Brief Discription

Description

A model of the Colosseum
The Colosseum is roughly elliptical in shape, with its long axis, oriented WSW-ESE, which measures 188 m and the short one 156. The building stands on a base of two steps; above it there are three floors of arcades built in travertine stone and a fourth storey with windows. There were eighty arches on every floor, divided by pillars with a half column.

The four arches on the axes of the building were the main entrances, and were probably decorated with a little porch and a statue. The other 76 arches were numbered for an easier access to the seats. Only 31 arches of the outer ring, from number XXIII to LIV, have remained intact.

The three orders of the Colosseum
in a famous drawing by Leduc
The ground floor half columns are doric in style, those of the second floor are ionic and those of the upper floor Corinthian. The attic is divided into panels by Corinthian columns, with a rectangular window every second panel. Ancient authors mention - and the images that we have confirm it - that a series of bronze shields (clipea) was affixed all around the attic on the panels without the windows.

The arches are 4.20 m. (13’9") wide and 7.05 m (23’1") high on the ground floor, while on the upper floors they are only 6.45 m (21’2") high. Including the cornices between the floors and the attic, the overall height of the building is 48,5 m.

Top floor
The arena where the shows took place measures 76 by 44 metres, it had a floor made with wooden planks covered with yellow sand taken from the hill of Monte Mario. Over 100.000 cubic metres of travertine stone (45.000 only for the external wall), quarried near Tibur (today Tivoli), were used for the building. A road was built from the quarries to Rome for this purpose. A similar quantity of tuff blocks, bricks and opus cementicium (concrete made of small lumps of tuff in mortar) were also used, thus adapting the resistance of the materials to the loads and thrust that had to be supported. The combination of different materials improves the elasticity of the whole: the main pillars are made of travertine, radial walls are of travertine and tuff, the vaults are cast in cementwork, and the walls were plastered and painted white and red (most of the stuccoes have disappeared). The passages corresponding to the main entrances were decorated with paintings and stuccoes, which have barely survived the centuries.

Second floor
All around the top there were the sockets for 240 wooden beams which supported the awning (velarium) that covered the spectators from the sun and was manoeuvred by a unit of sailors of the imperial fleet, stationed nearby.

The Colosseum was surrounded by an area paved with large travertine slabs and delimited by boundary stones set in the ground with a slight inclination inwards, which are thought to have been supports of some sort for the ropes of the awning (Some others think that they were gates for crowd control). Beyond these stones began the street paving of big grey blocks of basaltic lava.

First floor
The square around the Colosseum is probably one of the few places in Rome that is at the same level as the ancient times. Remember that Rome is about 2600 years old, and that during all this time layers and layers of buildings and roads have accumulated. The level of the ancient city is about 8-15 metres below the current one (since the birth of Rome, the average annual growth of the city has been calculated at about 7.5 millimetres per year). But when you walk on the cobblestones around the Colosseum you are walking on the same stones the ancient Romans walked on.


What is left of the original building? The north side of the outer wall is still standing (including 31 of the original 80 entrances, together with the part of the building that is between it and the inner wall supporting the top floor colonnade) and practically the whole skeleton of the structure between this inner wall and the arena, that is, the encircling and radiating walls on which rested the cavea with its marble seats, that instead have disappeared.

Ground floor
Inside
The cavea was all in travertine, now almost completely lost. It was divided into three parts called, from bottom to top, podium, gradatio and porticus. In major amphitheatres, like the Colosseum, the gradatio was divided horizontally into different levels (maeniana) by praecinctiones (corridors), and vertically into cunei (sectors) by the scalaria, the steps leading to the vomitoria, the entrances. Upon entering, the spectators had to present a tessera, a tablet that reported the cuneus, gradus and locus of their seat. For example, CVN III GRAD IV LOC I corresponds to seat 1, row 4, sector 3.

The podium was the terrace immediately around the arena. In the Colosseum it was raised 3.60 m above it. Part of the floor of the arena was made of masonry and part of wood, with removable sections for the entrance/exit of scenarios, beasts and materials. There were marble decorations around the podium, at the entrances (vomitoria) that gave on to the cavea for the passage of the public, and perhaps also on the niches beside the main entrances on the arena.

The section
Under the arena there were all the services necessary for the shows: cages for the animals, stores, tools, and lifts that raised the beasts to trapdoors placed on the floor of the arena. When wild beasts were in the amphitheatre a fence was erected all around the podium. The fence had wooden rollers on top, in order to prevent the beasts from climbing over. Inside, the seating has a gradient of 37°, and the overall height of 48.5 m (159’) was calculated to give a good view of the arena even to the spectators in the upper seats.

The supports of the velarium
The corridors and stairs were planned in order to allow the public, calculated between 50.000 and 75.000, swift access and exit and to keep the different classes of spectators separated. The two main entrances on the short axis led directly to the central boxes, while a series of obligatory pathways, symmetrically repeated in each quadrant of the stand, led the other spectators to their assigned places.

A section with the division of the seating
Between the arena and the podium there was a service tunnel, with niches. Their function is uncertain; some say they housed archers who protected the spectators from the risk of wild animals reaching the public, some say they were latrines, and some say that there was a water channel meant to give supplementary protection from the beasts. In any case, it seems that these niches could be reached only through some entrances located in the fourth ring of the cavea, accessible only to service personnel. Another mystery of the Colosseum ...

Before the Colosseum

Before the Colosseum

The valley of the Colosseum

Once there was a lake... The site of the Colosseum is in fact a depression among the hills of Rome: the Palatine on its south-western side, the Velia on the western side, the last slopes of the Esquiline hill, also called Colle Oppio (now a park) on the northern side and the Celio on the Eastern side. The Velia, however, has disappeared: during the thirties, the hill – which was in fact a ridge between the Colle Oppio and the Palatine – was razed to the ground in order to build the modern Via dei Fori Imperiali, the road that connects Piazza Venezia to the Colosseum cutting through the forums of old Rome. Mussolini demanded a straight road from Piazza Venezia to the Colosseum, and that was the end of the Velia.

The valley collected the waters, which created a marsh or a lake, depending on the season. The small lake was fed by the waters of the Rio Labicano, a stream flowing down the Labicana valley, more or less along modern day Via Labicana. The stream can still be seen underground when visiting the Church of St. Clemente in Via di San Giovanni. There you can descend about 30 feet under modern ground level and walk on the cobblestones of old Roman alleys, enter shops and houses, visit a Mithraic temple and listen to the soothing sound of running water. The stream is still there and the water runs clear and fast, enclosed inside a conduct built in the 19th century in order to drain the underground of the Basilica.

The area of the Palatine Hill in a XIX century painting by Granet
The emperor Nero (right) took advantage of the lake in order to embellish his palace, the Domus Aurea (Golden House), which occupied an enormous area in the centre of the city. Many people, rich and poor alike, were dispossessed of their properties for Nero to build a house that he described as "worthy of an human being". It is difficult to understand the magnitude of the Domus Aurea: there were so many buildings that Nero actually never managed to visit all the rooms in his mansion.

The lake thus became part of a huge park provided with all sorts of amenities, including houses around the lake built in the style of sea villages. In his palace Nero also placed a colossal bronze statue of himself (120 feet high, work of Zenodorus), whose face was later modified many times to represent different emperors.

After the death of Nero in 68 AD, and after a period of turmoil, Vespasian came to power. The new emperor established a new dynasty, the Flavians, and wanted to gain popularity with the Roman citizens, showing that the times of tyranny and despotism were over: He made a point of giving back the area of Nero’s Domus Aurea to the Romans. The amphitheatre then – a public building donated by the emperor to the Roman citizens – stood on the former site of Nero’s mansion as a splendid symbol of the new political order.

The emperor Nero
The Romans called the Colosseum "Caesar's Amphitheatre" or "hunting theatre", or simp'ly "the arena". The name Colosseum dates back to the XI century, and it is origin is uncertain. The most popular version is that the name comes from a colossal statue of Nero, called indeed Colossus Neronis, that at first was in the Domus Aurea. The statue was one of the most visible (and arrogant) features of Nero's residence: a 36 meter (120 ft) bronze statue of Nero placed just outside the entrance. This monstrosity was built in imitation of the Colossus of Rhodes, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The Colossus was later dedicated by Vespasian to the Sun God - after replacing its face - and then affixed with the heads of several emperors, until Hadrian moved it near the amphitheatre. The transfer of the statue in itself seems to have been an admirable feat. Discussion among the experts is still open, though, because some have argued that 1) there is no substantial evidence of the presence of the statue near the amphitheatre; 2) the name Colosseum appears only from the XI century, when the statue had long disappeared.

Vespasian
Another theory maintains that the name might have come from the Collis Iseum, a nearby hill where a temple dedicated to Isis once stood. And according to another curious theory, it might even be the corruption of Colis eum? ("do you worship him?"), a question that was part of a satanic rite. Legend has it that, up to the late Renaissance age, the Colosseum used to be a chosen site for performing pagan and black magic rituals at night-time.

Models of Colosseum

Models

In the XVIII century
among the rich it became fashionable to collect models of buildings, ruins and famous monuments, made of wood or cork. This craft, that originated in Naples in the XVI century with the scenarios of the cribs, developed to the benefit of wealthy collectors and travellers who only then had started to consider old ruins interesting and romantic. In 1778 the architect Thomas Hardwick had a model built by the Neapolitan master Giovanni Altieri, in scale 1:120, to exhibit at the Society of Antiquaries as a complement to the study he had made on the amphitheatre. Hardwick made some drawings, which we still have, but the model has been lost. There is also evidence of another model being made in 1789, based on the measurements carried out by the French architect Antoine Désgodetz (1653-1728). The same Désgodetz drawings were used by Antonio Chiti for the models that he sold all round Europe; two of these models of the Colosseum are still in Kassel and Darmstadt.

A drawing of the Colosseum by Antoine Désgodetz
The most famous model of the Colosseum is without any doubt the wooden reconstruction by Carlo Lucangeli (right). Lucangeli worked on it for 22 years, starting in 1790. He was the one who undertook the first scientific survey of the Colosseum in order to identify the architectural details. His studies led to the discovery of hidden parts of the monument, like the wall of the retropodio and the so-called Passaggio di Commodo. Lucangeli's notes were published after his death and circulated among the intellectuals, becoming one of the main sources of knowledge about the Colosseum. Between 1792 and 1805 Lucangeli had completed another cork model of "the actual state" of the Colosseum, which is now in Paris, at the École des Beaux-Arts. When Lucangeli died in 1812 the first wooden model still wasn't finished; it was completed only in 1815 by his son-in-law Paolo Dalbono and other artists. They added to it the ipogei of the arena (that were excavated after Lucangeli's death and by his will), the seats and the velarium.

The Lucangeli model
Lucangeli's model had a tormented life: it was transported to London from 1815 to 1819; when it was shipped back the boxes were impounded at the Port of Rome because of customs problems. Lucangeli's heirs sold it to the rich collector Emanuele Godoy, who placed it in his house on the Celian hill. The model passed through several hands, until in 1855 Count Zeloni proposed to the (then Vatican) State to exhibit the model for a fee inside the Colosseum, even though he had pawned it at the Monte di Pietà (the Roman official pawnshop in 1851). The newborn Italian government remained unmoved: in 1874 it was proposed that the State should redeem the model from the Monte di Pietà, but nothing happened. In 1879 the archaeologist Rodolfo Lanciani planned an Antiquarium - a Museum - on the first floor of the amphitheatre, but the works started only in 1883. By now, the model was considerably ruined, because its detachable sections had been "heaped up like firewood", therefore it had to undergo restoration. In the end, in 1895 it was placed in the Colosseum, where it still is, and formally dedicated.

The Lindenau model
In Germany the reproductions of Carl May, who copied Chiti's models in Kassel, and of his sons Georg and Maximilian were very popular. They made a model in 1:60 scale, finished in 1853, that is now in Aschaffenburg. The model preserved in Altenburg is attributed to the Roman shop of Luigi Carotti.

The Construction

Colosseum Construction

The Colosseum is roughly elliptical in shape

Its long axis, oriented WNW-ESE, measures 188 metres and the short one 156.

Its coordinates are: latitude 41° 53' 33" North, longitude 12° 29' 31" East

The overall height of the building is 48,5 metres (159’)

The arena measures 76 m by 44 (249 by 144 feet, or 83 by 48 yard)

The building stands on a base of 2 steps; there are 3 floors of arcades and a 4th storey with windows (see image on the right).

There were 80 arches on every floor, divided by pillars with a half column.

The arches are 4.20 m. (13’9") wide and 7.05 m (23’1") high on the ground floor; on the upper floors they are only 6.45 m (21’2") high

The seating was raised 3.60 m above the arena, and it has a gradient of 37°

The ancient capacity is calculated between 50.000 and 75.000 spectators

300 tons of metal were used for the iron clamps that connected the limestone blocks together

The ground floor, in limestone, is 90 cm thick on average

Over 100.000 cubic metres of travertine stone were used (45.000 for the external wall only)

A road about 20 km long was built to transport the travertine stones from the quarries near Tivoli

All around the top there were sockets for 240 wooden beams which supported the awning (velarium)

In 2005 the Colosseum was visited by 3.880.179 visitors, for a lord income of 23.4 million Euros

(a)The plan of the amphitheatre

                                                        (b)Part of a drawing of the facade

(c)A map of the undergrounds of the Colosseum.
At the centre of the image is the bottom of the arena; above and below, the rooms beneath the cavea, where the shows were prepared (from Luciani, Il Colosseo)

(d)The design of the polycentric curve of the arena

(e)Some phases of the construction



(f)A section of the external drains




(g)




(h)




(i)A section of the Colosseum

Amphitheatre

Amphitheatre

The amphitheatre is a Roman invention, but ... What is an amphitheatre?
IMO nobody has explained it better than Bill Thayers in his page on the subject:

Now before we start, repeat after me: an amphitheatre and a theatre are different types of buildings.
Amphi-theatres are "theatres in the round": amphi- means "around" in Greek.
A theatre is a space with a stage, and the audience is on one side of it. People need to hear, so a theatre is relatively small.
An amphitheatre is for action: it's a sports arena, where the spectators sit around the field. They need to see, but they don't really need to hear, so an amphitheatre can be much larger.

The picture on the right (taken from www.simons-rock.edu/~wdunbar/) shows a Roman theatre and an amphitheatre, still preserved. The city is Arles, in southern France

Arles, amphitheatre
As explained in the games page, the first record of a gladiatorial fight dates back to 264 BC, when the sons of Brutus Pera offered such a spectacle in the Forum Boarium in Rome (an area on the left bank of the Tiber used as a cattlemarket) to honour the memory of their father. Again in 216 the Forum hosted a combat of 22 pairs of gladiators; in 183 sixty pairs of gladiators fought at the funerals of Publius Licinius Crassus; in 174 a show lasted for three days. For a long time in Rome, for lack of a proper amphitheatre, the shows were organized in the Forum or in the Circus Maximus.
In the Forum stalls and awnings were prepared for the spectators. In 384 BC censor Gaius Maenius had wooden balconies built on top of the shops around the Forum, and since then the word "maenianum" indicated the stalls of an amphitheatre (this according to the grammatician Sextus Pompeius Festus, as reported by AA.VV. Il Colosseo, Electa).

The oldest amphitheatres have been built in Campania; some (at Capua, Literno and Cuma) can be dated at the end of the II century BC; some others (Avella, Pozzuoli, Telese) at the middle of the first century BC. The one of Pompeii, probably the oldest one made of stone, dates back to 69 BC.
In Rome the law prohibited the building of structures for shows. Pompey in 55 BC managed to build a theatre only by justifying it as an extension of the Temple of Venus, thus overcoming the ban.
Pliny the Elder reports that in 53 or 52 BC C. Scribonius Curio gave games and shows in Rome, and for the occasion he invented an original machine. It was composed of two theatres which could rotate and form one arena. In the morning the public sat in the theatres, then the semicircles were rotated to close the space, so that in the afternoon the people could enjoy the gladiatorial games. Pliny also deplores the fact that the Romans after the first day did not budge from the seats, even while they were being rotated, so that the arena was a less dangerous place than the stalls:
... theatra iuxta duo fecit amplissima ligno, cardinum singulorum versatili suspensa libramento, in quibus utrisque antemeridiano ludorum spectaculo edito inter sese aversis, ne invicem obstreperent scaenae, repente circumactis — ut constat, post primos dies etiam sedentibus aliquis —, cornibus in se coeuntibus faciebat ampitheatrum gladiatorumque proelia edebat, ipsum magis auctoritatum populum Romanum circumferens.
(Pliny the Elder, Historia Naturalis, Mayhoff Edition, XXXVI, 117 - For more text click here).

Curionis Theatre in Rome
Provisional buildings were built in Rome for the games, nevertheless the habit of organising them in public spaces continued. Sulla, around
In the meantime the word amphitheatrum started to indicate the thing that was previously called spectacula, or in greek Theatron kynegeticon (hunting theatre). The first mention belongs to Vitruvius (De Architectura, I,7,1). When giving directions for the layout of a city, he says that "If there be neither amphitheatre nor gymnasium, the temple of Hercules should be near the circus." Apparently the amphitheatre could also be called "ovum (egg, probably bacause of the shape of the arena, Calpurnius) or more commonly "arena" or "cavea".

The first stone amphitheatre of Rome was built by Statilius Taurus in 29 BC somewhere in the Campus Martius (its precise location being a matter of fierce debate). It seems that wooden structures continued to be popular, regardless of the danger. In 27 AD in Fidene, not far from Rome, one of these wooden amphitheatres collapsed under the excessive weigth, killing 20.000 spectators (if we believe Suetonius), or killing and wounding 50.000 (according to Tacitus).

The arena was recently reconstructed
Taurus' amphitheatre, though still in use for a long time, had become inadequate for the splendid shows of the imperial capital, and it seems that Caligula, a great lover of the games had to host the shows in the Saepta, a big public space.
Nero in 57 AD finally had a wooden amphitheatre built - it only took one year - for his shows. Suetonius and Tacitus tell us that it was a magnificent one: the awning was blue, and it used the longest wooden beam ever seen in Rome: 120 ft. long and 2 ft wide. The descriptions mention decorations of gems, gold, ivory. The wall around the arena had ivory rollers on top, that stopped the wild animals from jumping over, and for more protection a golden net was cast all around, with big pointed tusks leaning inwards. It seems that this theatre disappeared in the most famous of the roman fires: the one of 64 AD.

Antiquity

Antiquity

The Amphitheatrum Flavium, a.k.a. Colosseum or Coliseum (though in the antiquity Romans referred to it as to Amphitheatrum Caesareum or hunting theater), was built by the Flavian emperors in the first century AD as a gift to the Roman citizens, in the place where the previous Emperor Nero (37-68 AD) had built his residence, the Domus Aurea.

The city needed an amphitheatre, as the only one with a (partially) stone structure had been built by Statilius Taurus in 29 BC and it was too small. The emperor Caligula (12-41 AD) had started the works for a new amphitheatre, but Claudius (10-54 AD) stopped them when he came to power. Nero, too, refused to use the old Statilius' facility and preferred to have his own amphitheatre built in the Campus Martis. It was a beautiful one, according to the historians, but it was destroyed, probably in the famous fire of AD 64.

The model of the city in the Museum of Roman civilization
Nero's death in 68 marked the end of the Julio-Claudian dinasty; the Flavian family came to power. The emperor Vespasian was acknowledged as emperor by the Senate in 69, and wanted to make a political gesture to reconcile the Roman citizens with the new masters. So he gave back to the Romans most of the land that Nero had occupied in the centre of the city, and the Colosseum was built in the place where before was an artificial lake, in the park of Nero's residence.

It took about ten years to build the amphitheatre. Vespasian started the works in 72 AD and his son Titus (see him smiling in the statue on the right) dedicated it in the year 80 with magnificent games that lasted one hundred days. It is generally accepted that the building was completed by the following emperor, Domitian, Titus' brother.

The emperor Titus
In the amphitheatre, a Roman invention, were held games; the most popular were the venationes (hunts) and the munera (gladiatorial games). The Roman ruling class was obliged, by law and by the expectation of the people, to organize games, also to gain the favour of the citizens. The organization of the games, which involved great expenses, became a matter of public interest and was regulated by many laws.

The whole area was dedicated to the games; near the Colosseum Domitian also built four ludi, the prisons where gladiators had their training. The bestiarii, who fought against the beasts, were in the Ludus matutinus, so called because the show with the animals was held in the morning. Then there was the Ludus Gallicus, the Ludus Dacicus and the Ludus Magnus.

Another model
In reality there is no evidence of the presence of statues in the arches
The Colosseum remained in service for four and a half centuries; there is evidence of many changes, additions and repairs. Once, in 217, the upper floors went on fire because of a thunderbolt, and for five years the shows were held at the circus. There also were many earthquakes (in 442 and 470, 847). The last gladiatorial combat is recorded in 404, and the last hunt in 523. Gradually the taste of the public had changed, but the main reason for the end of the games was the military and financial crisis of the western part of the empire, together with the many invasions Italy suffered. Nobody could bear anymore the colossal expenses needed to organize the shows, and this made the function of the building obsolete. Perhaps some venatio was held until the end of the VII century (Gentili), but in the VIII-IX centuries the amphitheatre was completely abandoned.

During the middle ages houses and churches were built in the Colosseum, that was also used as a fortress/residence by the barons of Rome. Its destruction was hastened during the renaissance and later by its use as a source of building materials, until restoration started again in the eighteenth century, and has never stopped since.

Medieval Ages

Medieval Ages

Recent studies have discovered that from as early as the IV century materials were taken away from the Colosseum, and that some drains were obstructed by the end of the same century. At the beginning of the V century the water/drainage system, at least in the southwestern sector, had stopped working, as the lead piping and fountains had been removed. There is evidence that in 444 or 445, on occasion of the vicennalia of Valentinianus III, the building was still basically intact, but 50 years later it was greatly damaged, most probably by an earthquake.

89 burial places, dating back from Diocletian to Theodoric's times (IV-VI century) have been found in the valley of the Colosseum, mainly in the NE sector. 63 burial places have been found in and around the amphitheatre, though only 56 have been mapped. These 56 are located in 3 places. The 15 on the eastern side and the 18 on the northern side were outside the travertine paving around the amphitheatre, which was still being maintained. The third group of 23 tombs (VI century) were found inside the northern portico, so the conclusion is that during the V century the area was abandoned, but the amphitheatre was still in use; later on, when the amphitheatre was closed, it was used for burials.


Venantius' inscription
The inscription on the right - dating back to 484 or 508 - commemorates the works that the Praefectus Urbi Decius Marius Venantius Basilius had had done - at his own expense - to repair the arena and the podium, damaged by an "abominandus" earthquake.Venantius' repairs of the arena meant the dismantling of the remaining colonnade, by sliding the columns and pieces down in the underground of the arena, and filling it up. In 519 Eutaricus Cilica held games in a Colosseum without the upper portico or underground, not to mention other major damages to the cavea, entrances, etc.

When in 1810-14 Carlo Fea excavated the arena, he found three roads on top of each other, along the long axis. The oldest one had been built on top of "Venantius' filling". Later on, in 1874-75, P. Rosa started the main work on the oldest stratum of earth - dating back to Venantius' days - and found 70% of the columns of the upper portico, a quantity of inscriptions, the fittings of the vomitoria, blocks of travertine and tuff, wooden beams and parts of the underground machinery. There were the remains of at least 20 huge columns (together with the capitals) that had fallen down from the top portico and had damaged the cavea mainly in the NE-SE sectors.

The amphitheatre in an old map
The last venationes were staged in the Colosseum in AD 523, when the king Theodoric gave permission to Anicius Maximus to celebrate his consulate.At the same time he defined the games "actus detestabilis, certamen infelix" and blamed Titus for having spent all that money in a building destined to celebrate death. During his reign, the area was reclaimed, and to connect the Celian hill to the Colosseum a road was built level with the arena.

Later on it seems that the amphitheatre was closed by wooden barriers, but it is uncertain if it was a closure before a possible reopening or to defend a property. Between the VI and the XIII century the ground floor was raised by 1,3 metres. In this layer were found walls, a basin to prepare lime and the paved road at Venantius' level. Some openings were made in the walls facing the arena, leading to think that the place had become a kind of piazza along the only road between the Colosseum and the Celian hill.

The Colosseum half buried and overgrown with plants
According to Rossella Rea, the first occupation of the Colosseum in order to systematically dismantle it dates back to the period between the second half of the VI and the second half/end of the VIII centuries; it is certain that by then the stones of the amphitheatre were extracted and used as building material. In those times the only stable institution was the Church, and it was the Pope Gregorius Magnus (590-604) who introduced the practice of recycling ancient temples, buildings and halls and turning them into Christian churches.

The city had by now lost its importance and population because of the repeated invasions and looting of Italy. By the end of the VI century Rome counted only 90.000 citizens, that were reduced to 17.000 at the end of the XIV century, when the Papal seat was transferred to Avignon, in France (at the peak of its imperial expansion Rome counted 1 million inhabitants or more). Rome had become a little city concentrated in a small nucleus, surrounded by fields, orchards, ruins and farms, and this situation lasted up to about the end of the nineteenth century.

The Colosseum was outside the centre of the medieval city, which was concentrated on the banks of the river. Further earthquakes in 801 and 847 probably made more damage. The amphitheatre started being overgrown by plants and trees, and there are even stories about wild animals – wolves – frequenting the site. The ground level had slowly risen over the centuries, thus submerging a good half of the ground floor arches.

In the 11th century Rome fell into the hands of baronial families who were at constant war. They used to live in tall towers for safety reasons (a few of these towers are still standing as a reminder of the quarrelsome Middle Ages). One of the strongest families, the Frangipane, occupied the whole area around the Colosseum, which was transformed into a fortress.
In 1144 the Roman people banned the baronial families from the city, in an effort to free Rome from the influence of the Pope and of the nobility and to establish a Senate like the one of the ancient Romans. The Colosseum was then occupied and declared property of the free municipality of Rome. In 1159, though, the Frangipane reoccupied the building.

This image of Christ, encased in a keystone, still reminds us that a section of the Colosseum belonged to the religious order of the Santissimo Salvatore.
In 1216 the Annibaldi family challenged the Frangipane for the possession of the fortress, and the struggle lasted to about the end of the century, with the Annibaldi taking over the Colosseum, but being obliged to return it to the Church in 1312. It is uncertain if the monument was still practically intact in the XII-XIII century. There is mention of a bullfight, organized in 1332, in which 18 youths of the Roman nobility are said to have lost their lives, but the truth of the story is dubious (Delehaye, entry: Colosseum, in Catholic Encyclopedia).

In 1231 part of the SW wall collapsed during a very violent earthquake, but the great destruction took place in 1349, with more external arches crumbling. This fact is reported in a letter of the poet Francesco Petrarca. In the XIV century the families of the Orsini and Colonna were granted permission to remove stones and marble. In 1439 some stones were used to build the tribune in the church of St. John's Lateran. It was then that the removal of marble, stones and bricks really started, and it lasted for generations. Many palaces and churches were built with the stones of the Colosseum. It is reported (Lugli) that, in the year 1451-1452 alone, 2.522 cartloads were taken from the site to be used for buildings of the Vatican and for the walls of Rome.

The property was then subdivided, and sections of the amphitheatre were donated to religious orders. The order of the Olivetani even built a wall connecting their slice of Colosseum to the nearby convent of Santa Maria Nova. During the illiterate Middle Ages, all recollection of the games had gone lost, and people started to imagine that the building had been a temple dedicated to the Sun God, or to the devil. In this period the guides for the pilgrims visiting Rome generally described the Colosseum as a round temple, dedicated to different gods, that once had been covered by a dome made of bronze - or maybe copper. It was in this period that many legends started to circulate about the massive round building, saying that it was a palace of Titus and Vespasian, a temple of demons, a seat of occultism ... and more.

1300-1700

1300-1700

The Colosseum in ruins
In 1381 a section of the Colosseum was donated to the religious group called Confraternita del Santissimo Salvatore ad sancta Sanctorum, also called del Gonfalone, which in 1490 was granted permission to hold Passion plays in the amphitheatre. By now, the function of the amphitheatre had been rediscovered by the humanists, and had become commonplace to believe that it had been the place of martyrdom for many early christians. Thousands of people crowded the ruins of the Colosseum to participate. The Passion plays of the Gonfalone were held until 1539, when they were banned because they aroused hatred of the jews and were the source of many incidents and riots.

In this period the property of the monument was split between the Confraternity, the Roman Senate and the Camera Apostolica. The Confraternity started to use the stones of the Colosseum in the sections that had already fallen down, and though in the XV century the Popes started to repair some old Roman ruins, the removal of materials lasted for centuries.
It seems that in the XV century some excavations were made, which brought to light the drains that cross the substratum of the amphitheatre, and the wide pavement around it, which was again rediscovered in 1895.

A cartload being taken away in an
engraving of the 19th century
There is evidence that in 1439 the stones were used to repair the tribuna of the Basilica of St. John Lateran; that in 1452 alone 2.522 cartloads were taken away by a Giovanni Foglia from Como, and that ten years later the travertines were used for the building of the Scala Santa and for the square and the Loggia of the Blessings in St. Peter’s .

By now permission to carry away the stones was easily granted by the Popes (under payment, of course), who also took advantage of tapping such a vast and cheap source of building materials for their projects, while on the other hand their edicts officially promoted the preservation of the ancient monuments.

"By kissing the Holy Cross one acquires one year and 40 days of indulgence" - This pious reminder is still affixed inside the Colosseum

In the XV century the materials were used to mend the city walls, to build the Church of San Marco, Palazzo Venezia;

in the XVI to build Palazzo della Cancelleria, Palazzo Farnese, the Palazzi Senatorio and dei Conservatori on Capitol Hill, and in 1574 for the restoration of the Pons Emilius (a bridge that lasted only 23 years, being destroyed again in the terrible 1598 flood; since then it is called Ponte Rotto, or broken bridge);

in the XVII century Palazzo Barberini (and many others).

Some Popes (Sixtus V and Clemens X) planned to reclaim the building: Sixtus wanted to use the amphitheatre as a milling factory, with the machines on the ground floor and the houses of the workers on the top floors. More projects were made by Clemens, but nothing was ever concluded because of the lack of funds.

The little church inside the amphitheatre
In the XVII century the monument had again become a den of derelicts and criminals. After long years of abandon, in 1700 Pope Clemens XI had the arches closed, a cross placed in the arena and the site used as a manure deposit for the manufacture of saltpetre, destined to a nearby gunpowder factory. In 1703 three arches of the second SW ring fell down because of an earthquake and Clemens found a way to use the travertine for the building of the new monumental port on the river (porto di Ripetta).

After more decades of decay and just before the 1750 Jubileum, the monument was given some attention: the little church inside the Colosseum, dedicated to S. Maria della Pietà (see picture on the right), was restored in 1743. In 1749, Pope Benedetto XIV declared the monument a public church, consecrated to the memory of the Passion of Christ and His Martyrs; so at least the removal of the stones was stopped. The stations of the Via Crucis were placed all around the arena, a new cross was planted in the middle and the amphitheatre was declared a public church.

A picture of the Via Crucis at the Colosseum
The Pope also founded a religious Arciconfraternita dedicated to Jesus and Mary, which started holding holy processions. They used to start from their seat at Oratorio of the church of Santi Cosma e Damiano, went on the Via Sacra through the Forum and reached the amphitheatre. Visitors found the procession very spectacular, and have left written descriptions and pictures (see right).

What about modern days ? Is the looting over ? Read here an interesting thread of discussion in a newsgroup, where someone asks if it is legal to sell a "chunk" of the Colosseum on E-Bay...

Modern Era

  Modern Era

A remembrance of the restoration
works carried out by three Popes
The modern architectural study of the Colosseum started with Carlo Fontana, who around 1720 made a survey of the amphitheatre and studied its geometric proportions. Most of the ground floor of the building was by now almost submerged by earth and debris accumulated during the centuries, and the arches were used as a deposit of manure.

A print of the Leo XII/Valadier
abutment under construction
In 1796 Napoleon I invaded Italy, defeated the papal troops and occupied Ancona and Loreto. Pius VI sued for peace, which was granted at Tolentino on February 19, 1797; but on December 28 of that year, brigadier-general Mathurin-Léonard Duphot, who had gone to Rome with Joseph Bonaparte as part of the French embassy, was killed in a riot and a new pretext was furnished for invasion. General Berthier marched to Rome, entered it unopposed on February 13, 1798, and, proclaiming a Roman Republic, demanded of the Pope the renunciation of his temporal authority. On February 17, 1798 (29 pluviôse An VI) General Berthier ordered the Pope to leave Rome within three days. Upon his refusal he was taken prisoner, and on February 20 he was escorted from the Vatican to Siena, and thence to the Certosa near Florence. Then, by way of Parma, Piacenza, Turin and Grenoble he reached the citadel of Valence, chief town of Drôme in Southern France, where he died six weeks after his arrival, on August 29, 1799, having reigned longer than any Pope in historical times.

According to a French project, the Colosseum was to become part of a huge archaeological park including the whole centre of Rome. In 1805 the first excavations started, carried out by architects Camporese, Palazzi and Stern, with the help of Carlo Lucangeli, an artist of wood modelling, who needed an exact survey of the monument for his reproduction. Were excavated the niches around the podium, parts of the podium, the entrance of the so-called passage of Commodus, part of the drain that runs around the amphitheatre and part of the canalization system of the ground floor. The porticoes were liberated from the earth, and so were the third corridor and other rooms.

The arena half excavated
In 1809 and 1810 the works restarted, also with the help of forced labour. In 1811 the area at the north of the monument and the northern side of the arena were partially excavated by Carlo Fea, but in the arena the works had to stop at a depth of 3 metres because of water infiltrations. From 1811 to 1813 repairs were made, and the arches were liberated from the walls that had closed them. In 1814 the authority of the Pope was restablished; the temporary administrations contracted out to Luigi Maria Valadier, son of the more famous Giuseppe, a survey of the undergrounds, then the arena was covered again and the stations of the Cross reinstalled.

In the 1820s, under Pius VII, it was deemed necessary to reinforce the remains of the outer ring: an abutment (buttress) of bricks was built to support the arches of the NW side (Stern abutment, Celian hill); later on, Leo XII had the other, more photographed abutment, built by the architect Valadier. In 1828 Antonio Nibby managed to empty all the surface drains, and in 1830 Luis Joseph Duc made a the first complete survey of the monument with modern means. From the 1840s on, more arches were restored and rebuilt on the side of the Celian Hill, by Salvi and other architects (these arches are easily recognized as they are made of bricks).




The south side abutment
eats

Right: the Pius VII abutment

In 1870 Rome became the capital of the new Italian state, but the works to finally free the arena restarted only in 1874. This time half of the arena was at last liberated from debris and the excavations reached the bottom, where it was found a type of paving made from brick, known as opus spicatum. In these excavations were found capitols, pieces of columns, inscriptions and debris dating back to the end of the V and the beginning of the VI century. It was on this occasion that the stations of the cross in the arena were finally removed. Later on, more excavations were carried out on the northern side, and at last the whole facade on that side was liberated from the debris accumulated over the centuries.

More restoration works were carried out by the Italian State in 1901-2, but the arena remained half full for many years, until in 1938-40 the excavations made by Luigi Cozzo arrived at the very bottom, bringing to light the underground of the arena. Cozzo also demolished all the underground structures that had been added to the original construction during the millennia, rebuilt parts of the underground structures on the western side and a small part of the cavea – with the seats (see picture).

The reconstructed s

Constant small repairs have been made since WW2, and a major restoration of some arches on the NW side was started in 1978. In 1981 the Roman universities focused on the study of the ancient monuments of the city. In 1992 a private bank financed restoration works, that lasted until 2000, with only a section restored, its cleanliness dramatically contrasting with the rest of the monument (see that in the picture on the main page). The future works include the rebuilding of the arena, in wood, also to protect the exposed underground structures from the weather. The eastern half of the new arena was completed in 2000, and before covering the other half studies are being carried out on the effect of the new cover on the underground microclimate. In 1997 a very important survey was carried out, measuring the Colosseum with laser and infrared techniques. This research has given us some insight on the deformation of the structures and a very precise map of the amphitheatre, and rekindled an old controversy between the archaeologists: is the Colosseum elliptic or ovoidal?

Emperors

I M P E R A T O R E S

Nero Lucius Domitius (Nero Claudius Drusus Germanicus) (Antium, 37AD – Roma, June 9, 68).

Nero

Son of Domitius Enobarbus and of Agrippina Minor, who, after having married Claudius, managed to have the young Nero adopted by him, ensuring his succession as emperor (54). Finely educated, in the first years of his reign Nero was closely controlled by his mother, by his tutor Seneca and by the Praefectum Pretorii Afranius Burrus. His despotic and authoritarian character surfaced and his dictatorial tendencies prevailed, supported by the plebe, who adored him because of his liberality.
Nero got rid of his brother Britannicus in 55, of his mother in 59, of his first wife Octavia (later on he married Poppea and Messalina), of Burrus in 62. After Rome’s fire in 64, he rebuilt the city and his own mansion, the Domus Aurea. When he was accused of having caused the fire, he retorted the blame on the Christians and persecuted them. Hated by the Senators, in 65 Nero ferociously repressed a conspiracy to kill him, organized by Lucius Calpurnius Piso and other prominent citizens. Seneca and the poet Lucanus died in the ferocious repression, among many others. A war campaign against the Parthians – led by Gneus Domitius Corbulo - regained Rome’s control over Armenia; his popularity had by now reached a peak. In Corinth, Nero solemnly proclaimed Greece's liberty, granting fiscal immunities to many cities and showing his favour for the eastern provinces of the empire. Revolts in Judea, Gallia, Africa and Spain – where Galba was crowned emperor by the Senate and by the Praetorians – caused his downfall. When Nero realized that everything was lost, he ordered a slave to kill him.

Vespasian (Titus Flavius Vespasianus) (Reate, 17 November, 9 – Cutilia, 24 June 79)

Vespasian
Born from a humble Sabine family, he accomplished military missions in Claudius’ time in Gallia and Britannia. During Nero’s rule he was sent to Judea to repress the revolt (67) and started his campaign until the anarchy caused by Nero’s death compelled him to stop the operations. Vespasian was proclaimed emperor by the eastern legions. He was acknowledged as emperor by the Senate in 69. After leaving the campaign in Judea to his son Titus, Vespasian returned to Italy and started a reconstruction of the imperial image and structures. He wanted to appear as the restorer of peace, law and order, recovering the tradition of August. He reinforced the imperial power and ensured its continuity to his sons Titus and Domitian. Vespasian respected the privileges of the Senate, reorganized the army, the defence of the borders, the judicial system, and raised the taxes in order to recover financial stability. He extended the Roman citizenship (and rule of law) to all Italy. He started the building of the Colosseum.

Titus (Titus Flavius Sabinus Vespasianus). (Roma 39 - Aquae Cutiliae, Sabina, 81) -

Titus
Son of Vespasian and Flavia Domitilla, he brought to a conclusion the war in Judea, by putting siege to Jerusalem and destroying the Temple (70). He was brought to the power by Vespasian, and succeeded him in 79. His brief rule was marked by calamities: the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius and a fire and plague in Rome, on which occasions he generously helped the population. He maintained his father’s policy of respect for the Senate, was lavish in organizing spectacles and avoided pronouncing death sentences, so that he was called clemens. He died after only two years of rule.

Domitian (Caesar Domitianus Augustus, original name until AD 81, then Titus Flavius Domitianus (b. Oct. 24, AD 51--d. Sept. 18, AD 96, Rome [Italy])

Domitian
The second son of the future emperor Vespasian and Flavia Domitilla, was princeps juventutis (an imperial prince) and was consul six times in Vespasian's lifetime; moreover, it was recognized that he would eventually succeed his brother Titus, who had no son and was 11 years older than him.
On Vespasian's death, in June 79, Domitian expected the same position as Titus had received under Vespasian, in particular, tribunician power and some form of imperium. These were not granted, and Domitian was evidently antagonistic to his brother and is alleged to have hastened his death, which occurred on Sept. 13, 81.
As emperor, Domitian was hated by the aristocracy. From the Trajanic writers Tacitus and Pliny the Younger (Suetonius is less partisan) it is hard to disentangle stock vituperation from genuine belief, but it seems certain that cruelty and ostentation were the chief grounds of his unpopularity, rather than any military or administrative incompetence. Indeed, his strict control over magistrates in Rome and the provinces won Suetonius' praise.
In his secretariat he used both freedmen and knights, some of whom retained their posts after his death; and his consilium of close advisers, including senators, involved no departure from precedent. His military and foreign policy was not uniformly successful. Both in Britain and in Germany advances were made by the Romans early in the reign, and the construction of the Rhine-Danube limes ("fortified line") owes more to Domitian than to any other emperor. But consolidation in Scotland was halted by serious wars on the Danube.
He continued his father's policy of holding frequent consulates. A grave source of offence was his insistence on being addressed as dominus et deus ("master and god"). The execution of his cousin Flavius Sabinus in 84 was an isolated event, but there are hints of more general trouble about 87. The crisis came with the revolt of Antonius Saturninus, governor of Upper Germany, on Jan. 1, 89. This was suppressed by the Lower German army, but a number of executions followed, and the law of majestas (treason) was later employed freely against senators. The years 93-96 were regarded as a period of terror hitherto unsurpassed. Among Domitian's opponents was a group of doctrinaire senators, friends of Tacitus and Pliny and headed by the younger Helvidius Priscus, whose father of the same name had been executed by Vespasian. Their Stoic views were probably the cause of Domitian's expulsions of "philosophers" from Rome on two occasions. Domitian's financial difficulties are a vexing question. Cruelty came earlier in his reign than rapacity, but eventually he regularly confiscated the property of his victims. His building program had been heavy: Rome received a new forum (later called Forum Nervae) and many other works. Then there were Domitian's new house on the Palatine and his vast villa on the Alban Mount. Meanwhile, the increased army pay was a recurrent cost. Probably only his confiscations averted bankruptcy in the last years. The conspiracy that caused his murder on Sept. 18, 96, was led by the two praetorian prefects, various palace officials, and the emperor's wife, Domitia Longina (daughter of Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo). Nerva, who took over the government at once, must clearly have been privy. The Senate was overjoyed at Domitian's death, but the army took it badly; and the next year they insisted on the punishment of those responsible.

Trajan, also called CAESAR NERVA TRAIANUS GERMANICUS (his original name was MARCUS ULPIUS TRAIANUS) was born in 53 in the province of Baetica, now Spain. He was the first Roman emperor to be born outside Italy. Son of a provincial governor enrolled by Vespasian in the ranks of the senators, presumably the future emperor grew up either in Rome or in various military headquarters with his father. He served 10 years as a legionary staff tribune. In this capacity he was in Syria while his father was governor, probably in 75. He then held the traditional magistracies through the praetorship, which qualified him for command of a legion in Spain in 89. Ordered to take his troops to the Rhine River to aid in quelling a revolt against the emperor [Index] Domitian by the governor of Upper Germany, Trajan probably arrived after the revolt had already been suppressed by the governor of Lower Germany. Trajan clearly enjoyed the favour of Domitian, who in 91 allowed him to hold one of the two consulships, which, even under the empire, remained most prestigious offices.

Trajan
After Domitian’s assassination on Sept. 18, 96, the conspirators had put forward as emperor the elderly and innocuous Nerva. Nevertheless, the imperial guard (the praetorian cohorts) forced the new emperor to execute the assassins who had secured the throne for him. Therefore, in October 97, Nerva adopted as his successor Trajan. Soon thereafter, on January 27 or 28, Nerva died, and Trajan was accepted as emperor by both the armies and the Senate.
Trajan was a much more active ruler than Nerva had been during his short reign. Instead of returning to Rome at once to accept from the Senate the imperial powers, he remained for nearly a year on the Rhine and Danube rivers, either to make preparations for a coming campaign into Dacia (modern Transylvania and Romania) or to ensure that discipline was restored and defenses strengthened.
When he returned to Rome in 99, he behaved with respect and affability toward the Senate. He was generous to the populace of Rome, to whom he distributed considerable cash gifts, and increased the number of poor citizens who received free grain from the state. For Italy and the provinces, he remitted the gold that cities had customarily sent to emperors on their accession. He also lessened taxes and was probably responsible for an innovation for which Nerva is given credit--the institution of public funds (alimenta) for the support of poor children in the Italian cities. Such endowments had previously been established in Italy by private individuals, notably by Trajan's close friend, the orator and statesman Pliny the Younger, for his native Comum (modern Como) in northern Italy.
Trajan undertook or encouraged extensive public works in the provinces, Italy, and Rome: roads, bridges, aqueducts, the reclamation of wastelands, the construction of harbours and buildings. Impressive examples survive in Spain, in North Africa, in the Balkans, and in Italy. Rome, in particular, was enriched by Trajan's projects. A new aqueduct brought water from the north. A splendid public bathing complex was erected on the Esquiline Hill, and a magnificent new forum was designed by the architect Apollodorus of Damascus. It comprised a porticoed square in the centre of which stood a colossal equestrian statue of the emperor. On either side, the Capitoline and Quirinal hills were cut back for the construction of two hemicycles in brick, which, each rising to several stories, provided streets of shops and warehouses.
Behind the new forum was a public hall, or basilica, and behind this a court flanked by libraries for Greek and Latin books and backed by a temple. In this court rose the still-standing Trajan's Column, an innovative work of art that commemorated his Dacian Wars. Its cubical base, decorated with reliefs of heaps of captured arms, later received Trajan's ashes. The column itself is encircled by a continuous spiral relief, portraying scenes from the two Dacian campaigns. These provide a commentary on the campaigns and also a repertory of Roman and Dacian arms, armour, military buildings, and scenes of fighting. The statue of Trajan on top of the column was removed during the Middle Ages and replaced in 1588 by the present one of St. Peter.
In 101 he resumed the invasion of Dacia that Domitian had been forced to abandon by Decebalus, the country's redoubtable king. In two campaigns (101-102 and 105-106), Trajan captured the Dacian capital of Sarmizegethusa (modern Varhély), which lay to the north of the Iron Gate in western Romania; Decebalus evaded capture by suicide. Trajan created a new province of Dacia; this provided land for Roman settlers, opened for exploitation rich mines of gold and salt, and established a defensive zone to absorb movements of nomads from the steppes of southern Russia.
Trajan's second major war was against the Parthians, Rome's traditional enemy in the east. The chronology of his campaigns is uncertain. In preparation for them, in 105/106, one of his generals annexed the Nabataean kingdom, the part of Arabia extending east and south of Judaea. Next, about 110, the Parthians deposed the pro-Roman king of [Index] Armenia, whereupon, in 113/114, Trajan campaigned to reinstate him. In the following year (115) he annexed upper [Index] Mesopotamia and, in the same or next year, moved down the Tigris River to capture the Parthian capital of [Index] Ctesiphon. He reached the Persian Gulf, where he is said to have wept because he was too old to repeat Alexander the Great's achievements in India.
Late in 115, Trajan barely escaped death in an earthquake that devastated Antioch (modern Antakya, Turkey). In 116 revolts broke out both in the newly conquered territories and in Jewish communities in several of the eastern provinces. Trajan, discouraged and in ill health, left Antioch for Rome. He died, in his 64th year, at Selinus (modern Selindi) on the southern coast of Asia Minor. His ashes were returned to Rome for a state funeral and burial in the base of his column. Just before his death was made public, it was announced that he had adopted Hadrian, who in 100 had married Trajan's favourite niece.

Hadrian, or ADRIAN (in full CAESAR TRAIANUS HADRIANUS AUGUSTUS) was (until AD 117) PUBLIUS AELIUS HADRIANUS (b. Jan. 24, AD 76, Italica, Baetica [now in Spain]--d. July 10, 138, Baiae [Baia], near Naples [Italy]).

A statue of Hadrian
The family of Hadrian came from southern Spain. They were not, however, of native Spanish origin but rather of settler stock. Hadrian's forebears left Picenum in Italy for Spain about 250 years before his birth. Hadrian himself may have been born in Rome. There is nothing particularly Spanish about Hadrian. He bears the stamp of education in cosmopolitan Rome.
When Trajan was consul in 91, Hadrian began to follow the traditional career of a Roman senator, advancing through a conventional series of posts. In 101 Hadrian was quaestor and in 102 served as Trajan's companion in the Emperor's first war in Dacia on the Danube. In 105 Hadrian became tribune of the plebs and, exceptionally, advanced to the praetorship in 106. No less exceptional than the speed of promotion was Hadrian's service as praetor while in the field with the emperor during his second war in Dacia. In 107 he was briefly governor of Lower Pannonia. Then, in 108, Hadrian reached the coveted pinnacle of a senator's career, the consulate.
In 107 Licinius Sura, a powerful figure who protected Hadrian, had held that office for the third time, an honour vouchsafed to very few. It was a cruel blow when Sura died at an unknown date immediately following Hadrian's consulate. Hadrian's career apparently stopped for nearly 10 years. One fact illuminates this otherwise obscure period of Hadrian's life: he was archon at Athens in 112, and a surviving inscription commemorating this office was set up in the Theatre of Dionysus. Hadrian's tenure is a portent of the philhellenism that characterized his reign, and it suggests that in a time of political inactivity Hadrian devoted himself to the nation and culture of his beloved Greeks. Somehow, however, Hadrian's star rose again, and he returned to favour before the Emperor died. On August 9, 117 Hadrian learned that Trajan had adopted him, the sign of succession. On the 11th, it was reported that Trajan had died on the way to Rome, whereupon the army proclaimed Hadrian emperor.
When Hadrian reached Rome in the summer of 118, his position was reasonably stable. He courted popular sentiment by public largesse, gladiatorial displays, and a formal cancellation of debts to the state.The new emperor remained at Rome for three years. In 121 he set forth on a tour of the empire, west and east, to inspect troops and examine frontier defenses. This prolonged absence from the capital of the empire had its administrative justifications. There had been disturbances in some provinces, and the Parthians had to be dealt with; there was a general need for imperial supervision. Nevertheless, another motive impelled the Emperor in his journeys, namely, an insatiable curiosity about everything and everybody. The Christian writer Tertullian called him rightly omnium curiositatum explorator, an explorer of everything interesting. That curiosity was bred of a keen intellect and an anguished spirit. These together drove him inexorably, and by a roundabout path, to the Greek East. After he left Spain early in 123, he never saw the western provinces again. Hadrian soon came to look upon his reign as a new Augustan age. In 123 he began to style himself Hadrianus Augustus, deliberately evoking the memory of his great predecessor; he announced a golden age on his coinage. The peace he so much cherished was a latter-day Augustan peace, and he bequeathed to posterity a public statement of his exploits that imitated the one left by Augustus.

A coin with the bearded face of Hadrian
Hadrian spent another three years in Rome, but in 128 he set forth again. After a visit to North Africa, he went to Athens, and from there he sailed to Asia Minor; he penetrated far eastward into Syria and Arabia. Crossing over into Egypt, he explored the Nile; then, for the third time, he went to Athens. It is not certain whether Hadrian returned to Rome in 132 or a little later; he was certainly there in May of 134, but by then a revolt in Judaea forced him abroad still another time. He went to Palestine, not as a tourist but as a commander. That journey was Hadrian's last.
The irrational element in Hadrian was important. He was an adept in astrology, like many intelligent Romans of the time. He was also an aesthete who ascended Mt. Etna, in Sicily, and Jabal Agra', near Syrian Antioch, simply to watch the sunrise. He had a lively sense of the past, preferring older writers to more recent ones, favouring archaism for its own sake. He revolutionized style in the empire by wearing a beard and setting a precedent for generations of emperors.
In Bithynium-Claudiopolis (modern Bolu) in northwestern Asia Minor, Hadrian encountered a languid youth, born about 110, by the name of Antinoüs. Captivated by him, Hadrian made Antinoüs his companion. When, as they journeyed together along the Nile in 130, the boy fell into the river and drowned, Hadrian was desolate and wept openly. A report circulated and was widely believed that Antinoüs had cast himself deliberately into the river as a part of some sacred sacrifice.
Although Hadrian himself denied this, the sober 3rd-century historian Dio Cassius thought it was the truth. The religious character, if such there was, of the relation between Hadrian and the boy is totally elusive. The emotional involvement is, however, quite clear. Seeing Hadrian's grief, the Greek world strove to provide suitable consolation for the bereaved and honour for the deceased. Cults of Antinoüs sprang up all over the East and then spread to the West. Statues of the boy became a common sight. In Egypt the city of Antinoöpolis commemorated his death.
When Hadrian left Rome in 134 for his final journey abroad, it was to resolve a problem of serious proportions in] Judaea. Under the leadership of Bar Kokhba (known also as Bar Koziba), the Jews were in open revolt. What had moved them is not altogether clear. Rabbinical literature alludes to a Hadrianic persecution that caused fear and apostasy. The probable explanation of this kind of reference is a universal ban on circumcision that Hadrian issued in, it seems, the early 130s. The uprising came swiftly and understandably. Hadrian's visit to Athens in 131-132 and his residence at Rome until the summer of 134 suggest a reluctance to deal personally with the disturbance in Judaea. He first placed an able general, Sextus Julius Severus, in charge of the problem. In the year after Hadrian's arrival in the Near East, the revolt was over.
Hadrian adopted the profligate Lucius Ceionius Commodus, aged about 36. The extravagant life of Ceionius, later renamed Lucius Aelius Caesar, portended a disastrous reign. Fortunately, he died two years later, and Hadrian, close to death himself, had to choose again. This time he picked an 18-year-old boy named Annius Verus, the future emperor Marcus Aurelius.
In 138 Hadrian arranged for the succession to pass to the young Verus. His arrangements were clever. An estimable and mature senator, Antoninus, was adopted by Hadrian and designated to succeed him. The Emperor, however, required that Antoninus adopt both the young Verus and the eight-year-old son of the recently deceased Ceionius. Thus, the family of his first choice was remembered, whereas an early succession for the older boy seemed assured. No one expected that Antoninus would last very long. Hadrian's scheme of imposing a double adoption upon his immediate successor looks like another imitation of the first emperor, Augustus, who had made a similar demand of Tiberius. By an irony of fate, Hadrian's expectations about the future were confounded. Antoninus, like Tiberius, lived far longer than anyone would have thought possible. He did not die until 161.
When Hadrian died at the seaside resort of Baiae, death came to him slowly and painfully. He wrote a letter in which he said how terrible it was to long for death and yet be unable to find it.

(Source: Encyclopedia Britannica)