Do you know why the Colosseum collapse in half?
The Colosseum, also known as Amphitheatrum Flavium (Italian: Flavian Amphitheater), located in the center of the city of Rome, is the largest amphitheater in the world. It could hold between 50,000 and 87,000 people, that’s the most important Roman amphitheater, as well as the most impressive monument of ancient Rome that has come down to us. Known throughout the world as a symbol of the city, it is also one of the symbols of Italy.
It has been on the Unesco World Heritage List since 1980 and in 2007 it was also included among the New Seven Wonders of the World.
Its construction was started by Vespasian in 71/72 AD. and was inaugurated by Tito in 80.
Notions that many of us have studied, but not everyone knows that the ancient structure of the amphitheater collapsed only half due to the ground on which it rests.
In fact, in 1349 a catastrophic earthquake, with its epicenter in the Central Apennines, destroyed part of it, making it asymmetrical. A collapse also due to the particular type of subsoil on which it rests.
It is not a city at risk of seismic activity but Rome can be affected by the most violent earthquakes generated even hundreds of kilometers away, as the seismic waves, crossing not very compact terrain, can undergo an amplification effect.
The southern part of the Colosseum, the one affected by the collapse, insists precisely on a soft subsoil, made of river sediments: as Focus specifies, in fact, the amphitheater rises in the hollow of a semi-artificial lake which, fed by an ancient tributary del Tiber, was placed in the center of the gardens of the Domus Aurea, by Nero.
The northern part, on the other hand, rests on a much more solid ground of volcanic rocks, and in fact here the building has remained practically intact.
For about 5 centuries the Colosseum (the name “Colosseum” spread in the Middle Ages, and derives from the popular deformation of the Latin adjective “colosseum”, which can be translated into “colossal”) was used for gladiator and animal shows. Then in the sixth century AD. C. was decommissioned. The boulders of which it was made began to be taken and reused for other buildings. In particular, from the ninth century onwards, the rubble and some structures still standing were used to build the new palaces of papal Rome, including Palazzo Barberini. In the thirteenth century a palace of the Roman Frangipane family was even built inside it and later continued to be occupied by other civil dwellings.
Other earthquakes also contributed to its decline: those of 442, 484, 851, 1231, 1255, 1349 and 1703.
The one in 851 caused the collapse of two other orders of arches on the south side (the current height reaches 48.5 m, but originally reached 52 m) and the Colosseum from then on assumed the asymmetrical appearance that it still retains today.
Today his health conditions are of concern: there are over 3,000 injuries on the structure. Furthermore, in 2012 an inclination of 40 cm was discovered in the structure, probably due to a collapse of the foundation slab on which it rests.
Discover what happened inside the Colosseum in this virtual reconstruction during the show.
