The Colosseum was opened in AD 80 by Vespasian's son & successor, Titus. The Colosseum is hugely impressive. It stands as a brilliant but troubling monument to Roman imperial power & cruelty. Inside it, behind those serried ranks of arches & columns, Romans for hundreds of years cold-bloodedly killed literally thousands of people whom they saw as criminals, as well as professional fighters & animals.
Indeed, it was the amphitheatre's reputation as a sacred spot where Christian martyrs had met their fate that saved the Colosseum from further depredations by Roman popes & aristocrats anxious to make use of its one time glistening stone for their palaces & church buildings. The cathedrals of St Peter & St John Lateran, the Palazzo Venezia & the Tiber's river defences, for example, all exploited the Colosseum as a convenient quarry.
Due to this plunder, & also because of fires & earthquakes, thirds of the original have been destroyed, so that the present Colosseum is only a shadow of its former self, a noble ruin.
The Colosseum was started in the aftermath of Nero's extravagance & the rebellion by the Jews in Palestine against Roman rule. Nero, after the great fire at Rome in AD 64, had built a immense pleasure palace for himself (the Golden House) right in the centre of the city. In 68, faced with military uprisings, they committed suicide, & the empire was engulfed in civil wars.
The eventual winner Vespasian (emperor 69-79) decided to shore up his shaky regime by building an amphitheatre, or pleasure palace for the people, out of the booty from the Jewish War on the site of the lake in the gardens of Nero's palace. The Colosseum was a grand political gesture. Suitably for that great city, it was the largest amphitheatre in the Roman world, able to holding some 50,000 spectators.
Finally there were well over 250 amphitheatres in the Roman empire so it is no surprise that the amphitheatre & its associated shows are the quintessential symbols of Roman culture.
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