FASCISM AND THE ANCIENT WORLD : EXCAVATIONS
Excavations: The Colosseum, Circo Massimo, and Trajan's Market
The Colosseum
The Flavian Amphitheater, most commonly known as the Colosseum, was commissioned in 70 AD by Emperor Vespasian and finished in 80 AD by Emperor Titus. Constructed mainly of concrete, the Colosseum consisted of a series of barrel-vaults and arches that doubled as corridors and supports for the numerous rows of marble seating. The arches that seem to make up the Colosseum's outer walls are their own network of extreme planning. Each is framed by engaged Greek columns representing the three ornamental orders with Tuscan columns on bottom, Ionic in the middle, and Corinthian on top. At the time of the Colosseum's construction, this was the preferred hierarchy of decoration for multi-story buildings.
The arena itself is another structure of complex mechanics. Originally, the Colosseum's wooden floor was actually a raised platform with rooms and cages underneath to hold waiting gladiators and animals. This area is commonly known as the hypogeum. A series of mechanics would allow certain areas of the floor to be lowered and raised as ramps. This would allow men and beasts to enter the arena directly without having direct contact with the audience, a safety measure for everyone involved that also allowed for convenience.
As is commonly known, the Flavian Amphitheater is the largest amphitheater ever built. At its peak, the Colosseum stood 160 feet high with 76 gateways and exit paths, and held up to 50,000 people not including the gladiators themselves. However, its size has little to do with its name. The amphitheater became known as the Colosseum because it was constructed right next to the 120 foot tall statue known as the Colossus of Nero that marked the entrance to the past emperor’s villa.
PHOTO: Mussolini touring the expansion of via di San Gregorio, as part of his ongoing efforts to fuse Fascist ceremony with the glory of Ancient Rome.
Source: ASIL: Mussolini i cantieri dei lavori in corso a Roma. L'allargamento di via di San Gregorio - 14.09.1933. Mussolini accompagnato da autorità civili ed architetti attraversa l'area compresa tra il Colosseo e l'Arco di Costantino. In fondo si vedono le automobili parcheggiate in fila
codice Foto: A00050005
Reparto Attualità: 1933
Circus Maximus – 1934
Resting between the Palatine and Aventine Hills, the Circus Maximus was the greatest chariot race and ludi (public games) stadium in the Ancient Roman Empire. Measuring 621 m ( 2,037 ft) x 118 m (387 ft), it could hold an audience of up to 150,000 people. The Circus Maximus was constructed over centuries. It started out in the early 4th century B.C. as nothing but a barren path that had to be drained every year due to flooding. The original wooden seating was commissioned by the 1st Etruscan king and then expanded upon by later generations. 190BC saw the construction of ring-side stone seats designated specifically for the Roman Senate. In 50 BC, Julius Caesar extended the seating the entire length of the stadium and had a small canal put in that would automatically drain the track. A fire took out the seating wooden seating in 31 BC. Augustus had it rebuilt and an obelisk and pulvinar (a special alter designed for displaying images of the gods) installed. This was the first obelisk to ever be erected on Roman soil, a reminder of Augustus’s power. Many years later, Emperor Trajan included the Circus in his own re-construction of Rome. He rebuilt the entire stadium out of stone, ensuring that it lasted a couple hundred years until the reign of Diocletian when some of the seating collapsed and killed 13,000 people. Diocletian rebuilt the stadium to his own liking, adding starting stalls for the chariots as well as new seating, and that is the way it stayed until its last event: the chariots races sponsored by Totila in 549 AD.
After the 6th century, the Circus ceased to be a cultural treasure. It was plundered for its stone and marble and left to decay. Eventually a housing area and a market grew over it and its ancient glory was mostly forgotten. That changed with the turn of the twentieth century and the rise Fascism. In 1934, Mussolini demolished the neighborhood that had grown over the Circus and “relocated” its inhabitants somewhere out of the way. He then restored the circus to a useable state and used it as a main rally and exhibition ground. It is very likely that this is from where the inspiration for his stadium, the Foro Italica, came.
SLIDESHOW: Colosseum photos by Avery Enderle Wagner, Summer 2014.
By the time the 1920s rolled around, the Colosseum was in as much disarray as the rest of Ancient Rome. The last public event held in the Colosseum was in 523 AD; since that time the Amphitheater had been used as a cemetery, a fortress, a gunpowder plant, a dumping ground, and a church. All of that, combined with at least two earthquakes and most of its travertine decoration and marble seating being re-used by other city projects as well as looters, left the Colosseum as mostly a concrete shell. Excavators had combed through it in the 1870s, but they were put on hold through the World Wars.
According to Fred S. Kleiner in Gardner's Art Through the Ages, by building the new Amphithearer in the drained lake beds of what was once Nero’s Domus Aurea, Vespasian reclaimed the land that Nero had confiscated for his private pleasure and gave it back to the people. No doubt, Mussolini liked this idea of “giving back to the people” since it was the mindset that surrounded most of his ancient excavations. However, the Fascist dictator did not actually have the Colosseum excavated and restored (other than some minor perusing around the hypogeum) as he did many of its ancient counter parts. Instead, he simply cleared it out and used it as a rally ground, much as he did the Circus Maximus. This was not out of disregard for the structure itself, but rather out of a desire to showcase and put to use as much of ancient Rome as possible and a lack of desire to actually gain knowledge from it.
The Colosseum was able to be used as it stood, so there was little reason to put the effort into excavating. Nevertheless, to tip his own metaphorical hat to the great Amphitheater, Mussolini constructed the Via dell'Impero ("Street of Empire" – today called the Via del Fori Imperiali) that connected the ancient amphitheater to the new Piazza Venezia, as well as used it as the inspiration for his EUR building that stood at the heart of his business district.
Fred. S. Kleiner, Gardner's Art through the Ages. 14th ed. Vol. 1. (Boston: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2013), pp. 179-230.
Trajan's Market
Trajan’s Market, like most of Emperor Trajan’s commissions, was designed by the architect Apollodorus of Damascus around 110 AD. It was built on the Quirinal Hill so that the shops and offices could overlook the forum. Barrel vaults were used to a very precise degree to construct this multi-level semi-circular building. Not only were large, arched doorways put into use for this, but it also had windows in most every room and skylights in the upper level shops so that the entire building was always as light as the day outside. It is commonly referred to as the shopping mall of the Ancient Romans.
Fred S. Kleiner, A History of Roman Art (Boston: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2010)
PHOTO: Trajan's Market. Photo by MU Students, 2014
PHOTO: The Circus Maximus (Circo Massimo)