Assignment on the Colosseum

[Tino]

I have to write a 2000 word essay on what the Colosseum tells us about the culture of the people that built it. I've really been looking forward to this and thought it would be a piece of cake. I thought that after reading extensively about it the 2000 words would just flow out. That hasn't quite happened and after touching on every point I've researched so far I've only got 1300 words! These are the topics I've covered:

• When it was built and by whom.
  
• The possible reasons for building it.
  
• How the name was actually derived.
  
• The significance the building had according to Martial the poet.
  
• The connection between myth and spectacles resembling these myths.
  
• Emperors playing the role of a gladiator.
  
• The social status of the gladiator.
  
• The fascination women had for gladiators.
  

Are there any other areas you can think of that would be worthy of discussing? Or maybe in other words, what would you like to find out about the Colosseum (that hopefully relates back to the culture of the time)?

How about something on what the collosseum means to Italians today?

[Minimalist]

When did it fall out of use? How many Popes exhibited gladiators?

There were repeated attempts to end the gladiator combat aspect of the games by various emperors and they continued into the 5th century. By that time the Romans lacked the resources to put on truly spectacular events and I have found some suggestion that the crowd simply lost interest in the scaled down versions.

Also, in 410 the Goths sacked Rome but the city had not been the capital of the Western Roman Empire since Diocletian moved it to Milan ( Mediolanum) in 286 so the city must have contracted in the interval.

[FallentoReason]

Thanks everyone for your help. After talking a bit about the things you guys suggested I made it to the max word count! It also really helped to quote the ancients as much as possible, as their words added quite a bit to the word count!

On a side note, I'd have to say my favourite thing about doing this essay was some of the stuff I came across. My favourite passage was from one of the books I used and it reads:

[as a consequence of executions at the Colosseum] Christians created a new genre of literature, known as "Martyr Acts" [or the Acts of the Martyrs], which celebrated the capture and trial (often before a capricious pagan judge) of a steadfast Christian who was willing to suffer terrible tortures and death rather than give up his or her faith. Hugely embellished no doubt, they acted as a kind of sacred pornography of cruelty, tying the Christian message to gruesome and gory death at the hands of the Roman authorities

I wouldn't want to know what he's been watching!

[Angrboda]

Look into the history of "Breads & Circuses". There's a fascinating PBS special on the Colisseum, Nova I think, but IIRC, it's about duplicating their technology, but I also remember interesting history involved. I would concentrate on the changes that specific Emperors implemented, and how it fit with their policies, and particularly the economic and class effects of the games. (Might want to also explain how and in what measure 'Bread' mattered, and how the two were balanced; just a guess.).

They were still having Breads & Circuses even at the time of the invasion by the Goths. The Goths didn't originally seige the city, but chose to use attrition instead, cutting off all influx of food and supplies in order to starve them out. There is a cute story, probably apocryphal, about how the spectators were watching the gladiators fight, rather far into this war of attrition, so they were all starving to death, and a gladiator fell. The crowd immediately began asking how much they wanted for the gladiator, and the meat of his body. They were that bad off. And yet the games went on; rain or shine. (IIRC, that was the techology in the Nova special; they tried to duplicate some sun awnings that ringed the stadium at the wall.)