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The archæology of Rome, Part 7

Chapter 20: Description of Plate I.
By John Henry Parker
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The author reports on late 19th-century excavations that revealed extensive substructures beneath the arena, showing earlier origins than commonly supposed and multiple construction phases from Scaurus and Nero to the Flavian emperors. The work describes underground features such as a movable boarded arena with corbels, animal cages with vertical lifts and trapdoors, canals and reservoirs for staged naval displays, and wide passages for scenery, and examines reused timber and stone, masonry of tufa, brick, and concrete, plus coins and graffiti as documentary evidence. It also traces repairs from earthquakes and argues the amphitheatre evolved over more than a century rather than being completed in ten years.

THE COLOSSEUM.
PLATE I.

SUPERSTRUCTURE.
Exterior, from the Thermæ of Titus.

THE COLOSSEUM IN 1874.

EXTERIOR N.E. SIDE FROM THE THERMÆ OF TITUS

Description of Plate I.

SUPERSTRUCTURE.
Exterior, from the Thermæ of Titus.

This view shews the only part that is at all perfect of the magnificent work of the Flavian Emperors, consisting of the grand front and the splendid corridors, built around the brick theatre of Nero, with the galleries for spectators, which are surrounded by these stone corridors. These are of the best building stone to be had in Rome,—the travertine from the quarries near Tibur, now Tivoli.

The front had evidently been left unfinished by Nero, as we find no traces of any brick front according to the fashion of his time, when the brickwork was the finest that the world has ever seen.

It will be observed that the lower part of the ground-floor is concealed in the view by the bank of earth on which the modern road is carried, and the parapet wall of that road. It will also be observed that each storey is different; the lower storeys have different orders of architecture, but with scarcely any difference of plan or of construction, whereas the upper storey is quite different from the rest. There are no arches in it, but flat pilasters instead of columns, small square windows, and a row of corbels projecting boldly from the wall, and a prominent cornice over it. These corbels were for the purpose of carrying the feet of the masts that supported the awning over the heads of the spectators in the galleries, and these masts passed through holes left for them in the cornice, as will be seen more plainly in Plate XII.

This upper storey is more than a century later in date than the lower parts of the building; it replaces a wooden gallery for the common people, which had been made upon the top of the great corridors, which was too tempting a place for the purpose to be lost, although this wooden gallery does not appear to have formed part of the original design,—to judge from the representations of the building on the coins, which are probably made from the designs of the architects before the work was executed. There are six designs extant on the coins, and no two of them are exactly alike, especially for this upper storey[244].