Colosseum
Most Impressive and Unique Structure on the Roman Empire
The Colosseum
The Colossum is an old building in ancient Rome. It was built as an apology by Emperor Vespian to say sorry for the grief their previous Emperor has caused them such as things like burning down homes of the citizens and other buildings.
Name
The Colosseum was once known as the Flavian Amphitheatre but was changed to the Colosseum. There are various theories about why, but the two main ones are about the Giant Statue of Nero near it or the immense size of the Colosseum, as colossal means large.
Date
The Colosseum is so old that no-one knows the exact date of when it was built, as no-one alive today was there at the time. But judging by the state of things and the bodies found, scientists dicovered that it was built at least at 70CE. (Common Era)
People Needed
Around 100,000 slaves were brought froum the Jewish war and forced to build Colosseum piece by piece. As they did not have machines to help them build the Colosseum as we do now they had to build the Colosseum by hand which makes it many times harder.
Problems
The main problem about the Colosseum is that it was built on top of a lake and it took a lot of planning to make sure that no water escaped in to the actual structure. The solution as that they strained out all the water using drains. Though they did still have water battles inside the Colosseum.
Materials
The Colosseum is mostly made up of brick and stone but there are some other materials like marble, limestone and tuff (volcanic rock). The builders chose this material as it was easy to access in Rome.
Shaping
The Colosseum is shaped the way is, as it is an entertainment centre and this way everyone can see what is going on even though it may not be a pleasent sight (blood and fighting).
Hoplding it up
There are pillars all around the colosseum to help keep it up and they did for quite a while but unfortunately today the Colosseum is crumbling down.
Cost
Scientists don't think the Emperor paid for anything that he used for construction. He just took every thing by force from who ever he wanted because he had so much power.