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Rome's Colosseum opens its underground for the first time
- matthewfcarlson 5y agoI’m always hesitant when new places in historical sites open to tourists. It is funny how the attention of the world has a tendency to destroy the things that it focuses on. On the one hand, how cool is it to see these amazing historical places. On the other, what beautiful things are ruined by being shared?
- carlob 5y agoThe Coliseum was used pretty much as a quarry for centuries: during the Middle Ages it was considered a symbol of the persecution of the Christian rather than an archeological site, as such it was OK to destroy it in order to collect precious marble to build churches. Right now it's pretty much at the center of a roundabout... There are lot of things in Rome that were studied and them left underground because it made no sense to expose them in a museum or just to the elements. The Coliseum, on the other hand, has always been above ground.
- brudgers 5y agoThe Flavian Amphitheater is already ruined. It has been a ruin for a very long time.
- LudwigNagasena 5y agoWhat’s the point of beautiful things if no one has access to them?
- DrSiemer 5y agoPreservation. Research. Also, it's not that beautiful, it's basically large crumbling catacombs without a ceiling. Visitors could already walk directly above them and see most of it.
- riquito 5y agoYou can't preserve without spending money, and the only practical way to get it is some form of, hopefully respectful, tourism
- umanwizard 5y agoWhat is the point of it being there if people can’t see it?
- DrSiemer 5y agoArcheologists and historians can see it. Mass tourism often does have a detrimental effect.
- simonh 5y agoI've visited the Flavian Amphitheatre with my kids a few years ago, and we walked over the Palatine Hill. It's an incredible site. It's also very well protected, they have spent many years preparing these areas for access to ensure they are preserved. These are incredibly valuable cultural artefacts, but their value is in their ability to inspire and educate. That can only be done through access. Restricting that access, limiting who is allowed to be educated and inspired inevitably means limiting it's value to society. This is our heritage, not just that of a small privileged elite.
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- rantwasp 5y agoas someone who actually visited the Colosseum: I’m not sure we should glorify a place like this. 10000 people died there during it’s inaugural 100 days. it’s barbaric. we should be better than this nowadays. I don’t really care what the gladiators saw or did before dying. It’s sad AF
- jhgb 5y agoIs that a reason to tear down the Mesoamerican pyramids, for example?
- ffhhj 5y agoAlso the Aztec pyramids used for human sacrifices? And open fields where battles occured?
- corndoge 5y ago> we should be better than this nowadays. Are you somehow implying that by not destroying the Colosseum, it's equivalent to slaughtering 10,000 people? That's what you are implying right?
- not-my-account 5y agoAre we glorifying the Colosseum because many slaves were put to death there? I would guess no. Further, I am almost certain that very few people's take-away from visiting the Colosseum is "dang, slaves killing each other for sport rocks". Any Roman building has historical significance, which I would argue is worth glorifying.
- rantwasp 5y ago10000 people and 30000 animals in the first 100 days. I would guess that millions of lives were lost there.
- peoplefromibiza 5y ago> How many people died in the Colosseum? It is impossible to know with certainty, but it is believed that as many as 400,000, between gladiators, slaves, convicts, prisoners, and myriad other entertainers, perished in the Colosseum over the 350 or so years during which it was used for human bloodsports and spectacles. it's a myth perpetrated by Hollywood movies that gladiators were slaves sent to die in the Colosseum, in reality they were trained athletes, much like football players in the US today Of course 2,000 years ago society was very different, perhaps it was more violent, but Iraqi war killed at least 500,000 people in a few years. More people died there over the next 15 centuries, when the Colosseum wasn't a battle arena anymore and the knowledge of what it was built for was lost, than during the Roman empires that used it also as a fighting pit.
- ca01an 5y agoMany of them were slaves, who were also trained athletes
- peoplefromibiza 5y agoAll of them were slaves, if they fought well they could buy back their freedom and become freemen. The important part is that "they were not sent to die" They costed a lot of money to their owners and matches were often just representations of battles, like modern wrestling, not real battles. It wasn't uncommon to fix matches, they had to provide entertainment, not death. But more interestingly, many gladiators trainers rented them to fight in the Colosseum and they had insurance policies on their lives, if the gladiator was injuried or died in the fight, there were penalties to pay. Most of the games were paid for by low level politicians that wanted to make a name for themselves and rented the gladiators from the trainers. Also the thumbs up/thumbs down it's also a myth, it never existed as a gesture, if the organizer decided to send some gladiator to death because the crowd asked for it, they had to pay the aforementioned penalties to the trainer. Not surprisingly the organizer had the last word and often times they spared them. Most of those that died were war slaves already sentenced to death. It was games, like we intend them today, they also had a referee on the ground. It was a very modern take on the matter at the times, to the point that we still use the same setup for sports entertainment.
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- chadlavi 5y agoWell. Not the _first_ time.
- gilbertbw 5y agoIt sort of is: > It is not only the first time in 2,000 years that the area -- described as the "heart" of the building -- has been open; since the underground levels, or "hypogea," were where gladiators and animals waited before going into combat, this is the first time in the monument's history that the public has ever been allowed in.
- RotaryTelephone 5y agowoosh.
- mbrookes 5y agoIgnoring the joke that you were replying to, no it isn't. "A small portion of the hypogea was opened to the public in 2016." I've visited twice, and on the more recent occasion we found one of the few tours that offered this as part of the tour.
- Mountain_Skies 5y agoAs much as I'd love to do this tour myself, I'd be quite willing to settle for a high resolution VR tour instead. Even better if it could be developed to have both an "on-rails" tour and a free-to-explore versions. (well, freeish, you have to limit where the data gathering camera goes when developing)