Roman Coliseum and Forum

We finally in made into Rome on day two of our Italian journey. Our first stop was the Coliseum of course!

While waiting for our private underground tour guide, I walked around to the back end of the Coliseum to grab a picture of the Arch of Constantine. Built between 312 and 315 AD, it was use to honor Military Commanders in the Roman Empire. Successful commanders were awarded a parade through the streets upon their return to Rome and would pass under/through these arches.

Here is a picture from inside the Coliseum. It is a little expensive, but if you are only coming to Rome once then you should pay extra for the underground private tour. It was an unforgettable experience for my whole family.

The underground tour is filled with many artifacts from the Gladiators. Here is the Helmet of the Thraex Gladiators. They wore light armor with long shin guards and a single arm guard on their sword hand. They only wore a thick leather built around their torso to protect their organs. Their weapon was a short curved blade.

Here is a peak of what the underground tunnels looked like that the Gladiators walk through in order to get to the Coliseum’s Arena before combat.

Here is piece of the original Coliseum walls that was recently discovered during an excavation.

The two Gladiator Helmets on the left belong to Murmillo class Gladiator and the one on the right is another one belonging to Thraex. The Murmillo Gladiators resembled the Roman soldiers the most, equipped with a heavy sword and shield.

This is a complete armor set of the Provocator Gladiators. These Gladiators most closely resembled the Roman Legionnaires. They fought with a large rectangular shield and used a Gladius sword with a two foot blade.

This shows a traditional Securtor class Gladiator.

This is the helmet of a Murmillo Gladiator.

To the left is the complete equipment a Thraex Gladiator would fight in and to the right is the Murmillo Gladiator’s standard load out. Both were very similar.

This is the walk way constructed for the underground tour as to prevent the tourist foot traffic from damaging the original floor of the Coliseum.

Here is a drainage tunnel for the Coliseum. If I was a slave warrior with a life expectancy of two matches, I would of used this to escape!

This was a roman elevator used to push animals (Tigers, Lions, etc) up to the arena floor. It has a cage at the bottom.

Here is the original arena floor. The mazes were later added and it must have been terrifying to not know what was behind every corner.

The first attempt at building the labyrinth of corridors did not go well, they had to plaster all the walls in concrete to keep them from falling down.

This was the original floor of the arena and this is as far down as any archeologist have ever gone. There may well be many more secrets underneath this layer.

Here is a good shot of the inside of the entire Coliseum.

These were specific VIP seats for all the Senators of the country. Each one was carved from marble and had the Senator’s name etched into them.

Here are some pieces of the carved seats after the Senators were replaced.

Here is a painting within the Coliseum showing the surrounding area when it was originally built.

Located directly next to the Coliseum is the Roman Forum which means the Roman market place. This was the center of the empire for everything commerce, political, religious, or culturally significant to the empire.

Here is what remains of the Temple of Venus and Roma, which is believed to the largest temple in Rome during that time.

Here is the Temple of Antonius and Faustina which was later converted to a Roman Catholic Church and named the San Lorenzo in Miranda.

This is the Arch of Titus, built to commemorate the Roman conquering of Jerusalem which even today is constantly being fought over.

Under the arch with Titus himself in center.

Here is the most modern building and the last to be built in the Forum. It is the Balsilica of Maxentius and also known by the name Basilica Nova. It was unclear to me what it was used for.

This is the Palatine Stadium and was part of the Domitian’s Palace. We thought it was a training ring for the Gladiators or maybe a place where the imperial family would entertain guest with private battles. However after doing some research, it’s just an ordinary Amphitheater for the palace.

Last shot of the Coliseum before we headed back to our AirBnB.