hold more than 50,000 spectators—but from its location beside the
Colossus of Nero (FIG. 10-2,no. 16), the huge statue at the entrance
to his urban villa. Vespasian did not live to see the Colosseum in use.
Titus completed and formally dedicated the amphitheater in 80 CE
with great fanfare (see “Spectacles in the Colosseum,” page 260).
The Colosseum, like the much earlier amphitheater at Pompeii
(FIG. 10-13), could not have been built without concrete. A complex
system of barrel-vaulted corridors holds up the enormous oval seating
area. This concrete “skeleton” is apparent today to anyone who enters
the amphitheater (FIG. 10-36). In the centuries following the fall of
Rome, the Colosseum served as a convenient quarry for ready-made
building materials. Almost all its marble seats were hauled away,
exposing the network of vaults below. Hidden in antiquity but visible
today are the arena substructures, which in their present form date to
the third century. They housed waiting rooms for the gladiators, ani-
mal cages, and machinery for raising and lowering stage sets as well as
animals and humans. Cleverly designed lifting devices brought beasts
from their dark dens into the arena’s bright light. Above the seats a
great velarium, as at Pompeii (FIG. 10-14), once shielded the specta-
tors. Poles affixed to the Colosseum’s facade held up the giant awning.
The exterior travertine shell (FIG. 10-1) is approximately 160 feet
high, the height of a modern 16-story building. Numbered entrances
led to the cavea, where the spectators sat according to their place in
the social hierarchy. The relationship of the 76 gateways to the tiers of
seats within was carefully thought out and resembles the systems seen
in modern sports stadiums. The decor of the exterior, however, had
nothing to do with function. The facade is divided into four bands,
with large arched openings piercing the lower three. Ornamental
Greek orders frame the arches in the standard Roman sequence for
multistoried buildings: from the ground up, Tuscan, Ionic, and then
Corinthian. This sequence is based on the proportions of the orders,
with the Tuscan viewed as capable of supporting the heaviest load.
Corinthian pilasters (and between them the brackets for the wooden
poles that held up the velarium) circle the uppermost story.
The use of engaged columns and a lintel to frame the openings
in the Colosseum’s facade is a variation of the scheme seen on the
Etruscan Porta Marzia (FIG. 9-14) at Perugia. The Romans com-
monly used this scheme from Late Republican times on. Like the
pseudoperipteral temple, which is an eclectic mix of Greek orders
and Etruscan plan, this manner of decorating a building’s facade
combined Greek orders with an architectural form foreign to Greek
post-and-lintel architecture, namely the arch. The Roman practice
of framing an arch with an applied Greek order had no structural
purpose, but it added variety to the surface. It also unified a multi-
storied facade by casting a net of verticals and horizontals over it.
FLAVIAN PORTRAITUREVespasian was an unpretentious
career army officer who desired to distance himself from Nero’s ex-
travagant misrule. His portraits (FIG. 10-37) reflect his much sim-
pler tastes. They also made an important political statement. Break-
ing with the tradition Augustus established of depicting the Roman
emperor as an eternally youthful god on earth, Vespasian’s sculptors
resuscitated the veristic tradition of the Republic, possibly at his spe-
cific direction. Although not as brutally descriptive as many Repub-
lican likenesses, Vespasian’s portraits frankly recorded his receding
hairline and aging, leathery skin—proclaiming his traditional Re-
publican values in contrast to Nero’s.
Portraits of people of all ages survive from the Flavian period, in
contrast to the Republic, when only elders were deemed worthy of
depiction. A portrait bust (FIG. 10-38) of a young woman is a case
in point. Its purpose was to project not Republican virtues but rather
idealized beauty—through contemporary fashion rather than by ref-
erence to images of Greek goddesses. The portrait is notable for its
elegance and delicacy and for the virtuoso way the sculptor rendered
the differing textures of hair and flesh. The elaborate Flavian coiffure,10-37Portrait
of Vespasian,
ca. 75–79 ce.
Marble, 1 4 high.
Ny Carlsberg
Glyptotek,
Copenhagen.
Vespasian’s sculp-
tors revived the
veristic tradition
of the Republic to
underscore the
elderly new em-
peror’s Republican
values in contrast
to Nero’s self-
indulgence and
extravagance.Early Empire 26110-38
Portrait bust
of a Flavian
woman, from
Rome, Italy,
ca. 90 ce.
Marble, 2 1
high. Musei
Capitolini,
Rome.
The Flavian
sculptor repro-
duced the
elaborate
coiffure of this
elegant woman
by drilling deep
holes for the
corkscrew curls
and carved the
rest of the hair
and the face
with hammer
and chisel.1 in.1 in.