Ancient Rome

Roman Colosseum

The Roman COLOSSEUM , Flavian amphitheater built over the remains of Nero's "Golden House" in Rome, c. 80 AD. The primary function of an amphitheater was to house spectacles of blood sports--gladiators combats and hunts of wild animals. Early Roman Christians were persecuted in this manner in the Colosseum. The design of an amphitheater basically r...

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THE CIRCUS: ROMAN CHARIOT RACING

The first-century CE satirist Juvenal wrote, "Long ago the people shed their anxieties, ever since we do not sell our votes to anyone. For the people""who once conferred imperium, symbols of office, legions, everything""now hold themselves in check and anxiously desire only two things, the grain dole and chariot races in the Circus" (Satires 10.77-...

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The Colisseum's Description

The amphitheater is a vast ellipse with tiers of seating for 50,000 spectators around a central elliptical arena. Below the wooden arena floor, there was a complex set of rooms and passageways for wild beasts and other provisions for staging the spectacles. Eighty walls radiate from the arena and support vaults for passageways, stairways and the ti...

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Roman Ball Games

Ball-playing was popular among the Romans, and they often spent their morning exercises playing games on the fields (palaestra) or ball-courts (sphaerista). The Romans enjoyed a variety of ball games, including Handball (Expulsim Ludere), Trigon, Soccer, Field Hockey, Harpasta, Phaininda, Episkyros, and certainly Catch and other games that children...

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Roman Architecture

Roman Architecture: Arches, Columns, Temples, Theaters, Amphitheaters, Baths, Basilicas that the great architects that built them. As far as Roman Architecture goes, it is difficult to compare it with that of other nations, because the Romans applied architecture to so many and such varied purposes, and so constructed monuments involving both archi...

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