Colosseum

As we were planning this trip and thinking about what we wanted to do, Mona decided she really wanted to have a guided tour of certain sites in order to gain better knowledge and really appreciate the history of what we were seeing.  She definitely wanted a guided tour of the Vatican.  She researched different guides and groups on line and found a company called Tours of the Vatican that had a tremendous number of positive reviews.  One of the reviewers said they enjoyed their guided tour so much, they wish they had done one for the Colosseum as well.  I believe that was the deciding factor, and Mona said we had to use this group for tours of both sites.

Our first full day in Rome began with a guided tour of the Colosseum.  We took the Metro -- Rome's subway system is called the Metropolitan -- and met out tour guide Barbara outside of the Colosseum Metro station.  Barbara studied art history at university and really enjoys giving tours.  She was extremely knowledgeable of the history of the Colosseum and shared so much information.  I won't bore you by sharing everything we learned, but it is interesting how the Colosseum got its name -- Colosseo in Italian.

Originally, this was known as the Amphitheatrum Flavium - or Flavian Amphitheater.  This was due to being constructed by two emperors of the Flavian dynasty -- Vespasian and Titus -- between 72 and 80 AD.  These were the first two emperors after Nero.  There was a gigantic bronze statue of Nero nearby -- a Colossus -- or colossal in today's English.  So it began to be referred to as Colosseo by the Romans even though it served as a "theatrical" venue with gladiator fights, executions, and the like taking place in its heyday.  Even though this was considered an "amphitheater" in its day (which is a word we still use today), Colosseum stuck and the term is still used throughout the English-speaking world to refer to sports arenas.

Inside the Colosseum 

For me, the other most interesting tidbit was that the Colosseum could hold 50,000 to 80,000 spectators back in the day and could be completely emptied in 15 minutes.  Very efficient design by the ancient Romans.  Now if only we could figure how to do that after our own sporting events in the 10,000 seat arena instead of spending a lot longer trying to get out.