a wolf is the perfect animal to test the lift

Paolo Caldora rescues wolves taken as pets

and then illegally abandoned

He leads a wolf through the labyrinth of the hypogeum

In ancient times,

wild beasts would have been carried in already in cages

The cage door is lowered,

and the men turn the capstan to raise the wolf

Every part is now working as a synchronized machine

The trap door is lowered

The cage rises into place, its door opens,

and the wolf emerges into the arena

The days of wild beasts in the Colosseum

as hunters or hunted are thankfully long gone,

and the wolf runs safely to his rescuer

Heinz, Umberto and their team have not only re-created

an ancient Roman lift machine,

they have created a time machine

For a brief moment, raising the wolf opens a window

onto the spectacles here in the Colosseum 2,000 years ago

Imagine not just one lift here,

but a whole row of them, one behind the other

The corridor was packed with lifts,

which produced the spectacular action above

Now, with the full-scale lift we can begin to get a sense

of just how magnificent the stagecraft must have been

It's really fantastic

Each year, over five million tourists visit the Colosseum

They are awed by its size

and horrified imagining the slaughter

How could a culture as advanced as Rome

justify the spectacular bloodshed that took place here?

Gladiatorial games and associated violent spectacles

needed absolutely no justification

And in the ancient sources, we find just the opposite,

that they were believed to stiffen moral fiber

Romans attending the Colosseum were more than spectators,

they were participants

These games showcased the power of Rome and reminded citizens

that their prosperity was paid for in blood

Inside the Colosseum you have spectacle, you have energy,

you have entertainment

The whole building is used as a vehicle for the demonstration

of the power of the Roman world

and how it came to benefit the populace

Though Rome falls to the barbarians in 476,

the Colosseum, like a victorious gladiator, still stands

Battered and triumphant,

it is a lasting reminder of the gore and the glory of Rome