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COLOSSEO
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Its true name is Anfiteatro Flavio, everybody knows it by the name of Coliseum and it is the symbol itself of the city of Rome in the world.
It was built in 72 A. D. by Vespasian and finished eight years after by his son Titus.
The Coliseum was comparable, for its time, to our stadiums, even if the performances were very different from those of nowadays.
The Roman people gathered in mass to attend the Circus games (ludi cistercenses), where the gladiators fought among themselves. In the Coliseum performances were organized, often bloody, in which gladiators, wild beasts and prisoners (often Christians) fought for their lives. Often it was flooded to simulate sea battles. All this ended when in the V century, a man named Telemachus entered the arena and tried to make gladiators stop fighting; he was killed, but since that day, in Rome, games took place no more.
The elliptic ring of Coliseum has the longest axis measuring 187 mt., the shorter 155 mt., the height of the highest ring is over 50 mt., the spectators could reach the number of 80.000.
Centuries passing by left very little of the ancient pomp, in fact the great amphitheatre was very rich of marbles an decorations, gone lost most of all during the Renaissance, when the need for marble was exceptional and the marble of the Coliseum was removed and used elsewhere.
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