Wanderings: The Colleseum and Palatine Hill

January 18, 2024

The trams were not running near the coliseum, so we walked over. Tickets were available for immediate entry (1). The coliseum, dating from the second century C.E., held events featuring executions, wild animal hunting, and gladiator fights. Many popes in subsequent centuries affixed plaques honoring themselves in the venue (2).

The coliseum could hold 60,000 spectators. Each ticket had an individual seat assignment. This was well before the printing press (1400s) and automatic sequential numbering (late 1700s). Must have taken a lot of people and time to create 60,000 tickets.

There were stories that the stadium could be filled with water for mock sea battles. Modern hydraulic engineers were skeptical, but found that the coliseum could be filled with enough water to float ships in about 15 minutes, and drained just as quickly (https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/colosseum-roman-death-trap/).

Next to the coliseum is the Palatine (3) Hill, upon which Rome was founded. The hill contains a random mixture of structures from antiquity and later ecclesiastical buildings, including papal gardens. Looking down on a series of fountains, music from the 18th century was playing (rather incongruously). The hill overlooks the forum, a center of Roam life in antiquity.

The Pantheon lies in the center of Rome. The structure is both an ancient temple and a functioning Basilica. The last two Italian kings were buried here (4). A group of honor guards stands vigil at the tombs of Kings Vitorrio Emanuelle II and Umberto.

Our hotel was right next to the Rone Opera House. I bought a seat in the rafters for Mozart's opera The Magic Flute. The venue was beautiful and rhe performance was well done, but I think Mozart is overrrated.

(1) It's not summertime. While waiting in line at the ticket booth, the touts were quite persistent that we would have to wait hours unless we paid them for their services.

(2) Typically bearing the name, the abbreviation P.M. (a) and a date.

(a) Pontifus Maximux: greatest bridge builder (between the people and god).

(3) The English word "palace" and related words (e.g., "palatial") derive from the presence of the ruling classes on the hill.

(4) Somewhat surprising, as the pope was less than pleased at being denied his temporal authoriry over the papal states upon Italian unification in the 1860s.